Fat: why so many emotions?

Each of us wants to be slim, but it seems that among the female population of the planet this desire still retains the character of an obsession. According to British psychotherapist Em Farel, 80% of women today have asymptomatic eating disorders, 50% are on a diet. A survey of women aged 20 to 30 she analyzed showed that 70% of those who have a normal weight still want to lose weight. One in three admitted that they follow a diet all the time.

Women are sure that their weight is inextricably linked with success – both among the opposite sex and in society. That one has only to get better, and they will immediately be rejected. Many tend to blame the mass media, the glossy press, and even the unconventional sexual orientation of fashion designers for this… But of course, this is just one of the reflections of the “cult of youth and beauty” that reigns in modern society.

body competition

This is one of the most common and stable associations, no matter how we treat it: next to a successful, wealthy man, there will certainly be a young woman of model parameters. Why do we have such a stereotype and how does it relate to reality?

“This stamp has both a social and biological background,” explains social psychologist Yulia Fedotova. – Firstly, a slender figure is associated with youth. A young companion next to a man confirms his masculine viability and capacity for those around him.

In addition, a fragile, thin girl maintains in him a sense of his dominance, the ability to patronize, patronize – this helps a man feel strong, self-confident. As for the biological aspect, a slender, even thin woman is unconsciously perceived as free, healthy, active. A full woman seems to carry the signs of motherhood: pregnant, nursing, giving birth – therefore, she is instinctively perceived as already occupied by another “male”.

Thus, following the initial impulse, men really choose slender, active, free. Probably the same instinct drives women when they are trying to lose weight in order to find a sexual partner. It turns out that it is really easier to attract the attention of men, perhaps even many.

This may partly satisfy women’s ambitions, but it does not at all guarantee a long-term relationship that gives a feeling of happiness and fullness of life, that is, what most women really aspire to. Driven solely by instinct, a man will seek new experiences. Getting involved in the competition of bodies, such women doom themselves to endless running in circles.

When women are unhappy with their body

All women have those days when they feel fat – regardless of what their objective physical parameters are. As 34-year-old Olga admits, “if you count how many times on such days I look in the mirror and tell myself that I am fat, if you listen to how much I talk about it, you might think that I am crazy.”

“I usually feel fat if I lost control of myself the day before and ate something forbidden,” echoes 26-year-old Nina. “Intellectually, I understand that I can’t suddenly get better like that in one day, but I feel bloated with fat, like a seal.”

Some, as if under hypnosis, are ready to endlessly examine individual parts of their bodies: the stomach, upper arms, hips … For some, the buttocks become the most repulsive part of the body, for others, their own stomach seems huge and trembling. Psychologists call this “selective attention” – when a person focuses on some flaw and exaggerates it.

It turns out that this is a typically female way of expressing negative emotions: feelings of insecurity, dissatisfaction with one’s life, worthlessness, insecurity, or guilt. A man shows such emotions in a different way: they often result in irritation and aggression, he can drive too hard, throw something or break something. A woman, on the other hand, will rather complain about her own hips, find folds on her stomach and punish herself for eating a piece of cake.

When internal anxiety distorts the “image of yourself”

Sometimes this focus on your bodily features reaches such proportions that it literally becomes a matter of survival.

“Speaking in psychotherapeutic language, there comes a change in the structure of the body at the level of consciousness,” explains gestalt therapist Natalya Shchukina. – The inner anxiety of a woman distorts her “image of herself” so much that, even being exhausted, she is afraid to get better. Bulimia and anorexia are eating disorders that go hand in hand with a mortality rate of 20%. Today, this type of behavior is especially common among young girls, in circles of golden youth.

Why is this happening? “Modern mothers, traumatized by an environment in which weight control is a measure of success, pass on their constant anxiety about weight to their daughters,” continues Natalya Shchukina. – This anxiety is superimposed on teenage insecurity and constant preoccupation with the question “How do I look?”.

In addition, money often becomes the main manifestation of parental love in such families. Knowing that “I can buy myself whatever I want, eat as much as I want,” then vomit it out and never gain an ounce undermines the basic self-regulation of the body and can lead to disastrous health consequences.”

Why does the body need fat?

Today, fat has become a source of negative emotions for many men and women. But in the latter, even the word itself often evokes a feeling of disgust. Meanwhile, fat is closely related to the functioning of the female body: a floating hormonal background causes a woman’s body to either accumulate or give away – and these are all natural, involuntary processes. Fat is difficult to control – and it causes panic in women.

“In the female body, the percentage of fat is always slightly higher than in the male,” explains Natalia Kalinchenko, nutritionist and endocrinologist. – This is due to the genetic role of a woman as a mother, and female sex hormones are fully produced only at a certain level of subcutaneous fat.

This level is different for everyone, and therefore, when trying to lose weight, it is important to know what can be changed in the body and what is unchanged, as it is inherent in nature and genes. In addition, there is the so-called untouchable fat – a layer that protects the nerve fibers and our internal organs. If you lose this fat, the whole body will be at risk.”

Finally, fats are an important source of energy, they increase efficiency and improve well-being, if their percentage in the body does not exceed the genetic norm. It is useful to remember this when obsessive thoughts about “hated fat” catch us in front of a mirror.

It’s not really about fat per se, or whether it’s good or bad. According to the British psychologist Mary Wood, fat has become for us a metaphor for everything that is unacceptable in society. Control is one of the values ​​of modern society, and fat symbolizes for us worthlessness, sluggishness, passivity, the inability to control your body, that is, the inability to control your life.

Build relationships with your own body

Suffering due to excess weight (real or imaginary) arises from a lack of love – this idea is very popular. Many people think that loving yourself means buying yourself nice clothes, a membership to a fitness club, going to a spa. Yes, all this is important, but it is in some way a substitute for love, just like the money with which other parents “love” their child.

For many of us, to love means to control, we carried it out of childhood, learning to be loved, that is, obedient, “good”. We transfer this understanding of love as control to relationships with the opposite sex and to our bodies.

We are not interested in “what it is” (body, child, life partner), we are interested in it being “how I want it”. But to truly love yourself means to build a relationship with your body based on love and acceptance.

In particular, yoga offers a model of such relationships: its idea of ​​bodily improvement is to study your body, understand what it is, allow it to take on the optimal shape, carefully listening to what, when and how much it wants to eat, in what mode and how actively he needs to move and rest – and make sure to give him everything he needs.

According to Elena Ulmasbayeva, a specialist who has been practicing and teaching yoga for many years, “by establishing such a relationship with the body, we can solve many internal problems, in particular, those that cause endless anxiety about our own weight.” Beauty, harmony, health and the absence of any need to monitor weight will only be a pleasant side effect of this peaceful coexistence with your body.

Love yourself and be happy

The desire to control weight in order to maintain a relationship in a couple is unlikely to lead to success, says Olga Dolgopolova, a gestalt therapist. It is wiser to direct your efforts in a completely different direction. “In childhood, few of us heard about how important it is to be a happy person. We were told: “You can become happy if…”

So, for girls, this meant: if you are beautiful, slim, smart, if you get married and achieve social or material success … In a word, you can become happy only under certain conditions. But in fact, the feeling of happiness within oneself cannot be achieved with the help of some kind of achievement. A persistent feeling that “something is wrong with me” creates anxiety in us.

In order to somehow cope with it, we must bring it out, explain it, come up with a reason for it. “I am fat” is the simplest explanation for a woman… Often our need to be slim is an attempt to control the love and attention of others, to receive recognition from them.

Many people think that being thin is also important for work: a fat person can be fired, rejected. Others think: “If I am fat, he will leave me.” But being only interested in “being loved,” it is impossible to keep love. Trying to control weight in order to control the other will not, fortunately.

The solution is paradoxical: it is to turn the opposite direction from ambition, to stop trying to “be loved” and become a loving person yourself. Find in yourself the resource of that love when “I love”, and not when “I am loved”. Try to feel your love nature, literally bit by bit collecting the experience of feeling love in yourself. By working on this, we solve problems that cannot be overcome by controlling our appearance – we gain the possibility of truly deep, satiating relationships.