Ah, emails….
Is it really surprising that I don’t want to hear about the great new diet website? That I don’t want to read a book about weight loss? (No, not even your wonderful revolutionary diet that reveals the hidden secret of weight loss!) That I don’t want to go on a diet? That I don’t want to promote your new special low-carb-gluten-free-pomegranate-acai WonderWeight[tm] plan? No?
Ah well. Fortunately I have a delete key. ;)
Thank the stars for delete buttons!!! <3
You make me smile. Thank you for wording things so well!
I feel the same way. I got one of those lectures on my weight this weekend from the mother in law by talking about her own son and how heavy he is and we shouldn’t do this or that while we are trying to lose weight. If I have to hear about how much diet soda my bother in law drinks and how it makes him stay fat, I am going to knock that woman into the next county. So I say Hurray! God bless delete buttons! I don’t want to read about another diet, I don’t want to be on another diet, I don’t care if I am fat, obese, heavy set, or gargantuon, Just leave me the heck alone to be what I am and be what I want! God, that felt good to say that!
Bless you for a wonderful chance to air my feelings!
Somehow, the definition of the word “secret” has changed during my lifetime. The only thing about weight loss diets that is still a secret is that most of them don’t work for most people.
But I guess diets sell better if you don’t tout them as “the stuff everyone but you and the big fat guy/gal down the block know about weight loss”.
The delete button is one of the most amazing inventions ever created.
I suspect that people want to believe in magic, whether weight-loss related, or winning the lottery, or finding the beloved of their fantasies…we live in strange times. It’s hard to connect in deep, meaningful ways with people, and to remain in close relationships over long periods of time, and to feel a sense of community and security in knowing that others have your back. Maybe it’s just me. Yet I often wonder if much of the weight-loss propaganda is a bizarre cultural distraction away from a profound underlying sense of loss. A way to avoid looking at actual threats to humanity and to society, and to dodge unsettling feelings of fear, powerlessness and longing for some firmer sense of control, or order in the world.
The so-called epidemic of obesity becomes this imagined and imaginary threat to a way of life that has no connection at all to the sense of loss and to the fears of so many. The dark shape looming on the horizon of our collective unconscious then takes a tangible form. Something to “fight”, or at least “manage.” Meanwhile, growing and widespread inequality and economic uncertainty contribute to more and more kinds of everyday stress. People becomes sicker, at heart, and physically, with less access to the very things necessary to sustain peaceful existence.
The medicalization of conditions, such as fear, stress and now weight, provides a circus of now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t illusions. No wonder people want magic.
Former software tester, now retired heart patient having fun and working on building endurance and strength. See also About page.
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