Regardless of what people may take away from this one recent data analysis, weight is often driven by factors well beyond our own “will power” and individual decision-making, and weight changes should never be demonized. That was the case prepandemic, and it remains the case today. But we can’t forget that none of the changes to our bodies in the last year happened in a vacuum. They happened while we wrestled unemployment, housing insecurity, an endless parade of financial anxieties, and incalculable loss. According to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracker, over 565,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19, and nearly 3 million have died worldwide, though researchers suspect the global death toll is significantly higher.
Amongst the struggle to survive, we’re also now being targeted by a $71 billion industry that stands to profit from these newly fortified insecurities. Indeed, those same captains of industry that profit off our desire for weight loss also own many of the companies that are credited with our weight gain in the first place. (One businessperson on Weight Watchers’ board of directors also oversees a company that has a significant investment in Keebler, for instance.)
In the grand scheme of what we have weathered in the last year, weight gain simply couldn’t be less important. These bodies have helped us survive. Still, we’re faced with constant messaging insisting that our bodies are at the root of so many of our problems. Rather than collectively tackling large-scale but ultimately solvable issues like unemployment, housing insecurity, access to health care, and wealth inequality, we direct undue focus on something we simply don’t know how to change. Instead of grappling with broader policy change, we tilt at windmills.
Over this last year, you may have put on weight. I have. Or maybe you’ve lost weight, either intentionally or due to grief, depression, a newfound diagnosis, or any of the other innumerable changes so many of us have experienced in the last year. But however your body has changed, that’s not a reflection of your individual character. It is not a measure of your work ethic, your determination, your tenacity, or your worth.
The changes in your body are not a marker of your failure, but of your survival. Your body has changed while it has done something extraordinary. Your body kept you alive, whether through privilege or biology, vigilance or fortune. Whatever your body looks like now, it is a body that has carried you through a time of tremendous tragedy, now to a point where we might finally be able to see glimmers of hope from the other side. And that matters so much more than weight gain ever could.
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April 16, 2021 at 11:39PM
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Read This If You’re Feeling Pressure to Lose the ‘Quarantine 15’ - SELF
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