The Skinny

I spent this past weekend with my mom and sister, my lone comrades in the natural health crusade. All three of us have had similar difficulties with health throughout our lives, since we're, you know, related and all, and so I'm able to talk to them about my problems and achievements, knowing they'll understand on a level my friends cannot.

Probably the most striking similarity between us is that, despite our obvious and vocal efforts to be healthy, none of us are thin. Thanks to that smiling angel named Genetics, we all carry our weight around our middle, the most dangerous place on your body to store extra pounds, since it is home to your guts. We're not obese by any means-- my sister and mom are quite small, in fact, both in frame and stature, whereas I'm... not. We're just not skinny.

Which is an interesting concept to most Americans, where we associate weight with health: If I'm skinny, I'm healthy.

This is so, so not true. You can be underweight and undernourished, or nearing overweight with no detectable health problems, granted you eat well and exercise. It's all about how you take care of yourself.

Example: I have a friend who has lost her grip since starting college. She drinks too much, but has managed to not gain any noticeable weight. I was baffled by this until one day, I asked her what we were going to do for dinner. She said she wasn't going to eat much so she could drink more later that night. I hesitated, fighting my desire to yell are you STUPID?! and instead shrugged and went into the kitchen to make myself some food.

People do this, and think it's a good idea. She knew if she ate and drank, she would gain weight from all the calories. So she sacrificed one, thinking as long as she kept her weight steady, she was okay.

This friend of mine is an extreme case of unhealthy tendencies, but people do things like this all the time. I'm going to have cheesecake with my boyfriend tonight, so I'll skip lunch. It's not just the average population that has this mentality, though; I've seen it advertised. There is a TV commercial for some sort of health snack thing, where this little crudely drawn woman limps into a room with her friends, saying she did four hours of aerobics because she indulged in a hot fudge sundae. Although I'd promote an exercise trade-off like this one over deprivation, because it is technically healthier, the fact that they are advertising exercise as a punishment irks me.

If you view exercise as something you have to do to balance extra caloric intake, it will never become something you want to do. It will be torture. All that huffing and sweating will wrongly translate in your mind into abuse for bad deeds, instead of a treat for your body, which it is. (We're made to move. Why do you think kids play so much?) You will push yourself too hard in your workouts, hating every agonizing minute, because you'll think it is necessary for the trade-off. I have to do this to be skinny.

I'll tell you right now, if your focus is entirely on weight and outward appearance, not on health and inner harmony, you need to reevaluate your priorities, because you'll never get what you want. I promise if you focus on doing what's good for your body, instead of punishing yourself for missteps, you will become healthier. You may never be Kate Moss, but you'll look and feel the way you were meant to, inside and out.