The Weight of Beauty

Obesophobia or Pocrescophobia = the fear of gaining weight

I recently saw an article about the high percentage of teenage girls who have a fear of gaining weight. The article called this fear “weight terror,” but it’s technical phobia name is above (which I just Googled to find out). I know this fear all too well. It’s been about ten years since I found myself in the midst of a struggle with what the psychological word calls a subclinical eating disorder. I have already written some about this, but this article as well as some other readings have prompted me to reflect on how the Lord rescued me from a prison of disordered eating – a prison I had unwittingly created for myself. And, honestly, there are still times I am tempted to fall into those old patterns of thinking; patterns that lead to nothing but destruction.

There are many heart issues and sinful desires that prompt and propel eating disorders. Most of the time you hear of women talk about wanting more control in their lives, and food and weight seem to be the only area of their lives where they seem like they have control. But that is not the case for all who struggle with their body image and that was not the case with me. Mine stemmed from an intense fear of becoming fat, which is no doubt a fruit of pride and fear of man, but was fueled by the standards of beauty in our culture and the standards of beauty in my own family. Even though my dad never directed any comments toward me regarding my looks or my weight, I took his comments regarding the weights of people on TV or people in real life to heart. Whether consciously or subconsciously, I took those comments to mean one thing: to be fat means losing my dad’s approval (and the approval of others). My dad had no idea he was sending this message with his comments and my sister didn’t pick up on that same message, but for some reason I did and it influenced the way I saw myself and the standards I set for myself regarding food, my weight, and my body image.

This is not to say that people who struggle with weight/food/body image are not responsible for their actions. We are. We may not be responsible for the messages we receive or the pressure we feel to be thin or look a certain way, but we are responsible to how we react, what we do with what we hear and feel. We are responsible for the priority we place of food and weight. We are responsible for making it our idol and letting it consume us. And consume us it will if God and others do not intervene.

Some were fools through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destruction.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and tell of his deeds in songs of joy! Psalm 107:17-22

It is no secret that thinness is one of the standards of beauty in our culture (and in much of the Western, developed world). Models, Hollywood, and even cartoon characters all praise women who have tiny waists. Skinniness and other standards of beauty in our culture are exploited at almost every turn: billboards, commercials, magazine ads, etc. Each one sends a message to both men and women. Scantily clad women abound in our culture, each presenting the woman’s body as an object to be desired or exploited or coveted. One of the many ills of feminism I suppose. Men are not the only ones affected by such sexualized ads; women also are affected. We are presented with a standard that is impossible to attain. I cannot compete with the women in advertisements, but, then again, neither can the models who are actually in the advertisements. The truth is that the printed images are lies. The women in those ads have been airbrushed and photoshopped to perfection. They are thinner and tanner; they’re blemishes and cellulite and stretch marks have been erased; their eyes have been widened and their legs lengthened. Even they cannot compete with their own falsified images. But that is the standard of beauty nonetheless and every woman, to some extent, feels the pressure to conform to it.

But those are the things that are seen. The Bible tells us to focus on what is unseen. The Bible gives and lifts up a different standard for women; one that focuses on a woman’s dignity and character. There are many women in the Bible who are described as being beautiful (Sarah, Rebekah, Bathsheba, Esther, etc.), but it is their character that gives them true beauty. This inner beauty is what God invites women to strive for and men to look for. External beauty pales in comparison (and is temporary anyway).

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. 1 Peter 3:3-4

So, once again, our culture and our world have the focus all wrong. And I suppose the marring of and exploitation of beauty will only grow worse as our society continues to lose its moral compass (because how can you focus on the unseen, inner beauty when you don't even have a standard of what is truly good and lovely and right?). Outer beauty is fleeting. Standards of beauty change. But God’s Word never changes; it abides forever (1 Peter 1:24-25). And God’s Word says that God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7) and that beauty is vain (Proverbs 31:30) and that cultivating inner beauty is precious to the Lord (1 Peter 3:4). The world looks at the outer appearance, but the Lord looks at the inward disposition of the heart. The former passes away like the flower of the field, but the latter remains forever when it is a heart truly given over to and made new by Christ.