Healing Metaphysics Home > Archive> Weighing in (with more than just the facts)

Article by Michael Finn
Copyright Michael Finn

There are few subjects as universally controversial and laden with strong opinions, these days, as weight control.

I am concentrating on the issue of 'weight loss' here, whilst realising that many people also have trouble gaining weight and that body-image distortions, eating disorders and 'lookism'(cultural prejudices and attitudes to appearances) are a societal problem of huge and often traumatic proportions.

This is backdropped by the fact that a vast number of fellow inhabitants of this earth, suffer enduring and lethal lack of food. May this fact, remind us to keep our unappreciated privileges and their concomitant problems, within some context.

The weight-loss industry influences us to believe that the most important aspects of weight control involve the observation of : diets, foods, supplements etc., along with exercise/activities of a regular and aerobic nature.

These are, for this article, 'the facts'.

There are millions of facts circulating regarding calories, diets and supplements, exercise regimes and similar observances.

The upshot though, is an awful lot of confusion. The confusion seems to stem from the next fact which is that, despite all this information and well-intentioned efforts, obesity is growing in epidemic proportions.

So, is it simply this cut and dry? Are we just not dedicated enough to applying this knowledge and getting it right?

The weight issue is awarded considerable media coverage for quite a few reasons; here are just three:
1. Its so widespread that many people either die from the various impacts (of being overweight), on body systems/organs, or are living very compromised, unhappy lives, due to the debilitating illnesses spawned by obesity.
2. Mainstream western culture kneels before the altar of television and is hopelessly addicted to celebrity worship; synonymous, most of the time with a worship of the 'minimal figure'.
3. Massive medical costs are incurred in the effort to educate people and to treat the pathological runoffs.

The buck starts here.

The big business involving weight manipulation is having a profit-driven field day, with earnings in the billions, by appealing to some of our most primal yearnings - to belong and to be acceptable.

We humans yearn to 'not be judged'.

As a result we tend to manage ourselves and our lives, in a manner which seeks to ensure a minimum of criticism.

Thus one eagerly gets on board with massive corporations promising improvements to his/her image.

This is akin to being heavily influenced to working on ourselves predominantly from the outside, in. This doesn't tend to be successful, especially on a long term basis. Often setting up the 'weight-rollercoasting' phenomenon, the yo-yo effect.

The real focus

If we can attain a state of simple self acceptance, though certain 'external critics' may still be around, their effects on us would be minimal.

We would hence gain in self esteem and, I wager, invoke health-improvement/weight changing regimes, based on an overall desire to be well, more energetic and productive in our lives, rather than on the need to change, to avoid health disasters, untimely death, rejection via negative personal feedback, etc.

But back to the weight conundrum

I have followed the meandering rivers of media and medical comment, research, scientific enquiry, anecdotal and 'empirical' observations and opinions, both public and personal, regarding weight loss, for years now.

Here is what I have personally managed to establish thus far: The body is strategically geared to survive.

This has, throughout evolution, generally involved surviving 'deficits' - droughts, famine, natural disasters, climate pressures, deprivation etc.

Research suggests our bodies have evolved innate hard-wiring, which sends signals to metabolic processes, telling them to favour gain, over loss.

This, to my mind is part of the genetic link to weight and metabolic function.

This genetic predisposition to a certain body type is something we all share, having all crawled from the gene pool so as to inhabit the human form.

Each of us inherits genetic strengths and weaknesses and I feel that we also have personalised, preprogrammed metabolic tendencies to either lose or gain weight as a reaction to stresses.

Weight - not just genetics, nor just about eating.

Gene activation aside, other very important factors influencing metabolic function, include:
age, immune status, nutritional/ dietary choices, activity levels, living environment, one's overall relationship to the external ecology and emotional, mental and inner states which predominate over time - in a word, one's bio-individuality.

Its one thing to lose weight......

The acid test is to stay the desired weight, living a relatively healthy, fit, normal life and not having to be continually and inexorably 'managing' one's weight.

This body management, tends to become difficult to maintain, over months or years and can lend itself - if repeatedly unsuccessful or by virtue of its demands - to depression, self condemnation, guilt complexes and the like.

The enduring social, cultural and personal pressures to control weight, tend to wreak havoc across the entire community, as we know from popular media, e.g., the rise of disorders such as : anorexia nervosa, bulimia, unhealthy diets and practises, overtraining (exercise which is 'driven' thereby inducing the release of 'stress hormones'), depression, anxiety states, addictions, etc.

EXERCISE A different horizon to gaze over

Here's a new approach to perceiving our bodies -

Lets relieve ourselves for a moment, of all our personal prejudices and biases against what our bodies look and feel like. The following exercise is to counteract our penchant for self criticism and self loathing.

I suggest starting with the absolute status quo; the ground zero of where your body is at, right now.

If left alone for a moment by the 'wanting and desiring mind', how does this body of mine look, feel, move and how do I genuinely experience its weight?

Now, lets imagine for a moment that one's present weight is actually perfect, yes, perfect!

Next, imagine your weight, your form (which doesn't normally appear to be operating, feeling or appearing the way you may wish), is actually serving you, possibly in ways which are invisible, unknown and mysterious, at least till now.

Consider the idea that this body is as it is, because it is responding to a complex array of inner and outer signals and is geared to survive these in some stable fashion.

The example I use to illustrate such a notion is this:

Let us say that I have a very low sense of self worth or esteem; that this aspect of me is undeveloped as it were, or operating at a very ineffectual level.

Picture your life circumstances and subsequent demands, e.g., interacting with work personnel, clients, friends and family, navigating life transitions, serious events and subsequent adaptation challenges.

Should success in these matters require one to be self-assured, assertive, powerful, etc., and one identifies as lacking in any of these critical essentials, then possibly this organism -'the body-entire' - moves into automatic pilot, magically taking over the controls, to address the need or discrepancy at hand.

The central idea then, is that my body is doing its bizarre best to survive the needs of my encounters and my life roles, despite 'inner vacuities'.

Thus, my physical figure, girth, stature, volume and space are influenced to change, often in ways which defy personal preferences. In a nutshell, as weight changes occur, I become more substantial in the physical world, albeit, to compensate for an inner lack which precludes my 'essential spirit' coming to the fore.

More substantial, enabling one to more powerfully interact with such stresses as : sexism, racism, abuse, to name just a few scenarios.

More substantial, providing possibly more protection, more personal space, or a more imposing presence.

[Note, that we can run this theory in otherwise fashion, exploring the tendency for some people to disappear, become shadowy and chameleonic, i.e., losing weight, thereby becoming possibly phantom-like, more introverted energetically perhaps and with a lesser profile or presence in the visible world - a different survival strategy.]

If this is a reasonable prospect, then it behoves us to explore why we might, especially as adults, find ourselves as lacking in esteem, confidence, and personal power and find ways of nourishing ourselves into congruently enlarging into the complete person we have the potential for in the first place.

This saves the 'auto-pilot' from having to be invoked.

This exerise is an inner self-investigation, designed to obviate the need to perpetually manage (seeming) aberrations, i.e., overweight, underweight, severely fluctuating body mass tendencies, etc.

So I am enlarging upon our notions of what body-weight issues may more fully encompass. Hope this initial foray into such a weighty issue is useful to the reader.

Throw your weight around the globe

If this article has been useful to you, consider sending a donation to a reputable charity organisation, to assist the survival of another person or entire family. Millions of people would be pleased to wake up with our problems, which stem basically from 'excess'.

See my links page on 'The Web' for suggestions.

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