I get pretty annoyed with Oprah, because she’s such an influential woman, yet she has always advocated weight loss.

I was watching her show today, as I occasionally do, and they were talking about the effect of media on kids. One of the experts on the show was talking about the health effects of TV on children…how it contributes to less exercise, advertising unhealthy food, etc. He talked about the dramatic rise in obesity among children in the last decade or so, and it occurred to me:

If they replaced the word “obesity” with “poor health habits” or something similar, they’d pretty much be describing my position on the issue.

I see fatness only as a possible symptom of a larger problem. Not a disease in itself. Take the case of jaundice.

Let’s say your skin suddenly turns an alarming shade of yellow. Not only does it signal a potentially serious health hazard, but it looks gross to you. Now what seems more reasonable: going to the doctor and getting checked out for liver dysfunction, or buying a skin-bleaching kit from the drugstore (or a less reputable doctor) and doing everything possible to get rid of that unsightly yellow tint in your skin?

What if ‘getting rid of the yellow’ became culturally synonymous with curing liver problems?

And what if having a yellow tint to your skin became culturally synonymous with having poor health, despite the fact that some people naturally have a yellow tint to their skin, or can develop it through a lifetime of sun exposure?

What if skin-bleaching treatments didn’t work in the long-term, and what if some of them actually contributed to having yellowish skin?

That’s how I see fatness. For some people, it might be a natural state, not signaling any particular health problem. Perhaps it’s part of their genetic background, like people who have a yellowish flesh undertone. Or perhaps after repeated pregnancies or failed dieting attempts, they’ve developed this condition but are still in reasonably good health. And, perhaps, they have serious health problems that, when addressed, will result in them losing weight.

But to me, focusing on the weight itself when what you really intend to do is improve your health makes little sense. Why not focus on your health, which is very measurable through specific signals like heart-rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc., and let the weight take care of itself? If the weight is unhealthy for you, it will probably change as your health improves. If there is some reason your body feels the need to maintain a higher weight, it won’t change. So what’s the problem?

Most people I talk to who intend to lose weight give health as the #1 reason, but they often follow it up closely with reasons like wanting to fit into certain clothes, or look ‘good’ in a set of pictures, feel better about themselves, etc. Some people even baldly state ’shallow’ reasons such as wanting to make a former boyfriend drool, or looking better than another woman.

I think these reasons, even the ’shallow’ ones are very natural. But I still think focusing on weight is not the best way to go about it. I think that what you’re REALLY doing is chasing an American dream of sorts…it’s the dream that says, “Look pretty, be thin, and lead a happy life.” But the message is not always obvious; it’s insidious and can influence even some of the brightest people. I think:

*If you want to feel better about yourself, work on your self-esteem from the inside out, not the outside in. If you base your sense of self-worth on how you body looks, you set yourself up for failure since your body will inevitably age and change and at some point, it will no longer fit the cultural ideal (or anything approximating it.)

*If you want to look good in pictures, buy some clothes that FIT. Go to avenue.com, beninaandlu.com, or one of the many plus-sized clothes companies and buy yourself something NICE for once, instead of waiting to lose a certain amount of weight before buying new clothes. Get your makeup and hair done by a pro. Work to feel good about yourself NOW.

*If you want to make your ex drool, get ON with your life and do something fabulous with it. Don’t think about your ex at all…I guarantee that if it’s at all possible to make him/her crazy, this will do it.

*If you want to look better than another woman, love yourself. Respect yourself. Appreciating the beauty you have is a bigger victory than trying to scrape up more, or degrading someone else’s.