That old Upper East Side adage has been running through my mind all week. Ever since I got my visa to go back to London and started counting down the days I had left of fresh, delicious California cuisine. I recently got to within a couple pounds of my goal (well, not my goal weight, but my goal of getting below a certain hated number), and now I’m struggling with a very difficult decision: to eat or not to eat?
I have an opportunity here. I could be below the dreaded number by the time I leave for London, if I’m willing to give up all badness and only eat healthy, low-calorie foods like vegetables sans olive oil and salads with no cheese or nuts. But then I would be sacrificing my last week of yumtastic treats like Trader Joes Mini Peanut Butter Cups and delicious grilled asparagus with olive oil and steak, glorious steak!
Maybe the choice would be easier if I had a point of reference, but I’ve never been thin, so I have no idea how it feels. What I do know is that a lot of things taste really really good!
So I’m calling out to you, thin people of the internet, to dig deep down into your protruding ribcages and tell me: how does it feel? Is it really better than buffalo mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes? Use your freshman year English class and describe, please! Enquiring, tubby minds need to know!
I have an opportunity here. I could be below the dreaded number by the time I leave for London, if I’m willing to give up all badness and only eat healthy, low-calorie foods like vegetables sans olive oil and salads with no cheese or nuts. But then I would be sacrificing my last week of yumtastic treats like Trader Joes Mini Peanut Butter Cups and delicious grilled asparagus with olive oil and steak, glorious steak!
Maybe the choice would be easier if I had a point of reference, but I’ve never been thin, so I have no idea how it feels. What I do know is that a lot of things taste really really good!
So I’m calling out to you, thin people of the internet, to dig deep down into your protruding ribcages and tell me: how does it feel? Is it really better than buffalo mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes? Use your freshman year English class and describe, please! Enquiring, tubby minds need to know!
Comments
My initial reaction to your query was to dive headfirst into a discussion of a subject of fascination and, at times in my existence, obsession for me: weight, body image, what I eat, and how I imperfectly navigate the pitfalls of the American food system.
I might talk about the revelation of reading Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and how I have painstakingly reintroduced “real” food back into my diet, so that I can happily avoid counting calories while maintaining a sensible diet and healthy body weight, or how I (paradoxically, given my last statement) use a free online calorie counting website to make sure that my portion sizes are in keeping with my caloric goals (www.my-calorie-counter.com, for those interested).
I might insist to you that in moderation, you can have low-calorie foods like veggies with olive oil and salads with bleu cheese crumbles and almond slivers, or tell you about how my mania for rock climbing keeps me fit.
But to say so would be misguided at best, hurtful and disingenuous at worst. I am reminded of my grandparents’ attempts to help me when I was a teen with a face-full of worse-than-average acne. No amount of salicylic acid or micro-derm facial scrub seemed to help me, although no one seemed short of advice on what would.
I don’t know what your set point is, or how your body reacts to periods of exercise or rest. I have a difficult time conveying my own emotional reactions to the prospect of eating, and I can never know what thoughts you entertain as you waiver between a filet of steak or a few slices of apple.
And of course, if I were to dwell on my own personal relationship with food, eating, and exercise and how that relationship has manifested itself physically, I would still be missing the entire point of your post: does anything truly taste as good as thin feels?
It is difficult to emphasize this enough: thin is a feeling. And while you claim to have no reference point, Anne, I highly doubt you have never felt thin. Or proud of your body. Or marveled at the way that it performed to get your sentient mind safely from point A to point B and back again.
You already know that thin is a relative term, and that the 98 pound college co-ed with anorexia can feel genuinely fat for having two slices of watermelon at a sorority picnic instead of one, while a three-hundred pound truck driver can feel svelte after skipping a meal.
The “thin” people of the internet who respond to this post may be able to claim a certain BMI or enviable balance point on the scale, but I don’t believe anyone raised in this country, least of all any women, no matter how thin, can claim to be totally unscathed by the line we as citizens, consumers, and members of industry have drawn between happiness and thinness, heftiness and despair.
There are serious problems in our system of agriculture and with the ways that Americans view, consume, and relate to food. A staggering jump in the proportion of the population with obesity as well as a rise in the cases of anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder point to a cultural foodway in serious need of repair, if we can call American eating a foodway.
Instead of a puritanical emphasis on good or bad (as in good fats versus bad fats, or good carbs versus bad carbs), we should take the time to enjoy our food as a cultural ritual, whereby we participate in the act of growing and harvesting the food (or at least have first-hand contact with those who do), cooking and preparing our meals, and deriving pleasure, real, guilt-free pleasure from eating that food in the company of family and friends. And we should be healthier as a result.
I cannot in good conscience end this minor rant with a cheeky response to your original question, Anne, although I toyed with the idea of asking whether nothing tastes as good as health feels and wondering why it is we can’t have both.
I understand the lure of thinness, the desire to be the size 2 girl on the beach in her string bikini. I wish I could tell you that no part of me believes I would be a little more fulfilled if I could just shave a couple of inches off my waist. And in no way do I want to trivialize your struggle with food, eating, and body image.
I do want to wish you the best of luck in your travels and to offer you my sincere hopes that while you are at home and abroad, you are able to make some peace with the way your body functions and how you are able to nourish it. It is your loyal friend and most constant companion, and will be with you, through thick and thin. (Okay, the last pun I just couldn’t resist).
Bon voyage, dearheart, and don’t forget to write!
Xoxo,
Jessica
I totally agree that the emphasis should be on health, and most of the time that's what I try to focus on, but it is really really hard to ignore the way the word is so inextricably entwined with an image of thinness.
I could rail for another page or so but I've done my writing for the day and I don't want the focus to be on my comment; it should be on yours!
Thanks so much for your thoughtful response.