Can You Be Overweight, Yet "Truly Happy"?
Jessica at Jezebel wrote a while back about the Glamour magazine diet blog Margarita Shapes Up.
What’s disconcerting is the anxious tone that has crept into her posts in recent weeks, culminating in a post about leaving her dad’s birthday party early so that she could go to yoga. It’s clear that she feels a great deal of pressure to keep her weight off, and I have to wonder whether some of that pressure comes from the fact that it’s part of her job to talk about her diet… Is it possible to write about your weight struggles for a living and emerge unscathed?
It was an interesting question at the time, and probably worth a discussion all on its own, but Margarita is still writing; here is one of her recent posts:
I often wonder if any really overweight people are completely unbothered by their size and truly happy. I can’t imagine it for myself, but when I walk down the street and encounter overweight people (and couples), I wonder if they somehow managed to be unmarred by the body image curse that’s plagued me.
What do you guys think? Do you know anyone who has this sense of self-worth that I truly covet, the kind that seems to say, “My happiness has nothing to do with the size of my body”?
That is actually a really sad question. I would hope that most of us on this blog—of all sizes—would be able to say our happiness has nothing to do with the sizes of our bodies, that our happiness comes from our relationships, our loved ones, our careers, our ambitions, our hobbies, our favorite guilty pleasure television shows. But I’d rather hear it from you. So what’s your answer to Margarita? Where does your happiness come from?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Feminism, Magazines, Media, Question, Weight Loss
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I just found your blog today and I. LOVE. IT! I found it through uppercasewoman (who I also love!) and I can’t believe how relevant this post is to my life right now.
This weekend I struggled to find things that made me feel happy and all I could focus on was how unhappy my weight made me. How maybe, just maybe, I would be happy if I could be thin. Man, being thin would just cure all my problems! But my logical side knows the truth. Anyway, this blog made me feel so much better…I’m NOT alone!
I know many people who are overweight and happy. I think that as long as you are happy with yourself and healthy, being slightly overweight will not have that much of an impact on your happiness.
As I’m in the midst of therapy kicking my ass, and I can, with a 100% degree of certainty, that my sadness/not feeling comfortable doesn’t come from the fact that I’m fat.
And at this moment, that’s good enough for me.
I would give almost anything for the body image that many of you have described.
I’m not fat, by conventional terms. Or anybody’s terms except my own, really. For the past several years I’ve wrestled with depression, anxiety, self-injurious behaviors, and eating problems. The depression came before the food problems. But sometimes I feel that my self-esteem and everything that gets wrapped up in it just go in a never-ending circle with the depression.
Right now I can’t stand to look in a mirror, although sometimes I can’t look away. I call myself fat, obese, disgusting, selfish, a failure. I’m just above what BMI considers a “healthy” weight. But when I see myself, I don’t see healthy. I don’t see the potential or the vitality. I see fat, flab, and scars. I see somebody who doesn’t deserve to be loved or to be happy.
I’ve gotten quite off topic. Can overweight people be happy? Of course. The question is, why so many of us – regardless of weight – cannot seem to be?
My happiness is tied to body size only in that some of the things that make me happy — exercising (but not overexercising), feeling energetic because I’m eating healthy foods, not being out of breath or having an aching back, not indulging in binges or overeating, etc — are all things that make me lose weight.
When I was very small, yes, I derived happiness from looking in the mirror and thinking I looked great. However, I had other issues in my life that caused me major stress and unhappiness. Now I look in the mirror and think I look okay, but my other issues are not a problem anymore so I am much happier.
I’ve been working as a lay leader at my church for a fair bit, now. I just attended a training session where ordained men and women insisted that “it’s not your job to make people happy.”
That felt like a revolution. In life and in church, people will make it your dearest duty to Make. Them. Happy. Or else you’re a bad person, right?
In a sense, happiness is a byproduct of right-living. Except that it’s also not.
I’ve been thinking about happiness for a while now, and I’m strating to think I’ve been sold a bill of goods. First, everyone wanted me to be at *their* perfect weight so *I’d* be happy. Then, the marketplace kept blaring and bleating “buy this, buy that” and I’ll reach that happy place.
I enjoy life. A lot. But am I “truly happy?” Sister, please. No.
But so what? In the last three years I’ve learned that most of the opportunities in my life have grown out of conflict, risk and discomfort.
So maybe we should all just take a step back and realize that we don’t owe it to anyone — ourselves included — to be happy. We owe it to others and ourselves to learn how to *live right.* How to better nourish relationships. How to better recognize growing edges in conflict, risk and pain. How to treat others as if we *were” happy instead of acting like self-interested fuckwads until the Happy Nirvana Fairy pops us on the noodle with the Happy Shit Wand.
starting, I meant.
Great question. In order to be truly happy though, you have to be happy with yourself. If you are not it will reflect and people can see fakeness a mile away.
If you are not happy overweight you can not be happy skinny.
So,
I have been a self proclaimed thick soul sista (like Sir Mix A Lot Quoted) for about … all my life! I have never been smaller than a 12 and have been upwards towards an 18. Right now, I sit at a proud size 16.
While I fall on the smaller side of plus, it took me a while to become comfortable in my skin, with my curves, and valuing my worth.
Once I got here, I have tried my best to share this with my friends, family, and customers. I have worked in retail for over ten years and have noticed that some women, regardless of size, tend to hate on thier body in some sort of way. I encourage them to accentuate the positive and disguise the others…
Keep up the amazing support and love for the CUrvy.COnfident.Chic. Plus size divas!
Marie Denee
The Curvy Fashionista
My hapiness comes from my faith, God and prayer, which brings an inner peace that I am just the way God created me to be, and the future is bright.