Overweight & overconfident

By Shaquana Nelson
Photos by Shaquana Nelson

The movie "Precious" has its 16-year-old main character not only dealing with a dysfunctional family life, but also the social stigma of being overweight.

In the role of Claireece "Precious" Jones, actress Gabourey Sidibe fantasizes about being a thin, pretty, white blonde. It is another world where she is loved and appreciated. Clearly Precious has low self-esteem that affects her life tremendously - unlike a rising tide of teenagers these days.

Sidibe, 27, who has earned praises and awards for playing the illiterate and tormented Claireece, seems to take her more than 300 pounds in stride in real life and is among a growing number of women, both teens and adults, doing so.

“I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don't like myself, there's no reason to even live the life,” Sidibe told New York magazine last year. “I love the way I look. I'm fine with it. And if my body changes, I'll be fine with that.”

She echoes the feelings of some students at Chicago's Best Practice High School. "I love all my curves," Tiona McMahon said during an interview in May.

"I am very confident in my own skin; I love the way that I look," the 17-year-old added. "I don't think everybody should be a size 5 or 6. God made us all unique in some way."

Teens like McMahon are finding support from advocates such as the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University and the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, which has defended Sidibe. NAAFA joins the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination and The Fat Rights Coalition as part of a movement that started becoming vocal in the 1960s.

Though being overweight is not a great thing, it's not so bad either. A group of researchers that included Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research published a report in 2009 that found overweight people live longer than underweight, normal weight and obese people.

The Body Mass Index is the standard scale for determining whether someone is overweight or obese. Though the two terms are similar, each is different in its own way. An adult woman is overweight if her BMI level is 25 to 29.9. Anything higher, she is considered obese, meaning the body is carrying excess fat.

A National Center for Health Statistics study found that about 33 percent of Americans were overweight, more than 34 percent were obese and about 6 percent were classified as "extremely" obese.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers a BMI calculator at www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi. Citing highly trained athletes, the federal agency cautions at the website: “BMI is not a direct measure of body fatness and that BMI is calculated from an individual's weight which includes both muscle and fat.”

But that awareness is little comfort for most teens weighed down with extra pounds. Nearly 30 percent of U.S. adolescents are overweight and about half that number are obese, according to the American Obesity Association. Black teenage girls are more prone to be overweight than most of their racial counterparts, a federal report from the Office of the Surgeon General noted.

Teens with pounds above what is considered normal for their age and height face social stigma, being subjects of jokes and even discrimination. Health concerns for overweight and obese adolescents range from gastrointestinal diseases to respiratory and cardiac problems to skeletal ailments to emotional consequences, such as low self-esteem and depression.

Mary Claybrooks, a 16-year-old student at Best Practice, said she could relate to those problems.

"When I look in the mirror I see myself as thicker than a Snicker with a Milky Way on top,” she said during an interview at school. "Throughout the day when [I'm] trying to fit in desks and in tinier seats, my self-esteem level fluctuates. I wouldn't say that I am with or against me being overweight, but when I see other people I am kind of disgusted. I think that they should start ordering apple dippers instead of fries when they go to McDonald's.”

NAAFA and other fat-acceptance support organizations do not think the BMI gauges the full story of a girl being comfortable in her own skin, even if it means carrying extra pounds. Advocates large and small are speaking up more as their numbers increase.

"We're promoting health at every size," Kate Harding, a 34-year-old author in Chicago, said in a 2009 Weight Loss Central Web article. "Being fat does not make me lazy or stupid."

Harding's blog site, Shapely Prose, has registered about 10 million hits since being established in 2007.

The nation's fast-food culture and lack of exercise among teens are seen as contributing factors to the bulging ranks of the overweight.

"I think that teens can prevent [themselves] from becoming obese by balancing some kind of diet and at least exercising two to three times a week,” said Best Practice student McMahon. “Just basically staying active.”

Theresa Hernandez, a Spanish teacher at the school on Chicago's West Side, said, "I think teen obesity is getting out of control mainly because they [school districts] have cut back on all of the physical education in the schools and in sports. So students are really not being pushed to perform or do any work.

“When I see my students being overweight it really doesn't bother me,” she added. “I'm just mostly worried about them academically and not failing my class. I think students should be informed more on the better choices they have when it comes to snacks."

McMahon sides with Hernandez. “I really don't have a problem with teens being overweight as long as they take care of themselves and remain healthy,” the teen said.

Shaquana Nelson attends Best Practice High School in Chicago.