Too Fat to F*ck

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink,
or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God
--1 Corinthians 10:31

Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby, you're the best
--Nobody Does it Better, Carly Simon
______________

File this under: America behaving badly.

A cable network health program is soon to feature couples who are too heavy to, um, mate ("Too Fat for Sex"). The good news is, the Centers for Disease Control recently reported that American obesity rates may have plateaued at 34% (however, the number of obese + "overweight" Americans stands at nearly 70%.) While the optimists say we've halted the progression of the obesity epidemic, others like David Ludwig said the plateau merely suggests"'we’ve reached a biological limit' to how obese people could get."

A trailer for the Discovery Channel's "Half-Ton Teen" touts, "Once the world's heaviest teenager, Billy Robbins' weight loss efforts have recently stalled and now, he is falling back on old habits. In the third installment, doctors make a desperate attempt to save Billy from self-destruction." Who has the time to watch this -- aren't there nacho platters to be prepared?

There seems to be a larger problem here (no pun intended). In "The Death of Decorum," Gavin McInnes notes the slovenliness of American dress. Not that we don't export our blase look via our Hollywood mavens, but pee jays worn in public seem a new low. "They are the one great unifier that brings all lazy, self-indulgent Americans together, regardless of race or background." (Not that the British shav look of 70's polyester track suits is that fetching, but at least they were made to be worn outside.)

It was also reported last week that young people spend more time on computers and other technologies than adults do at work -- between 10 to 11 hours per day, factoring in multi-tasking (More Screen Time for Youths than Adults on the Job.) The New York Times head said, "If You're Kids are Awake, They're Probably Online." It doesn't seem healthy.

A recent Times Magazine feature on "The Americanization of Mental Illness" stated the U.S. is "homogenizing the way the world goes mad." By exporting our Western “symptom repertoire” the U.S. is altering the expression of mental illness in other cultures.

P.T.S.D and anorexia "now appear to be spreading across cultures with the speed of contagious diseases. These symptom clusters are becoming the lingua franca of human suffering, replacing indigenous forms of mental illness."

Ethan Watters, author of, “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche," says "the expectations and beliefs of the sufferer shape their suffering," and the DSM is now "the field guide to the world’s psyche."

Interestingly, Watters asserts that our medical model of psychiatric illness may predispose us to remain ill and suffer marginalization, as we are intractably identified with our illness, and others reinforce that identity. In other cultures where "the illness was seen as the work of outside forces, it was understood as an affliction for the sufferer but not as an identity."

Watters' essay concludes that our latching onto labels and the psychopathologizing of our country is a result of our becoming "an increasingly insecure and fearful people." We are searching for security in an increasingly unknowable world in our labeling and prescriptions.

Maybe that's why we hoard and overeat, and disappear into the ethernet. Because we have become alienated and fearful. The solution would seem to be in doing the opposite of what got us here.

[Cross-posted at Big Brass Blog]