Fat - A Disturbing Reality for Women

By Samiya Anwar

From college going girls to housewives and working women, all seems to be on weight loss these days. Why not? Fat has always been a feminist issue. From years women and young girls have often embarrassed to be called a ‘fatty’ or ‘greasy’. They aim to have a svelte figure at any cost.

Yes, these are those females who aren’t happy. They complain of their bodies. They try to make it more acceptable in today’s world of slender bodies. The cardio exercise, yoga, slimming machines, weight loss techniques, everything the fat women try out to look more attractive.

The terms like ‘size zero’, 24-36-24, etc is highlighted by the media and it ruins the young minds. It puts tremendous pressure on young girls to lose weight aping the celebrity’s diets. Wrong or right, with less knowledge the Indian women are falling in the trap of model images in magazines.

I was shocked when my aunty told me she wants to lose weight. She is just 60 kgs. And for a mother of five children, 42year female I find no necessity to go for weight reduction. She looks good. But she is unhappy. She says all her friends are at weight loss centers working on their figure.

Other women Shambhavi, working as a teacher says, ‘I was happy the way I look. But the tremendous pressure to lose weight came from my students; everybody called me ‘Chubby Maa’m in school, which I dislike and came down to lose 15kgs at La Belle’. It is an encumbrance for average women to look like a model.

In a similar case a young girl barely 14years was at the same weight loss center arguing to reduce the weight. She was 50kgs and wants to lose 15kgs in the summer vacation. She says, she is the fat girl of her class and boys tease her for being weighty.

Though losing weight is no easy job, very difficult one. It is now becoming everybody’s cup of tea because the motivation comes from the paparazzi. The perfect figure is just a diet away, think most young girl. Fat is bad, thinness is good. They think in an insane manner. They are nuts. They are ready to ape a diet for a slim body.

Without any supervision they follow a crazy diet crazily for few days and this call for a doctor. It worries most of the doctors that people are blindly dieting to lose the fat. From one fad to another the youngsters are in pursuit of getting a figure of their favorite celebrity.

The top celebrities include Kareena kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Aniston. The banana diet, High Protein diet, orange juice diet and rice-curd diet is famous. Moreover, the weight-loss women don’t really aware of the side effects-falling hair, dark circle under eyes and sallow skin.

Since a year, the Kareena’s size zero has much hyped by media. And still from the masakali girl, Sonam Kapoor was 90 kgs sometime. Unimaginable! This fact shatters young girls. Nobody can make out that the actress once had weight issues looks absolutely stunning now. And from the Hollywood the youngsters ditch the diet quite easy. It is easy for them to google up the crazy diets and follows in ignorance. They don’t ask any expert or doctor.

In the second session of Dus Ka Dum by Salman Khan, Kareena was a first celebrity participant with Sister Karishma Kapoor. Salman had advice the Kareea to gain some weight become size zero is not attractive according to him and most Indian men prefer more curvy and lumpy bodies. With a little weight women looks more beautiful, he says..

Being overweight — or simply believing they are overweight — might predispose the teens to suicide attempts, according to a new study in US. It is reported that the ‘Youth feel very pressured to fit in and to fit certain limited ideals of beauty’

This is just really sad and awaking call for the people, who are obese since birth. It is merely observed that many women have stopped eating sugar. No sugar and no sweet, but still there is ‘no weight reduction’. They wonder how the celebrities work on diets and have such good figures.

It is a real challenge to eat less the entire time and maintains diet which not all are good at because it is really hard to stop eating those ‘yummy pizzas and cheese burgers’, chips, cookies, chocolates and all the junk fast food from the local stall and canteen.

Isn’t it?

There are few people who lose the weight quickly and add back soon. And some struggles but in vain. The baby fat doesn’t say ‘good bye’ all life and they end up striving for it. And it is a fact that those who lose weight regain it quickly. After too much of weight reduction the mind starts thinking in a reverse way. You suddenly want to gain back all the shed kilos.

But in today’s body-focused, weight-obsessed society, looking slim and trim is like something to die for. There is an external demand for women to stay ‘slim’ from boyfriends and husbands. They are forced to enter a crash diet only to look hot and happening to their mates.

Weight keeps the women off from top position says a recent study. It limits the career opportunities of women too. Mark Roehling, an associate professor of Human Resource Management at Michigan State University (MSU), has found that overweight and obese women in the U.S. are significantly underrepresented among the top CEOs. However, an online poll of 1,000 adult women has pointed that it is all about the women’s attitude and actions. It depends on how the women think and carry of themselves.

Nevertheless ness the self-esteem plays an important role because such studies only affect the minds of women who are already stressed with work and multiple roles of family and society. It reflect not only general negative stereotypes about the competencies of women, but also weight bias that results in the application of stricter appearance standards to women. Right!