Salon.com has a sobering look at obesity in the U.S..

As someone who is currently caring for a (healthy) skinny kid, seeing my bad eating habits slowly (or not so slowly) being adopted by him (in not complimentary ways) has been an eye-opener (especially when they’re habits I’m personally trying to kill).

I’ve become sort of hyper-aware of this topic, so I might be biased, but it’s a good (longish) read, and I recommend it.

If you decide that, particularly for Justin-attended games, that the snacks should be curtailed or made healthier, just let us know. Probably do us good, too.

I am wondering if the emphasis on weight (both ways) is actually tied less to image than to some level of expectation (that is lacking?) in today's culture.

See, I understand things from the obesity side: I'm not struggling with it; my concerns are not for its beauty but for its relationship to my health.

When we had my "cousin" J living with us (a couple years ago, now) she was about 13. She told us that her best chance in life was to be a model, and if she couldn't look like one, life wasn't worth living. She wanted her teeth bleached once a month, she took two hours to get ready for school or to go out _anywhere_ and she was like some sort of alien to us. She told us that wheat had "fat" in it, and she had to avoid fat at all costs. (Despite studies at the time that said quite explicitly that for her age group, fat was essential for brain development, proper hormones...ugh.)

We stared at her, and not just because she thought we were the freaks.

We held a birthday party for her with some of the kids in her class. Then we observed something curious.

We had brownies, pizza, all the "standard" teenage fare. It went untouched in view of everyone. We overheard conversations in regards to, "Oh, I'm stuffed. I had an orange today."

Then we noticed food disappearing, slowly.

One girl had it down pat. She would take a brownie in on her way to the kitchen. If anyone else was there, she'd trip or otherwise "have to dispose of it." If she was alone, she'd eat the brownie quickly.

Everyone, including the boys, had their own methods. Apparently, it was the whole 7th grade class that acted this way.

Is it more an issue of controL?

I think it's an issue of image -- not body image (which is the obvious thought), but the image of a perceived lifestyle.

Example: Whoever it was that starred in Brigett Jones' Diary made a comment about having to 'chubby up' to 135 pounds for the part -- she gained the weight simply by eating 3 meals a day -- she said she couldn't wait to get done shooting so she could get back down to 105 or 110 again or whatever it was. (I just didn't feel like going to the movie after reading that interview, anyway.)

So: star's have this unbelievable self-control and eat nothing -- I (the 7th grader) want to be seen as a star, or a potential star, so I'm going to at least project the image that I don't eat much.

My sister has the right idea (which I'm too weak-willed to take advantage of) -- if you exercise (she runs and does aerobics and all that good healthy stuff), you can pretty much eat whatever you want.

Since we're getting into psychosis, here's mine -- when deciding how much food to eat, I always (Always!) err on the side of getting too much instead of getting too little -- better to have two sandwiches and feel stuffed all afternoon than to have one and (horror of horrors) feel a twinge at 4pm. I'm working on that.

The other problem is that I eat too fast, but that's just because I grew up in South Dakota -- if you took too long eating lunch out in the field, bugs would land on your food -- you either ate fast or had to pick mayflies off your bread. I think I was 28 before I heard the 'chew each bite 30 times' rule.

Sadly, this discussion is making me hungry. I'm off to lunch.

There's a lot of negative reinforcement. The idea that obesity is purely a matter of eating too much is the one that kills me... (Heck, the last weight calculator I used said I should eat 200 calories less a day if I wanted to lose the weight I suggested I wanted to lose. The problem is, eating 200 less from zero-400.) It's not just bad eating, it's bad eating _habits._

(I can honestly say that the reason I'm the weight I am has more to do with not eating than anything I eat. Heck, half of what I like about ACNW is that I have no excuse but to eat three meals a day.)

It's like what they said in the article: there's a difference between dieting and following a diet...a level of control. Discipline about eating habits as much as anything else. Not making food a matter of reward or punishment.

I was raised with the, "Eat everything on your plate or don't leave the table." To this day, I feel I'm wasting food... and I'm a leftover freak. (As in, I eat them. It's part of the cost of the meal.)

Ah well. My little sisters can't keep the weight on them; they run it off. Maybe explaining how much harder it is to change once you're an adult will help... [rolling eyes]