Complete these sentences with the first thing that comes to mind,
Mary had a little ____
Twinkle, twinkle little ____
Don’t cry over spilled____
Chances are your answers were lamb, star and milk. Chances are you didn’t have to think too hard, or select these responses, but rather they just popped into your head. These are responses that you have been conditioned to give after you have probably heard the rhymes or statement many times throughout your life. What if some of the thoughts we have are just like your responses to the sentence completion task? That they exist because you have heard them over and over again throughout your life.
Many of the thoughts we have are conditioned responses in that they are learned responses to a particular stimuli. We have learned the response from direct experience and/or we have witnessed the response.
Applying this to the body, we can see that we have been conditioned to have certain responses to different sized bodies. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. A time when being waif thin or heroin chic was idealized. A time when you didn’t see much body diversity on the screens. When larger characters were on screen they were typically laughed at or looked at with disgust. Fat suits were used to create characters that people would laugh at. They were portrayed as lazy, unintelligent, and unlovable.
With the rise in panic over the “obesity epidemic”, health increasingly became tied to the body. Heroin chic moved aside for thin/fit physique to take place as the ideal to strive for. People in larger bodies were gracing our screens more often, but now they were unhealthy beings that needed to be “fixed” in order to be happy and live a normal life.
And that is just what was unfolding in general discourse and media, nothing to mention of what was happening in people’s homes, the school yard, or the workplace. Where further conversations and actions about weight and body were also occurring. What we learned in all this was that thin/fit is good, and fat is bad. As a result of this learning, we are conditioned to respond to our own and other peoples bodies. We have been conditioned to have weight bias and body image struggles.
Weight bias is “the negative weight related attitudes , beliefs and assumptions towards people who are fat”. When it impacts our actions, and we change how we respond to another it becomes weight discrimination. When we respond to our own body with the judgments it is internalized weight stigma.
It is detrimental to our health. You thought the “obesity epidemic” was bad, well the epidemic of weight bias and discrimination is worse. Unlike other forms of discrimination that are on the decrease, weight discrimination is on the increase. People in larger bodies encounter it from a young age, and it continues with them throughout the lifespan. From being picked on, teased and ostracized from the other children, to being overlooked for promotions, teased by partners, family and friends, and to having to fight for basic health care and to be seen and heard. Being constantly judged and attacked across the lifespan puts the body in a state of stress, which takes its toll physically. Impacting many systems. The poor health that many attribute to a person being fat and the assumption of an unhealthy lifestyle, is often related to the impact of prolonged discrimination and issues with accessing health care. Not to mention the negative impact of weight bias and discrimination on mental health. The weight bias and weight discrimination epidemic is the one we need to address, not the “obesity epidemic”
Some people cry out in protest, claiming that people need to be shamed in order to motivate them to live a healthier lifestyle. We have learned long ago that shaming is an ineffective way of creating change. Not only is it ineffective, it often creates more harm. Those who are shamed in relation to their body feel less motivated to engage in physical activity. Shame is NOT a motivator.
The weight bias thoughts we have are a product of our conditioning. They may continue to pop into our heads, just like the words in the sentence completion task, but that doesn’t mean we have to believe them or act on them. We have the power to choose what we do. Whether we want to be a slave to our old conditioning, or if we want to form new pathways and new conditioning.
The first step building awareness. Notice the thoughts that come to your mind. Notice when you may react differently based on a person’s size. You may be surprised just how much your conditioning appears.
As you notice, pause and ask “Is this helpful?”. If believing the conditioned response leads you to make assumptions and to treat someone differently because of their size, then the answer is no. Weight stigma and discrimination impacts people’s physical and mental health in a negative way.
Instead, treat people in a way that is consistent with your values. How do you want to treat people? How do you want people to feel when they are around you? That is a more helpful guide for how to treat other people than their weight. Add a new conditioning, value based interaction.
When talking about weight bias and discrimination I draw attention to our conditioning, not to justify the actions we take or have taken, but rather to take the shame out of them. We don’t like to feel shame. We try to avoid it. This can lead to avoiding looking at things that need to be changed. By acknowledging the conditioning, attention is draw to how the thoughts and behaviours are not helpful (as opposed to labelling the thoughts or the person as “bad”), and in doing so it is easier to look at and change that which is an unhelpful.
Change isn’t easy, but it is possible. Let’s break free of our unhelpful conditioning.
drsarahpegrum 