Fine As Far As It Goes . . .

but there truly are people who use obesity to commit slow suicide.

Yet I'm happy for Joy; she seems like a hell of a girl.

H/t: the Cotillion girls.

UPDATE: CTG on the "fat" issue.

Again, it's complicated for me. I theorize that my mother has made a point of being heavy in order to keep men away from her in her later years. (She is intrinsically a very attractive woman.) Mostly, her strong body is able to handle the consequences, and the liver problems, diabetes and high blood pressure are treatable with the right medications. She's 70 now, and will be around for a good long time.

My aunt, however, is significantly heavier, and more addicted to carbs. Not to mention the fact that she is extraordinarily inactive—and, until recently, she smoked. Her greater obesity has led to a greater level of diabetes. Despite her being four years my mother's junior, I know I will lose her before I lose my mother.

I had the following exchange with my mom a few years ago:

Me: "My friend Dean Esmay says that many obese people don't actually overeat."

My mom: "Oh. How interesting. But I do."

At which point she proceeded to take another bite of the huge salad she was eating. (Because my mother eats compulsively, she tries to only keep healthful foods in the house. This is the main reason she won't stay at my aunt's place any more: the aunt keeps too many sugary and carby treats around, and these trigger binging on icky food.)

Food and obesity are linked, and in many cases there is a behavioral component. The problem is that you don't know from looking at a person whether that's the case. And you don't know what someone's genetic predisposition is from that single, judgemental glance.

It can, indeed, be a moral problem: there are certainly fat gluttons. But the biochemistry is complex, and there are several conditions that make people look "fat." And even in the case of the true pedal-to-the-metal food addict, there are worse things they could be binging on. (Drinking and driving, anyone?)

So this is an individual problem, with many solutions. One of which is societal acceptance of the fact that some people are naturally heavy.

UPDATE 2: Dean Esmay posts the Joy Nash video, and comments:

It's a metabolic issue, not a character issue.

By the way, the majority of Americans are overweight, and a third are medically obese. I guess we're just all slobs with character flaws, eh?

We're taking over. Give us your pizza or we'll destroy you.

I remember a discussion at my writer's workshop one day, when a skinny woman wrote about the temptation to judge when she saw an overweight woman ordering a salad at a restaurant.

Several of us were curious about why she would be tempted to condemn the ordering of a salad, of all things. "Um, even if you accept the premise that it's someone else's business what someone else is eating . . . what's to judge about the salad?" I enquired.

"Well, the thought would be 'oh, who does she think she's fooling?'" she responded.

I sort of blinked, and realized that anti-fat bigotry is at astonishing levels in some circles. If we intend to judge the overweight for ordering a steak and a baked potato, and we intend to judge them for ordering a salad, is there any choice they could make that would not incur presumption from those at surrounding tables? Answer: hell, no.

Yeah. Plenty of Americans eat too much. But improve your own damn health regimen: not someone else's.