How "science" changed me

At the relatively young age of fifteen, I was considered to be moderately overweight, based on my waist size, wrist size, jean size and BMI. I knew about calories and that, in order to lose or maintain a certain weight, one had to either have a greater expenditure of calories than intake, or balance the intake/expenditure. Despite all this, I still was not convinced that an extra 300-500 calories per day would make or break my attempts at weight loss. It was the intrinsically complex science behind weight loss, calorie maintenance and metabolism that pivoted my life in a different direction. All of a sudden, I was reading the labels on my foods, determining whether or not it would be harmful to consume the number of calories listed on the package, or if I would be able to subsequently “burn” (whatever that really means) those calories through push-ups, sit-ups, or a run.

Now, almost 5 years since this new awareness (or paranoia, perhaps) took root in my mind, the true science behind weight loss is still too complex to fully grasp. Even nutritional experts have a hard time explaining what the “best” thing to do in order to increase weight loss or decrease caloric intake really is. This is because it really depends, they say, on your biological and genetic make-up: body shape and size, along with metabolism and the ability to build lean muscle, is based heavily in your biological and genetic make-up. If height and thinness run throughout your family tree, chances are you’ll be tall, thin and lean, assuming that you don’t gorge yourself daily and participate in a sedentary lifestyle (in which case, it’s most likely that only your weight would be affected, rather than height). This is the determinism that I couldn’t, and still can’t, come to terms with. On my father’s side, there are the chicken-legged grandparents with a tendency towards bigger waistlines, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. On my mother’s side, the fuller-bodied people with rather large muscles, tending to be hidden by more and more body fat as age increases. Where, then, do I fit in? I tend to believe that I take on more of my mother’s side of the body structure than my father, but does this determine me to be a full-bodied person as I age, even if I continue to avidly dedicate myself to calorie counting and regular exercise? Pinker, certainly, would say: YES. It is in your genes, Megan. No doubt a healthy lifestyle can counter the effects of this, but you have been given this body through the genetic materials combined by both of your parents.

If only we could choose the parents with the best bodies and most literate, intelligible minds (not to say we don’t love our parents as they are, but you get the idea.)

As a side note, I have one question: why, then, Mr. Pinker, am I less than satisfactory in most of my mathematical and scientific pursuits, when my father has his masters in mathematics (received before my birth), my mother works in HR and used to work at H&R block, and my brother is majoring in a purely scientific field (environmental sciences and biology)?

Adding on to all of this, there are certain cultural determinisms that can define how you turn out. There are most definitely people in this world who are overweight, yet do not feel ashamed, guilty or put down because of it; in fact, they might be happier with a filled frame as opposed to an emaciated look. Why, then, are others so dissatisfied, angry, depressed or let down about their weight? These determinisms go hand in hand with the cultural ideology of thinness as “normal” and fatness as “abnormal.” Perhaps these happy fat people were never truly exposed to the cultural ideals at a rate that would have affected them, or maybe they just possessed a genetic component that caused them simply not to care.

This science of weight loss is confusing, though. It is not as simple as a college algebra class, wherein all the rules are simply laid out before you, showing you the “right way” and the “wrong way” to do the equation, or lose weight. Weight loss is more like statistics, where there are multiple different ways of interpreting and defining data. There are ideas and concepts tied together, each affecting eachother in a multitude of different ways: RMR, BMR, BMI, metabolism, calories, waist line, weight, etc. etc.

Now add on the technologies that are there to make it “easier” for you: gymnasiums with their expensive equipment, classes and personal trainers who “know” how to help you, fad diets (Atkins, the cabbage soup diet, “negative” calorie diet, even tapeworm (ew) diets), holistic methods (increasing water intake, green tea, meditation/hypnosis, fasting) methods pushed by large corporations (trim spa, weight watchers, hydroxycut), and community organized efforts, including weight loss groups, weight loss blogs, even blogs encouraging eating disorders, providing “thinspiration” to keep starvation and binge/purge addicts going.

How has this science shaped me? Well, for one, it has confused me. At a young age, when influence is greatest and vulnerability its highest, a diet pill seems like the magic trick. On the other side, however, there are the “all-knowing” scientists warning us about the adverse effects brought on by the magical things. All around me, I heard talk of the “obesity epidemic”, something Lewontin might suggest as being a reflection of social beliefs, burdened by headlines hedged with qualifiers, all proposed by a business, the scientific corporations, who need to feed themselves and their families and maintain a good standing within their fields. Why, I wondered constantly, is the focus more on the epidemic rather than the solution itself? It seemed as though there were far more headlines announcing the problem, rather than proposing changes suitable for a solution (and I’m not counting Bill 282 in Mississippi brought forth to ban obese people from dining out in public restaurants as any kind of solution, just an embarrassment and possibly a civil rights problem).

I, myself, started leaning in the direction of alternative weight loss methods (and remain there even today, to maintain my weight). There is much hype placed in the methods of fasting and herbal remedies, although I myself am not even sure how scientifically these claims are based. The methods claim spiritual rejuvenation on top of physical detoxification and weight loss/maintenance. These people may or may not believe in the mind-body dualism concept ascribed to Rene Descartes, where their bodies and non-physical minds both benefit from a willful abstinence of food. My guess is that they do not, it being that the mind and body are somehow inseparable in this concept of “spiritual and physical detoxification.”

I won’t say that the science of weight loss is as much in the front of my mind as it was those years ago, however my sudden realizations and physical transformations have changed the way I interact with my own body and fuel sources. What makes this “science” so complex is the blending of several different kinds of sciences into one: the labels and technologies within the science of weight loss, the cultural phenomenon and awareness of an “epidemic,” and even the psychological science behind sex appeal and contradictions within marketing. If only their boundaries could be more clearly defined; if only this were a matter of simple equations rather than finite interpretations. No wonder it is so hard these days to truly know what healthy means.