When I was growing up, my father would often joke about how when he was a child and brought home a test from school on which he had scored a 98: His father, my father told me, would ask him, half-seriously, “What happened with the other two points?”
I didn’t think much of my father’s story, other than to associate it with my grandfather’s expectations of good grades and high achievement—expectations which he also had for his grandchildren. But in recent years, I have heard similar stories from many different patients—people from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. When people tell me that they remember parents saying this to them about their schoolwork, it often turns out that these people have high standards and expectations for themselves as adults.
Despite being accomplished and successful, they frequently wish they’d done more in their career or feel disappointed with their achievements.
So I was interested to read a recent New York Times profile of Peter Orszag, the new White House budget director and, at 40, the youngest member of the President’s cabinet. In the article, he talked about his work ethic:
Orszag, who grew up in Lexington, Mass., has always worked himself punishingly hard—a legacy, he says, from a math-professor father who glanced at test scores of 98 and asked about the 2 other points. “It was always, ‘When I was your age, I was a tenured professor,’ ” he said.
For some people, extremely high expectations spur them on to high achievement. For others, it demoralizes them; no matter how well they do, they feel they have fallen short. Not everyone has been as successful in the workplace as Peter Orszag, and for most of us, there will always be someone out there who is doing more or doing better. The challenge is learning how to work hard and strive for goals—but rather than measuring yourself against perfection or superachievers, setting your own goals and learning how to take satisfaction from reaching them.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Obesity Prejudice in the News
Recently, colleagues on an eating-disorder message board were discussing the value of using weight-loss drugs to help reduce people's weight. (The consensus: There is very little evidence that the drugs lead to meaningful, sustainable weight loss.)
The discussion raised the question of how we see weight. Is being overweight and having a high body-mass index immediately indicative of health problems? Or is a high BMI one of several indicators of poor health? Not everyone who is overweight is unhealthy, and not everyone who is of normal weight is healthy. As one person on the mailing list put it, when we automatically consider someone with a high BMI to be unhealthy, it's as if we are saying that tall people are at a greater risk of medical problems—and then jumping to the conclusion that tallness itself is the disease we need to treat.
Soon after this discussion, I came across the following article on The Daily Beast [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-04/fat-judges-need-not-apply/] about the candidates for the Supreme Court replacement for David Souter. The article suggests that some Democrats—who want Obama's appointments to be on the court for as long as possible—are using weight and thinness as a proxy for health and longevity. In this case, they prefer thinner candidates, such as Diane Wood and Kim McLane Wardlaw over the heavier ones, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Their belief is that because Kagan and Sotomayor are heavier, they are less healthy and likely to die younger. (Although not slim, neither woman is obese.)
This is a widely held view—that thin equals good and healthy and that fat equals bad, unhealthy and likely to die an early death. Yes, it is true that, on average, obesity is associated with a higher risk of death. But that doesn't mean that any given thin person will outlive someone who is heavier.
What I actually see in this particular Supreme Court debate is a weight prejudice doctored up as a health concern. Underneath the seeming concern about longevity is the dismissal of two women who do not completely fit social expectations for appearance.
The discussion raised the question of how we see weight. Is being overweight and having a high body-mass index immediately indicative of health problems? Or is a high BMI one of several indicators of poor health? Not everyone who is overweight is unhealthy, and not everyone who is of normal weight is healthy. As one person on the mailing list put it, when we automatically consider someone with a high BMI to be unhealthy, it's as if we are saying that tall people are at a greater risk of medical problems—and then jumping to the conclusion that tallness itself is the disease we need to treat.
Soon after this discussion, I came across the following article on The Daily Beast [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-04/fat-judges-need-not-apply/] about the candidates for the Supreme Court replacement for David Souter. The article suggests that some Democrats—who want Obama's appointments to be on the court for as long as possible—are using weight and thinness as a proxy for health and longevity. In this case, they prefer thinner candidates, such as Diane Wood and Kim McLane Wardlaw over the heavier ones, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Their belief is that because Kagan and Sotomayor are heavier, they are less healthy and likely to die younger. (Although not slim, neither woman is obese.)
This is a widely held view—that thin equals good and healthy and that fat equals bad, unhealthy and likely to die an early death. Yes, it is true that, on average, obesity is associated with a higher risk of death. But that doesn't mean that any given thin person will outlive someone who is heavier.
What I actually see in this particular Supreme Court debate is a weight prejudice doctored up as a health concern. Underneath the seeming concern about longevity is the dismissal of two women who do not completely fit social expectations for appearance.
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