Fat America

Last night on TV I was watching a show about Fat Admirers, or people who prefer overweight people. While the show itself was interesting, that portion of it is not what caught my attention. What caught my attention was a comment made by a larger woman who said she finally loves herself, even if she is fat, but she FINALLY loves herself. Followed by that was a doctor saying that, while it's great she loves herself, she's destroying her body and the rest of America is headed that way as 2/3 of Americans are obese. He then went on to say, basically, how horrible it's going to be when we're all fat.

Being a holistic nutrition specialist I understand and agree with the fact that it does hurt the body to be overweight. Is it definitely not the optimal state for the body to be in. I get it, I do.

However, he's missing the bigger picture here. She loves herself. Finally. As did all of the other overweight people, not to mention their fat admirers. So here's my point, and my outlook on this...

Very few people can say they love themselves, or even like themselves, and mean it. How many of us can look at ourselves and not care that we aren't a certain size or shape? How many of us look at other people and compare, criticize, judge? Where does all of that come from? The lack of self love and appreciation of how fantastic our bodies really are. That is what leads to Fatland. We don't just wake up and find out the fat fairy has paid us a visit. No. We eat. Not to fill our hungry bellies, but to feel our empty hearts, to ward off our fears, to deal with stress, to fill an emotional void.

What if, now work with me here, what if we all did get fat? Yes, we would be unhealthy. Yes, we would all be the thing we desperately try to avoid but possibly, just possibly, what if being fat lead us to appreciating ourselves? Or the selves we formerly were? What if we have to "lose" ourselves to find ourselves?

Maybe, in my crazy mind that came up with this last night at midnight, we would all be large and in love...with ourselves. That self love would then ultimately lead to thinness, or at least a healthy weight, since we would no longer be eating for any of the wrong reasons. What if we came out of this as better people? A better world of human beings who finally learned to appreciate the real person within the body. How bad can that be if we turn it all around and come out a more caring, respectful, loving group?

Now, I'm not saying we should all run out right now and buy as many donuts as our bank accounts can handle and then eat prior mentioned donuts until we burst. No. What I'm saying is if we have the awareness now we can avoid the predicted Fat America. And if we don't, if we need to learn through lessons, maybe when that day comes we will all tackle it together and come out of it as a happier, kinder, and even thinner group, once we've all learned how fabulous we really are.