Composition Kitchen

“Beauty is in the Eye of Another” “What’s Eating You” –Food for Thought

Food is essential to life itself. Every living organism needs food in order to survive. The kind of food that’s consumed is the issue. As people we have the right to chose what we eat and when we eat it.

When we eat we don’t think of the outcome of our consumption choices. Sometimes we don’t even think about how much we consume. The only thing we do think about is fulfilling the urge we have to eat. Doctors encourage us to eat healthy and exercise daily in order to fulfill a healthy lifestyle. Although it’s easy to agree to eat healthier it is harder to actually do it. Theories of Hunger and Eating Behaviors can explain why it is hard for us to maintain a healthy diet, let alone commit to one. There’s the Drive-Reduction Theory of Hunger; which makes us feel certain drives (hunger, thirst) and then act in ways to reduce those drives (eat, drink) (Emotion & Motivation Lecture 2012). Next, is Internal-External Theory of hunger; which occurs when obese people are motivated to eat more by external cues (advertisements, smell of foods) than internal cues (biological indicators like low glucose levels) (Emotion & Motivation Lecture 2012). The Glucostatic theory can also explain why we have this natural (Biological) urge to eat, which occurs once our blood glucose levels drop and creates a drive to eat (Emotion & Motivation Lecture 2012). There are people who can eat tons of food and still maintain a specific weight, while there are also those who do the exact opposite. Their ability to do this comes from our bodies natural a set point. This is a genetically programmed set point for a person’s body fat, muscle, and metabolism to maintain this particular weight (Emotion & Motivation Lecture 2012).

Many health professionals use the body mass index scale (BMI) to quickly assess a person’s weight. The purpose of the scale is to predict a person’s body fat percentage, in hope of determining the risk of chronic diseases and whether any lifestyle changes should be done to help control weight gain. The BMI scale only takes height and weight into account, and fails to recognize age and gender. So, because of this it may not be the most accurate means of determining body fat and diagnosing obesity. For example, if you’re a body builder, chances are your body fat percentage is pretty low and your lean body mass id impressive. Since, the BMI scale only knows your weight; it probably won’t know that you train nearly every day to look that way. So due to body mass being a contributor to your weight, you’d be classified as overweight. The same goes for people with shorter legs; whim may be classified as overweight even when they are not.

The human body mass index scale is not the only thing contributing to this problem involving weight and obesity inaccuracy. The media also plays a huge role on how people view themselves and others as “Skinny, fat, healthy, overweight, and or beautiful”. Factors, such as reality TV shows, advertisements, commercials and models are the main sources of influence. They feed us what they want us to believe a person should or shouldn’t look like. The biggest problem with this is the perception that one adopts about their self and body image. The old definition of beauty seems to have been swept under the bony underbelly of the beauty and fashion industry. In its place, is an idolatry of bony and paper-thin (Sanders 2011).

So much unhappiness comes from this, because it is so hard to compare yourself to what the media perceives as perfect. I don’t believe that the media thinks about the amount of negativity they put out to help sale a product or let alone what they influence upon a person’s self-esteem. How is mere skin and bones beautiful? How does the image of a skeletal model radiate sex appeal or conjure feelings of envy in young adults? Since when was the media given the power to define what beauty looks like? (Sanders 2011). Let’s not forget that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not the media (Sanders 2011). We feed off of tabloids, fitness magazines and buy into miracle workout programs for the wrong reasons, and look what we end up with: eating disorders, self-esteem issues and a falsified conception of beauty and normality (Sanders 2011). Being born beautiful may not always be an option, but media discretion certainly is — perhaps it’s time we start using it (Sanders 2011).

The topic I chose to write about related to me in so many ways. I do not have an eating disorder, but I have been told and influenced by other people on what I should look like and how much I should weigh. I was born premature along with my twin brother, Raymond. We were highly undeveloped in every way you could think of, from undeveloped brains, lungs and hearts. We were constantly told we were underweight, but as we got older we were constantly told we were obese. This being easier on my brother and harder on I, simply because I was a girl and I cared what people thought about me. This obstacle eventually turned into a personal battle with me. I used to want to be skinny so bad, and wear the clothes that the girls wore in the hottest magazines. I used to try to diet and sign up for work out programs until I realized what I was doing to myself. I had to realize that in order for me to be happy I had to love myself; the way I was and that no one is perfect. Today I tell myself that there’s always room for improvement , but there will never be complete perfection, because beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder and that beholder is you.