My body, my pasal by Shanon Shah
Taken from The Sun 'Freespace' Column

I have put on some weight in the last couple of years. Significantly enough for several people to either (a) sigh with exaggerated relief when they find out that I still jog and go to the gym, or (b) tell me to my face that I'm overweight and hence unattractive.

I won't lie and say that I am unaffected by these reactions. After they've sunk in, I sometimes look at my body and I feel like I've let it down. Some days I feel like it's let me down. And then I start fighting with it. My usually pleasant, half-an-hour jogs turn into hour-long battles with my own metabolism. My usually challenging but pleasurable excursions to the gym turn into grunt-fests in which I desperately try to do as many ab crunches as I can so that people don't fondle my belly next time and ask if I'm overdoing my nasi lemak. My usually reasonable portions of food during meals suddenly feel like sinful indulgences.

I turn on the television, however, and I slap my forehead in a moment of epiphany. I have lost count of the number of belts, pills, contraptions and lotions that promise me "Five inches off your waist in just ten days". And I then understand how people who would never in their right minds utter a single racist, sexist or homophobic comment to anyone, suddenly feel boldly justified in being disgusted with others, and themselves, for being overweight.

And bear in mind, I am a man and I feel this way. I simply cannot imagine what women must feel like to be the target of these messages, day in and day out, given even higher cultural pressures on women to stay thin, "fair" and "lovely".

Well, I have recently discovered, to my horror, that:

È Anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder that was initially perceived to affect only rich, white, well-educated Western women, is rising rapidly among women in Japan, South Korea, Hongkong and Singapore. It is also rising quickly in many of the more affluent sectors in Malaysia, India, Pakistan and the Philippines, according to the director of the Hongkong Eating Disorders Centre Medical Faculty, Chinese University of Hongkong.

>> This same director also noted that bulimia, another eating disorder in which sufferers binge-eat and then induce purging of the food moments later, has increased alarmingly in the last decade or so in Asian countries.

>> Cases of bulimia and anorexia are frequently under-reported, because of the shame and stigma attached.

And, in a warped example of how the gender gap has narrowed in recent years, I also learnt that:

>> Men are also increasingly affected by eating disorders and exercise fatigue to conform to cultural expectations of body shape and size, especially actors, models and dancers, according to studies published in the Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc. newsletter, 1995 and also other surveys on eating disorders.

The thing is, there are so many people out there who have been trying to warn us, for ages and ages, that hating our bodies (or other people's bodies) is not going to make us (or them) more beautiful. In a poignant example from her groundbreaking book Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating, Geneen Roth quotes one woman as saying, "I've only been at my 'perfect weight' once in the last 15 years and only ate one tiny, tiny meal to do that and I was as miserable then as I am now. More."

Reading Geneen Roth has helped me to understand that my problem is actually not being overweight. My problem is that I've been using food to cope with difficult periods in my life - and there have been quite a few in the last couple of years. And I'm glad I've become conscious of this. I can now try non-food and non-addictive mechanisms to cope with my problems. And I can start having a healthy and pleasurable relationship with food and exercise again. I may never return to my previous weight, but that's just something I'll have to accept.

Instead, when passing acquaintances meet me now at parties and assume they can make disparaging comments about my weight and size, I'd probably smile politely and tell them, "My body, my pasal." But I'd actually be smiling a secret smile. Because I know that some people often despise in others the things which they battle most within themselves. And it's not a nice way to live, being at war with yourself all the time.

Shanon Shah is a singer-songwriter whose debut Malay album Dilanda Cinta was released last year to rave reviews. He also works on human rights issues, including gender, sexuality and HIV/AIDS. Comments: feedback@thesundaily.com

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