You Don't Know

I want to address this because it's something that keeps coming back to my mind again and again- and that is that people assume they know your eating habits or exercise habits depending on your weight. This works both for thin people and fat people. I'm going to address it in more of a personal manner though and talk about why it was completely false in my case.

When I still cared about my weight, when I still thought being fat made me worthless and lazy and glutinous, I did everything I could to lose weight (Now I know better). At one point I decided I needed my thyroid checked because it was just ridiculous that eating healthfully and restricting calories, and exercising wasn't working (gee, maybe that's because diets don't work.. but I didn't know that). I confided this to my mother who didn't believe there was anything wrong with me, pointing out that I don't exercise much anymore due to multiple injuries. "What about in high school, mom?", I asked. "I know how you ate in high school." was her reply, obviously implying that my eating habits had to do with my weight. I'll be honest- I was shocked. There's very little my mom knew about my life in high school and my eating habits were definitely not part of her knowledge.

Now, I want to be clear that my mom worked very hard and very long trying to support three children after my father skipped out on child support completely so I'm not blaming her for not knowing my eating habits as it's clear why she wouldn't. Either she was working or I was at school, with friends, etc.

So why did she claim she knew how I ate in high school when she rarely was privy to the knowledge? Because she assumed she knew what I ate because I was fat.  What she didn't know if that I hardly ever ate at all and, thus, often had fainting spells (which my now husband can attest to). I never ate breakfast, rarely ate lunch, and when I ate dinner at home I ate side dishes because I became a vegetarian when I was 14 (freshman year) and we didn't cook many vegetarian meals- therefore I was stuck with corn and potatoes most of the time. This starvation diet that I was on may account for me being at my thinnest in high school (a size 15/16 US).And certainly starving myself would be the only way to get back there (if you are even thinking of suggesting that then you are one sick fuck).

In addition to eating very little for about 5 or 6 years I also was incredibly active. I love walking. I really want to emphasize just how much I love it- I would walk everywhere I went in high school and would still do so today if I didn't have an ankle injury which causes severe pain when I walk. I woke up, walked 20 minutes to my best friend's house so that we could ride the bus together, went to school where I had marching band practice every day, rode the bus back to my best friend's house, walked 20 minutes home, did homework/watched TV for a couple of hours then walked back. Then we'd walk to our other friend's house (another 20-30 minutes)  just so that we could walk around the neighborhood more. Not to mention that I had additional marching band practices, games, competitions, etc as well as frequently starting new exercise programs with my friend, Beth.

All of this walking with very little food and, for a couple of years, diet pills every day three times a day, throw in the occasional periods of bulimia and it would amaze anyone that I wasn't very thin. I would simply not eat for days at a time- once for two weeks. When presented with this information most people would say that I'm lying. I find it funny that when a very thin person says they eat non stop, no one disagrees, no one calls them a liar, and no one argues.

There are all sorts of assumptions made about fat people which are shown for being ridiculous when the same things are applied to thin people. "Fat people just eat too much" would mean that thin people eat less- so all of those thin people who eat junk food in high quantities should be morbidly obese by now shouldn't they? "fat people just don't exercise" ignores all of the thin couch potatoes out there snacking on pizza and all of the fat people, like me, who were or are incredibly active.

So I want to emphasize, no mom, you have no idea what I ate in high school. You are just as guilty of making false assumptions as anyone else in society. Think about what my brother ate and you'll realize he ate far more than I did. Next time you decide to make an assumption based on facts that you don't even have, please rethink it.

The distorted mentality of killing animals

http://www.andrea-schroeder.com/VCeelen4a.html

So I was sitting in the car last week, coming home from the grocery store, and going over a recent debate about animal cruelty and veganism. i was ranting against the illogical and sometimes just plain mind numbingly stupid arguments for meat eating that I often get. These arguments tend to be:

• Animals don't have a concept of death.
• Animals don't know what's going on when they feel pain.
• Animals aren't as intelligent as humans.
• I enjoy eating dead animals therefore it surely must be morally justifiable.
• The animals are killed quickly and humanely.
• I eat free range animals which makes it morally justifiable.

Being a mother, the thought suddenly struck me- animals aren't much different on an of these levels than a baby or a young toddler.

• Babies and toddlers don't have a concept of death.
• Babies and toddlers don't know what's going on when they feel pain.
• Babies and toddlers aren't as intelligent as adults (or even as some animals)

The other arguments, when applied to babies and toddlers are.. just reprehensible. Beyond disgusting. From the meat eater's perspective this would be: I enjoy eating the flesh of babies so it's okay, babies are killed quickly and humanly, I only eat free range babies (although in most cases people eat animals from factory farms which could be comparable to beating a baby every day and then finally killing it after a year or so).

Now, people will say this is extreme thinking, but stay with me for a moment. Can you logically give me one actual difference between a pig, who is certainly more intelligent than your newborn, and a human newborn? You could argue that the pain caused to the family makes it less morally justifiable so assume the baby is an orphan and no one would care- or that the parents themselves wanted to kill the baby for various reasons (have you seen the news? It happens people).

The one and only argument left is: because humans are superior to animals. Except that we're really not. If you have a single intelligent brain cell in your head you know that we evolved. In evolution nothing is superior to anything else. You evolve to fill a niche, you evolve in the way that best benefits your survival. So great, humans evolved in a particular way (that we'd better be incredibly grateful for!) and animals evolved in their own way, for their own niche. Evolutionarily speaking we're equals (and no, the ability to kill doesn't make you superior.. if it did we'd be praising  murderers, not locking them up).

It goes without saying that none of the arguments for meat eating are logical or morally justifiable, but it just really struck me how brainless they actually are. It's sort of like that light bulb moment you have when you realize that religions make absolutely no sense. You knew it before but suddenly you really know it.

On certain levels we apply this same brainless callousness to other humans as well. Babies, as much as people are horrified by the examples I gave and would genuinely be horrified if these things happened in real life (do you really want to think about a baby having it's legs broken, strung up, then being skinned while still alive after having it's throat slit? I didn't think so), babies still tend to be thought of as less than adults. Less important, having less needs, less deserving of many things. We genitally mutilate our baby boys here in America routinely, we leave our babies upset and crying out for love and attention for hours in their cribs because we somehow think babies need less human contact than anyone else, we physically assault our children - something we'd go to jail for doing to another adult.. sometimes you have to really wonder what is wrong with the human species. For all of our superior attitudes, can we really claim superiority when this is how we treat other animals, both human and non human?