perceiving the self and learned helplessness

A special report article focusing on the issue of size, was featured on the Saturday Straits Time, 29th March 2008. This special report narrated the life stories of several people that are big in size, usually obese. How these people cope with their weight and the comments that onlookers gave, how they lose their weight, their feelings on their weight and size.

Madam Saodah Osman, a 1.56m tall housewife weighing a massive 150kg until about four years ago was obese, depressed and in poor health. She shared with the journalist the amount of serving of food she had each meal was like a "hill" on her plate. Madam Saodah had post-natal depression after the birth of her youngest child. and her weight also rocketed since then. Despite spending thousand of dollars on pills, wraps, massages and slimming courses, her weight did not decrease. Instead, she started bingeing which resulted in the immense increase of weight. Due to her heavy weight, she developed a couple of ailments such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension. She even had difficulty in walking and breathing. Depressed, she attempted suicide on three occasions, swallowing 20 aspirins and eight sleeping pills before slitting her left wrist with a razor blade. But was fortunately being discovered by her younger son, thus saved. Eventually, Madam Saodah had to see a psychiatrist and her family had to keep all sharp objects from her view. Madam Saodah would also lock herself in the bedroom and refused to go out in fear of being laughed at. She narrated an occasion whereby she and her husband was in the lift together with two other women who started to gossip in Chinese, wondering to themselves how Madam Saodah's husband can bear to be with someone so hugh.

But Madam Saodah's life started to change when she became too heavy that she could not even walk. Doctors advised her to lose weight or else her organs and body would shut down. From then onwards, Madam Saodah sticked to a healthy regime of meal replacements and salads without dressing. She undergo a lap-band surgery and exercises every week. Madam Saodah is now happier, no longer suffering from depression, diabetes or hypertension. She can also walk without having to wheeze.

Several concepts can be seen in this article.

Madam Saodah's refusal to stepped out from her bedroom for fear of being ridicule could be explained by the looking glass self and social comparison theory.

Looking glass self is defined as the tendency to internalize other people's judgments about us into our self-concept. Madam Saodah might experience cases such as the two women in the lift commenting on her size as hugh. Thus, other people's judgment of her being hugh lead to her integrating a self-concept that she is hugh, enormous etc... which would eventually lead to her feeling down, disliking herself and having negative thoughts such as "she is an object of ridicule".

On the other hand, social comparison refers to the process of comparing ourselves to others in order to judge the self. Madam Saodah might also compare herself with her other relatives, friends or her husband's colleagues, whenever he brings her to his company's function. She might feel uncomfortable or put down whenever she saw others around her slimmer or that standing beside other people she seems so enormous. Which would also lead her to judge herself negatively.

Lastly, learned helplessness can be seen when Madam Saodah attempted to commit suicide on three occasions. When she had to be brought to the hospital every week due to feeling breathless and all the other ailments. Madam Saodah gave up on her weight and herself as she believe that she lacked of control in reducing the weight.