Does Having a Perfect Body Make Us Happy?

A look at materialistic lifestyles, long term love, cosmetic surgery and dieting and how popular beliefs are shown to be misconceptions.

Materialism

At the age of thirty-two, I cried when my boyfriend of four years asked me to get some bacon at the local shop. Strange right?

Years of buying the best TVs, furniture, and clothes, international holidays and long weekends in Spain and Portugal, being successful and having it all had conspired to depress me. The bacon was the last straw.

I’d achieved everything I’d desired and realised it meant nothing.

You know all that stuff you buy? A twenty-year study by Nickerson et al (2003) showed that a materialistic lifestyle does not make you happy and, in fact, has a detrimental impact on your mental health.

Love

You’d think that love, being in love, would make you happier. The Lucas et al (2003) study discovered that the honeymoon period is indeed true, as experienced by married German women but, as we know, that intoxicating pheromonal desire doesn’t last. Their life satisfaction returned to pre-marriage levels after one to two years.

I think I understand, now, why pursuing new relationships every six years (that seven-year itch may actually be a six-year one in my case) happens to so many people. Like addicts seeking their highs, married life becomes blah and we look for the next pairing that will resuscitate ardour.

I want a perfect body

In my twenties, I wanted marriage, a baby, and then a perfect body, face, career, and life. Show me a woman who doesn’t want at least one from this list.

How much have you spent on beauty parlour treatments, a little nip or tuck, the latest weight loss fad?

I used to go to beauty salons regularly when I was on £40k a year in my former life. Massages, aromatherapy, laser hair removal, facials, mani-pedis you name it, I had it. Completely justifiable for a career woman. Along with the suits and the latest hairstyles and highlights.

A study carried out with adolescents by Von Soest et al (2011) over a period of thirteen years found that all the negatives (thoughts of suicide, alcoholism, and behavioural issues) after the five per cent of the adolescents’ group, who had had cosmetic procedures, were doubled.

Diets

After stopping smoking in 2006, I was diagnosed with hypertension — those emotional crutch cancer sticks had kept my blood pressure healthy for twenty-two years (it was a pity about my lung capacity). In a bid to get fitter, I bought an annual gym membership. I went four times and was finally permitted to cancel it twelve months later.

Over the years, I’ve been on two well-known diets: Atkins and Nature House. I lost substantial amounts of weight on both. I was delighted with the food I could eat and the leanness of my body on the former but miserable with the meanness of the food choice and portion size, as well as feeling constantly hungry and deprived of joy and sleep (due to being hungry) on the latter.

What I found with the Atkins diet was that while I loved all the sausages, eggs, and bacon, I craved white crusty bread. I lasted a year without succumbing, though.

My experience with Nature House worked for a few years because it effectively (up to a point) reprogrammed my eating habits. I wasn’t a happy bunny though, and ultimately, I returned to my previous eating habits.

Decent genes meant I’ve never been obese, morbidly or otherwise. I must have some kind of inbuilt mechanism that activates when I eat too much for too long a period of time while also not exercising enough to burn the excess calories. But there’s also a little bit of perfectionism about me still, as I don’t enjoy muffin tops or bingo wings, and do appreciate toned muscles.

A study by Jackson et al (2014) followed nearly 2000 people, who wanted to lose weight, for four years to determine how many lost, gained or stayed the same weight.

After four years, the people who’d lost weight were three times more depressed than when they started their weight loss journey. For the people whose weight stayed the same, they were depressed by nearly double and the ones that gained weight were around a third more depressed.

Dieting, it turns out, doesn’t make us as happy as we expected. Nor does buying stuff, love or cosmetic surgery.

Calories consumed versus calories expended

It took most of my adult life to first care about what I put into my body, and then to figure out how much I could get away with.

I freely admit to being a food, coffee, and wine snob. I don’t buy biscuits, chocolate, crisps or cakes very often. If I crave something sweet, I either have to walk a few miles to a shop to buy it or make it myself.

I’m not an angel. I adore crusty white bread cheese toasties (grilled cheese sandwiches) and too much wine on a day off. The next day will involve a long and sweaty power walk.

I regret a careless tennis elbow CrossFit injury I inflicted upon myself twenty months ago. Wanting to fast track bicep definition put paid to any weight-bearing workouts for me for the foreseeable future.

So, nowadays, I make do with lower-body exercises such as squats and sit-ups plus 6–10k steps most days. I finish the day with ten minutes on a vibration plate every day. My next useful purchase will be a mini indoor trampoline, preferably preloved.

What keeps the weight off me is a balance between calories consumed (I don’t count anymore but I have a good idea) to calories expended (power walking, squats, sit-ups). If you like, you can use a free app like MyFitnessPal which I found pretty informative and helpful.

Are we happier when our bodies are artificially sculpted, complexions flawless, and overall appearance stunning?

We are not. The study shows we are far unhappier post-surgery than we are before.

My personal take on superficial perfection is that it may work for a time but perfection is time-consuming and exhausting and often unnecessary if we are looking after ourselves. For example, I know eating crisps (chips) causes spots (zits) to appear on my face. I can exercise my willpower and not scoff a pack of salt and vinegar and have clear skin or I can indulge and cover up the blemishes! Especially when the crisps are free, as they are at my workplace, it is very difficult to avoid them.

I didn’t realise I’d stopped being perfect until I started my journey to minimalism, frugality, healthy eating and exercise. Life is too darn short to waste time on unimportant, shallow activities. I couldn’t care less what others think about how I look and at my age, most people I meet don’t either!

Being happier took years. I learned to recognise which actions triggered positivity and did (and do) more of them.

Anything I did that stressed me out, I stopped doing or found ways to do them without stress. E.g. I give myself an hour to wake up and get ready for the day every morning before work. When sleep is short and the day starts too early, I can be out of the house in thirty minutes. But I’d rather not.

I’ll leave you with this final thought.

Having everything does not make you happy.

If you think it will, you’re likely in for a long life of misconceptions and decisions that make your time on earth more difficult for yourself.

I recommend stopping routines or habits that cause anxiety or stress and trying out new things to find what gives you lasting joy. Then do them as often as possible, savour and appreciate them ... mouthfuls of your most loved foods, swigs of locally roasted coffee, and rolling sips of your favourite tipple across your tongue and waiting for the aftertaste. Practice snapping photographs of nature and views or whatever floats your boat.

The fleeting frisson of exchanging money for another bargain from China or a luxury designer item, I promise, will not last.

This article was brought to life by a free Coursera course called The Science of Well-Being. I’ve adapted the main ideas and studies from the course and compared them to my life experiences in my own words. I hope you enjoy this or another course as much as I’m enjoying this one.

Thanks for reading.