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The question bears repeating and it does weigh heavily, pun intended fully. If you are a woman in this country, is fat truly the worst thing you can be? We posed the question to both fat and thin girls as well as a handful of men, and here’s the skinny: the answers varied as much as their respective weights did.

Sally, at 29, considers herself around 20 lbs. overweight. “I exercise regularly and I eat right. But in this country? It is tough to be fat. Mainly because you can’t buy clothes. Local stores “Large” size is a joke. It fits only one of my breasts. The other thing is that people make assumptions if you’re fat, like you’re psychologically ill, or you’re lazy or you stuff yourself like a pig. They think that if you’re fat, you deserve it. There isn’t enough information about the variety of sizes can be and if they crack jokes about you, you have to take it—because you’re supposed to be the happy, funny, jolly fat girl. Beauty isn’t always about being skinny and waifish.”

“Of course, I’d like to be thin. Mostly be able to wear the clothes I want to wear.” Says Maya, 32, who has battled the bulge all her life and after having her daughter, weighs in at 145 lbs. “…and I do watch what I eat and I exercise, even though I don’t diet. My ideal weight is probably around 120 lbs., but even though I might get to my ideal weight, I’ll never be a petite gamine like Audrey Hepburn. I’ll always have flesh on my bones. It’s taken me a long time to accept that. Is it the worst thing in the world? Oh there will be people out there…ironically, most of them women…who will try to make it that way. But why should you let them? My being heavy has not interfered with my living a good life—it hasn’t interfered with love or family. It’s interfered with my desire to wear sleeveless tops, but I’d say that’s about it.”

Says Rose, 30, “I know lots of fat women with happy relationships and lots of model-built girls with no dates. It’s known that “big” and “babe” aren’t a contradiction. Lose weight because it makes you feel physically better, not because you think it will change your life. Besides, once you tie your self-esteem to being thin, you’ll never be thin enough. Do that and you chain yourself to a hamster wheel of pounds, ounces and obsessive calorie-counting.”

Tess, at a wonderfully mature 24 and an equally wonderful girth, has accepted her weight and size, shrugs the whole issue off with abandon. “You have to learn that some bodies are meant to be a certain size…and get on with it. I’m happy the way I am. As for clothes, it does get annoying, but you just have to scout around, buy abroad, and have nice things made…and every now and then walk in at Marks and Spencer and get your size.”

From the Skinnies
Very often, when it comes to fat, common sense flies out of the window. In fact, what is common is really extreme body image problem on the part of women who don’t even have weight problems. Women who are decidedly not fat, believe themselves to be. Body image problems like neurosis and paranoia all come pouring out of women who are unmistakably slim but consider themselves out-of-weight. Some have a few problem areas, parts of their body that need toning, but the word “fat” cannot be rightfully applied to them. One svelte woman even said that the only thing worst than being fat is being dead…and she said this in a tone that suggest that fat people might as well go off and kill themselves. Kathryn, 25, who is tall and skinny, says she’d rather be diagnosed with cancer than be fat. Lani, who claims she constantly battles those last five pounds but looks eternally slim, says she’d rather be diagnosed HIV-positive than fat. Paula, 26, who is 5’3” and 106 lbs. says that when she feels fat, she doesn’t eat rice, bread or pasta for one whole week. Janice, 24, started dieting at 11, and she’s an obsessive-compulsive exerciser who punishes herself by not eating on days that she can’t go to the gym. These women, and there are many like them, are not fat at all. Not by a long shot. And as thin as they are, they’re never happy with the way they look, either.

What the Men Say
Of course, apart from the fashion issue, there is the relationship issue. Supposedly, one reason why a woman may not have found love or a satisfying relationship is because she’s fat. The assumption is men don’t like fat women and it does seem to be true…as a general rule. To test the theory, we asked the men the same question, point-blank, and while we cannot deny many men prefer to weigh more than their prospective girlfriends and like their women slim and slender, the situation is not as dire as all that. There are men who, as they say, like a little flesh, a little curvaceousness.

“Face is more important than fat to me,” says Mark, a lawyer. “A beautiful face can make up for a so-so body.”

“I’d prefer to date a woman who is fat than skinny and emaciated…but of course, it depends on how fat she is. It’s really about how a woman carries herself. I had a friend in college who was incredibly sexy…although on the chubby side. So it’s not about fat, per se.” This from Mark, a marketing manager.

“I hate that too-thin look where you can see the bones of a woman—like her ribs or the bones in her face. Ally McBeal is not sexy. Not to me, anyway. I like a more cushy body more than a hard or skinny one,” Gary, a writer says.

The Hard Fats-er-Facts
Of course, we can’t deny that in this country especially, there is a general preconception with a woman’s shape and weight, which sometimes verges on obsessive. As dermatologist and liposuction expert, Dr. Vicki Bello, said in the Philippine Star, that in this country, people talk about weight instead of the weather. “(Here), greetings normally have to do with the other person’s weight. O, payat payat mo na! or Ang taba taba mo ngayon.” Belo also says however that most men “like big buttocks” and they “like a little fat on their women.”

Despite this, the preoccupation remains. Perhaps it started because Asians in general are leaner than Caucasians. But now that virtually every variety of high-fat greasy spoon fast-food is readily available, is it any wonder that more and more women are battling the scales? Since ours is precisely that kind of conservative society that raises its women to be pleasing to the eye, in particular, a man’s eye and measures her success via her physical attributes and her ability to win men, our society fear of fat is overwhelming indeed.

People might argue that Filipinos are not different from everyone else, that the preoccupation with thinness in fact comes from the West, with their supermodels and their Hollywood ideals of beauty. (Who was it, after all, that said, you can never be too thin or too rich?) While that may be true, it is also true, it is also true that the Western World is much more diverse than even Hollywood likes to pretend. The fact that the average American woman is a size 14 is already beginning to penetrate the consciousness of those who manufacture clothing, resulting in plus-sizes and even plus-sizes beauties to model the designs. Fat women are, in fact, beginning to enter the mainstream, no long invisible but empowered and confident. Why, even here we have our own successful fabulous fat woman, Sharon Cuneta, who is actually not truly “fat” but merely relatively “fat” when compared to her peers in show business. Fat or not, everything she touches turns to gold, and yet her weight isn’t enough to swing the anti-fat pendulum.

When will our society wake up to a broader definition of beauty? When will fat women stop getting the bad rap, and as a result, stop giving it to themselves? When will non-fat women stop abusing their bodies and their self-image, putting their health at risk with crash or yo-yo dieting and dreaded fat pills? Sadly, this is, as writer Sallie Tisdale says in her essay “The Weight That Women Carry.”

The answer is as difficult as the questions: It will only stop with one woman at a time changing her attitude.

What is Fat Anyway?
Human beings need fat to survive. Women especially, with bodies made for nurturing a fetus, giving birth to it and feeding it our milk, we need our fat. Our fat insulates us from a number of different diseases, like osteoporosis. We are designed to have a little extra padding—on our breasts, hips and thighs. It makes us healthy and gives us stored energy. But how much fat do we need? The answer varies from person to person. No surprise: we are not all meant to be size 6 and bikini-skinny. There are different shapes to be.

Nutritionist and fitness consultant, Bob Greene, co-author of Oprah Winfrey’s Make the Connection, recommends an average percentage of body fat for women between 15 and 25%. In short, a woman weighing 130 lbs. should have between 26-33 lbs. of body fat. The important thing is to find a healthy level for you.

Kathleen Johnson, a registered dietician and program director of the nutrition department of the Canyon Ranch spa in Tucson, Arizona says, “We have a lot less control over our weight than we think we have. But we do have control over our body composition—how much body fat we have—as well as our fitness level.” In an issue of Elle magazine, she outlines the spa’s new push for “healthy weight”. The idea being that if you eat a well-balanced, low-fat meals and are exercising, you’ll achieve the weight that is right for you.”

Weighing In: A Broader Perspective
It is possible to be overweight but still in shape. In fact, according to Michael Hamilton, medical director of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, North Carolina, “You can have a tremendous amount of excess weight if it’s in the right place—the hips and the thighs—because it doesn’t compromise your health.”

How much fat is too much? Leanna Molinero, assistant director of the Wellness Program at the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas says, “If you’re exercising and you don’t have any risk factors, then five to ten extra pounds is okay.” Johnson says. “When you can’t move your body around easily, you’re too fat to be fit.”

As far as shape goes, we’re all going to have to broaden our fat horizons by adjusting our aesthetics. In the Pulp Fiction, Bruce Willis’s spaced out, nubile French girlfriend says wisely, wishing for a potbelly, “it’s a pity that what we consider beautiful to the eye is not pleasurable to the touch. Softness is about tactile pleasure on your body. You may want that…and those of us who are not fat, have it.

Ask the guys. Nobody knows what 10 or 20 lbs look like. It’s a number like your grade point average in school. Or your IQ for that matter. Enjoy your body. Get it moving. What’s essential is how you wear your flesh. Rose says, “It’s appeal. It’s confidence. It’s being comfortable in your confidence. But fat or thin, all women have the right to confidence.”

Fitness vs. Thinness
Where does this all lead us? We urge non-fat women who believe themselves to be fat not to jeopardize theirs already beautiful body by putting it at the risk of yo-yo diets and drugs. Accept the fat in your body as part of you…healthy parts of you. For those who are fat and are tipping the scales at ten pounds (or thirty!) the path we take should be of our own choosing. Concentrate in getting fit, not thin, and you’ll find yourself at exactly the right weight you can carry. Fat is definitely not the worst thing you can be. But if you believe it, well, that’s probably the worst thing.

Bob Greene says make a commitment to healthy living each day and longer about the scale. Indulge in moderation. Get your body moving. We all come in different shapes and sizes. Believe it or not, that is a good thing.

Only your mind keeps you from being happy. Contentment and fulfillment don’t affect your size. If you have common sense, you’ll realize it, too.