When I presented for my work permit health check last week, my fear was they’d find an anomaly—your left kidney is missing—to disqualify me. So I was relieved when the doctor shared the last of my test results—all normal—only to be blindsided when she added, gravely: You’re overweight.
I work out, vigorously, four hours a week. I never snack between meals. Years of forcing myself to the gym when I want to bail, eating vegetables when really I want cookies, and I am now in the best shape of my life. I am toned. I am strong. Yet, according to my BMI, I’m overweight.
Shocked and hurt, I turned to my online community for sympathy and indignation, posting a screenshot of my report on Instagram. Friends leapt to my rescue: You’re not overweight! BMI is debunked as a health indicator!!
But, a week later, I still hear “overweight” every time I eat, exercise, look at myself in the mirror.
The damage was done.
When labels hurt
All my life, I’ve been hurt by labels.
When I was young, it was the label “good student.” Then, when I won an all-expenses-paid scholarship (“the Thai scholar”) to study abroad, I became “the player” (manizer?), “the perfectionist,” “the president” (of my university’s Thai society). After I lost my mind and was locked up in a psych ward, I became “the patient,” “the has-been.” At my next job in a language school, I was alternately “the one with impeccable English” (IELTS 9.0! was how I’d be presented to prospective parents) or “the bipolar.”
“Overweight” is just the latest in a lifetime of labels that, without exception, determined how I saw myself. As the “good student,” I allowed myself to do only what I believed a “good student” did: finish my homework, revise my lessons, obey my teachers. There was no room for play, for exploration, for being a child. When I became “the player,” I poured all my energy into chasing boys, taking pride in my 100% success rate and letting friendships languish. “The perfectionist” was crushed by every little mistake. “The patient” believed she was defective. “The IELTS 9.0” thought English was all she’s good for. “The bipolar” was constantly fearful of relapse.
Labels help us order the world—you’re a student, a mother, an axe-murderer—by simplifying it. But this simplification, necessary as it is for sense-making, hurts us dearly when we start identifying with our labels, reducing our multi-faceted selves to just “X.”
Even when “X” is universally desirable like “good” or “kind,” there is danger in adopting them as identities. If a person sees themselves only as “good,” what happens when, in anger, they yell at their child who starts crying and runs away to hide? Will they be able to forgive themselves, reconcile this “bad” with their “good”? What if the “kind” person can never bring themselves to refuse any request, however large or unreasonable? What kind of life would that be?
As for “overweight,” I concede it could shine light on a problem that needs fixing, might even spur hardier souls into action. But in my case, the doctor’s pronouncement—you’re overweight—however well-meaning, completely negates my years of hard work, the milestones I celebrated, the challenges I overcame. If, after all that, I’m still overweight, still being told to exercise, to not snack between meals, then what’s the bloody point?
It’s what you do, not what you are
We’re never going to rid the world of labels. We’ll always want to label others, ourselves, that neighbour who never says “hello.”
What we can do, though, is stop identifying with them.
Easier said than done, I’ll admit. After all, I know full well identifying with reductive labels has hurt me my whole life. Yet I still have difficulty rejecting “you’re overweight.” Years of seeing myself as healthy and strong, of being proud of myself, of feeling happy—undone with a single defunct measure.
And that’s a label I disagree with. Labels I embrace: impossible. “Newsletter Queen,” “Detail Dominatrix,” “VALue”—all labels I’ve been dubbed at work that I take pride in and, as a result, identify with completely. Then my confidence shatters when I need help setting up an automation “Newsletter Queen” should be able to conjure blindfolded, miss an error “Detail Dominatrix” would have caught, waste an afternoon on tasks that don’t deliver VALue.
But in my as-yet-unsuccessful attempt to never identify with labels—good or bad—ever again, what I’ve found most helpful is to shift my focus from what I am to what I do.
It doesn’t matter whether I am overweight or toned or healthy or weak. What matters is that I go to the gym and don’t live on cookies. It doesn’t matter whether I deserve the moniker “Newsletter Queen.” What matters is that I do my work carefully and conscientiously. It doesn’t matter whether I am a good person or bad or untrustworthy or kind. What matters is that I act according to my values and don’t set out to harm others.
It also doesn’t matter whether I am right or wrong in scapegoating labels for all my ills. What matters is that I write my truth, and ask you to consider it.
What do you think?
Before you ask, yes, even after writing a thousand words to say I’m not overweight, I still think I am. Go figure.
Which of your labels do you over-identify with?
How can you pay more attention to what you do, not what you are? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who might appreciate it.
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
I dislike any reductive label, good or bad. Just frustrates me how people who don't know us try to put us into neat little categories just to make their lives easier. Doesn't matter if it's a Dr, random person on the internet, family or friend. At the same time though, I'm happy to say that I've learned not to give a shirt.
Whatever makes others feel happy, cool.
I believe though, that people don't think about us nearly as much as we think that they do.