When people’s opinions make you unhealthy
Madam,
:onder not her real name has been on a diet for most of her years. :hen she was , her classmates decided to organise a big party before the end of year exams and she bought material to sew a party dress.
³But none of the boys asked me to go,´ she said. ³0y brothers made it very clear why that was, calling me µfatso¶ and other awful names.´ :onder dropped out of school before the exams, bitterly humiliated – and went on the diet she has been on and off ever since.
Being a dropout affected her career, of course, but it seems likely that a lifelong feeling of being the target of preMudice against fat people may have affected her physically too. Today :onder walks with a stick and has done so for more than a decade.
MOBILITY
5ecent research suggests that some of her lack of physical mobility may be ascribed to a lifetime of feeling stigmatised.
³Being fat is terrible, terrible ´ she said. ³ The research, published in the 6ocial 3sychology 4uarterly, surveyed about people in the 8nited 6tates in . 0ore than a third of the over weight subMects said they had been discriminated against on the basis of their si]e. Ten years later a follow up survey was done and the researchers found that this very group of people had experienced a significant, marked decline in their functional capabilities, such as the ability to climb stairs or lift heavy weights, for example. &ould this be the result of people internalising the preMudice and expe riencing the fallout from the stress in their bodies? That is Tuite likely, says a psychologist who treats patients with food related issues. ³0odern research into the brain shows us that the body mind duality is fiction – the mind and the body are two parts of the same unit and they affect each other. 2ver time any psycholog ical experience becomes embedded in the body.´ And discrimination can cause a vicious spiral, compounding the problem when people µeat out of rage towards the self¶. The body is µa very fine expression of what is going on internally¶, he said. ³The body speaks what the mind cannot.´ +ealth professionals often are not helpful: A paper in the Mournal obesity pointed out that anti fat preMudice had risen in recent years because of poor understanding of obesity¶s causes. The lead author said the belief is that it is down to poor diet and a lack of exercise, ³which implies that obese people are Must la]y and gluttonous, and, therefore, deserve criticism. But uncontrollable factors, such as genes, the environment and neurophysiology play an important role: 2bese people are constantly fighting their physiol ogy and the environment.´ Three studies indicate that the battle against weight issues begins even before birth. 2ne showed that babies with low birth weight are predisposed to obesity another found that a child is more likely to be fat if a mother ex periences nutritional or psychological stress during pregnancy and lactation the third, an international study led by 8niversity of 6outhampton research ers, has shown for the first time that a mother¶s diet during pregnancy can actually change the function of her baby¶s '1A. The result of this µepigenetic change¶ is a child who lays down more fat. Asked what kind of diet was impli cated, the lead author and professor of (pidemiology and +uman 'evelop ment at the 8niversity of 6outhamp ton, said: ³In humans this remains to be defined, although our data suggest ed that a low carbohydrate intake in early pregnancy may be important.´ Fighting your own '1A is hard enough without the added battle against stigma – and compromised physical function, which appears to come with it. Mandi SmallhorneRESULT
ISSUES