The Acquisition of Health

Unless you live under a rock, you have heard the news that former head of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs, passed away. I'm not going to turn this post into an off-topic homage to Mr. Jobs, despite the fact that I was once a Mac enthusiast and an Apple devotee and am still a dual-platform user (I use both Windows and Mac, favoring neither). There are likely thousands, possibly millions, of writers of all stripes who are doing just that, and I see no value in adding to the pile. Those who care, will say something. Those who do not, will close the browser window or tab.

What I want to talk about is Mr. Jobs's lifestyle. From all external observation and by reading what insider's said about him, he lived an exemplary lifestyle. He has been a vegetarian for nearly all of his adult life, practiced meditation, exercised regularly, and was trim and fit in appearance. Even after his liver transplant and treatment for pancreatic cancer, he walked every day and had incremental goals to improve his fitness and stamina. What is more, Mr. Jobs was someone who could afford the best medical care in the world and certainly received regular check-ups and attention for any and all health problems. Mr. Jobs did everything "right" in his life in terms of supporting good health, but he still died at the relatively young age 56.

Since fat people are constantly having their lifestyles scrutinized and they are blamed for any and all health problems they have, I think it is valuable to look at the life of someone who one might arguably be viewed as a paragon of lifestyle choices. People so often look at others and believe that, "if only" they did the right things, they would be healthy. It is absolutely true that there are lifestyle diseases which can be improved or eliminated if one makes choices which are more conducive to good health. However, we must accept that health is not something everyone can acquire with a "better" lifestyle. What is more, the degree of change necessary to improve health is not equal across individuals. One person may improve by making small changes and another may improve marginally making huge changes. Every body is different and it is only the illusion that we can control our destiny through making the "right" choices that makes people so keen to judge. If they believe Fatty McFats over there could be healthy by eating better and moving more, then they can believe that they can also acquire health by making the "right" choices.

Unfortunately, as Mr. Jobs's unfortunate and premature death illustrates, good, even stellar, lifestyle choices don't always result in the acquisition of health. We all have a different genetic make-up which influences how healthy we can be. Sometimes, it means we get cancer at a young age no matter what we do. Sometimes it means we get diabetes even if we eat well and are exercising regularly. It's important not to view sickness and disease as something people buy with their choices, and to understand that life and being healthy are a good deal more complicated than we'd like to believe.

Fat Friends, Skinny Friends

Thanks to the magic of FaceBook, I've been a voyeur to the crash and burn of a long-term friendship between two quasi-friends/strong acquaintances. I know both of them pretty well, but not as well as people who I'd call "true friends". One of these people is sweet, gentle, quiet, and cooperative. The other is nice, but loud, opinionated, and assertive. Both of them love animals, 80's celebrities, taking cruises and late 70's rock music.

During the time I have been friends with them on FaceBook, I've seen dozens of pictures of the two of them smiling together as they attend concerts, conventions, and take vacations together. They write about how happy they were and what a good time they had together. I know they have been friends for well over two decades, possibly more. One of them used to be "best friends" with a third friend, but they bonded and the third wheel was shut out. She was left by the side of the road while they walked hand-in-hand through mutual interests.

One day, one of these two women, the quiet and compliant one, posted a message on FaceBook seeking opinions about a certain situation. In essence, she asked if two people had a falling out and had had a shared hotel room planned for an event, was it her responsibility to make it clear that the plans were off. She capped the request with the fact that the person of whom she was speaking had ended their argument with the statement that their friendship was "over forever."

Given the history these two women have, I guessed that this elementary-school-style speaking about someone who is not named but is clearly known to everyone was the buddy she'd gone on so many entertaining sojourns with. I checked her friends list and, sure enough, they were no longer joined on the social network. I then checked the other party's feed, the aggressive and outspoken one, to see her carp about how people can't expect others to read their minds and they have to make their wishes known. I left them to their grade-school sniping and pondered some deeper issues.

In this scenario, if you were asked to guess which one is fat and which one is a former beauty pageant contestant, which would you assign to each (admittedly vague) character set? There are stereotypes of fat women as brassy, loud, and overbearing, but, in my experience, they are not necessarily like that with friends. In fact, most of the fat women I know are bubbly, compliant, and overtly happy. In my experience, they are more so this when with skinny friends than other fat ones.

One thing I've read again and again from fat women who are wanting to lose weight is how they don't want to be "the fat friend". I ponder what it means to be "the fat friend" to such people. In many cases, it means that you are the one who someone else stands next to to make them look better.

I've also read, with some disgust, that some fat women don't want to have fat friends because they hate the way a posse of big girls "looks". They're afraid of drawing even more attention. They're also ashamed to be with fat friends. This makes me wonder if, in a friendship in which there is a fat girl and a thin girl, and especially when the smaller woman is considered "hot", that the fat girl may feel that she must defer to her friend. That is, she may feel, unconsciously, that she is being granted some special dispensation for being allowed to pal around with thin people.

In my own personal experience, I did not defer to my friend's wishes and tended to be more of an "alpha" female when I was with friends. That being said, I did always care about other people being happy. I was raised to always place myself last. Being fat made this very easy since I so often believed it made everyone "better" than me and their needs were more valuable than mine. Since I lacked value due to my fatness, this was logical.

In the case of my very good friends, it wasn't that my friends necessarily followed me, but rather that they tended not to have many ideas or assert themselves in general. It is likely that most of the women (all thin) who became my friends were also dealing with other self-esteem issues or social problems and that is part of why they were friends with me despite my weight. One of my good friends went to a church-affiliated school, could only wear skirts and dresses, and had to follow relatively strict rules. Another was two years younger than me and had an alcoholic father who beat her mother and threatened his children. My guess is that both of them felt "inferior" for their own reasons and my weight was either not a factor or an equalizing one.

In terms of people who were not my friends in particular, I didn't defer to their wishes, but for those who I wanted to be friends with because they generally seemed like nice people or were interesting, I tended to completely suppress my wishes and tried to anticipate their needs in order to convince them to like me. All of my yearbooks were filled with how "nice" I was. "Nice" was a euphemism for "boring" sometimes, but in my case, it was because I was always trying to get people to like me despite my fat body.

All of this leads me back to the meltdown that occurred between my two quasi-friends. It's my guess that the former failed model/beauty pageant contestant friend is accustomed to everyone wanting her time and attention regardless of what she says or does merely because she is perceived as being quite attractive. On more than one occasion, she has gone out of her way on FaceBook to say things which she knows are offensive to a certain segment of her friends. I know this because she says, "I know this is going to offend some of my friends, but..." Almost certainly unconsciously, she acts only on her own interests and doesn't worry where the chips fall because even if some people run away, others will fall in and replace them. Everyone wants to be buddies with the good-looking girl.

The other pseudo-friend, who probably weighs in the 300 lb. area, has probably been such a "good friend" mainly because she's also "nice". That is to say, she's focused on pleasing others rather than on pleasing herself. Based on their public squabbles, I'm guessing that she finally got tired  of suppressing her wishes and said something which pointed out how selfish she believed her compatriot is.

As a footnote to all of this, I noted with some interest that the third wheel who got kicked to the curb when her best friend (the fat girl) bonded with her new friend (the skinny girl) and has been sitting on the sidelines for the better part of 20 years is now back in the picture. The thin friend is now professing how much she loves the third wheel and they're talking about how good a time they had going to a tea shop together. The third wheel is also quite overweight (probably 230-260 lbs.). Perhaps the skinny friend really does need a "fat friend" to make her feel more attractive, or this is merely coincidence. It presents an interesting dynamic regardless of the reasons.

I can't say for certain that this is a "fat friend/skinny friend" dynamic going on here because regardless of weight, people have basic personalities. Many fat women have stellar esteem and will assert themselves freely. I do, now. I stopped people-pleasing the first time I lost weight and didn't go back to it after I regained because I got tired of having to "prove" something to others in order to gain acceptance. I just accepted that I'd be rejected and everyone be damned. Also, being married to a husband who is almost god-like in his perfection psychologically, I had acceptance from someone who no one could ever surpass. That being said, to this day, I still have to fight not to sublimate my needs to his. It's not because he expects it of me, but rather because I view him as superior to me and his interests as paramount. It's my issue, and I keep working on it.

Getting back to the point, I do believe based on my own feelings in my younger days as well as witnessing the characters of various other fat women, that we don't express ourselves in general because society teaches us that we are not equal. In fact, it instantly devalues us with a glance. To get any value back, we have to prove that we are somehow better than others in other ways. We do that by being super nice, cooperative, generous, fun, and kind, even when it causes us to sacrifice our own needs.

Summertime Judgement

I don't know what I weigh at the moment because the number means very little to me. My appearance also means little to me, except to the extent that it draws unwanted attention. For awhile, I was "passing" in public as I walked around at 186 pounds. In clothing, the fact that most of my excess weight is hanging below my waist was camouflaged, especially when wearing a coat or sweater.

Summer has brought shorter pants out of the closet and had me walking around in public with my much fatter lower body drawing attention. The looks that I was spared throughout winter are back with a vengeance. People look down with gaping mouths at my super chubby calves, follow them up to my hips, thighs and stomach and finally make their way up to my face and look into my eyes with a look which I'm all too familiar with. It's the look that says I'm less than human because of my fatness. My body, which is now more fully exposed, has dictated my low value.

During the winter, people looked at my face first, not my legs. My face and upper body are pretty much "normal", and I was judged by my hair, eyes, shoulders, and chest. These met with either disinterest, or approval. As long as I hid my fatness with clothes, I could pass for human. Now that the heat has revealed it, I'm back down in the puddle with other lesser creatures.

This experience is an unnecessary reminder of how differently people are treated based on body image. I say that it wasn't necessary because it's not like the decades of being gawked at, made fun of, and openly scorned has faded from memory after a brief winter exposure to being treated roughly as "normal". It's just a more profound experience for me to be flip-flopped from one side ("normal") to the other (fat enough to be gawked at) without actually changing my body size appreciably. It also pretty clearly demonstrates how superficial such judgement is, despite the fact that most people say they are concerned with weight and health. I am at the same health level whether I'm wearing long pants and a coat or wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

It was a relief, for awhile, to be free of such openly rude and pejorative behavior. It didn't make me feel like I'd joined a new tribe though. Many people who lose weight revel in their status as "normal" and this is part of what fuels their diet and weight loss zealotry, but I've never felt that way. Part of the reason is that I'm still fat (and probably always will be - it's just a question of how fat), but a bigger part is that the tattoo of fat prejudice left on me goes down to the bone.

I won't forget how I'm regarded based merely on how the lumps and bumps of my body are visible or how large they are. I won't forget how arbitrary and mind-numbingly ignorant such behavior is. I certainly can't forget that I'm the same person now that I was before and that the approval I receive for my appearance (or the lack of censure) is actually an insult. I also won't forget how fleeting and unreliable such approval is, as I've experienced just how ethereal it is in a span of months.

Envy

I envy cutters. Yes, you read that right. I envy people who harm and mutilate themselves to deal with their pain. Unlike people who eat to bury their pain, cutters are regarded with sympathy. People want to help them and realize that the scars of their destructive behavior are a manifestation of illness. Fat people receive no such sympathy for bearing the scars of their suffering, and the bigger the "scar" (the heavier the person), the less sympathy they receive.

Lately, the quality of my life has been spiraling downward. This is related to what I wrote about in my previous posts, but also an overall tendency for me to work harder at being more productive, more psychologically whole, and to be physically stronger. At this point in time, the way I've taken myself apart to stop my reliance on food to deal with my pain is something I'm not sure I'll survive intact, one way or another.

I'm that much weaker for having made this effort, but not in any of the ways which people would recognize as being "weaknesses". On the contrary, I'm sure people would see everything I've done as nothing but success - losing lots of weight, looking "better", being healthier, and assuming a more productive role in the world. Superficially, I'm looking to be a screaming success. Inside, I'm falling apart.

One thing I know in a visceral fashion but knew superficially before is that the palliative effects of overeating for someone psychologically inclined to use such coping mechanisms are profound. When that is taken away, the forces that drive one to it do not vanish. The pain that motivated the seeking of food for comfort or numbing remains. Without the food, there is nothing but profound pain with no relief. Sometimes the pain is so great that I wish I would simply fall asleep and not wake up the next day. I don't want to die and I wouldn't end my own life, but I wish to stop hurting without relief.

People who fail at their "diets" have something I no longer  have. They have the capacity to return to food for comfort because they haven't conditioned the effectiveness of doing so out of them. All I have is rawness and suffering. It makes me wish there was something else to turn to, and that returns me full circle to cutters. I in no way want to elevate what they do, but I can see the appeal of seeking relief in a way that doesn't find you being labeled and judged. It's a sad fact of the world that hurting yourself in one way is ridiculed and seen as character weakness and a lack of self-control and hurting yourself in another is a cry for help. I keep crying, but find no help.

(Not) Giving Anything Up

Imagine that you are on a beach with several other people. Each person has different swimming capability. One person is an expert swimmer who has been trained not only as a lifeguard, but also has participated in swimming marathons. Another person is a strong swimmer, though has no formal training. Yet another is an average recreational swimmer who occasionally hits the pool in the summer. And then there is you. You can do the dog paddle if you have to, but you really can't swim at all. In fact, your swimming skills are sufficiently weak that you feel uncomfortable swimming without a life jacket or flotation device.

When you go out for a swim, you're fine as long as you have your life preserver with you to help you survive the deep with your limited swimming skills. The other people that are watching you are initially understanding of your need for a flotation device, then they are mildly bemused. As time goes by, they encourage you to abandon your life jacket and attempt to learn to swim better. However, you are concerned that the environment you are swimming in, the ocean with its depth, undertows and currents, is not a place that you can learn to swim in without risk of drowning. The swimmers who are with you become critical and start to make judgmental assertions about your refusal to abandon your life preserver, but you simply cannot do so; at least you cannot do it now in this place. Perhaps in the right place, at the right time, with proper support and guidance, you will manage to become a better swimmer.

Recently, I read a thread in the popular weight loss support forum where a woman was critical of people who have difficulty losing weight. She said that the thing which she took issue with was that such people seemed "refuse to give up ANYTHING" (her caps). She was essentially saying that people who can't lose weight don't want to sacrifice food, time, effort, etc. to be at a lower weight. She was saying that she felt they wanted to have their cake and (especially) eat it, too.

My feeling about people who cannot make the sacrifices to facilitate their weight loss goal is that they are like the weak swimmer I describe in the first two paragraphs of this post. It's not that they don't want to give things up; it is that they simply cannot. They are not in a situation where they can make those changes. In many cases, they are barely "treading water" in their lives as it is and currently do not have the psychological and/or physiological mettle to make those sacrifices. If they do, they will, metaphorically speaking "drown".

I don't think people should be judged for their seemingly contradictory desire to lose weight and inability to give up whatever is necessary to achieve their stated goal. I think we all do our best to survive, and when I speak of "survival", I mean as much or more from the mental viewpoint as the physical one. If people can't make the sacrifices (throw away the life preserver), it's because they lack the proper environment, experiences or skills that would allow them to do so at this time. They may want to very badly, but it's simply not possible right now.

When such pat judgments are made of people, it really makes me angry. Even though I have been successful for nearly a year now (and "sacrificed" a great deal by many people's standards) and lost a lot of weight, I have not forgotten that I was incapable for many reasons of making these changes before. None of those reasons are related to a lack of desire to make sacrifices or a childish "demand" for cookies or treats that could not go unsatisfied. They were all related to an inability to do so due to circumstances in my life that were largely beyond any sort of reasonable control.

Grocery Cart Judges

With the number of people losing their jobs and having to use food stamps, more people are getting a dose of what it is like to be judged for their food purchases. I've read many comments from people who have taken issue with the poor using their government-sponsored food purchases to buy snack cakes, potato chips, and soda. People feel that, since they pay taxes which pay for a food stamp recipient's sustenance, they have the right to decide what should be bought.

Most people believe the poor should only be given certificates for rice and beans. I guess they feel it's not bad enough being poor, but you also have to have your food choices dictated as well. My feeling about this is that I wouldn't invite someone in need into my home for a meal with the attitude that I would only feed them a particular type of food based on income level, so why should I regard food stamps any differently? I'm pretty sure anyone who I served a meal to would be offered dessert, a variety of drinks, and some interesting main meal. I guess some people would serve a poor person a different meal than a middle class one.

Of course, if you're overweight, that judgment has likely been with you during your entire shopping life. People look at your body, then swivel their eyes to your shopping cart or grocery basket. You can almost read their minds as they do this. They're trying to find out:

1. Are you buying the sort of food that will make you even fatter?
2. Are you buying healthy food and trying to lose weight?
3. Is there any evidence in your cart that leads them to understand how you got so fat?

Depending on what they see, I'm sure they're reaching certain conclusions. If you have something they don't approve of in the basket, they're going to view you with increased disgust. If you have healthy food, they will either think that your attempts are in vain if you don't get off your lazy ass and exercise or that you are at least not making it any worse.

Chances are that, in the absence of any overtly sugary or fatty food in your cart, they're going to be scrutinizing the kind of food you're buying in general. Too many carbohydrates? Meat that isn't lean enough? Too much processed food? People need to find a way to blame you for your weight and the shopping cart is the best way to find incriminating evidence.

I don't think I've ever gotten a look from someone which conveyed any sort of "approval", even when the basket's contents were nothing more than fruit and vegetables. Most people tend to either give you a look of disgust if they find something objectionable or they go back to looking around the store. They either find reason to despise you or lose interest if they can't find what they need to judge you harshly. I think most of the people who judge you by your shopping cart think you shouldn't be eating at all based on your weight.

Why Humiliation Doesn't Work

I've written a lot about how people go out of their way to judge and humiliate overweight people. One might wonder why, if it is so embarrassing and awful to be fat in this world, people don't just lose weight to escape the suffering they have to endure. The only people that wonder that are the same people who think the obesity problem can be solved by simple solutions. Their thinking about the issue is extremely shallow so they can't see the obvious.

What is the obvious? Here it is: people who are emotionally dependent on food to the extent that they develop an eating disorder are damaged. You don't make someone who is damaged better by beating up on them more. You damage them even more and send them further into their destructive coping mechanisms and make it all that much harder for them to find the capacity to change.

While certainly there will be a small number of people who can adopt an "I'll show everybody" attitude and pull themselves out of their lifestyle patterns, such people are rare, and it's even rarer that they don't eventually find themselves slowly slipping back to where they were. This is one of the reasons people so frequently regain their excess weight (and more). If you don't deal with the underlying biological and psychological issues, you're usually doomed to fall back into the patterns that made you fat in the first place.

If ostracizing, mocking, and judging fat people worked, we wouldn't have a growing obesity problem. If the world would figure out that hurting hurt people is unproductive and would try and support them, we could get started on dealing with the problem productively. Unfortunately, the trend appears to be to treat fat people more and more punitively rather than to attempt to create circumstances that will support any efforts to improve.