Having just eaten a jam doughnut and an assortment of Millie's cookies, I think that food might be the topic of the day. Food has an almost sacred status in my office at the moment. We can spend entire days stuffing our faces with Krispy Kreme doughnuts before making our way to the pub for a pint and a pile of potato wedges. Yet, weirdly, we all seem to be in the middle of a diet. Amongst the doughnuts, you'll also find a large assortment of fruit, Diet Coke, Muller Lights and low-fat cereal bars. But the biggest irony of all is that none of us could be classed as overweight. Bridget Jones would be proud.
Being fat is one of our biggest fears in our society and this really pisses me off. If I were to gain six stone overnight, okay, I'd be fat, but if I were to lose six stone, I'd be dead. You'd never think that from the way people talk though. Somehow, anorexia isn't demonised the same way that obesity is. The names themselves imply that anorexia is a mental condition, whereas obesity is something physical that just sort of happens. The 'pull your socks up / nobody ever complained in my day' brigade are slowly starting to accept anorexia and bulimia, but they're much slower at accepting obesity.
It's not simply a case of will power or of educating yourself. My friends who are overweight are generally very well informed about nutrition. They are also not lazy; I have overweight friends who have important jobs, busy social lifes, and the willpower to give up smoking and other addictions. Telling a fat person to eat less is as unhelpful as telling an anorexic to eat more.
I don't entirely understand why anyone would eat so much that they harm themselves, but I'd imagine that food gradually becomes synonymous with happiness and comfort, and it's hard to break that cycle. People fail at diets because they don't believe they're going to succeed before they've even started. It's embarassing to go swimming or to the gym when you feel that everyone is watching you and judging you. And, the bigger you are, the hungrier you get.
I genuinely feel that thinner doesn't always mean happier, prettier or more popular. I also feel that everyone has an optimum weight that suits them. I have some friends who suit being a size six and others who suit being a size twenty, but if you asked me which of my friends is the prettiest, I honestly couldn't say.
It's up to each individual person to decide how much they want to eat and how much they want to exercise. And it's up to everyone else to mind their own fucking business.
And, on that note, I'm going to eat some more cookies.
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6 comments:
Amen! Women should not be fatless biologically, it's no good for our health in so many ways. Someone close to me has got herself into a proper near anorexia, definitely malnourished state, and it happened because she was lazy about cooking and was grabbing a muffin on the run, and when she dropped a load of wieght it started to become a psychological problem because she couldn't bring herself to try to put the weight back on. She got to the point where she thought it didn't matter that she was incredibly ill because being really thin was a good thing. Thing is, when she was a normal weight, she wasn't unhappy with herself. Now food is a huge issue she gets really stressed, she finds it hard to concentrate and get on with things, and you can see her self confidence is really badly dented.
That's the trouble with grabbing a muffin on the run...always ends in tears...
ohhhhhh! Fuck i walked right into that didn't i? It's a good job i'm too vicious myself to complain when other people are off key, eh?
You know this really isn't the time or place for a bun fight.
But we can have one? Name the time and place, and choose your bun type! Do we have to get shop bought buns or do you trust me to bake my own?
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