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October 18, 2009 - Looks-Obsessed Culture Making Us Unhealthy

by Father Edward L. Beck, C.P.

This week a former Ralph Lauren model says that she was fired for being too fat. Filippa Hamilton hardly looks fat. She’s 5 feet 10, weighs 120 pounds and wears a size 4. But obviously that’s too fat for Ralph Lauren because they digitally altered a photo of Hamilton to make her look emaciated. The company now says it was a mistake. This news comes on the heels of a report that Barbie, too, is considered too fat. A famous shoemaker says that the doll has “cankles”, a word I’d never heard before, which means FAT ANKLES. So he’s redesigning a new Barbie with less ankle meat. This while another famous designer Karl Lagerfeld says, “No one wants to see curvy women. You’ve got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly.” So, is this all just sour grapes, or chips? Do heavier people simply resent thinner people? Or is there a weightier issue, pun intended, at play here? We’ve known for a long time that models have to meet unrealistic standards, but what about the rest of us? In our looks-obsessed culture can any of us really measure up? And are we risking our health by trying to? This month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 25% of girls in U.S. high schools and 11% of boys reported eating disorders. And a Mayo Clinic study found that anorexia is on the rise among younger children. They report patients as young as four years old. Four! It’s getting a little crazy. This cannot be a good thing for any of us. And yes, I know that we all care about how we look, me included. But we have to try to find our self worth in a deeper, less corruptible place. Because, like it or not, looks fade and waistlines-- and apparently ankles--expand. Skin wrinkles and hair thins. The Scripture says don’t build your house on sand where rain and wind can wash it away. Build it on rock, so that it lasts. Same with our self worth. We are more than the physical. What lasts is spirit. Make sure you take some time to nurture and buff that part too. And the fatter, the better.

To watch Father Beck give the above Reflection, click here.