Analysis Of Alice Randall's My Soul To Keep My Weight To Lose

Everyone has their own idea of a healthy body. That also means everyone sees their own body in a different way. Thus everyone deals with discomfort and or dislikes of their body image in a different way as well. In the article “My soul to Keep, My Weight to Lose” by Alice Randall and the article “One May Explains Why He Swears by Wearing Spanx” by Kevin Fanning the authors talk of how they view and feel about their body in respect to their weight. By reading and analysing them I will be able to compare their views and come to a decision on which author I believe describes their body with the healthiest view. In Alice Randall’s “My soul to Keep, My Weight to Lose”, Alice discusses her developing insight into her large weight problem.

Her grandfather made it clear to her that her mind and her spirit were the things that should be treasured and could never be stolen from her. I think her grandfather was relating this to slavery and civil rights. Then I think at some point she took this idea of her mind and soul being more important than her body and applied it to mean that her weight is nothing to be concerned with.. She also idolized her grandmother because she was a woman who was loving, caring, comforting, and was adored by her husband yet she had a size twenty six waist. She wanted to be just like her some day, including her size. She felt her love for largeness was also rooted in defiance of the majority’s culture when it comes to beauty, aesthetics, and body image. She loved kinky curly hair, brown skin, big curves, and other African features. She also took on the role of family caregiver. A role I believe crosses races. This role involves spending a lot more time taking care of others. It usually ends up resulting in the lack of care of the caregiver themself either by the caregiver or others. After years of this trend the caregiver may actually not even notice problems or changes in themself let alone respond to them accordingly. After searching her past, heart, and mind for answers to her questions about her long held mindset of body image she began to get serious about her weight and ask more questions of herself. She found that she already knew that one in four black women over fifty-five have diabetes as well as that four in five black women are overweight. She also knew that obesity could possible overtake smoking as the number one cause of preventable cancer death. She was waking up to the reality that obesity is a serious health concern. With this knowledge she realized that taking care of others and paying no mind to herself “ was not a lifestyle; it was a death style”.(Isaacs and Keohane 208). Due to this conclusion