Bear with an Image Problem

I called this blog Hale and Hearty Bear not because I had a positive attitude about my body, but because I actually wanted to acquire one.

Having and maintaining a positive body image is a hard road to walk when Society has such narrow margins for beauty, male or female. Accepting your body as it is, and wanting to be more fit, flexible, strong, and able, are not mutually exclusive concepts, but it requires that you don't expect your body to conform to some unachievable norm that either requires an entire lifestyle to maintain, or, was the construct of image manipulation software to begin with. 

See also: Megan Trainor's song lyrics "We know that shit ain't real, Come on now, make it stop."

Before I continue to talk about body image, it's important to remember that not everyone who is over-weight, or obese, perceives it as a problem, and not everyone who is naturally slim perceives it as an asset. There is so much noise about what is and is not healthy, and all of it amounts to numbers and statistics that are not, in anyway, indicative of health. This kind of thinking is part the industrial paradigm, in which, standardization and conformity are paramount. You are a human operating in a highly specialized, and individualized paradigm. 

Just look at what you're up against. We are constantly encouraged to set unattainable goals for ourselves, and our appearance is no exception. Who hasn't heard tropes like, "reach for the sky and you'll land amongst the stars, ask the impossible and you get the possible, never say never?" What perpetrators of these memes really want is for us to devote all possible resources toward financial success, appearance, and the acquisition of added value, material goods. They make their profit by facilitating your unhappiness, not the other way around. Every waking hour, of every single day, we are bombarded with images, and messages encouraging us to be dissatisfied with ourselves, our bodies, and our lives. Our consumer economy is, in fact, dependent on us working very hard to buy that car, those clothes, (in a smaller size) those shoes, a bigger house than we need, or even a vacation house, or three. We're told that a shiny rock is an expression of a man's love, and that the same bit of jewelry roughly represents a woman's "value." We know it's wrong, and yet, most of us still buy into it, on some level. Today, it isn't enough to be content, even if we are truly happy, we are constantly told we could be happier. No wonder the divorce rates are so high! Creating a general sense of dissatisfaction in the whole population has not only moved a ton of luxury goods, it keeps salons, gyms, and plastic surgeons in business. And it also sells a ton of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication, every, single, year. 

Clearly, the outside stimuli to perfect and correct our bodies isn't going anywhere. So it's up to us to recognize it for what it is, and choose not to buy into it. We must also forgive ourselves easily when we do inevitably slip-up and drink the Kool-Aid, because our media is more pervasive, insidious, and targeted than ever before. So, is it really all that surprising that the majority of men, and an even larger proportion of women report being unhappy with their bodies and appearance?

With the information overload of contemporary life, it's hard to know what is best for you. Even nutrition text books speak consistently about maintaining a "healthy weight." The problem is, the numbers we use to represent that, BMI (body mass index) are statistically anomalous: they and don't represent actual norms within our population. The numbers were only ever intended as a primary indicator to Doctors that further metabolic testing is merited. It was never intended as a means to judge anyone's health, and yet, we routinely used it as such. In other words, your BMI isn't any kind of indicator of your health: I cannot say this enough times! We have better measures of your metabolic wellbeing but none of these measure vitality, satisfaction, or happiness. Our most basic metrics of health are off, and a litany of competing, conflicting fad diets and super foods don't help. One minute coffee will kill you, the next it's the fountain of youth, but it's also staining your teeth and eating your enamel which will make you look older and endager your over-all health: we haven't even made it through breakfast and already we're on unstable ground!

So, what to do? I'm not really sure we, collectively, will ever escape the cycle of body shaming and appearance based dysphoria that so many of us fall victim to, and, if not accept our flaws, treat them with the same loving kindness we would - ideally - treat others. The truth is, we judge each other by a selection of rudimentary visual information like size, attractiveness, age, skin color, or eye shape, and make a whole suite of assumptions based on only that information. Making quick decisions about strangers is an evolutionary imperative, lest you be killed and eaten, but it doesn't always serve us well in contemporary society. In the culture of personality, with our collective celebrity worship, and obsession with youth, our outward appearance matters like it never has before. In the culture of character that we experienced in the early parts of the last century, your appearance wasn't your primary asset, and being overly concerned about it was considered frivolous vanity. Still, we can't know each individual we encounter, there just isn't time, and we would be constantly overwhelmed if we actually tried: there are just too many of us! We can, however, be aware of and try to curb the assumptions we make about others based only on their appearance. Knowing and accepting that every other human you meet is at least 90% cohort helps, and operating under the assumption that everyone you meet is basically doing their best to get through their day, doesn't hurt either. Before I get too far off topic with this analogue, I'll say this, people will judge you harshly based solely on your weight and appearance: they will not judge you as harshly as you judge yourself.

For me, moving towards a peaceful and contented relationship with my body requires a separation between striving, and perfecting; accepting that I won't ever achieve an idealized image that only exists in my head; and learning what's great about the way that I am put together. Like, check it out: if genetics are any indicator, on my current trajectory I will probably live a relatively healthy, relatively long life, in which I will rebound from any serious illness, and look approximately 10 years younger than most of my contemporaries: not bad at all. Thank you, Mom and Dad.

It would be arrogant of me to claim I had all, or even any of the answers. This is a struggle I share with too many others, and I'm still figuring it out for myself. I do know that it's never been as easy as stop disliking yourself and love your body the way it's made. In a way, saying you should just "do it" is it's own type of shaming. YES, self acceptance and love are the goal. NO, you can't just wake up one morning and decide "today I'm going to love myself." To quote Stuart Smalley, "because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." 

Yeah, right. 

Given everything that you are up against, self acceptance is practically an act of rebellion these days, and you know how people feel about upstarts, and rebels. That's right, they're going to put you right back in your place. You, non-conformist, you! Self acceptance and self-love are absolutely possible - I have to believe that - but don't expect it to be simple. You're going to have to fight for it!

Here is the best news: you completely, and totally deserve it!