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If forced to choose, would you rather be:
• 40 lbs. overweight and really smart
• Skinny but stupid

When the Today Show approached me about appearing on a segment to debate the question, “If you had to choose, would you rather be forty pounds overweight and smart OR skinny, but stupid?” I leapt at the chance. Not because it's necessarily an easy one to answer (though for some it certainly is), but because look at what it says about the sad state of our society—that this even needs to be debated.

The pressure women feel to be slim is so intense that a good deal of us are saying, “Sure, I'll give up my brains for tinier hips.” It's insanity. But it's merely a reflection of society. Women would rather go to the dentist than change in a communal dressing room. One study recently cited in the New York Times asked a group of previously obese people, “Would you rather be fat or blind?” A stunning 89 percent answered “blind.” As in—can never see again.

Ninety-one percent of the group chose having a leg amputated over a return to their previous overweight status. Being overweight in our society is so feared, so vilified, that people would rather lose their ability to see the scale—and the entire world around it—than face a too-high number.

Surveys repeatedly show that most women would trade nearly anything—brains, wealth, a pretty face—for being thin. I've seen surveys where as much as 94 percent of women say they place a higher priority on having a smaller waist than on their intelligence. These types of statistics show the intensity of societal stigma against overweight people.

I recently wrote about the topic on the Weighting Game when I blogged about a self-described overweight woman who was so sick of being stared at and avoided on the bus, she made up a fake book called “How Sitting Next to a Fat Person can Make You Fat” and rode around with it. I was inundated with hundreds of comments—many of them were extremely angry, abusive and showed how much hatred exists.

Interestingly enough, the results of our iVillage poll of more than 1000 women were split 70/30, with more women saying they would rather be overweight and smart. These numbers go against the convention belief that skinny equals better. I'm thinking this has to do with the fact that many women who come to iVillage are health-savvy and intelligent (and I'm not just saying that because they read my blog!) The demographic of women skews older as well, and as some of the posts show, as women mature, our priorities begin to shift and evolve and quite often, looks become less important and what our bodies can do (give birth, fight cancer, run marathons) is what counts. I found this was the case when interviewing older women in their 60s, 70s and 80s for my book, Locker Room Diaries.

As for me, I would never ever in a million years give up my brains for, well, for anything really. My smarts are what got me where I am today. How could I be a successful writer, how could I have picked the kindest, most giving husband, how could I have done anything without my intelligence? Of course looks matter no matter how much we wish they didn't, but as long as you love yourself and are healthy inside and out, you are simply worth too much to sacrifice brains for brawn.

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