Another Stargate video by my SIL Angie, featuring my whole family (including an appearance by Hartman the cat) - Angie, sister Pamela, BIL Michael, nieces Cydney and Sawyer, and a woman I don't know.
31 October 2007
28 October 2007
through a foreigner's eyes
I've been thinking a lot about weight as it pertains to this country. When D was here, he observed that people here (east coast) were about 30 lbs heavier on average than people in San Fran. That, for me, was yet another reason that it makes sense for me to get out west. And when I drove from here (east coast) to Cleveland in July, stopping only at reststops along the way, I noticed that as I drove west, people got decidedly heavier. It feels like we truly are a country of out-of-control gluttons, and it makes sense that other countries look at us this way. We're sedentary, we have bad (though addictive), high-calorie foods available to us at all times, and at irresistibly low prices.
When I go to family restaurants, it's a veritable portrait of Fat America, all of us indulging our caloric fantasies without worry. I'm embarrassed for us and I'm embarrassed for myself. I know that I'm heavier than I should be, and though my heavier friends tell me I look fine, my thinner friends are silent and my doctors know I'm not. My laryngopharyngeal reflux, which has done such damage to my vocal chords and voice, is partially due to weight, as are my heel spurs and knee problems. And the only thing that will make these things better is for me to take control and get back down to a weight that my body doesn't struggle against.
And those are just the physical/medical issues. Beyond that, there are the aesthetics, the reality that my weight is one of the things, if not the main thing, keeping me single and sometimes forcibly celibate, as men are visual and cannot see past the visual, or choose not to, and I am decidedly, irreversibly straight (where are the "ex-straight" programs? - ha ha).
I've been seeing so many overweight children lately, and that is just WRONG. Kids shouldn't be fat unless they have a medical issue. Otherwise, it's the result of lifestyle and it's the parents. I'm glad I don't have children, because I know that if I did and if they were overweight, it would be noone's fault but my own, and that would break my heart. I'd have to either suck it up and start modeling a very active lifestyle, or somehow convince myself that it wasn't my responsibility that that they were overweight, and that other things matter more than "appearance". Then again, maybe if I did have kids, I would have sucked it up and gotten fit for their benefit. Diet wouldn't be that much of an issue, because I eat well, always have, and grew up with parents who thought about nutrition when it seemed noone else was. My sister has my nieces doing 4000 physical activities and eating extremely healthily, and though I think she's a bit extreme, I think the alternative is worse.
I don't completely separate myself from the 300 lb + population, because it seems that anyone could become that big with a moderately bad diet and no movement. It seems like it could happen frightfully easily. But now that I see us through a foreigner's eyes, I'm ashamed. We are a country that has been historically raised on beef and potatoes and not, like most Asian countries, on fish and rice, but we have education and options - the option to eat whatever we want. All the good stuff is available to us now, as accessible as our local supermarket. And we have the option to incorporate exercise into our lives, even if it's not particularly enjoyable. All I can do is try to fix things for ME. But I wish that we as a country would wake up a bit more to this problem.
When I go to family restaurants, it's a veritable portrait of Fat America, all of us indulging our caloric fantasies without worry. I'm embarrassed for us and I'm embarrassed for myself. I know that I'm heavier than I should be, and though my heavier friends tell me I look fine, my thinner friends are silent and my doctors know I'm not. My laryngopharyngeal reflux, which has done such damage to my vocal chords and voice, is partially due to weight, as are my heel spurs and knee problems. And the only thing that will make these things better is for me to take control and get back down to a weight that my body doesn't struggle against.
And those are just the physical/medical issues. Beyond that, there are the aesthetics, the reality that my weight is one of the things, if not the main thing, keeping me single and sometimes forcibly celibate, as men are visual and cannot see past the visual, or choose not to, and I am decidedly, irreversibly straight (where are the "ex-straight" programs? - ha ha).
I've been seeing so many overweight children lately, and that is just WRONG. Kids shouldn't be fat unless they have a medical issue. Otherwise, it's the result of lifestyle and it's the parents. I'm glad I don't have children, because I know that if I did and if they were overweight, it would be noone's fault but my own, and that would break my heart. I'd have to either suck it up and start modeling a very active lifestyle, or somehow convince myself that it wasn't my responsibility that that they were overweight, and that other things matter more than "appearance". Then again, maybe if I did have kids, I would have sucked it up and gotten fit for their benefit. Diet wouldn't be that much of an issue, because I eat well, always have, and grew up with parents who thought about nutrition when it seemed noone else was. My sister has my nieces doing 4000 physical activities and eating extremely healthily, and though I think she's a bit extreme, I think the alternative is worse.
I don't completely separate myself from the 300 lb + population, because it seems that anyone could become that big with a moderately bad diet and no movement. It seems like it could happen frightfully easily. But now that I see us through a foreigner's eyes, I'm ashamed. We are a country that has been historically raised on beef and potatoes and not, like most Asian countries, on fish and rice, but we have education and options - the option to eat whatever we want. All the good stuff is available to us now, as accessible as our local supermarket. And we have the option to incorporate exercise into our lives, even if it's not particularly enjoyable. All I can do is try to fix things for ME. But I wish that we as a country would wake up a bit more to this problem.
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