Vivien Leigh: “Do I look fat in this?” Clark Gable: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Cue music….
Ahh, would life be different if our ill-fated lovers had this conversation? Could Tara have been saved through healthy self-esteem and body image? Well. Maybe not, but the chance to change the world is NOT gone with the wind.
Yes, I’m on a soap box..again. This is National Fat Free Talk Week. Yup, the opportunity for tasty, yet, fat free living.
Are you aware that Americans are virtually the ONLY society in which it is perfectly acceptable to converse, while dining, about the varied and misundry reasons why we should not be eating – let alone enjoying – what is before us on our plate? “OH my goodness, I am can’t believe I ordered this! I’m going to have to do penance for weeks.” “I am being sooo bad,” “Oh, I really shouldn’t,” “That will go straight to my hips!” (fact: despite any evidence to the contrary, unless you have an extreme physically defect, it will go straight to your stomach, travel throughout your entire alimentary canal, perhaps make a brief stop for conversion into a storage vehicle via the liver, and then decide where to vacation – “ahh, the thighs are lovely this time of year.”) More than 2/3 of American women in a magazine survey admitted to feeling guilty every day about eating. EVERY DAY?
Sheeze! What’s wrong with that picture…we have a world at war, Haitians living in tent cities a year after their devastating earthquake, entire countries with inadequate healthcare, Americans sleeping on sewer grates to stay warm, and millions of us feel guilty because we EAT??
We feel that it is our due to comment upon other’s size, shape, food choices, and then recommend improvements. Hmmm. Let me just say “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” As for me? Well, my little, OK not-so-little, pile of stones is just gonna stay out of traffic.
Do you think this doesn’t really matter? Well, what if I told you that:
- Over 40% of 1st thru 3rd grade girls want to be thinner
- About 80% of 10 year old girls are afraid of being fat
- More than half of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet
- More than 80% of families with daughters 9 to 11 year old are “sometimes” or “very often” on a diet
- More than 90% of women surveyed on college campuses had attempted to control weight through dieting, and nearly a quarter dieted “often” or “all the time”
- Nearly of third of “normal dieters” progress to pathological eating
- Long term research shows that over 90% of dieters will regain lost weight in 1 to 5 years
- Nearly one-half of all American women are “on a diet” on any given day
- Americans spend of $50 billion (read that again…$50 BILLION) dollars per year on diet-related products each year.
And folks…it ain’t working! (Pardon the vernacular). We aren’t getting smaller. So…in a wholly unscientific bout of deductive reasoning…guilt, talking about ourselves in a negative way, and punitive behavior towards food is NOT effective in moving towards better health.
What would happen if…for ONE week…you looked in the mirror and said “Well, hello gorgeous.” Put on your jeans and said “I make these look good!” Or better yet, when trying on something that doesn’t fit, said “This just isn’t made to fit me” instead of blaming your body?!
Try…for ONE week…to converse over meals about something besides the nutritional content of your food. Here are some suggestions:
- the weather,
- fall leaves,
- football,
- what you are reading,
- a movie you’ve recently seen or would like to see,
- a kind gesture that you made that day,
- something nice that someone else did for you,
- your very first memory,
- one thing you’d like to do before the end of the year,
- what made you proud today,
- your best friend in grade school (whatever happened to her/him)
- or, in honor of the season, your worst ever Halloween costume
And..for ONE week…THIS WEEK…if someone else insists upon talking about the “f” word (not THAT one! I mean f*a*t), please smile and kindly say “Can’t talk about that. I’m fat free this week.”
Let me know how it goes.
p.s. Maybe they say it better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CuMJybvAh8
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