The Health Institute of Nutrition

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Self-Esteem Is Not For Everybody

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Dear Institute:

A year ago, I lost a lot of weight. I already know that I’m not going to be one of those rare 98% of people who can’t keep it off for more than five years, either, because I was able to keep it off for one year and now I just have to do that four more times. That’s the same way I figured out I could hold my breath underwater for five minutes if I really needed to.

Anyway, though, the problem I’m having… well, this is embarrassing. The problem I’m having is that I’m having problems.

I am 5′6″, I weigh 115 pounds, and my life is not perfect. I worked so hard to lose weight and I’m still working hard to keep it off. Aren’t I entitled to something for that? Yeah, OK, when I first lost the weight I felt great and it seemed like I got more attention from men on the street, but that didn’t translate to finding my soul mate and having the dream wedding that completes my life. I also got more compliments around the office but my career never really took off, either. What gives?

The worst part is I’m not feeling particularly happy. When I was fat, alone, and stuck in a dead-end job, I always knew that if I could just lose weight that I wouldn’t care about the other things. Well, I lost the weight and I still care, for some reason.

Worse, I see fat people all around me who are happy. Not just with their size, but with their whole lot in life. They love their jobs, they love their homes, they love themselves, they love the husbands and wives they claim to somehow have attracted.

This is what I really want to know, Institute. If I’m the one who did all this work, why do they get to be happy and not me? Do I need to lose more weight?

-Sadly Lacking in Waukegan

Dear Sadly

We feel for you. We truly do. While we hasten to point out that you could stand to lose more weight, as your current BMI is 1/10th of a point over the low end of the normal range, we regret very much to tell you that this alone will not make you any happier. What you’re feeling is a sign of the times, unfortunately. You may consider yourself another casualty of the “fat acceptance” movement.

When you skip lunch to go to the gym, you should feel awesome. You should feel incredible. The great feeling you get for making the right decision should last all afternoon and into the evening.

Yet it doesn’t, does it? In fact, you probably regret the decision within minutes of making it and then feel terrible for the rest of the day.

And there are fat people—perhaps in your office, even—who will have a hot dog for lunch or a slice of cheesecake for dessert, and instead of feeling lingering guilt with every bite they eat… instead of ordering a second round of everything to try to fill some invisible void and then feeling bloated and gross all afternoon… instead of obsessing the whole time about what they look like and what passersby must think of them… they simply enjoy their meal for what it is and then go on with their day!

How can this happen?

It’s tragically simple. You see, happiness is what is known in scienterrific circles as a “zero-sum game”. This means there is only so much of it to go around. The happier other people are allowed to be, the less happiness there is left for you.

When you were fat, this lack of happiness was not a problem for you in particular, but now that you are thin and entitled to greater happiness you’re running into a situation where the level of happiness you’ve earned is simply not available.

Past generations were able to successfully manage the supply of happiness by severely restricting access to it based on a variety of criteria. Race, sex, religion, socio-economic class, sexual orientation—all aspects of a person’s life, in other words—were all carefully examined in order to determine how much or how little happiness a person would be allowed to accrue. These factors still come to bear, but throughout the last century they have all fallen out of favor to varying degrees.

That sort of social progress is laudable, we suppose, but it leaves us with the basic problem of too many people and not enough happiness to go around.

Fortunately, the obesity epidemic provided us with a simple and obvious solution to the conundrum: if fat people are miserable, then thin people can afford to be happy. And unlike the other forms of happiness rationing that were popular in the past, this one is based on actual merit. Everybody knows that thin people deserve to be happy, just as they know that fat people deserve to be miserable as their punishment for choosing to be fat.

The new system worked very well for years, but it has been breaking down recently. Why? Because fat people—being naturally lazy—have stopped keeping up their side of the bargain. They’ve stopped feeling miserable. They’ve started feeling happy. Since they have not done the arduous work that you and every other thin person has obviously done, this is the same as stealing.

The solution is obvious. If you want to feel happier with your own life, the solution is not to lose more weight… it’s to make fat people fell less happy with their lives. Cut a fat person down today! There are many ways to do this. You can stare at them, or even point. You can ask them questions about their health and eating habits. You can encourage your leglislators to score political points by proposing outlandish laws that will marginalize them even further. Go nuts. There’s no wrong way to do this. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. Remember, they stole your happiness in the first place.

You’ll know that you’ve succeeded when you feel happy with yourself and secure with your place in life*. If you make a lot of other people feel miserable and still aren’t happy, it only means you aren’t trying hard enough.

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*Results not typical.