Archives

Out of Focus by Nimanthi Perera - Rajasingham

I remember when I returned to Sri Lanka after having lived abroad for two years. The summer I came back, I went to visit my best friend. The moment she saw me, even before she hugged me or said she missed me, the first words out of her mouth were: "my Nimanthi, you've got fat."

The phrase: "you've got fat" followed me on numerous occasions after. It seemed every time I met someone, I had to wait only five minutes for him/her to comment on my weight.

I remember that after having stayed home for about two months, I felt I was this chubby girl who had bloated-up during her stay abroad. The scales told me I was hardly over-weight. After all I had left the country, right after school, a skinny girl.

In our parents' generation, being chubby was actually approved of. Weight meant wealth. If a person was from a 'well to do' family that could afford to feed him/her, then he/she was well rounded.

For women, having curves and being full was a necessity as they had to bear children. So, when our grandparents comment on our weight gain, it is with approval for we look healthy as such.

Today, the tables have turned, and putting on weight is more and more taboo. Why is it that the moment a woman puts on a few pounds, it is commented upon? Is this a new obsession among women here, and is our commenting on weight an externalization of our innermost fears of becoming fat? Thirty years ago the ideal woman was not pencil thin and without curves. While the ideal South Asian beauty type did allow for greater curves, we have only to look at Indian models and actresses today to realize that the Indian beauty ideal is fast being replaced by the Western one. Today then, being thin is in, curves are out. The manifestation of it in Sri Lanka seems to be that in our blunt manner we can't stop commenting on weight gain, no matter how small that gain may be.

Women are and have been appreciated throughout history for their external appearance to a much greater level than men. For a man, professional success, wealth and material accoutrements mark his acceptability in society. For a woman, on the other hand, her physical appearance, being a good mother and wife mark her success as a woman.

The commodification of women to sell cars, tyres, perfumes, clothes all mark to a large extent how women are aligned along with the product that needs to be sold. Even a men's clothing company will use women to try to sell their products.

Look at how many magazines advice women on how to successfully go on diets. Notice how often newspapers comment on how women can make their partners happy in bed. Women are often defined as a commodity made to please the opposite sex through sexual performance and good appearances. This combined with today's thin beauty ideal mean that women have little choice but to look as thin as possible, no matter how unhealthy this ideal may be. Women seem to fear fat almost universally. Anorexia and Bulimia seem to be the new illnesses for young girls.

What is Anorexia? It is when girls go on extremely unhealthy diets to try and lose weight. Sometimes, even after they have lost all fat in their bodies, they still believe themselves to be obese and continue to starve themselves. Bulimia too results in women attempting to starve themselves, then eating when they become ravenous, and then spewing it all out in disgust.

Young girls flock to the gyms to look thin, not to be healthy. Media will advertise low-fat and diet goods exclusively for women so that they can be thin and feel good. Often on television, prolonged advertisements on how to lose weight condition women to believe mandatory thinness to be the norm.

I want at this point to refer to an incident that occurred in Canada in 1998 which clarifies how 'fat- phobia' seems to be on the increase. This example illustrates how deeply ingrained fears over weight issues are.

A young girl, Christina, who was thirteen years old, died suddenly after having complained of a cold. Her mother, Marlene Corrigan, had stayed away from work to care for her and had popped out to get some groceries that day. When the mother returned, her daughter was found dead. After a protracted court-case, Marlene was convicted of child neglect and was sentenced to three years probation. The reason for her negligence was assumedly because she had allowed her child to 'eat herself to death.' At the time of death, the thirteen year-old weighed 680 lbs. Marlene was accused of having failed to bring up her child in what seems mandatory: thinness.

Let me mark some of the titles of newspapers at the time. "Abuse charge on 680 Pound Girl's Death." "680 Pound Girl's Shocking Death." "Obese Girl's Mother: Guilty Verdict Hurts." "Mother of Obese Girls Found Guilty." "Obese Girl's Mom Must Stand Trial." "680 Pound Girl's Mom Guilty of Misdemeanor." What is common to all these headings is that the dead child's weight and her gender are repeated over and over again. She was a fat girl. This was an unforgivable crime. Someone had to be blamed, and the mother was the easiest target.

During the trial, the defence pointed out the fact that Marlene had taken Christina to over 90 visits to doctors and that doctors had been unable to trace the reason for her child's abnormal weight gain. They had asked her to go on numerous diets. The more she dieted, the more weight she gained.

Cause of death was also not established after Christina's death.Yet, this evidence was ignored at sentencing. Notice how the names of the mother and child are unmentioned in the headings. Weight seems to be the main obsession of all the articles.

This is very similar to Sri Lankan obsessions where we constantly notice how fat or thin a person is.

Had the child died thin, would fingers have pointed at Marlene for being a bad mother? Or was it rather society's extreme fear of obesity that caused Marlene to be convicted in this manner?

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager