Without A Trace: Big Should Be Beautiful

I'm really not trying to turn this blog about medical shows into one about crime shows, but sometimes health and crime merge into one heart-wrenching episode that really can't be overlooked, like last night's Without a Trace.

***SPOILER ALERT -- If you TIVO'd and haven't watched yet, STOP reading***

Tonight's episode begins with a 21st-century family wrestling with some changes: Mom is a career woman; Dad is a stay-at-home dad who has just taken a job cleaning crime scenes after the investigators leave. 18-year old daughter Hannah is a college freshman with a passion for junk food and soda and a bit of a weight problem. Not obese by anyone's standards but still falling prey to the 'freshman 15' syndrome, Hannah is struggling with an achieving mother who is concerned for her heath, an indulgent dad, daily reminders that she's overweight and has no boyfriend, and the fact that her mother is pregnant.

When Hannah and her dad go missing at the same time, the FBI Missing Person's Unit investigates with an eye toward Dad's relationship to the crime scenes he's cleaning, figuring he must have seen something that caused the bad guys to come after him. Dad sees things in shades of black and white, too, and reports one man for elder abuse after discovering shackles behind the headboard used to restrain the man's elderly father.

As Jack's theory unravels, a far more evil, ugly, everyday reason emerges as the reason they are missing.

Hannah has been learning about the cruelty of a world that views overweight people through a lens of judgment and cruelty. In Hannah's world, people are fat or they're not. The fat ones suffer. Through Hannah's one male (platonic) friend, she meets Sean, who is 100% in love with himself and not above humiliating someone just because he can. In fact, he gets that "bully high" from finding horrible ways to make others feel like dirt. Sean's interest in Hannah has no sincerity, but of course, she welcomes the attention anyway. About midway through the show, he seduces her while his friends watch in the hallway outside. You can probably guess what happens next -- the so-called 'friends' burst in and poor Hannah is gang-raped, because Sean decided the "fat girl needs a lesson".

My reaction to this episode was visceral. This world is full of constant drones about bad fats, good fats, trans-fats, and fat cats. What got to me about the rape of Hannah's mind and body was this: The attitudes portrayed in this episode are not fiction. They exist and they're intended to hurt, belittle and minimize people who don't fit the current trendy image of willowy women with perfectly flat chests and tummies. To some extent, even well-meaning efforts to encourage wellness can actually be used as weapons against overweight people when people apply stereotypes.

Hannah's world on Without a Trace was extreme, but not unusual. There is no easier target in our society than overweight individuals, particularly young ones. However, it's not even limited to the young -- check out the comments to our own Healthy Recipe Doctor, Elaine Magee's blog entry, ""Stop the Fat Talk". The point of her post was to encourage women not to get caught up in the collective negative "fat thinking" where women tend to go with their friends, where conversations with girlfriends center around diets, weight loss, body image and weight. The tone of the comments responding to that post caused her to answer with this: I think someone just called me FAT! where she draws a clear distinction between being fit and healthy and being razor-thin.

Elaine writes:

What kind of a society do we live in where people are actually judging someone like this?

These are the kinds of comments that make me wonder if I should have chosen another profession. But then I realize, I need to be out there representing what's real and hopefully all these other people will listen to what I have to say because they can relate to me. Because they know I have the true view of health (mind, body, spirit) as my focus. Being obsessed with being thin and being obsessed by weight is not being in balance. Embracing the fact that there are many healthy shapes in the world is.

Unfortunately, poor Hannah didn't have the benefit of someone like Elaine standing beside her, reminding her that her self-worth isn't measured in pounds and ounces. Depressed and despondent over her complete humiliation, she attempts suicide, telling her father she's just a 'fat, horrible pig'. The plot goes into a series of twists that ultimately tie together at the end, but the real point, the real message of this show to me was to send a message to folks who measure people by what they look like instead of who they are.

Humans come in all shapes and sizes. The world would be a horrible, boring place if we all were that 'perfect size six'. Wouldn't it be better to direct effort toward encouraging people who need encouragement, supporting those who need a kind word? I wonder what it will take for to stop criticizing and start accepting people for who they are. I'm not sure this show advanced that cause much -- the villain was a little bit too evil and our hero, Jack Malone was just a little bit too outraged, but it did get me to think. It also reaffirmed all of the conversations I've had with my 13-year old daughter about positive body image. She's a dancer and isn't in the least overweight, but her body type is not small-boned and stick-thin either, and that's just fine with her. I hope her attitude stays that way.

In other Without A Trace news, Samantha Spade is expected to be expecting on the show to account for actress Poppy Montgomery's pregnancy. It should be interesting to see how they do this, given Samantha's past relationship with Jack and her other entanglements through the years.

Please leave your comments about you felt about the show here, so this post won't disappear...

...Without a Trace.



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