Study: Women Have a Fear of Fat
Interesting study discussed in the Telegraph:
Brain scans of women who were shown pictures of overweight strangers triggers activity in a part of the brain that processes identity and self-reflection.
The results show how women are conditioned to be afraid of being fat because they are constantly bombarded with messages and images of thin being the ideal.
But the same tests done on men revealed they showed no interest in their own weight indicating why women are much closer to developing eating disorders.
Researchers from America’s Brigham Young University found that women felt scared of being overweight without consciously thinking about their figure.
Neuroscientist Mark Allen said: “These women in our study had no history of eating disorders and project an attitude that they don’t care about body image.
“Yet under the surface is an anxiety about getting fat and the centrality of body image to self.”
…Dr Allen said women are bombarded with messages that perpetuate the thin ideal, and the barrage changes how they view themselves.
“Many women learn that bodily appearance and thinness constitute what is important about them, and their brain responding reflects that,” he said.
“I think it is an unfortunate and false idea to learn about oneself and does put one at greater risk for eating and mood disorders.”
This doesn’t surprise me one bit. I had the exact same anxiety planted in my own head. Yet I never really knew it was there until I tackled my first gaining cycle. I was completely on board with it, intellectually – yet every time another pound registered on the scale, my brain would immediately start screaming… it BOTHERED me to gain weight, even though the image looking back at me from the mirror looked fine. Nothing was jiggling, my clothes still fit, and I was gaining strength – just what the doctor trainer ordered.
Fortunately, it bothered me that it bothered me. I knew it was fundamentally irrational, which made me that much more determined to work through it. The good news is that I did, and ended up being delighted with my new, heavier – stronger and more muscular – self. The next time I did a cycle, I was able to take the whole thing in stride.
What can I say? Our image-and-fashion-obsessed society is truly toxic for women. You can appreciate just how bad it is when even women with (so-called) “healthy” body images are affected by it.
April 15, 2010
Study: Women Have a Fear of Fat – http://blog.ultimatefatburner.com/2010/0…
April 16, 2010
This certainly also speaks to all the women whose body weight is either healthy or too low by BMI standards but whose body fat percentage is high enough to make them metabolically obese.
I have been told that by the time a weight loss cycle starts to slow down according to the scale, you are losing fewer lbs per month but a greater percentage of every lb is fat rather than muscle and carbs. So how often do we celebrate something like this? How much more often do we simply stop the process because we no longer have an easily measurable source of positive reinforcement?
It might be useful to add that the willpower that was used to fuel the efforts in the first place is often akin to that of someone who has decided they are never going to sleep another wink for the rest of their life, inevitably falls into a deep slumber now and then, and then reacts by repeating.
So if the form of willpower was unsustainable in the first place and if positive reinforcement for any effort can’t stick around, we’re left with people who cycle their weight up and down – stopping whenever weight loss slows and thus when the majority of weight loss starts to shift away from muscle and carbs – and through each cycle, losing a bit more muscle and creeping up on the measure that should really matter to us – body fat percentage.
In fact, it seems to me that one big key that would resolve much of this is a shift in emphasis from scale weight to body fat percentage. If only it were easier to measure. I’m sure Elissa would know better than me, but it seems that those devices we buy from the store to measure it aren’t terribly accurate.