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My height is 6'4", and on a good day I weigh 185 lbs. I've had this physique since my late teenage years. My friends used to call me "giraffe" and "beanpole" because of it, but it was never an issue. Back when I was growing up, in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, skinny people ruled.
Every cool dude had a visible ribcage, a distinct waist, and, oh my, a thigh gap. A paunch? A chubby face? Love handles? What the hell was that? We had no idea. Those body outgrowths were for the old folks who lived in the world of old people. The young populated a different reality where thinness was the golden standard of attractiveness.
When I entered the pool of fledgling surgeons in the early 80s, I remember discussing the chances of performing bariatric surgery (procedures that treat obesity) with my colleagues. All of us agreed that the probability of it happening was... zilch. There were 6 morbidly obese patients available in the entire country with about one hundred thousand surgeons eager to scrub in for the job. Arguably, we had better odds of winning that crazy jackpot than performing a Roux-en-Y bypass surgery.
FYI: Currently, American bariatric surgeons perform close to 200,000 procedures every year.
Those were the halcyon years when lean people were in the overwhelming majority, not just in Russia but in the United States as well. Slenderness was strongly associated with good health, and medical professionals consistently maintained that leanness was synonymous with healthiness. No self-respecting doctor would have implied that being overweight was better for your health. Not yet.
The situation clearly changed for the worse in the early 1990. That's when a new obese phenotype (a set of characteristics) started to form as a result of the interaction of our genotype and the obesogenic environment.
There was a seminal and very unfortunate development in the healthcare field. The healthcare professionals, who rightfully foresaw the dire consequences of obesity, overreacted. They declared a war on obesity:
Cut portions! Cut calories! Cut fats!
The chosen strategy of restrictions forced overweight people to endure hunger, deprivation, and enormous strain. This strategy elevated the level of stress to all new heights - American nation started oozing stress hormone cortisol by the kiloton. Chronic stress is our mortal enemy, and this strategy backfired.
The increased levels of cortisol elevate insulin levels causing the blood sugar to drop and trigger cravings. Unfortunately, it is in human nature to crave junk foods, sweet foods, and fatty foods. They comfort us and temporarily reduce stress, and they make us gain weight.
The misguided war on obesity, just like the war on drugs, proved to be an ultimate failure and only contributed to the obesity epidemic.
Today, Americans find it very difficult to come to terms with the debilitating disease of obesity. There's a certain degree of desperation in how people try to find justifications for it. We are a nation of believers, but believing in something and being delusional about something are two different things.
Creating militant myths and memes, such as body fat acceptance, body positivity, or body shape diversity, in my opinion, only contributes to the problem. One charming meme, which suggests that every self-respecting man over 40 must accumulate a certain amount of fat, eventually got the moniker "dad bod." I am not sure what does "dad bod" channel anyway. Derision? Endearment? A mixture of these conflicting sensibilities?
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