Fat O Meter

I am a graduate assistant (GA) in a nursing program in a Southern university. I am in a Masters program for Nursing Education. As a GA I help to teach a health assessment course and grade papers for a nursing research class.

Today, in health assessment, our nursing students were weighing and measuring each other and calculating body mass indexes (BMI). They were also taught to estimate fat with the old skin fold calipers which are actually called "FAT O METERS". No joke. These are girls who come to class every week with curled hair and full faces of makeup.

After finding out how fat they were they had to estimate their "frame size" by measuring their parts of their elbows. Do I really need to tell you that there was a ton of disappointment and self criticism in today's class? I doubt it. 

The scale was tucked away in a corner, so that no student's weight would be made public. The two male nursing students in the class approached the scale. As I pulled a curtain to allow them privacy, they announced that they didn't care if anyone saw how much they weighed. They weren't skinny either. Must be nice. 

While the students discovered they were big boned and obese or overweight, the professors battled out their struggles. One of the instructors from the neighboring class came in to weigh herself on our scale because she believed the scale in her room to be off by three pounds. She suspected her scale was off because SHE WEIGHS HERSELF EVERYDAY and knows exactly how much she weighs. She shamed herself by stating she wouldn't have to weigh herself everyday now if she had been weighing herself before she got fat.

Another professor goes to daily exercise classes and was stressed at the beginning of the semester that exercise wouldn't fit into her busy schedule of momming, teaching and general taking care of business. 

One nursing instructor has turned her weight into a teaching moment in pretty much every class, referring to herself as "short and obese". Sure, she's a little overweight but when I look at her I think of words like "smart", "perky" and "nymph". The women I'm describing are accomplished, intelligent, interesting and compassionate women.

Lunchtime at school and work is full of women having conversations about food intake and exercise. Dissatisfaction with our bodies know no boundaries. Level of education, age and child bearing does not excuse you from body and weight obsession. This beast of burden does not even take a lunch break.

My mother in law comes to visit and eats exactly 1/3 of every meal to maintain her impossibly slim shape. What food she does consume is quickly burned off by a rigorous exercise schedule. As I result I feel like some kind of beast for finishing my meals.

I'm no exception to the people I've described. I spend an exorbitant amount of time thinking about food, exercise and new hair colors (more of a copper please!). While I shame myself for never being pleased with my appearance I none the less engage in the behaviors I despise, adding an additional level of complex ridiculousness to my self loathing.

Today as I looked at the perfectly coiffed hairstyles of perfectly smart young women I wondered how much more interesting the world would be if we weren't so concerned with our appearances. We may have come a long way as a gender. We may think that we enjoy our primping or that it's under control, but if we were all blind would we miss it? Unfortunately the only circumstance I can imagine in which women were not over scrutinized for their appearances is one in which the world was blind. That's so pathetic.