Vanity

There are many reasons to pay close attention to what we eat. The food we eat nourishes or stresses our organs, purifies or makes our blood toxic, gives or drains energy, and causes clear or cloudy thoughts. Furthermore, when we eat processed food, we tend to put on weight. Our clothes fit tighter, and our reflected image falls short of the ideal we hold of ourselves. Being obese is detrimental to our health and has been known to cause heart disease and diabetes and is the fifth leading risk for global death¹so obviously having a slender figure promotes good health. But what of the satisfaction we take in seeing the number on the scale gradually descend, or being able to fit into smaller clothes? These benefits are imaginary, and whereas the physical changes we experience are healthy, I don’t believe our egocentric inner monolog is.

When we are dissatisfied with our bodies for reasons other than health, our inability to accept our physique is based on the false pretext that women must look like super models in order to be desirable or even acceptable. The vacuum left where our self-esteem should be often seeks external approval to assuage feelings of inferiority. And so we become vain. In Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner Mind, he describes naturalness as thoughts or actions arising from nothingness as opposed to from others’ thoughts or expectations of us². A desire to be slender caused by others’ ideas is not natural; slenderness as a side effect of eating only when we are hungry is natural. In other words, a desire to be skinny to please others is neurotic and unhealthy. This particular neurosis is vanity.

Vanity used to mean attempting something futile, and was distinct from pride in the biblical list of deadly sins. In contrast, vanity is a synonym for pride in modern parlance. Both Proust and Nietzsche have written about vanity in its earlier form. For them the vain seek approval from others because they don’t measure up to their ideal self. Vanity requires lies – we hope to deceive others about our shortcomings so that they reflect back to us a more pleasing image of ourselves. For Proust, when we are truly secure in our own value we are modest rather than vain. Nietzsche would have agreed: for him people who have confidence in their own value can’t even understand vanity: “the problem is to imagine creatures who try to awaken a good opinion of themselves which they themselves do not hold – and thus do not deserve – and yet subsequently come to believe this good opinion themselves”³ Nietzsche. 

In many cases, we may be disappointed with ourselves for sound reasons: we may see ourselves as greedy, as selfish, or as lazy. Seeking another’s opinion to sway ourselves away from these views is indeed a vain, futile attempt to assuage our ego. But the case of body image is different; not only is it vain to seek others’ approval to change our view, the view itself is not well founded. So, if we acknowledge that our lack of confidence is based on a false premise, we would not require external affirmation to overcome it. In fact, the problem is not our bodies, and it is not our vanity or pride. It is our inability of unwillingness to discern between unrealistic media ads and natural human physiques.

In the end, the answer is to be natural instead of complicated. This is not easy, but it is the healthiest path. Again, I’ll quote the ancient Zen saying: “drink when thirsty, eat when hungry,” all else is contrived, unnecessary neurosis.

¹http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

²Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.  Weatherhill, Inc: New York: 1995. Pages 107-110

³Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Penguin: 1990. Page 198