For those of you who may not know, Marc Gasol is a 35-year old Spanish NBA basketball player who plays for the Toronto Raptors. During the pandemic, the 2019-20 NBA season was suspended. During that time period, Marc Gasol lost weight. As people were getting ready for the season to start up again and basketball players were being interviewed, Marc Gasol’s weight loss became the focal point of most interviews—even when his teammates and coaches were the ones being interviewed. We’re not here to add to the speculation about how he lost weight, or if he will be able to sustain the weight loss, or whether or not his game will improve because of the weight loss. We are more interested in understanding why our society is so obsessed with his weight loss and weight loss in general. 

During the beginning of the pandemic this year, Gasol returned to Spain to spend time with his wife and daughter. Upon his return to the NBA in Orlando, he was interviewed by various journalists over video conference on July 15, 2020 after a practice. When asked about how he dealt with the sudden stoppage of the NBA season due to the pandemic, Gasol responded, “I was frustrated with my performance last season so I put in a lot of work during the pandemic.” At this point during the interview, Gasol started being asked questions about his recent weight loss and he responded by dodging the topic of weight loss. In spite of his responses, some journalists persisted in asking him nuanced details about the process of his weight loss, his motivation to lose weight, and the times at which he ate. These types of questions demonstrate how entitled our culture feels in knowing about someone else’s entire life story when they lose weight. One journalist asked, “Your coach said it was consistency that you thought helped get you where you are, can you elaborate on consistency, what you actually did?” The journalist clarified that he was asking specifically about Gasol’s diet, “I think Nick (Gasol’s coach) was talking about the times you were eating, like it was the same time everyday?” Gasol frowned and seemed upset by the narrowness of the question and responded, “Consistency goes with everything, goes with training regiment, goals, sleeping habits, everything, and obviously when you’re home everything is a lot easier.” By narrowing in on his diet, the journalist oversimplified the complexities of training as a high performance athlete. Gasol responded by broadening the focus in order to better illustrate the multiple factors that influence athletic performance.

One journalist came right out and asked Gasol how much weight he had lost. Gasol answered by saying “I don’t think that’s really relevant”.

One journalist came right out and asked Gasol how much weight he had lost. Gasol answered by saying, “I don’t think that’s really relevant.” Not only is the amount of weight he lost irrelevant, but so is the fact that he even lost weight. In fact, talking about someone’s weight loss is almost always irrelevant. That being said, our culture is so hyper-focused on weight loss so it’s understandable that journalists feel that asking about weight loss is important. Also, for a non-professional athlete like a journalist, weight loss might symbolize discipline, health, and living a longer life. We are all susceptible to messages that we are being bombarded with by commercials, social media, and even some medical professionals at times. 

The truth of the matter is that weight loss is merely an outcome. An outcome that varies greatly for each individual. What results in weight loss for one person may result in weight gain in another. What might be healthy for one body may be very unhealthy for another. Weight loss has been deeply associated with health for a long time. This has lead to unfortunate discrimination towards people in larger bodies. The result of that is a desire for many larger bodied folks to lose weight not only for health but also to fit in and not be discriminated against. In reality, weight loss as a measurement of health has been disproven by hundreds of studies. Weight loss falsely promises confidence, improved performance, health, vitality, relationships, and belonging. There is a perception that if you lose weight, your life will improve in some way. So when we see a famous person lose weight, it’s not surprising that we become infatuated with their weight loss. We project our desires for thinness onto them. However, for Marc Gasol, weight loss is not the goal. As Gasol’s interview continued, a journalist asked Gasol to clarify if he had actually lost any weight at all: “You look thinner, but have you actually lost weight because you look bulkier too, like you look like you’ve muscled up.” Gasol avoided answering that question verbally but his brief silence and quick eyebrow raise spoke volumes. He looked offended when he was initially asked about his thinness and then appeared uncomfortable when the interviewer subsequently asked about his potential bulkiness. Gasol went on to clarify that the most important measurement to him regarding playing basketball is winning games. The journalist missed the point and sometimes, so do we. Weight loss does not fulfill the dreams of thinness and health that it promises and leaves people chasing more. This is why the diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry—they keep us chasing unfulfillable promises while they infinitely keep selling us new products and new diets.

The journalist missed the point and sometimes, so do we.

At the end of the day, Marc Gasol is an excellent professional basketball player because he is incredibly talented and has diligently honed his craft for over 20 years–not because he lost weight. If you find yourself being curious about his weight loss or judging his weight, we challenge you to look inward. What does his weight loss bring up for you? How do you think your life would be different if you lost weight? Our obsession with Marc Gasol’s weight loss or any celebrity’s weight loss is more reflective of our own projections of what weight loss means to us than it has to do with them. Weight loss conversations such as the ones had during Gasol’s interview are not benign and contribute further to weight stigma and weight discrimination. We are obsessing over the wrong thing. We should deeply consider not only how much time we waste talking about weight loss but also how over-focusing on weight loss perpetuates shame. If we do talk about weight loss, let’s acknowledge that the number on a scale is not representative of a person’s health nor well-being. Our well-being is multi-faceted and involves our emotional health, our spiritual health, our cognitive health, our relational health, our fiscal health and aspects of our physical health. Next time we interview Marc Gasol, let’s also ask him about his daughter, his brother, his garden, his 3-point shot, his intense playoff focus, and his participation in humanitarian relief efforts in the Mediterranean. 

Credits:

Photos and transcription of Marc Gasol’s interview as seen on YouTube Channel “Jump View”‘ post on July 15, 2020 here.

References: For more information on weight loss being disproved as an accurate measure of health, click here.

Authors: