Sex and the fatty

By Deauwand Myers

A long time ago, I was fat. Not chunky or plump, but fat. At 5-foot-11, I weighed close to 300 pounds. Looking back on my early and mid-20s, during college and graduate school, I (not so fondly) call this period "the dark days."

I decided I didn't want to be a huge, floating, brown cloud in my 30s. And so, with pain and diligence, I exercised and dieted my way to a respectable, svelte 163 pounds, or 73kg.

For five days a week, and several years, I ran five kilometers in 30 minutes, on a 3-9 percent incline at around 9.5-10.5 kph. I still run, just with a little less intensity.

All the attendant benefits came with such a dramatic weight loss: better clothes, more clothes, designer clothes. Basically, lots of clothes. Or so, I thought.

It's "natural" to get more attention, or at least notice it, when you've lost a whole human body in fat. I get that. But what a difference a size 31 waist makes.

I went on so many outings one summer. I called it "my bingsu summer" (my favorite Korean dessert), because of the numerous Caffe Bene dates I went on.

All of my colleagues at work marveled at me. Professors and associates who knew me years before, but never had a word to say to me, now stopped to ask me about my life, my wellbeing, and of course, what secrets I employed for such a miraculous transformation.

I finally understood: being the same person, but in a different body, a fat body, people saw me, but did not really see me. They saw "through" me. Being fat meant at once being easily seen, but not recognized.

But now: free frappicinos, extra loyalty stamps at cafés all across the city and random free drinks at all manners of bar. Eight thousand won "free" samples of designer soap at Lush. Smiles and wonderment from grill to buffet.

I'm not naïve. The world is cold and superficial, but such a marked difference stings me for two reasons: it should not be this way, and I'm sure I have (unconsciously) done the same thing to other people.

There's actually data to support this. Often, without even noticing it, we treat thin, handsome and beautiful people much better than we do the rest of the population.

In the early 20th century, a noted psychologist, Edward Thorndike, noticed that military evaluations on officers were oddly consistent for those deemed attractive, across all areas of ability regardless of the merits of those abilities. Thorndike called this ''the halo effect."

This bias on looks, what some call "lookism," affects all areas of our lives, not just romance and dance cards. At the University of Texas, Professor Daniel Hamermesh's engaging book, "Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful," uses a bevy of empirical data to prove the point: good-looking people are hired quicker, promoted faster and earn more over their lifetimes than their average or below-average-looking counterparts. They are paid an average of 3 to 4 percent more in base salaries.

If extrapolated for entire countries, this amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars every fiscal year being given to better-looking people for no other reason than, fundamentally, genetics.

Don't just take my word for it. According to Dario Maestripieri, a professor of comparative human development, evolutionary biology and neurobiology at the University of Chicago, companies consider beautiful people to be the most marketable, hardest working and thus most valuable employees, and reward them thusly.

Worse, being a woman increases the bias. That is, "average-looking" females fare worse than their comparable male employees doing the same jobs with the same skill sets.

This isn't lost on the Korean population, particularly younger generations. Plastic surgery is so common and widely accepted now, from Seoul to Busan, you can actually get point cards for discounted procedures.

Koreans aren't spending months or years of wages simply for vanity, either. Even men are increasingly getting procedures.

Yet, women represent the bulk of people undergoing surgeries, often more than one.

Statistically, the majority of Korean women getting plastic surgery, including weight-loss procedures, are those entering the workforce or seeking marriage. That is, the imperative to be beautiful is informed by financial opportunities lost on those not deemed as attractive, or not willing to go under the knife to look better.

Something's warped and sad when we've become so enamored with beauty that entire economies, entire demographics of people, are heavily shaped by how we look, not who we are and what we do.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory and is currently an English professor outside of Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.

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