What Really Motivates Us to Lose Weight?

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I was inspired to do a little bit of soul-searching this week by two books I recently read. One was a book about weight issues - the other one was about horses.

Did you see the wonderful movie about the amazing racehorse Seabiscuit? I did - and I loved it so much I immediately ran out and bought the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand. It's just as exciting as the movie (I forgot to get off at my bus stop on the way home because I was so engrossed in the last chapter - and I already knew how it was going to come out!)

One thing the book included, but the movie only hints at, is the extreme measures that jockeys took in the 1930's in order to stay below the required weight standards. If they got "overweight" they were out of a job. The list of procedures - from caustic emetics to running laps while their bodies were encased in rubber - could be termed "sadistic" if they hadn't been voluntary.

If the only job you know and love depends upon such strong measures, you do whatever it takes. Our need to belong to our chosen group is a very powerful motivating force.

That, of course, made me think of the teenaged girls who risk their health and life by acting like depression-era jockeys - the bulimic and anorexic young women for whom being thin is more important than life itself. According to Robert Pool, author of Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic, anorexia is almost always found among the wealthy - while being overweight is, at least for women, primarily found among the rest of us who aren't rich. In fact, one of the most important predictor of a woman's adult weight is the salary her father earned when she was a teenager.

Why would a father's income affect an adult woman's weight? I have a suspicion that it's partly because one of our strongest instincts is to fit in, to be part of the crowd, to belong. It isn't about money - it's about high-school.

Wealthy women, who can afford those French couture clothes that only fit broomsticks, may have less tolerance of the "lack of control" that is implied by being overweight. If that prejudice carries over into the expensive private high-schools and universities, (and I'm sure it does), wealthy teenaged girls would be highly motivated to be aware of the cause-and-effect of their diets. For most of them, of course, it leads to a healthy life-long interest in sports, good food, and fitness.

For an obsessive few it can lead to the mental illness called anorexia.

And it is in high-school, among our peers, that many of our life-long habits are set.

I discovered, as I thought about those emaciated jockeys and about the power of peer pressure, that I have the unrealistic expectation that I "should" want to stay thin because it's healthy, and not because my thin rear end looks better in my jeans.

However, what really motivates me the most is not long term health (even though, as a breast cancer survivor, you would think health would be foremost in my mind).

My strongest motivation is what I see in the mirror every day, and what I believe others will think about it.

Why? Because I know that other people have expectations and prejudices about the way attractive, successful people are "supposed" to look. And I want to be considered a successful, reasonably attractive person. It's all about that instinct to fit in, to belong, to be part of the crowd.

I'm a firm believer in accepting our instinctive nature, because if we fight our instincts we almost always lose. However, if we become aware of our instincts, and stay conscious of them, we can rise above our instincts and make more rational decisions.

Why would we have such a strong instinct to fit in? Because our ancestors, for millions of years, were dependent upon their small family group in an untamed world - where being shunned was a death sentence. The individual who decided to "go it alone" would quickly become tiger food.

What all this rumination has made me understand is that I've been trying to force myself to stay motivated for the "right" reasons (because good food is good for me, and being overweight is unhealthy). Instead, I should go with my instinctive desire to fit in - if being "vain" about how my butt looks in those jeans is the carrot that keeps me on a healthy diet, then why should I try to dampen such a powerful motivator?

But it also made me think that perhaps our society's tolerance of obesity, especially among high-school kids, may be setting them up for very expensive and painful health problems down the road. If there were a way to create a strong anti-fat peer pressure among the not-so-rich girls in our nation's schools, we might actually be doing them a favor.

Especially if it could be done in a way that didn't push the obsessive few into anorexia.

What a complex problem - building a society that tolerates diversity while rewarding healthy behavior requires teachers and parents who understand how to walk a very thin line between motivation and prejudice.

If you have any ideas on this subject, please send them in so I can share them with our subscribers. Send them to mailto:jonni@howtothinkthin.com with FEEDBACK in the subject line.

Yours in good health,

PS.

Is your addiction to sugar making you fat? Read Weight Loss: How to Keep Your Commitment, and learn simple mental exercises that let you rise above your instinctive cravings. http://www.howtothinkthin.com

PPS.

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PPPS.

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@2003 Jonni Good
http://www.stress-free-weight-loss.com