Stuffing My Face.....

Last night at writing circle a woman read a piece about her eating habits.  Sigh.....it was beautifully written, but the subject matter - TEDIOUS!  Worst of all it included the line 'Stuffing my face like a fat person."  I was deeply offended by that line.  Deeply offended by the subsequent characterization of the problems she is having to maintain a steady weight with being a loser or less than.  Stereotypes abounding.

Did it hit too close to home?  Abso-freakin-lutely!  So my response was in part related to my own issues around this subject.  The ones I am trying so hard to get OK with.  I am round.  I will always be round.  I love my curves.  FUCK someone who wants to convince me otherwise.  I will pass on that round of Kool-Aid forever.  Our culture is dead wrong about its view of weight.  And sometimes just dying to get there - literally.

I'm only gonna say this once people so LISTEN UP.  Size does not always equal health.  Why is that so hard to understand?  There is an initiative that has my wholehearted support called Health At Every Size of HAES.  Read about it.  Live it.  The thing is, alot of the round people I know do NOT stuff their faces.  They watch every morsel that goes in their mouth like a trained athlete.  They know about good carbs and bad, about glycemic index, about nutrition.  I am sometimes frankly amazed when I see some thin woman shoveling it in like a linebacker on steroids as I munch my way thru some crudite (no dip) and I wonder what her body knows that mine has forgotten?

Scientifically I know that I come from ancestors with the supersaver gene.  The one that allowed them to survive during times when food was scarce while others died from starvation.  The problem is that those genes now live in an age and in a culture where every and any food I want is available 24/7.  Available in Mother Earth groaning quantities of such waste.  Policing them constantly takes a lot of self control which I have.  Most of the time.  You will rarely see me "stuffing my face" and if you do it won't last more than a minute or two.

Mostly I was just saddened that this beautiful woman with a good body felt such anger and loathing toward the food she put into it.  Annoyed that slamming a fat person is still OK.  I mean would a white person in class read an entire piece about black people in a derogatory fashion using the N-word?  It's ludicrous right!?!  But somehow it's still OK in our society to laugh, embarrass and harass people of size.  Our fear around body size is a phenomenal power.  Becoming that which we fear most - intolerable.

All I have to say is - WATCH OUT!  Or I will be forced to kick your ass.