Intersections
9.19.06
A very alarming study was released by a cardiologist in Medscape recently citing that we are headed towards an adult population with 50% (65% of some minority groups) being eligilbe and in need of bariatric surgery (stomach stapling). Worse still this generation of children is being considered as candidates as well. This is horrifying. The most privileged, free society in the world is so out of control around we food that we may have to resort to surgery to keep us from eating ourselves to death? What the hell is going on here?
I sat back and thought about this news, although not new as I've been aware of the trends here, and sadly read how obesity and diabetes are striking the developing world as well, particularly India who has rising "sugar" as their economy improves. So much for Paul Ehlich's population bomb being difused by lack of food supplies around the world. This cogitation reminds me of my original career quest, population control and how ironic that since I have left that field, our world's citizenry has doubled and we are now eating ourselves to death. Today is my first day at a new job, attempting to help morbidly obese people shed enough pounds (10% of their body weight) to make their surgery safer and give Kaiser the chance that they might even forgoe this costly, ($25-30,000) and risky procedure once they learn how to manage food and physical activity more effectively.
I hold no great hopes of success in this position beyond gaining much desired teaching and group leadership skills. For I know how hard it is to shake an addiction. I will share with my "students" that I suffered bulimia for 20 years; I know what it is like to obsess about food. I also know what it is like to "swap" addictions as my recent aquaintance from the Y has experienced. In my own life I have used exercize, chronic gum chewing, cigarettes, alcohol, fantasy and most recently "rushing" as ways to not address pain, loss, fear, loneliness. When I look at these people huddled in their mantles of corpulence I see faces with whom I can relate. I have much better skills right now than they have; I have never been so out of touch with my body that it blew up to twice, three or four times its natural size. But I have shared every emotion I know they have felt and most likely still do. I have just been blesed with enough resources (financial, analytical and emotional) to make different choices in how to deal with them.
I sit here at 5am, having woken up at 4 with awareness and energy. This past year has been a long path with potholes, pebbles, broken glass, boulders to navigate as I deal with mortality, career, what it means to be a woman in this culture, relationships. I am aware of my complaints about America, how we don't take the time to live and breathe joyfully in our bodies, with our souls. And DING! I realize that this is my tendency as well. I rush from activity to task to hobby to work to play to friends to family and back again. Is this my new opiate? Or am I just at a place in life where the synapses are buzzing with ideas, with hope, with love, with lust? Is the rushing a way to keep from sitting with some of life's truths that are so hard to accept: that there is not enough time to accomplish all things, that we die, that love is painful, imperfect, that injustice and inequity is pervasive, that we are all ultimately alone?
I know many people at this time of life and love evaluating what they want, what they feel they need to be who they really want to be. Mid-life crisis or whatever you want to call it; the awareness after 9-11 that any moment your world could end. The pervasive suggestiveness of our media that things could be much, or even a little, better if you just consumed more. The lure of the easy fix. The fear of anonymity, of insignificance, of imperfection.
My students are at intersections in their lives; my friends are considering new careers, new partners, new houses, new bodies. And it's all about trying to find ourselves inside. No one gets a road map at birth, although I think children are wired effeciently well enough to learn navigation themselves; we just screw them up along the way. We are constantly offered forks in the road, opportunities to be real, to feel life fully. Some of us choose the familiar ones, as misleading as they may be. Others dare to take one less known, one whose endpoint is unclear but which proffers the hope, the scintillating idea of something truer to one's self. We find ourselves at these junctions in life without a map or a compass or sextant or perhaps even the stars to guide us. Who will take the first step? Who will take off the familiar shoes and stretch their legs, put down their tender feet and take that first step? And then the next? And the next?
A very alarming study was released by a cardiologist in Medscape recently citing that we are headed towards an adult population with 50% (65% of some minority groups) being eligilbe and in need of bariatric surgery (stomach stapling). Worse still this generation of children is being considered as candidates as well. This is horrifying. The most privileged, free society in the world is so out of control around we food that we may have to resort to surgery to keep us from eating ourselves to death? What the hell is going on here?
I sat back and thought about this news, although not new as I've been aware of the trends here, and sadly read how obesity and diabetes are striking the developing world as well, particularly India who has rising "sugar" as their economy improves. So much for Paul Ehlich's population bomb being difused by lack of food supplies around the world. This cogitation reminds me of my original career quest, population control and how ironic that since I have left that field, our world's citizenry has doubled and we are now eating ourselves to death. Today is my first day at a new job, attempting to help morbidly obese people shed enough pounds (10% of their body weight) to make their surgery safer and give Kaiser the chance that they might even forgoe this costly, ($25-30,000) and risky procedure once they learn how to manage food and physical activity more effectively.
I hold no great hopes of success in this position beyond gaining much desired teaching and group leadership skills. For I know how hard it is to shake an addiction. I will share with my "students" that I suffered bulimia for 20 years; I know what it is like to obsess about food. I also know what it is like to "swap" addictions as my recent aquaintance from the Y has experienced. In my own life I have used exercize, chronic gum chewing, cigarettes, alcohol, fantasy and most recently "rushing" as ways to not address pain, loss, fear, loneliness. When I look at these people huddled in their mantles of corpulence I see faces with whom I can relate. I have much better skills right now than they have; I have never been so out of touch with my body that it blew up to twice, three or four times its natural size. But I have shared every emotion I know they have felt and most likely still do. I have just been blesed with enough resources (financial, analytical and emotional) to make different choices in how to deal with them.
I sit here at 5am, having woken up at 4 with awareness and energy. This past year has been a long path with potholes, pebbles, broken glass, boulders to navigate as I deal with mortality, career, what it means to be a woman in this culture, relationships. I am aware of my complaints about America, how we don't take the time to live and breathe joyfully in our bodies, with our souls. And DING! I realize that this is my tendency as well. I rush from activity to task to hobby to work to play to friends to family and back again. Is this my new opiate? Or am I just at a place in life where the synapses are buzzing with ideas, with hope, with love, with lust? Is the rushing a way to keep from sitting with some of life's truths that are so hard to accept: that there is not enough time to accomplish all things, that we die, that love is painful, imperfect, that injustice and inequity is pervasive, that we are all ultimately alone?
I know many people at this time of life and love evaluating what they want, what they feel they need to be who they really want to be. Mid-life crisis or whatever you want to call it; the awareness after 9-11 that any moment your world could end. The pervasive suggestiveness of our media that things could be much, or even a little, better if you just consumed more. The lure of the easy fix. The fear of anonymity, of insignificance, of imperfection.
My students are at intersections in their lives; my friends are considering new careers, new partners, new houses, new bodies. And it's all about trying to find ourselves inside. No one gets a road map at birth, although I think children are wired effeciently well enough to learn navigation themselves; we just screw them up along the way. We are constantly offered forks in the road, opportunities to be real, to feel life fully. Some of us choose the familiar ones, as misleading as they may be. Others dare to take one less known, one whose endpoint is unclear but which proffers the hope, the scintillating idea of something truer to one's self. We find ourselves at these junctions in life without a map or a compass or sextant or perhaps even the stars to guide us. Who will take the first step? Who will take off the familiar shoes and stretch their legs, put down their tender feet and take that first step? And then the next? And the next?
posted by Barbery at 5:02 AM
2 Comments:
seems that you are getting closer and closer to...slowing down. I was wondering about this new opiate from your descriptions of your daily life and you extensive plans. I agree it is better to go slow...as slow as possible being a parent...good for you.
by the way, good luck on the new job. I think you it will be difficult but if you only help a few you have helped very much.
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