All of which makes me wonder. Is the problem the donut or
the person who eats it?
It seems to me that, in the quest to find the “cause” for
obesity, most of the attention has been focused on the eater, not the eaten. Holy
crap, you say! Are you living under a maple-frosted rock? How could you have missed
the onslaught of ads for Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, South Beach,
ad infinitum? Do the words low-carb, paleo, Mediterranean mean nothing to you?
If anything, you say, we are obsessed to the point of insanity with the eaten.
Ahem. I am, of course, well aware of the Diet Industrial
Complex, that endless blitz of diet programs and diet books and diet
philosophies, which reap great profits for everyone but the desperate people who
follow them. It seems to me that all this food noise is not about what is to be
eaten, but rather, about seducing vulnerable people with how good they will
look, how sexy they will feel, how righteous they will be if only they renounce
fat/sugar/salt/wheat/meat/fill-in-the-blank and do exactly what this particular
expert/author/blogger/health guru says. That our hapless eater is immersed in
an ocean of donuts is of no consequence as long as they remain a true believer
and change themselves.
Bariatric surgery is just the far end of the spectrum in this
conviction that the answer to excess weight is to modify the person carrying
it. And so, you must be a warrior against the donut, ever vigilant, forsaking
conventional ways of eating in favor of that prescribed by your new food
religion. The other end of this spectrum favors a more psychological approach,
in which you change your psyche,
making peace with “food demons” so you can practice moderation and, above all else, be sensible. Regardless of where you exist on this spectrum, when you are
successful in transforming yourself, your weight will take care of itself and
life will be wonderful, full of smiles even. If you can’t change yourself on
your own, then you have no option but the knife. And I don’t mean the butter
knife.
Let’s step back for a minute. It is a fact that the reason I
lost 100 pounds is because I modified myself. Not through surgery, but in a
radical way nonetheless. I changed my diet in the extreme. I changed my
exercise habits in the extreme. Doesn’t this prove that the “cause” of obesity
is to be found in the eater?
Before we jump on that anti-gravy train, let me relate a few
more facts. First, I have not “won” my battle with obesity. I still struggle
with it. Every day. And, second, it is entirely possible that I will someday regain
all the weight I lost. I keep this nasty picture in the forefront of my mind,
as a hedge against the abysmal odds. You see, a big part of the fight has to do
with living in a world awash with donuts (and their fatty, sugary, salty co-conspirators),
requiring near superhuman willpower to resist. When I fail to resist them, 100%
of the blame is assigned to me. And only me. Because I made the “choice” to eat
those foods, right? Don’t I know, to misquote The Matrix, that there is no donut?
Um, excuse me, but... There most certainly IS a donut.
It seems counterproductive to me that we focus on fixing,
even “curing,” the currently/formerly fat while ignoring the food environment
that surrounds us, though I understand why it happens. There’s a whole culture
and a whole economy dedicated to donuts and their gastronomic kin. It’s
ingrained in us to a point that we don’t question it. It’s just the way it is. So
of course an orange costs more than a donut. And it follows naturally that
given the choice of an orange or a donut, most people would choose the donut.
To do otherwise would be a huge change in the status quo.
And, as any overweight person already knows, big change is
hard. Really, really hard.
How are things going?
ReplyDeleteHi Vickie. I'm fine. I've been preoccupied for a few months with some family issues. I hope to get back here soon. How have things been with you?
DeleteTouchy earlier in the fall (emotionally) but better now.
ReplyDeleteSurgery two weeks from today. Having some of my excess skin removed.