I arrived back from the gym tonight, and as I got to the front door something caught the corner of my eye and I looked across to the park over the road. All the swings were moving, and there was a girl standing there alone, pushing each of them. She looked to be between ten and twelve years of age and I felt sorry for her.
Not because she was alone.
Because she was very overweight.
Feeling sorry for someone might not be appropriate and it doesn't help them, but I also couldn't help feeling it. That is the things with feelings - we feel them before we have a chance to analyze them, whether we like it or not.
Now, I have no crystal ball to know what caused her to be overweight, nor can I know for sure what her experience through life is going to be. Yet, I can imagine that at least in the short term, it is likely that she is going to have some challenges, and that most likely, her current condition isn't her fault. Nor is it likely that she has some rare medical condition that causes it.
And I find it sad.
I get that we are all meant to be accepting of everybody and not be judgmental, but there is a reality to being severely overweight that should be considered also. Especially for a child. I see these kids with legs splaying out under the pressure of their own weight, as they are still growing, never having the chance for their bones to form correctly. If a person were born with scoliosis and a crooked spine, we would consider it an abnormal curvature. But when it is inflicted by body weight from overeating, it is acceptable.
It makes no sense.
Of course, there is nothing I can really do about the what society or culture finds acceptable, and what kinds of harms can can be justified. Yet, it does seem hypocritical to admonish cultures that do terrible things like bind the feet of young girls to keep them small, and then not look in the mirror and see the similarities and what the future impacts might be of our own actions.
Should nothing be done?
Take out all the potential for teasing and social prejudices, just looking at the physical implications of a child being overweight and then maturing into an overweight adult, is it the kind of outcome that we want. Would we want it for ourselves? If we could go back to childhood and eat poorly, get fat and carry that weight into adulthood, how many would do that?
I get it - it isn't my business.
But is that really the case? If I saw a man beating a woman in the street and I said, "that isn't my business", would that be socially acceptable too. Just shrug my shoulders, have a flash of though about how violent and degraded the world has become, and move on about my business.
The problem is, that obesity is so prevalent and so many people find it so hard to lose weight, that they see it as an impossible problem, something they just have to accept in themselves. And that means, that when someone mentions weight, it becomes a personal attack on something they feel that they can't change.
A few days ago, Britain's heaviest man died of organ failure a few days before his 34th birthday. He weighed around 317 kilograms (~700 lb) and from what I read, he was hoping to be prescribed Wegovy, the weightloss medication that a lot of the celebrities are pounding by the fist full.
Holton reportedly began overeating as a teen while grieving his father’s death and went on to consume 10,000 calories a day, which included eating doner kebabs for breakfast.
Sad, isn't it?
While his story is an extreme, it isn't unfamiliar to a lot of people in the world who for one reason or another, start to consume and consume to the point that they can no longer stop. It becomes a habit, a crutch, a comfort activity and it can lead to self-loathing which spirals back into consuming more, and more.
We are all potential addicts of something.
Or multiple things.
Being overweight isn't the largest issue facing society, but perhaps it is indicative of society in general, where we keep finding ways to excuse illnesses and degradation of health in general. Physical health, mental health, social health, financial health - it all seems to be in decline for the majority of us, yet we keep behaving as if this decline is natural, that we should accept the slide, rather than do something about it.
I don't know what to do about it.
Education in knowledge doesn't work alone, so it has to be followed up by application of knowledge. Yet, this is where we seem to increasingly fall down, because we aren't willing to make changes in ourselves, let alone in the way we organize our communities. We don't organize for health, we structure for wealth. And while people are told to mind their own business when it comes to social issues like obesity, everyone complains about how they are financially struggling, without seeing that the two things are connected.
It is all connected.
Which is perhaps why that little girl in the park makes me sad, because she isn't alone. She is likely going to grow into a world where she is normal, and while that sounds great, normal isn't going to mean healthy. She might struggle to walk a flight of stairs, but so might many of her friends, and they will create strategies to avoid being in discomfort. They will build more tools, take more medication, move less, numb themselves further.
Maybe that will be considered a good life.
An evolved life.
The swings in the park will be empty.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]