Beauty

When I was younger, I used to fantasize about a beautiful blonde woman I named Christine. In my fantasy, she was voluptuous, but not fat. Her hair was long, wavy and thick. She was talented and intelligent, but quiet and reserved in manner. Because of her beauty and manner, everyone was intrigued by her. Men desired her and women admired her.

Christine was an avatar of my hopes and dreams. She had the aspects of me that I liked (my hair, except blond, and my general shape, but not fat, and she had my intelligence), and the ones that I desired (good temper control, beauty, thinness). In my fantasies, people treated her and regarded her in the manner I would have liked to have been. They were interested in her, wanted to associate with her, and were keen to be in her presence. Men not only wanted her, but they wanted to take care of her. Depending on the fantasy, she had wealth or power, but was still vulnerable and needed support. She needed a lot of what I needed, despite having more than I had.

I hadn't really thought about this fantasy and the implications for quite some time, but my thoughts as of late in regards to beauty brought it back. One thing I realized is that the beauty ship has sailed for me and it's never coming back to port. I'm too old to ever be considered "beautiful", and I was too fat when I was young enough to carry the illusion of beauty as youth can do. And, don't give me any crap about how fat does not equal ugly and thin does not equal beautiful. I've already discussed that before and it's not a concept I buy into. There are many ugly thin people (I see a lot of them everyday, trust me) and beautiful fat people. However, the sort of beauty that I'm talking about is never, ever seen as a part of being fat.

Fat people can be beautiful, but the kind of beauty I'm talking about is the type that society rewards with power. My fantasy was not so much about beauty as it was about what beauty granted one in life, and no matter how gorgeous a (truly) fat woman is, she's never going to get that sort of power, not the type that people recognize as aesthetically pleasing but society at large is disinterested in. I'm not talking about the imaginary version "fat" which comes from idealizing runway models who look like human coat hangers. I'm not talking about Crystal Renn "fat", but truly fat with rolls of tissue cascading off of you and all of the skin  damage (e.g., stretch marks, discoloration where skin rubs together, etc.) that comes along with it. This is not a beauty that can confer power, but rather gets some individual recognition by people who subscribe to more varied notions of beauty. It's the essence of self-acceptance and finding ones own unique beauty, but it does not give one the things I fantasized about.

Part of me mourns the fact that I'll never have the sort of power that beauty grants people, and part of me knows it's all an illusion. I've seen women who were once considered quite attractive reach a higher age and found that life is quite confounding for them. What was once given to them with ease is now retracted. They believe they earned what they were given, and struggle to reconcile the changes in the way people treat them with how they're going to live the rest of their lives. If beauty gave you power and that power is gone, what do you do now? I'm not saying such people lack skills, but rather that it's a real blow to their identity and notions of the way the world works which causes them to live in fear of how they will get by. They may have those skills, but they may not even know where to apply them having not had need of them before.

All of that being said, part of me wishes that, for just a little while, I had lived as a true beauty. It's an experience that perhaps I never had the capacity to live in because my basic physical structure may not have made any conception of me, fat or thin, "beautiful". I'll never know, because it's simply too late to ever be sure.

The Inherent Hypocrisy

Most people consider their bodies a container that they inhabit. Even if you don't believe in souls or have a spiritual concept that you hold to be true, many people believe that personality defines them, not their physicality. Our parents reinforce this idea by telling you that people should love you for who you are, not what you look like. In fact, many of us are insulted or feel that others are shallow if they form judgments or consider us desirable only based on our bodies.

There are good reasons for these feelings, and many of them are based on the inevitability of bodily change. If someone loves you for your beauty, it will inevitably fade. Also, humans experience fatigue in regards to the appearance of everything in their lives. The thing which was so incredibly beautiful or attractive the first 100 times you looked at it soon becomes mundane. We cannot continuously maintain the same level of appreciation for something which we found physically appealing. Eventually, the value of something based on appearance alone diminishes to zero. Even objects which we loved the look of, like a favorite stuffed toy that we find cute, tend to be infused with value based on the emotional attachment we feel rather than maintain their initial appeal based on appearance alone.

Because of this natural tendency, we value people based on character because such attributes are more complex and we are less likely to find that they lose value through time. That being said, even positive personality traits tend to be taken for granted through time, and we have to work a bit to keep their value in mind. Fortunately, absence and contrast (comparing one person's character to another) tend to help continually reinforce the value of things like a person's patience, kindness, and intelligence.

It's natural that we see ourselves as being represented mainly by who we are, and not by the container that we present ourselves in. Certainly, we all realize that society and strangers are going to reach conclusions about our general appearance, but we tend to believe that the factors which represent our character and habits such as professionalism in dress choice, cleanliness, grooming, etc. are what "should" be valued rather than our inherent beauty or lack thereof.

It would take a conscious act on the part of most mature (or overweight) people to change their values in order to place appearance above character, particularly if you are older since younger people tend to be more appearance focused. For those of us who have deeply embraced the notion that character is far more valuable and worth developing than the body, there may be an inherent sense that one is being hypocritical in expending so much energy on weight loss. If beauty is only skin deep and character is what we should be valued for, aren't we acting against our values if we place so much emphasis on our bodies?

This is something that I have not wrestled with much because my motivation so far has been the reduction of my physical pain and to achieve mobility such that I can live a relatively "normal" life. At around 260 lbs. at present, I am likely within 3-6 months of reaching a state whereby pain and mobility will no longer be as strong a goal for weight loss. After I reach the general range of 200 lbs. and lower, it's almost certain that appearance will be a bigger factor, though there may also be health issues as well. Of course, improved appearance addresses my third motivation, avoiding weight-based discrimination.

At any rate, I can't help but at least acknowledge that as someone who values character and is quite indifferent to the outer shell of a person, my focus on my body is perhaps hypocritical, though frankly, it is also understandable. I have to live in this world with all of the disadvantages that are applied to me for being fat. I may not care about the look of bodies, but as long as nearly everyone else around me concerns themselves with mine, I really have little choice but to concern myself with appearance.

Fat Collocations

Most people use collocations all of the time, but they don't realize that is what they are called. A collocation is a grouping together of words in a certain order to make a common expression. You find that certain words tend to pair up with one another. For example, "mortal" and "combat" are often paired or "crystal" and "clear". Now, if you think about "thin" and the words that it are frequently collocated with it, you may come up with "thin and beautiful" or "thin and attractive". Conversely, we find that "fat" is often collocated with "ugly" or "disgusting".

These collocations aren't merely expressions, but part of our collective consciousness about how we regard weight and appearance. The truth is, however, that weight doesn't always have such a clear cut relationship to appearance. There are plenty of thin people who are ugly and fat ones who are beautiful. Beauty is considered to be largely subjective, but, in reality, it is a measure of certain types of symmetry which almost all humans find more appealing. Being overweight is seen as "ugly" mainly because the weight changes the symmetry or favorable ratios that are connected to beauty and because affluent cultures place a higher status on being thin.

The point of this post isn't to argue about "big" being potentially "beautiful". My point is that the collocation about "thin" being beautiful may actually play a part in the psychology of people regaining weight. Many women believe that they will be beautiful once they lose weight, but the truth is that many women lose weight and merely look average or even below average. The basic structure of beauty can't be acquired through weight loss. If your facial symmetry or waist to hip ratio at a lower weight are not appealing, you won't be beautiful when you are thin. You will just be thin.

Sometimes I wonder if the expectation that one will be regarded much more positively or become "hot" by dropping excess weight sets one up for a major fall when they get closer to their goal. What if you find out as you approach your goal that you aren't some great beauty hiding under all of that weight as everyone seems to be telling you when you're fat? What if you find that you are almost as invisible to the wandering eyes of men seeking partners as before or that you don't look really great in your smaller size clothes? It happens. In fact, it happens more than people realize as we never view ourselves as others do. People sometimes think they look great because they lost weight, but they actually look quite average.

One thing I've noticed when I view the progress pictures of the brave people who put up pictures of themselves after weight loss (and they are so much braver than me) is that many of them look healthier (and therefore "better"), but not necessarily "beautiful" or even "pretty". I had a similar experience when I lost weight in college. I don't think I looked beautiful or pretty, and it seemed that my nose really looked bigger with a smaller face.

So, what happens when a woman loses a lot of weight and she doesn't become beautiful? Well, the expected "reward" of beauty doesn't come at the end of a lot of effort and the chances that one will regain are increased. I'm not saying that is all it will take to set off the cycle of gaining weight after losing, but that it very well could be a factor. For this and many reasons, I think that overall fitness, mobility, and health should be the main focus of weight loss rather than appearance. Without having this priority in place, there is an increased probability of eventually looking in the mirror and saying, "why bother", when confronted with the choice of overindulging in food.