Letter to my Fat Son

In What I’d Say to My Fat Son, Joshua Max writes movingly about his experience as a fat kid.

He began as a chubby kid with a belly who didn’t hate himself or his body, and grew into a bulimic teenager and adult--a man who may have been of normal weight, but who was filled with shame and body hatred.

It took years--plus $5,000 worth of dental work to fix teeth damaged by stomach acid from repeated regurgitation--but Max has come to a place of peace and body acceptance. What helps him? Making peace with his body and with other people. Surrounding himself with supportive friends. Focusing on small ways to help others when he starts to feel badly about his appearance.

Max’s plan for his potential future son: encourage him to be active, teach him about healthy eating, and help him not to focus too much on his weight. Finally, Max hopes to help his son avoid making value judgments about weight. “If someone hurts his feelings about his size,” writes Max, “we’ll talk about how people are uncomfortable with fat people because they see them as lazy, stupid, incompetent and ugly, but that fat people are none of those things inherently and some skinny people are also those things.” These are wise words from which we all could learn.

Boys' Body Image Worries

Eating disorders are usually considered the realm of women and girls. Boys, however, make up a growing share of those with body image concerns and eating disorders.

A recent study of adolescent boys, described at The Atlantic, concludes that boys, in contrast to girls, are usually less worried about thinness and are more worried about being muscular, leading them to fell pressure to gain weight.

Boys are increasingly susceptible to media images of men’s bodies. Like girls, they increasingly seek to emulate unachievable body types; but instead of trying to look like a supermodel, they’re trying to look like a superhero. Their ideal is to be like the Batman or Superman toy from their childhood, but only 1 or 2 percent of men naturally have the body type that is typically represented in action figures, according to Raymond Lemberg, a psychologist specializing in male eating disorders.

So rather than focus on thinness, boys are more likely to try to bulk up with steroids and protein powders, and through overexercise. But just as parents and professionals should be on the alert for signs of eating disorders among girls, they need to do the same with boys—looking for overconcern about weight and shape, as well as high-risk behaviors such as using steroids.

This development among males is disappointing. When people hope for equality of the sexes, I don’t think that the phenomenon of boys and men grappling with unrealistic body image standards is what they have in mind. 

What You Lose When You're a Perfectionist

When people think about perfectionism, they usually do so in relation to psychology; they look at it as a personality trait and see it as a reflection of someone’s character. In contrast, “The Agony of Perfectionism,” an article recently posted on TheAtlantic.com, explores perfectionism through the lens of economics. But despite the different approach, the economic takeaways arrive at the same conclusions as the psychological ones.

Economists once believed in the existence of the rational consumer. In theory, when a person had to make a purchasing decision, he or she would collect all available information about that potential purchase, weigh all the options, and in the end make a reasoned, well-informed choice about what to buy.

Anyone who has tried to buy a camera on Amazon or book a hotel on TripAdvisor, however, knows this is not possible. You face a vast number of choices and a wide range of passionate opinions. At a certain point you have to cut off your research and make a decision.

So some economists have divided consumers into two groups. One comprises people who strive to make their decisions in a rational way, seeking out as much information as they can get before they make their pick. These folks, called “maximizers,” want to examine all possible choices and to feel that they have made the best choice. Maximizers, in other words, are economic perfectionists. In contrast, the other group of consumers, called “satisficers,” aren’t perfectionists; they tend to settle for something they consider “good enough.”

So who’s happier with their purchase? The people who exhaustively research their purchases to find the best possible choice? Or the ones who put much less thought before they pull the trigger and buy? The satisficers, oddly enough. Despite all their research, maximizers are more likely to be filled with regret. Because the amount of information they can collect is limitless, they are always left wondering whether they made a mistake by not looking for more information, or by paying attention to the wrong information. There is always room for them to wonder whether they could have made a better choice.

Maximizers are also more susceptible to looking at others’ Facebook and Instagram posts and feeling badly about themselves and their choices. In the past, you were limited by your imagination in thinking that others were doing all sorts of cool stuff that you weren’t doing. Now, however, you can see actual photos of what they’re up to. You can Google them, easily learn about their achievements, and fuel your dissatisfaction and feeling of not measuring up.

In summarizing the research, the author makes the sad point that the maximizers/perfectionists work harder and perform better, but are also more likely to feel depressed and regretful. Whether you look at them from the psychological or economic point of view, the article encapsulates the challenge of striving to achieve and make good choices without pushing yourself to the point of dissatisfaction with all your choices.