Ringing in the Plump New Year

It’s that time of year: Americans are busy making — and breaking — their New Year’s resolutions.

Russians are too smart to put themselves through this torture. In fact, it’s even hard to describe what resolutions are in Russian. The closest translations are обещания, сделанные самому себе (promises made to oneself) or цели на новый год (goals for the new year), neither of which quite capture that fist-pounding, chest-thumping resolute assertion that “this year I’m going lose weight!”

Russians are too smart for that, too. Although the country is filled with millions of slender people, and some young women — and young men — who spend millions of rubles to stay that way at spa holidays, Russians are not obsessed with weight loss. In fact, the language still carries echoes of the past, when being fat meant being rich and healthy, and being thin meant being sick and poor. To this day, most of the standard words for losing weight have connotations of starving or wasting away.

What do you think of when you hear the word “diet”? In Russian, it’s not necessarily fewer calories. Диета is режим питания (a food plan) designed to improve one’s health. In Russian you “sit” on a diet — сидеть на диете — or соблюдать диету (observe a diet). Runet is not convinced that you should. Articles scream out questions in their headlines: Стоит ли сидеть на диете? (Should you go on a diet?) Почему на диете лучше не сидеть? (Why shouldn’t you go on a diet?) Кому нельзя сидеть на диете? (Who must not diet?) And one headline replies: Сидеть на диетах вредно (Dieting is harmful). The only way to do it is with guidance from диетолог (nutritionist).

Should you decide to diet, the standard verb pair is худеть/похудеть. The old-school way was simple: Ешь капусту и худей (Eat cabbage and lose weight). But not everyone buys into this: Вот мне все говорят – худей. А зачем? (So, like, everyone tells me to lose weight. And I’m like: What for?). Especially when dieting can make you melt away like snow in the spring: Актриса худела с каждым съёмочным днём, таяла прямо на глазах. (The actress lost weight every day of production and just melted away before our very eyes.)

Another word for losing weight with an unhealthy connotation is the verb pair тощать/отощать (to waste away), defined as становиться худым, тощим, слабым (to become thin, skinny, weak). Скот тощает (The livestock is wasting away). Лётчик на земле тощает, но лётчика исцеляет воздух. (A pilot wastes away on the ground but he is healed by the air).

There is one verb for weight loss that has a positive connotation: стройнеть (to slim down). Unfortunately, it’s not used that often, which means that the verb has been picked up and redefined by spas: Человек, который худеет, теряет вес и силы. Стройнеть — это снижать вес и становиться сильнее. (A person who gets thinner loses weight and strength. Slimming down is when you take off weight and become stronger.)

I’m a little shaky on the distinction, although all it seems to mean is what an old trainer used to say: Худеть надо, спортом заниматься (You have to lose weight and take up sports). Today спортом заниматься is likely to be ходить в фитнес-клуб (to go to the gym).

Since old Russian didn’t have a way to sell weight loss to the masses, new Russian has come to the rescue. Худеть is out, избавиться от лишнего веса (get rid of extra weight) is in. Заниматься спортом is out, коррекция фигуры (figure correction) is in.

Удачи! (Good luck!)