i told myself i wouldn't post again until i finished all my seminar reading. however...

i can't resist a good debate aboutbeing fat and getting thin, and how and why we do those things. which is not to say that the times editorial i linked to is the most fabulous piece about the current gastric surgery fad that i've seen---the most affecting part, truth be told, is reading an editorial about the fantastic increase in gastric surgeries among ever-more-obese americans (we can afford it!), and then arriving at the bottom of the page...to be greeted by a link to an article headlined "Agency puts Hunger #1 on list of World's Top Health Risks." oh, the disturbing and embarrassing irony of it all.

right, so being fat can be really...REALLY...bad for your health. but i write "can be" for a reason: it is well-documented that people can attain excellent levels of cardiovascular endurance and flexibility while remaining pretty damn fat. naafa will tell you, and i will affirm, that image-worshipping american culture is a major reason that fat people don't get or stay physically fit: fat people are denied access to fitness by the derision of others.

there's a long history of research that tells us that dieting is ultimately unsuccessful and damaging for most fat people. despite the messages we receive from a million and one media images every year, this is not so much about willpower as it is about genetics at war with american culture. if you're predisposed to gain pounds and keep them, and it's convenient and accepted to super-size your extra value meal, and nevertheless we're so obsessed with looking like barbie and ken that we terrify fat people out of exercising...well, being fat is going to be a miserable struggle. and when celebrities hop on the surgery bandwagon, maybe you'll call up your doctor and ask, too. then maybe there will be an editorial in the new york times that posits "a new miracle pill" (no, i'm not kidding), as the solution we're searching for.

all of which is really sick. gastric surgery, miracle pills, both are part and parcel of the same consumer-culture stupidity that makes americans so obese in the first place. maybe if we simplified and thought about what we ate once in a while, decided to stop deifying the skeletal woman, and gave a little respect to the fact that, ahem, "hunger is #1 on the list of the world's top health risks," it might seem less eerily plausible to put staples in our internal organs.