In English

Since Finland is not the only nation where people are struggling with body and/or self esteem issues, I decided to write all my texts also in English. 

Pics or didn’t happen

October 29. 2015

Smartphones have taken photography to a totally new level. People have a camera with them all the time, everywhere. In the era of digital photography one does not have to think how many shots one can take before the film is full. Failed pictures can be easily removed from the memory card with just pressing a button. As an amateur photographer I love how easy it is nowadays to take photos.

There are other sides with the digital photography. Let’s imagine that every picture taken was still in a paper format. Some people would have whole shelves full of pictures of the foods they’ve eaten. There would also be a completely own shelf for selfies. How funny and narcissistic it would look to have loads and loads of a bit fuzzy pictures of your own face from different angles and from different places.

Smartphones and the social media have developed a completely new culture surrounding pictures. One has to document everything with a photo and preferably post it to social media. This is image marketing and it has been brought available to common people. Selfies and social media are image marketing. Every time you post something, you create some kind of image of yourself.

A whole genre of their own are gym selfies. In other words, people take photos of themselves as they are at the gym. If you google “saliselfie” in Finnish, you’ll get loads of pictures. One common thing for almost all of these pictures is that the person in them looks fresh, sporty and well groomed. Either these pictures have been taken right when people go to the gym or the people in them don’t own sweat glands at all. Well, this from the fat person’s point of view. There was only one picture with an overweighed person in it. Fat people don’t take gym selfies. Or, at least, they don’t share them in public. There’s a reason for that.

I’ve read people’s opinions for and against putting on make-up when you do sports. I’m not one of those people who think that you can’t leave the house before you’ve put some make-up on. I have nothing against putting on make-up either. In my case sports and make-up just don’t fit together. My perspiration is so bad when doing sports, that I could use the house paints and still look like a vocalist of a Norwegian black metal band with molten face in seconds.   

This is why I don’t do gym selfies. I don’t think they’d give very nice of beautiful image of me. On top of this all, my face gets red very easily. If I’d have to describe myself while I’m at the gym, the realistic thing would probably be that I remind a sweating tomato. These are nasty aesthetic problems that are usually connected with being overweighed. Everybody sweats (at least I assume everybody does) but others do it less gracefully than others. Of course it’s A harder job to move your body when you have extra kilos and I’m not as fit as many normal weighed people are. I guess I wouldn’t be fat if I had maintained fitness my whole life. But since I haven’t, not-so-good physical stamina and extra weight add up to huffing and puffing with a bright red face.

It takes a lot of self-discipline to go to the gym or group exercises where there are lots of well groomed people. I don’t go to the gym to watch other people or criticize how they look. I comfort myself with the thought that no one else does that either. Also listening to music while exercising works for me. I prevent myself from becoming too self-aware and too aware of my surroundings with music. At this point posting my gym selfies on the internet wouldn’t be good image marketing from my point of view. At least, if I don’t want to build up an image of a fat person you can safely criticize anonymously behind the screen or laugh at the person’s efforts. But I’ll do it anyway. This can be my first gym selfie and remain also the last one. It’s enough for me that I know I go to the gym. 

The body they are selling

October 21. 2015

I read an article Kyllin hyviä mainosruumiiksi? (Good enough for commercial bodies?) written by Leena-Maija Rossi. My last blogging made me think about how male and female bodies are presented in commercials. I think Rossi sums up commercials quite well: ”Audiovisual addressing of consumers has two purposes: It encourages consumers to buy the product or service which is advertised and to adopt the body ideal that is presented. Both, buying the product and the ideal, are a part of the constant forming of identity of a consumer”.

We are made to want things. “Buy the totally needless gadget CXIX and you’ll be more beautiful, sexier, more wanted, more accepted and especially a better person”. Image marketing is a good word to describe advertising like this. At least in the Western countries we have a high standard of living and most of the population’s material needs are fulfilled daily. At least, that’s the situation in Finland. We have a roof over our heads, food every day, enough clean drinking water and clean air to breathe. The needs have to be created so that we keep on consuming and the economy keeps on growing.

At the same time we want to belong and to stand out. But we want to stand out in a way that is socially most acceptable. The body ideal of the commercials is quite one dimensional and the presentation of gender is heteronormative. ”In the stories of the commercials one essential condition for a good life is to be an object of desire – that men and women are objects of each other’s desire. Presenting fat bodies as objects of sexual desire is not among the most used means in commercials, which indicates that being fat is not desirable from the normative heterosexuality’s point of view. Not any heterosexuality is enough to fill the norm: one has to be slender, smooth and elastic hetero”, Rossi writes.

The commercial body is always manipulated in some way. Flaws of the skin are removed and especially in magazine pictures a “little extra” is removed here and there. It’s also easy to give some lift-ups, tone changes and stretches with photo manipulation. The lighting is optimal to hide so called flaws, models have lots of make-up and the clothes are made to fit them. The consumer is expected to pursue the same result. In cosmetics commercials this shows in the most blatant way. “Maybe it’s Maybelline”. You can bet it is! Few average woman can create such a flawless make-up like the professionals employed by the advertisement companies. Not to mention that the end result is unachievable because of the technical assistance of lighting and manipulation which I mentioned earlier.  They want to make the consumer to believe that by using the product they can become like the models. If the result doesn’t quite match the dream picture the commercial gives, you can always think you buy the product “because you’re worth it” and move towards the ideal just like it was magic.

It’s definately not wrong to take care of yourself and your looks. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong wanting to be an object of desire and feel beautiful. These things are not the number one priority in my own life but who wouldn’t want to be all that. I want to take care of myself and I don’t mind if someone, every now and then shows that he or she thinks I’m beautiful. For me personally my other traits are more important and this brings us back to the commercials and the message they send.

People whose body type differs from the norm of the advertisement industry are mainly presented in two ways. The first way is to present a chubby or a fat body together with the bodies that fit the ideal just to create a contrast between these two body images. The “wrong” kind of a body presented together with the bodies that fit the norm strengthens the mental image of what ideal body type is. Radio City’s TV-commercial is a very good example of this. The women who are listening to radio represent the ideal body type that is sold to us by the media. They are thin, well dressed, pretty and they have a very feminine posture even when sitting in a toilet. Even their feces is a bucket of flowers. The chubby lady who reads a newspaper is unkempt and sits in a masculine posture, legs spread and her clothes are nothing close to latest fashion. The contrast is even more fortified by showing the toilet she sat in and the bowl is filled with proper shit when all the other bowls grew flowers. It is made quite clear that the body that doesn’t fit the norm is not desirable to show. The commercial can, of course, also meant to be ironic. Leena-Maija Rossi notes that: ”In a modern advertisement, which uses lots of humor, irony and parody, the line between accepting and disapproving is often not clear”. Interpretations don’t count each other out so the commercial can be at the same time meant to be ironic and verify the image of the ideal body. 

The second way to present chubby or fat body is to make it an object to humor. In commercials, movies and TV-shows overweight people are not often represented as plausible. Humor justifies that a body that doesn’t fit the norm, a fat body, is presented on the screen. Humor can be good-natured and its goal isn’t necessarily to mock overweighed people. On the other hand, it doesn’t represent or advance the notion that presenting fat people is acceptable.

One way media presents overweight people is also a mean or malevolent fatso. It can be interpreted as a grudge or bitterness towards the people who have a body that fits the norm. Without digging deeper into the different interpretations I must ask why person’s weight is considered to determine mental abilities or personal qualities.

The reality shows that are built around people losing weight are completely a chapter of their own. They are sheer social porn covered by a veil of success stories. They also strengthen the norm of the ideal body image and not the norm of a healthy body. The goal is to lose weight so much that the person of fits the norm of the ideal body. If the person doesn’t reach the goal – the ideal weight – s/he is a disappointment. The person is not congratulated when s/he has lost so much weight and minimalized health risks. That person is made to feel guilty for those kilos they failed to lose to fit the norm.

The phenomenon is also gender divided. I won’t say that there aren’t very unrealistic ideal images of male bodies. It is culturally more acceptable for a male body to be chubby, fat and take more space though. A fat man is credible. A fat woman is not. This is the culturally created mental image. Presenting overweighed people as comic figures in media enforces this image. 

The phenomenon also has another side. Presenting normal or overweighed bodies in media makes them visible. Rossi writes: “We have to remember that advertising, which constantly produces perceptions of good life and right kind of body culture for us to see and as tool to build our identity, does not only offer unachievable body ideals - - - - - The luscious bodies which are considered good enough widen the cultural image of bodies, filter of representations; that what is possible to present and understand”

Some time ago I realised that I have laughed at my own body with my bullies. It has been my way to survive the mental violence. I tried to diminish their mockery by taking part to it. I justified my body that doesn’t fit the norm just like media does – making an instrument of humor out of it. Being able to laugh at oneself is just healthy but there is a limit and when you cross it the laughter turns into a method of survival. With time I learned how to avoid nasty comments and find peace from the fear of public humiliation. Maybe I even got some acceptance by mocking myself and my body. This kind of behavior is not good for anyone’s self-esteem. But it was easier to act like this than to listen to desecrating comments from other people or live in a constant fear of conflicts. Desecrating myself was also partly something that made me feel empowered when I took the power out of my bullies’ words to my own purposes.

Considering the fact that weight and the shape of one’s body is considered to determine other qualities, like intelligence, I’ve been pondering if I can be seen as a credible writer because I am overweighed. Maybe now, that I have renewed my lifestyle and I’m heading towards to be that skinny, happy, intelligent woman who has been trapped inside layers of fat all these years. That’s complete bullshit. I am just the same person with the same personality and mental abilities when I lose weight. The fat content of a human body doesn’t determine anyone’s IQ – not even if the media tries to tell us otherwise.

Body Shaming

October 17. 2015

People are anxious to make nasty remarks on anyone that looks even slightly different than others. We call it bullying or name calling. Specific term has been developed to describe bullying that concerns someone’s body shape: body shaming. Urban dictionary determines it like this: ”shaming someone for their body type” and Macmillian dictionary: “the practice of criticizing people publicly for being too fat or, less frequently, too thin”. Body shaming is not a thing you can justify with anything. It’s plain evil. It’s as simple as that.

Based on my own experience I would say this starts in a quite early age. I don’t believe you can find many overweight children that can honestly say they haven’t been bullied for their weight. I think I can quite safely presume that nowadays thinner and thinner – even normal weighed children – will hear that they’re fatties and disgusting blobs. It’s not because children or people as a whole grow meaner. It’s because media and fashion industry sell us the image of an ideal body and it gets smaller and smaller. A person who has the ideal body is a true rarity if s/he even exists. 

It is common for women in USA to dream of being size 0. In EU this means size 30–32 and internationally size XXS. I hope I am wrong or that it is exaggerated. This size woman’s chest girth is 78cm, waist girth 60cm and hip girth 84cm. If it feels hard to perceive how big or small would be a person whose measurements are as described earlier, I can give you an example: the girth of waist is averagely the same as a grown man’s head.  

Women that are naturally this size do exist. The size itself is not a bad thing. The bad thing is that environment encourages all women to be this size. For most women it’s not even physically possible. Media and fashion industry show this unrealistic body image as a desirable ideal. Even small children are exposed to this image marketing. I’m not surprised that there are more and more children and teenagers that aren’t satisfied with their bodies, even if they were not overweight. 

When I’m talking about discussion about weight or making comments about weight, I’m not talking about medical discussion. I trust everyone knows that being overweight or underweight can cause you physical harm. It’s self-evident. The discussion I’m referring to is degrading talk. It’s easy to be loud on the Internet. Even if you were commenting on a public forum, it’s easy to hide behind anonymity. Or at least you don’t have to face the person or persons you offend. It’s harder to say mean things to someone face to face. And it’s harder to comment weight of a total stranger if you meet her in real life. Still, it happens. Just not as much as on the net. Body shaming is everywhere. 

   

I’ve seen a comment where a completely normal weighed person has been called “a disgusting fatso”. I’ve even read comments where people try to justify body shaming by: ”think of the children!”. Body shaming is badly disguised in good intentions. In this latter case the language used by the commentator got my attention. At first the commentator said that it is wrong to show children that being overweight is totally fine. She said she is concerned that if media sends children that kind of message we will have a new generation of obese and sick adults. At first I thought: “OK. Someone may see things like that”. Many criticize media for feeding children unrealistic and unhealthy image of too small ideal body. I did too – only a few sentences ago. It can lead to young girls and boys having an eating disorder. Then I noticed the phrases that were used in the comment. ”Fatty”, ”lard”, ”fatso” and so on. It was obvious that this commentator only used children to justify her own opinions of overweighed person and body shaming she practiced. 

  

When you read bulletin boards or social media you can also find lots of body shaming directed to thin people. A good example is a meme that says: “real men like curves. Bones are for dogs”. I understand that sometimes you just get angry reading these fatty – comments. It’s not right, though. Nothing justifies shaming another human being no matter what size he is. Human bodies come in all shapes and sizes. That’s how things are and will be no matter how much commercial crap we get from media and beauty and fashion industries. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. Only thing that matters is that people don’t come just in one shape. We should respect that. 

We should teach children healthy lifestyle. Not shaming others for their bodies or being ashamed of their own body. The most important thing in preventing weight related health issues is to grow children with healthy self-esteem and healthy body image. Teaching children tolerance is also important. It’s much easier to live healthy and happy if no one humiliates you and makes you feel bad about yourself and others.

When I’ve been the target of name-calling because my obesity, surprisingly enough my reaction has never been: ”oh yes! Now I get it! I’m fat and I have to do something about it. I think I’m going to go jogging now. And I think I should re-think my eating habits. So nice of that person to point this out for me because I didn’t realize these things myself”.  Quite the opposite. I just want to curl under a blanket and cry. But not before I go and buy myself a big bar of chocolate for consolation.

 

About Gymphobia

October 13. 2015

Today I’m going to go to gym to try a new group exercise. It’s called TAB which stands for: Tights – Abs – Butt. The introduction text says: “First warm-up and then follows muscle exercises you can REALLY FEEL!”  
Oh, shit! What have I done? At the same time I look forward to it as well as dread it. I’ve learned by this age that if you never get out of your comfort zone, you’ll never grow physically or mentally. This doesn’t concern just athletics and their psychological aspects, but life as a whole.

I have had a huge mental barrier to take part in group exercises as an adult. Stepping into a gym is an instant flashback to school’s sports classes. In a flash my psyche offers me a fast lane back in time to my years as an unsecure child or teenager. 

The situation is obviously not the same as it was over two decades ago. Still, the self-confidence I’ve built for myself with care and great work disappears on a doorstep of a gym. My head starts echoing with questions: “Am I going to keep up with others?” “Is someone going to laugh at me if I fail at something?” “Will I look ridiculous bouncing and sweating?” ”What if I don’t manage to get into some position because my big, fat belly comes in the way?” And so on. The amount of doubts is endless.

My rational side tells me that no one cares if I stumble, look ridiculous or won’t be able to do something properly because of my weight. Probably everyone in the class concentrates on their own performance. And there is no teacher to examine every detail of my performance. During the exercise while jumping around and panting like crazy I have to tell myself over and over again: I’m not here to get a good grade – I’m here to make myself feel good. 

To take part in group exercises has been an enormous mental battle for me. When I get there the physical battle with myself starts. For me as a fat person it’s really hard to expose myself to other people’s gazes. (Even if no one was looking. There’s still a possibility someone might.) Especially when I’m doing sports. 

That’s because as a fatty I’ve also gotten used to it when people comment my weight and my looks. Apparently it’s appropriate even for total strangers to make nasty remarks of my body out loud just because I’m fat. Some of the main attributes of fat tissue are that when you move it bounces, splashes noisily, jiggles and wiggles. It’s totally and utterly uncontrollable. And so is perspiration and blood stream that always seems to concentrate just on your face.   

I’m not the prettiest sight during, for example, Zumba lessons. When the instructor shouts: ”We are so hot!” I’m thinking about the amount of my perspiration instead of my hip movements. But I’ve realized that if I don’t expose myself to these kind of things I’ll never get a healthy self-esteem. If I were to just stay at home I would limit my options down to sports I can do indoors and alone. I also wouldn’t practice as hard as I do when I have an instructor who inspires me and pushes me to my limits. Without exercise I will never get rid of my unwanted wiggling parts.  

My very first group exercise could be compared to the experience I had a bit over a year ago. I climbed up Saana – one of the highest fjells (a bit like a mountain but smaller. You can find them at least in Scandinavia) of Finland. It’s 1029 meters high and the route to the top is about four kilometers. I overcame my acrophobia (fear of heights) then. I also exceeded myself physically. I walked all eight kilometers with my heart pounding and my whole body trembling like crazy because of the adrenalin that flowed through my body. My legs were shaking and they felt as sturdy as boiled pasta. Climbing Saana was, of course, a bit more memorable moment but the consistence of these two occasions were quite alike.  

  

I remember when I saw Saana for the first time. I was genuinely horrified. “Holy shit! I must climb THAT?!” I almost backed out. My fear almost made me cancel my group exercise reservation too. Many times. But luckily I’m stubborn enough not to do such things. In both cases the start after the shock was easy. Quite fast I encountered first real difficulties: “I cannot do this! This is too hard! I’ll die here!”. I’m happy that I was yet again determined enough to carry on. On both experiences the middle section was hard, bumpy and tiring but I could cope with that. It’s the stop that my mind and body made near the end that was difficult. It’s the point when your mind and body just scream at you: ”I cannot take this anymore!”. And still I went on. At Saana I had my spouse with me to hold my hand and tell me I can do it. I also thought: “Damn it would be embarrassing if we had to call rescue team to get my fat ass down the hill”. I say I had also my sisu helping me that day at Saana. When I went to the gym that was the only thing I had. It’s a special type of determination that doesn’t really translate. Finns are mighty proud of their sisu.

I have to say that when both of these experiences were over, I just wanted to kneel down and pour out the tears of joy. I did it. I really did it. There was a great reward in the end: A huge amount of healthy self-confidence. 

I can understand why fatties like me don’t go to gym very much. Luckily the feeling that I call gymphobia gets easier and easier to win every time I go to the gym. And after the exercise awaits an awesome reward – surge of adrenalin and endorphines which make me float high in the air like a Zeppelin for the rest of the evening.

Who and why?

October 12. 2015

I am Eini ”Ennu” Lattu. I live in Joensuu, Finland. I’m almost 35 years young artisan of stone and metalcrafts. I’ve also studied literature, cultural anthropology, media culture and gender studies just to mention few of my interests. At the moment I’m unemployed but that doesn’t mean I just sit on my butt all day, every day. Quite the opposite. 

I’m also fat. I’ve always been fat. Since I was something like four years of age my weight has been an issue. Since then there has been an unending flow of instructions how I should eat and exercise.

I’m still fat. 

Am I just unbelievably lazy, inefficient and suffer from serious lack of self-discipline? Sometimes all of this – I admit.

There is an enormous amount of legends, myths, stories and experiences about losing weight, body image and body altering – altogether, body culture. Losing weight should be simple: use more energy than your energy intake is. There’s no magic in it.

Yet again, if losing weight would be as simple as that, we wouldn’t have this constantly growing (literally!) obesity problem in Western Countries. Like all other things in human life, losing weight has many different aspects to consider. In my blog I’m going to dig into those aspects like they were a giant bowl of chocolate pudding.

I started changing my eating and exercising habits about three months ago. I began by getting to a bit better shape by walking and now I also go to gym and take part to different kinds of group exercises.

In my blog I’m not going to tell about my diet or what I do at gym. Nor I’m going to brag how many grams I’ve lost or whine how many grams I’ve gained. I’m going to write about how I experience things along the way. I’m also going to write about my observations considering subject at hand.

What’s it like to be at a gym when you’re fat?

How the surrounding culture reacts to you when you’re fat?

What’s the ideal body image and is it even realistic?

What forms does body altering take?

What kind of culture surrounds losing weight?

These are just a few examples of the themes I want to write about.

At worst I weighed almost 130kg. I’ve lost some of it but there’s still a long road ahead of me before I’m healthy and fit. Yes – I do this for my health. It’s not a bad thing though, to fit in clothes that I think are beautiful instead of those enormous tents that are sold for “big girls”. And there’s another nice side effect too – I think I’ll look a bit better after losing some weight.

The main reason why I started changing my habits is that ten years from now I still want to climb a staircase without being afraid to die on the spot. I want to enjoy my life without the constant fear for my cholesterol clogged arteries giving a notice. I don’t want to battle the rest of my life with obesity related illnesses like type II diabetes or sleep apnea.

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to start writing a blog. I got an inspiration for this blog after reading a book by Jenny Dahlberg. It’s called “Sopivasti lihava” which means more or less “adequately fat”. I couldn’t find it in English but the original title is “Tjock!” which means “fat” in Swedish. The book is hilarious yet unscrupulous description of life when you’re fat.  

I recognized myself in some parts of the book. I thought: what the heck! If someone is brave enough to write a book about the topic with her name and face on it, why wouldn’t I dare to write a blog. Anyone who sees me from a picture or in real life can see that I’m fat. Obviously, it’s no secret, so why wouldn’t I write about it and how I see all the social and cultural phenomenon around body culture. I can also share how I experience the reactions of my surroundings towards fat people and why losing weight is not as easy as many people think. At least why it’s not easy for me.

Stuff that salad down your throat and start walking! You’re healthy and fit in a jiffy! That’s how easy it is – or is it?

Welcome to read my thoughts!