Living & Arts

Beyond the scale: alternatives to numerical thinness

In print | November 13, 2008

Why do so many of us want to be thin? I know it might sound like a stupid question, but I don’t think it’s one we ask often enough. Yes, a lot of it comes from external images of what is considered attractive. But that is not enough of an explanation on its own. What does this “attractiveness” mean, what is the point of it, why is it so important? The answer, for many, is that we equate attractiveness with personal worth.

I’m sure that any of you would tell your best friend that what determines her value is not how much the scale says she weighs, but her compassion, intellect, sense of humor, and fabulous collection of hats with ears. In fact, you’d tell her, those things make her truly beautiful. I’d bet, however, that you’d be less willing to turn that standard back around on yourself. In lieu of other tangible, concrete measures of self-worth, many of us turn to the scale or to the label on our pants. It’s not just that society tells us that a lower number means we’re more attractive, we feel that it is telling us that it means we’re more valuable.

Today, I’m going to suggest two better and more tangible measures of you as a person. While my hope is that we will all come to accept—dare I say love—ourselves for the indefinable, subjective facets of our personalities that truly make us who we are, for now I will suggest healthier, more productive, and ultimately more positive ways to measure yourself. The numbers we obsess over are just a very imperfect proxy for things that matter more.

How your clothing fits is so much more important than what size your clothing is or what size you are. More than that, the fit of your clothing tells you much more about your weight gain or loss than obsessing over what those digits mean. The average woman’s weight fluctuates up to seven pounds throughout the day. The three pounds you’re obsessing about are meaningless. What is meaningful is the way the waist of your jeans fits compared to how they used to. Measuring yourself by your clothing eliminates external standards that don’t apply to you—whatever size that model is, she is not you and you are not her. Your jeans, however, are yours, and if you once looked how you like looking in them, use that as the standard for how you want to look again. It’s at once concrete and personal, like all weight-management programs should be.

So stop squeezing yourself into clothing that is too small for you, either because you actively want to fit into a smaller size or because you can’t give up on your old favorite skirt. Whether or not you are ready to accept that your hips are actually incredibly attractive, you’ll have to accept that they look better when they’re not spilling over the waistband of your pants. You can see if you fit into something the way you should—it is tangible. If you can replace your desire to be an arbitrarily designated size with a desire to find flattering cuts, colors that complement your knock-out eyes and styles that highlight your assets, you will feel more beautiful and take a lot of unhealthy pressure off.
For me, giving up on old clothing was painful. One way to ease the pain is to have a clothing swap with your friends. You’d be surprised how many items you have that would look better on your freshman-year roommate and vice versa. This way, instead of losing a beloved skirt, you and a friend are both gaining awesome new items. Alternatively, go thrifting and buy cheap clothing to offset your losses. The point is, you’ll feel and look better in clothing that fits you right. It’s not just feel-good propaganda; it’s fact.

The other way you should start measuring yourself is by the physical gains you’ve been making through that exercise we talked about last week. When I started running, I couldn’t run a mile—I speed-walked it in 12 minutes that ended in a lot of ankle pain. These days, I can run a mile in 8 minutes. I’m certainly not a marathon runner, but through my own hard work and perseverance, I accomplished something that is good for me. There is nothing more concrete, tangible, or worthwhile than that.

Like your favorite jeans fitting again, accomplishments in the physical activity arena are often correlated with your thinness. Even more importantly, however, they are correlated with your health. The best thing that can happen to you on your weight loss journey is realizing it’s not a weight loss journey at all: it’s a health gain journey. Becoming healthier often involves becoming thinner, or maintaining a weight that works for you. But it also involves having a stronger heart and lungs, more toned (and incidentally, more attractive in that halter) muscles, and lower levels of stress. Focusing on health instead of on weight takes a lot of the low self-esteem out of becoming the weight you want to be. It will also increase the quality of your life, now and for your (newly extended, lower cholesterol) future. Focus on being good to your body, and I can almost guarantee your body will look better to you.

Please, throw your scale away. I know you, Ms. Scale-In-Her-Room, weighing herself at least twice a day (naked, before eating, or maybe after the shower because you can knock off two pounds from your wet hair). I was there. It is an obsession that will not only eventually drive you insane and make you feel worthless, but it is an obsession that won’t tell you as much about how you look as the fit of your clothing or the new-found height in your leap. There are scales in Worth and in Mullan, and they’ll be there when you can’t help yourself, I promise.

For those of you who are still too wedded to the scale to get rid of it, do this, at least, as a favor to me (or do this for someone you love; I am still grateful to the person who did this for me): Write “You Are Beautiful” right underneath the numbers’ read-out—because though the numbers are misleading, that is the ultimate, if currently unbelievable, truth.

Tamar is a senior. You can reach her at tlerer1@swarthmore.edu.