Food and bodies are not moral

By: Rachel Guitman - Women and Gender Equity Network

When you think about the Freshman 15, what comes to mind? For most people and for our culture at large, weight and food-related measurements carry heavy connotations.

While moving away from home to go to university, as I did when coming to McMaster, students undergo a huge life change that comes along with increased academic and personal responsibility. It is a difficult adjustment to make, and for some reason, we as a culture add the pressure of weight and eating control to the already challenging transition. Freshman 15 is a term laden with shame and negativity, and it paves the way to unhealthy, moral thinking about food. It implies that students have to watch what they eat for fear of gaining the dreaded Freshman 15.

I have often heard phrases such as, “It’s good that I’m going for a run to work that cake off.” Ingrained in that statement is the sentiment that dietary indulgence is somehow wrong, and therefore must be compensated for. The normalization of these statements is alarming, not least because it mimics the feelings involved in orthorexia and other eating disorders. On a larger scale, this sort of thinking reflects an intertwining of food and eating with morality in our culture. The life-sustaining act of eating should not have moral value. Why should certain foods be bad while certain are good? More importantly, why should we have to feel bad or good about eating certain things, when eating is a basic necessity?

Healthy eating in itself is a good thing, but healthy habits are a lifestyle rather than an arbitrary distinction of foods to feel guilty about eating and foods to feel proud of eating. Ascribing moral values to different foods often breeds an emotional roller coaster of guilt and proud self-denial, which is hardly a peaceful state of mind.

Perhaps more importantly, the positive and negative morality we associate with foods trickle into the way we view body types. We generally, and quite wrongly, assume that if one eats healthy, they will be reasonably thin. As well, we assume that people who are not thin or who don’t fit conventional ideas of what a healthy body looks like do not lead healthy lifestyles. The same judgement comes into play for the Freshman 15.

Such a postulation paves the way for moral judgement when it comes to body types. A fat person, even someone who gained 15 pounds, must simply be lazy and just needs to lead a healthier lifestyle. There is a lot of evidence, however, to show that this is largely not the case. For instance, research from Dr. Richard Atkinson, the editor of the International Journal of Obesity, unveiled the importance of genes in determining body size. In certain cases, genetic mechanisms completely overrode dietary habits. Moreover, it is important to consider how harmful it is to make moral judgements about a person’s body, particularly when they are negative judgements.

A paper by Samantha Thomas, a health sociologist at Monash University, states that “People living with obesity have been 'socially conditioned' to turn to diets for a cure for their obesity, and to blame themselves when diets fail.” The social attitudes that our culture holds towards overweight and obese individuals, and really those who have gained any weight at all, only serve to create shame and self-blame in these individuals.

This is not a constructive path to a healthy lifestyle. On the contrary, it is a demoralizing, discouraging situation. This kind of social conditioning not only assumes that weight loss is a necessary solution, but also discourages anyone who may be trying to achieve long-term weight loss. Is that what we want for students who already have so much on their plate at school?

Mac Alliance for Body Peace is a great initiative at McMaster working to combat these social ideals and promote wellness in a more holistic way. It is important to acknowledge, as the Mac Alliance for Body Peace does, that a strong, supportive community paves the way for its members living healthy lifestyles. If McMaster as a community can be kinder and create a space where body types and weights are not judged, we can all ultimately be better off.