Wish I had more time to write this. I'm taking advantage of Mom being busy with something at the table. There was an article about a new cure for obesity and some chatter about it. I've been wanting to add my two cents.
Years ago two women from NAAFA were on a Dr Phil. He asked them if they were a pill that could make them thin would they take it. They both hedged. I'm not sure what's happening with NAAFA now but my experience was never great. Every time I attended a NAAFA event someone would whisper something about all this size acceptance being OK but wouldn't it be better if we lost weight.
I don't really like the language of size acceptance. Acceptance seems passive. Resigned. I also have trouble with celebrating being fat. I don't know if people celebrate their eye color, or their height so why their weight?
My process has been about understanding that my body is fat. My weight has changed in my life but I've never been thin. My body easily and naturally gets fat. I do lose weight. Often. Most bodies, especially female bodies fluctuate. My appetite changes. How much exercise I get changes. My weight changes relative to those things and more. Mom comments almost daily on not understanding why I'm as fat as I am because of the way I eat. At some point I just stopped thinking of the fat being something something separate from my body, like a coat I could remove. So if someone offered me a pill to cure my weight problem it would feel like they were offering me a pill to fix my brown eye problem. It took years of awareness shifts to build this reaction.
And I've seen too many of the cures for obesity. This new one "stems the flow of blood to fat cells and kills them off."
Uhhh....
Why do so many cures sound so destructive? Surgeries to mutilate an organ that is necessary to be alive. Pills that cause heart and lung damage. The encouragement of eating disordered obsession. Parents so worried about having a fat child they starve their babies.
As I am writing I am listening to Wait Wait a show that I generally enjoy but is notoriously fat hating. Fat jokes are being made in a discussion about the new "pizza is a vegetable" because of the tomato sauce crap. We went through this with ketchup. Botanically tomatoes are a fruit, which still doesn't make their presence on some dough particularly healthy. I'm a fan of pizza as a medium. Pizza can be rich with nutrient or doughy and greasy. As long as being fat is a medical condition instead of a body type and a moral failing our ideas about food will leave me torked.
So many cures. So many pills. Phen Phen. Redux. Those were the new magic pills years ago. People, mainly young women, died. No, Dr Phil. I'm not interested in a new pill. I do not need a cure. I need some bleepin common sense in the public discussion about weight.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Distraction
From time to time I feel lonely and pine for a relationship. But I always know it would be challenging.
I've lived alone for too long and I'm set in my ways. If I needed proof I now have the three months a year when Mom visits. I'm happy to have time with her but we are both women who are set in our ways. And her way usually wins. I would always demure to the desires of a guest but with Mom it's more like succumbing. Some of that is about her age and need for care but she gets along without me the rest of the year. I think she wants to be taken care of and I'm actually OK with that. It is a challenge.
There's football on the television. My Sunday breakfast of French toast changes to poached eggs on English muffins. We have soup every night for dinner. I think it's funny because we use two bowls for cereal in the morning and the same two bowls for soup every night. I wrote about the soups on the food blog last year. I doubt I'll do it again. I repeat a lot with the exception of the inevitable use stuff up soup. We've already had one. Beef stock, barley, yellow squash, tomatoes and peas. It was good. I am going to do one that I saw in a magazine. Celery root and fennel topped with apple and bacon. I might write that one up.
There's a funny thing that happens in which she doesn't need anything until I start doing something. That's something that often happens with kids. I thought I was going to post the other day but somehow every time I turned toward the screen there was something to discuss or something to get.
I'm not really complaining. I might be in a few months but right now I'm just happy to have her here.
I've lived alone for too long and I'm set in my ways. If I needed proof I now have the three months a year when Mom visits. I'm happy to have time with her but we are both women who are set in our ways. And her way usually wins. I would always demure to the desires of a guest but with Mom it's more like succumbing. Some of that is about her age and need for care but she gets along without me the rest of the year. I think she wants to be taken care of and I'm actually OK with that. It is a challenge.
There's football on the television. My Sunday breakfast of French toast changes to poached eggs on English muffins. We have soup every night for dinner. I think it's funny because we use two bowls for cereal in the morning and the same two bowls for soup every night. I wrote about the soups on the food blog last year. I doubt I'll do it again. I repeat a lot with the exception of the inevitable use stuff up soup. We've already had one. Beef stock, barley, yellow squash, tomatoes and peas. It was good. I am going to do one that I saw in a magazine. Celery root and fennel topped with apple and bacon. I might write that one up.
There's a funny thing that happens in which she doesn't need anything until I start doing something. That's something that often happens with kids. I thought I was going to post the other day but somehow every time I turned toward the screen there was something to discuss or something to get.
I'm not really complaining. I might be in a few months but right now I'm just happy to have her here.
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