Thursday, April 1, 2021

The Roots of Fat Phobia

Recently I received a note from my friend Ted saying, "You worry way too much about your weight." All I can say to him in response is, "No kidding, tell me something I don't know."

By way of explanation, let me put things this way. Suppose when you were a child your family had a pit bull, or maybe a German shepherd dog. And suppose that every day the dog bit you or terrorized you in some way, and your parents told you to "stay away from the dog" and "don't aggravate the dog," yet did nothing to deal with the dog's aggressive behavior. 

Naturally you would not invite friends to your home for fear they would encounter the dog. And every day and night you could hear your parents arguing about what to do with the dog, how to handle the dog, what to feed the dog, and bought the dog toys to make it happier, but they never got at the root cause of the dog's aggression so nothing changed and in fact got worse as the dog grew larger and got angrier. 

Supposedly you lived with the dog since birth until the age of 19, and finally moved away. Do you think you would like dogs after that? Would you be comfortable around them? How about if your parents warned you constantly, daily, that aggression was a really bad trait to be avoided at all costs? Would you worry about them, or perhaps spend too much time dwelling on how not to become "a dog" yourself?  

Actually we had a really sweet boxer when I was growing up, so I love dogs to this day and have owned several as an adult. In my story, the dog was my older sister and she wasn't only aggressive, she was obese, morose and miserable, and still is. And there you have it.

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