notes: even as I started to write this I was resistant. It is a tender subject. It cuts to the quick, the nerve, a shooting pain, an agony of sorrows, a remembrance of teasing, looks, reflections of repulsion, most of it imaginary. As a small child I was not obese. I was quite active as we all were with mandatory gym every day and recess and free time unencumbered by lots of techno crap. We had Mom & Dad's old console stereo, which was for dancing, too. If you got to jumping too hard the record skipped.
As a young child and as I grew older, food was important. There were 7 kids and 2 parents, all eating. I never knew what leftovers were when I met Fred. I still eat like a vacuum cleaner. My parents were born around the depression era. Dad's family had a grocery store in St. Louis and they did OK. Mom's Father died in 1930, leaving our widowed grandmother Fanny, their Son Jay, 15 and Mom 5. Mom had food anxiety. Hoarding. Nibbler. I am her clone. But add the not hungry, not full thing. I don't understand it. I don't want to understand it.
The farther back I looked, heavy, heavy, heavy people. My Dad was the skinniest that I knew, and Brother Dan. Was that because I stole his portions?...see I said this is painful. I will only scratch the surface of my culture about food.Jay was trim, solid. His sister, My Mom overweight. But not until she had kids. She thought the weight was from having kids. Then I never had kids and my weight went up in my 20's.
Yes I consume more than I burn.
I survive.
Right now, nausea creeps in from meds, diseased neurons.
My feelings about food, constantly change.
Except chocolate.
We do try to avoid processed foods, prepared foods, we try to choose healthy over not but we really must balance with desserts or other treats to keep us thankful we came down to this planet of plenty for one more spin. Growing up we did not have dessert with meals like my friends did. That is not to say we were not creative about cooking even at a young age.
So as this flows out, maybe it was not so bad. I get sensitive when I hear, eat healthy, live longer.
So many years working ICU. Healthy ones dropped too, sometimes more precipitously.
Then a nurse I knew, how did she stay so thin? Exercise, aerobics. And she ate the white part of the lettuce, you know, the stem end? She ate very little. I worried about her. Me plus sized. I worked hard but pretty sedentary, flat footed. Here was my friend, I was Envious.
It should have been a warning. We spent a lot of time together, 12 hour shifts, coding dead people,
chatting over half dead people, keeping people alive until the next shift.
I asked her one day when I gained the courage.How did she stay so thin?
She had been an exercise addict. She actually felt more laid back than before.
She weighed more than she ever had.
She moderated her exercise, she dropped the food obsessions. It was not easy.
She was pushed to the breaking point,
She was like a toothpick. I did not know her then. I was glad she told me.
Nothing is as it appears. You never know people's struggles.
I never looked at thin people the same.
Lastly, my ancestors did not think about eating too much or vomiting their excesses.
partly because there were no excesses.
Here is a link for the scientific low down on eating disorders.
There was in me more of a story. Perhaps more will come out later. Perhaps not.
Eating Disorders...
It is a modern phenonmenon, no??
We snickered in 6th grade when the boys talked about
the Roman excesses-they ate and then vomited at the Vomitorium.
