I get really emotional about this. I am going to use a lot self-deprecating language in this post, but it is essential to express how badly this phenomenon makes me feel. Just know I am not looking for sympathy.
I am a little overweight. More than I would like to be. I'm generally ashamed of it even though I am "healthy", per my doctor. I've been making changes over the last few months to try to look better and, in turn, feel better.
My problem is that I was raised to always finish my food. I always had to eat what was on my plate. I always had to finish my food as to not waste money. I always had to eat everything as to not insult the host. So I didn't eat because I was hungry and I didn't stop because I was full. I ate because the food was ready and I stopped because it was gone.
To this day, I don't really "get hungry." Hunger is almost never my primary motivation for eating. I eat because I want to. I eat because it smells good or tastes good and feels good to eat. The act of eating, and the desire to eat, is completely divorced from any sense of biological need or nutrition. Eating is an act of personal satisfaction.
Logically, I know that this is gluttonous and disgusting. I know that nobody should eat like this. I know that this is a grossly indulgent culture of consumption that I need to counteract and discourage myself from participating in. Every year I am a little bit heavier. Last year's pants wont fit. Shirts will be too tight. Then I'll break down and delete every picture of myself I can find.
I might not show up in this statistic sample. But I recognize that I am getting worse and worse, and I am getting bigger and bigger, and it will not stop unless I stop.
What makes things so difficult for Americans is that food is linked directly with personal satisfaction and pleasure. It is not an act of biology, it is a desirable indulgence. You eat because food is delicious. You eat because it makes you happy. The only time it ever starts to weigh on you is when your clothes don't fit. And then what do you do?
With this mindset, changing your diet becomes an act of denial. It is a direct reduction of joy from your life. Eating becomes unsatisfying. Eating becomes a chore. And your heart and mind scream for a taste of what you were used to and you resent everyone around you who doesn't have to do what you're doing. Every time you have to eat eight almonds for lunch or have a single egg for breakfast you imagine eating bullets instead. Your ego begs for an alternative. A miracle pill, a surgery, a genie lamp, an deal with a demon, anything to shed the poundage without sacrificing something that makes you so basely and profoundly happy. You look at old pictures of yourself and wish you could look like that again. But to do that, to accomplish that, you have to be miserable.
I've been forcing a different diet for months now. I have a meatless dinner. I order the smallest size of everything. I don't drink any sugar drinks. I never have dessert and I don't buy snacks and I do that thing where you only measure out a cup of pasta every time you make it. I ride an exercise bike for thirty minutes a day. I am finally losing a little weight. The change is ever so slight that I wouldn't notice if I wasn't desperately hoping for results. Every day I am unhappy and everything feels hopeless.
Not just because I am a fat American, but because I have to be unhappy to get better. The question of changing your diet becomes a question of how unhappy you will let yourself get to maybe feel happier in the future. Meanwhile, every health journal and every fitness guru and every European reminds you in their own way how it's all your own fault. They're not even wrong. The truth hurts.
Fighting your all-American conditioning is extremely stressful. And it makes it worse because you know it's your culture's fault. You read about how other countries laugh at America, and they don't have the health problems America does, and how comfortable and balanced their diets are, and it's honestly humiliating.
Somebody from the UK once asked me why Americans put cheese on everything and I realized I'd never had just a hamburger in my life. I never make a deli sandwich without cheese on it. I've never had pasta without Parmesan on top. There are things I do compulsively and without even thinking because, to me, that's what food is. A hamburger without cheese is food by subtraction. It is inherently missing something and worse to eat. Why would I ever eat that?
And this is why I'm fatter every year. This is why I hate looking at pictures of myself. This is why every other country in the world sees Americans as fat slobs.
So I deny myself my favorite foods. I eat what feels like microscopically small portions. And I try to remind myself at all times that it's all an illusion. It is enough food. This is what eating is supposed to be like. And I think, wow, the fact I want to cry when I can only have a 4 oz hamburger is why everybody fucking hates America. And then I feel kinship with them, because I hate myself too.
So when I see these rising statistics, I am so sad. Because these statistics keep going up even though American food went through a health-renaissance in the last decade. Even though plant-based meats are skyrocketing and people eat avocados now and people go for baked foods instead of fried, everyone is still gaining weight.
You can only change the food so much. You need to kill the culture. That makes me think all hope is lost for the 40% of adults who are already obese. The only hope is their children who need to be raised to see food differently from a young age.
There's a lot of ways to talk about this. I've had long conversations with people who challenge the notion that being overweight is a reason to be upset with yourself. I've gone through cycles of self-care where I think I can accept what I look like and not hate my reflection. I've tried to turn my self-loathing into motivation and I've tried to get excited about results instead of the process. Not everyone feels like me. I really hope they don't. I wouldn't wish this mindset on anybody else.
But this is why I'm one of these statistics.