LOTS OF FOOD REFERENCES HERE!! – – but so garsh-darn FUN!!  And who CAN’T love the line, “…who wants a twig when you can have the whole tree?!”  LOL!

When I am feeling a little down about myself, I put this movie on and before I know it I’m singing along and feeling a whole-lot better.   Here are a few of my favorite clips.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNx84PDvOh8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDwNSR0QmBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdcUxHh3tAc&feature=relmfu

Drinking & Drugging?  To me they are similar to the above example of smoking in that both are constantly romanticized in movies, on TV, in books,…   While we’re at it, we might as well throw-in sex addiction here.  Somehow, over the years, all three of these have become intertwined with the stereotypical lifestyle of rock musicians and former child stars. Often tragic, yes, but still somehow appealing, in a media-tabloid sort of way.

Gambling?  Maybe not so romantic, but definitely exciting.  Ever see all the neat stuff you can do and buy at a casino?  It’s a money-spender’s paradise, the perfect destination for gamblers and shopaholics, alike!  And the allure of obtaining even MORE money is always just one pull away!  I can definitely see the appeal.

Then, of course, you have the “glamour” of anorexia/bulimia.  Can runway models be any thinner?!  With so many magazines berating stars whenever they gain a few pounds, it’s a wonder these eating disorders aren’t running rampant through the lives of the rich and famous.  (Personally, I think they are, but I believe that their “handlers” warn them against getting too thin.)  And in a society that defines beauty according to body size, who DOESN’T want to be labeled as “attractive?”  So you might have to destroy your insides in the process.  Small price to pay if you at least get the benefit of looking good on the OUTside, right?

So what do all these “cool” addictions have that compulsive overeating DOESN’T?

You can HIDE all the others.

You can’t hide a morbidly obese body.  (It’s impossible.  Believe me.  I’ve tried.)

Which is exactly the reason why it is the uncoolest addiction of them all.

In all the other cases, a person can “seem” normal much of the time, even to themselves.  If smokers aren’t smoking (and are not at the stage of hacking-up a lung), they would not stand-out as a nicotine fiend.  If drug addicts or alcoholics are sober, you might not know they have an addiction at all.  Nothing about gamblers or sex addicts (or even serial killers, for that matter) would make those people stand out in a crowd.  And controlled purging and exercise addiction may mask itself as a fitness addiction (which is actually seen as a positive in this country).  But when you’re carrying around 100, 200 or 300 pounds of extra “you” around, everyone sees it and knows exactly how you got that way.  You NEVER get a break from it!  Every time you look in a mirror or catch a glimpse of your reflection in a storefront window or go to the doctor or go clothes shopping…  There is just no way to escape the physical evidence of this disease.  Worse, you don’t even have the dignity of being able to hide it from others!  In this way, I think compulsive overeating and binge-eating cause their own peculiar type of psychological damage that none of the other addictions can come close to.

Sadly, Hollywood continues to use this unpleasant reality of the disease to perpetuate some of the worst stereotypes about people who are obese.  Even in this era of political correctness, you will still see cartoons, movies, music videos, and sitcoms portraying overweight people in the same old tired roles.  Here are a few of my least favorites:

The face-stuffing, gas-blowing, belching, offensive friend.

The lazy, desperate, ugly, reclusive sister/aunt (typically a single female).

The food-is-like-sex addict with an overly-confident view of her ability to attract men (which is supposed to be the funny part).

The painfully shy, bullied, depressed teen who is chronically suicidal.

Only in recent years have we started to see obese characters with real depth.  Overweight people with real sex appeal.  “People Of Size” as the main character, not just some negative supporting role who’s only purpose is make the other person look more attractive.  But it’s still so sad that, even now, an overweight person still has to feel like they are being smacked back to the reality of their low status in society, even in the midst of seeking the same escape that everyone else is looking for in the entertainment industry.

Not surprisingly, I remember spending years of my youth wishing I had a “better” addiction.  I figured that if I could just get over my fear of embarrassing myself that I could at least forget about my weight problem for a while by getting drunk!  At one point I even considered doing cocaine, thinking it would make me thin (until a worldly friend told me that it was possible to do coke AND be fat).  But who was I kidding?  I was even too scared to even smoke a joint!  Then I heard about bulimia.  Now THAT made sense to me.  For, isn’t it the dream of every true food addict to be able to pig-out AND be thin – – AT THE SAME TIME?!?!  I was thinking about it so much that I even told my counselor about my secret desire to become bulimic.  She quickly told me all the horrible medical side-effects, and that stopped me in my tracks.  My fear of doctors and hospitals actually came in handy in that particular situation.  (Isn’t it funny how God works in our lives, even when we don’t even know He’s there at all?)

Just in case all of this is not proof enough for you of the “uncoolness” of being a food addict, here is the one thing that annoys me above all the others…

Compulsive overeating and binge-eating are even considered to be “uncool” by other addicts in recovery! 

Not by ALL of them, of course,…  But still.

At first I couldn’t believe it.

Don’t believe me?  I personally know of at least two people in AA who are very open with friends and family about their involvement with the 12 Step program with respect to alcohol, but who won’t even tell their own spouses that they also attend OA meetings!

Need more evidence?   I have actually had people come up to me IN MEETINGS and tell me that overeating is “easy” to fix – – that it is just a matter of discipline and willpower.  Really.  Couldn’t I, who has never gotten drunk or high in my life, say the same about alcohol and drugs?  I’ve even had AA’s come up to me after I’ve shared about my food addiction to offer me diet tips and suggestions about local diet clubs!  As if I had somehow lost my way and wondered into a 12 Step meeting by accident!  They weren’t being mean, but they weren’t able to grasp that my addiction was every bit as serious as theirs.  They were genuinely oblivious to our common “soul sickness.”

Another example?  I shared a short food story at an AA meeting one night (I was actually asked to because everyone else had already shared), and when I was finished, the next person who spoke actually cross-talked at me and started laughing out loud about how I didn’t know what real addiction was compared to his “bad” drug problem that landed him in jail!  I was mortified!  Luckily, an old-timer came to my rescue and yelled out, “No cross-talk!”

And yet, it is through experiences such as these that I have been able to find my niche within the open AA meetings I attend: I am a self-appointed OA ambassador.  I no longer take offense when people with other addictions don’t get the connection or understand why I am there.  Instead, if they approach me, I see it as an opportunity to talk to them and explain the similarities between food and alcohol addiction, and eventually most of them get it.  In fact, I now have many AA friends who have told me that after they stopped drinking, their eating started getting out of control.  Still others I talk to have shared that, when they really thought about it, they realized that they had been food addicts long before they had ever even tasted alcohol.  Best part of all?  I have succeeded in convincing a few of these people to check out OA, and some of them are starting to “stick!”

Addiction is addiction.

Only a Higher Power can save us, ALL of us (cool & uncool addicts alike), from ourselves.

We never even made it through the doorway.

The moment I set foot in the tiny bar, a short, heavy, sweaty, drunk, bald guy with his back to the door turned around, looked me up and down, and rolled his eyes.  I was mortified but took another step inside.  I had learned over the years to at least pretend I didn’t notice.

But then he yelled-out, “J—- C—–!  It’s bad enough I have to work with a bunch of fat b—–s all day, now I come here and I have to look at THAT?!  Are you f—— KIDDING me?!”

I instinctively started back through the door I was still holding open.  I know I looked like a deer in the headlights.  All the guys in the place were roaring with laughter.  For a moment I had the dreadful thought that my boyfriend was going to get into a fight when he said something to defend me.

But he never said a word.

He backed out the door as fast as I did.  My eyes started to well-up and my heart was pounding.  I hated my boyfriend for not defending me.  Worse, I hated myself for not seeing this coming – – for not assuming that I would be ridiculed for how fat and ugly I believed that I was.  In a sick way, I actually felt like I had gotten what I deserved.   I wanted to scream and cry and run away forever.  Instead I settled for yelling at my boyfriend for not at least saying SOMEthing, to which he replied that it would have been useless anyway, since there were so many of them.

True, but not in any way consoling.

Not surprisingly, when my husband and I moved into our first house, complete with our own front yard to take care of, I brought my neurosis with me.  In both houses we have owned, the rule was that I did the backyard gardening and he did the front.  And that was set in stone.  I wouldn’t lift a finger in the front yard, again, for fear of being seen.  At my current house this became more of an issue because the front yard is very large (so my husband could really use the help) but it is also on a busy road (which means – GASP! – people!!)  During the fall, especially, I eventually had to help rake leaves in the front yard, but that had to be on my terms – early morning weekends ONLY – (I am talking about BEFORE 7 a.m. here!)

All that started to shift last year.  I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but several times I found myself picking-up stray sticks or raking up a little patch of leaves in the front yard WITHOUT having to analyse all the reasons why I couldn’t be the one to do it.  Last spring I filled flower boxes in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the FRONT YARD!  This past fall, I even raked leaves “in broad daylight!”  But the biggest change happened just a few short weeks ago.

For some reason I got it in my head that I wanted to rake out the beds, take apart the existing rock border, and re-stack it in a neater design.  I looked at my schedule and penciled-myself-in for the following day.  I got out there around 10 a.m. and worked until around 4 p.m. (stopping only for lunch and a couple small snacks and drinks).  I was so involved with what I was doing that I didn’t even realize that I had spent an entire day, in the COMPLETELY unflattering position of sitting cross-legged on the ground, in SHORTS, working in the FRONT YARD!!!, and IT NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND that there may be passers-by who were making fun of me or thinking negative things about my body, or making fun of what I was doing or how I was doing it – – all the crap that had consumed my thoughts for my entire life!!

This was a TRUE MIRACLE for me!!

Thank you, HP, for freeing me from all that horrible, draining, unproductive insanity!!

I saw one of the girl superheros telling the others that their arch nemesis had used some kind of terrifying device that was forcing the innocent bystanders to “…eat and eat and eat!  They are going to eat until they are sick if we don’t stop him!”

I must say, I am not sure how I feel about this.  Admittedly, this is all I caught of the whole episode, so it may not be a true analysis of what was meant by it, but the very first thought that popped into my mind was, “…But this is supposed to be a show for five-year-olds!”  I get that it may be sending the message that overeating is bad for your health, but I can’t help thinking that, in this particular context, it is associating compulsive overeating with something evil.

On the one hand, I totally agree with this perspective.  Not only do I think any addiction is “evil,” I also had that same specific experience with food addiction myself – that feeling that I was doing it against my will – – as if I was under the control of an evil force.  I get that part.  But there is more to it than that.

I think it is the underlying premise behind this episode that is what’s really bothering me.  I can’t help feeling that the writers actually believe that compulsive overeating (and the natural consequence of weight-gain) are so horrifying that they are to be avoided at all costs – in the same way that the typical Power Rangers cast of extras flees from explosions and karate chops.

Maybe I am just overly sensitive to this whole topic. I always suffered from the delusion that my food addiction was a moral issue.  And while it is true that compulsive overeaters do have something “wrong” with them, I just don’t know how wise it is to present this topic to young children who don’t yet have the emotional or the intellectual maturity to understand the depth of it.  In fact, I think it could very easily have more of a negative impact than a positive one on impressionable minds.  Without the sensitivity that an older audience may be able to bring to this topic, I can so easily picture the bullying that could spring from this type of portrayal of overeating.  Surely the creators to of this series could have come up with something a little less offensive, and a little more…well…”creative!”

Too bad the same can’t be said for adults.

In all fairness, there was only one fellow teacher who really hurt me, not because she was trying to be mean, but because what she said to me represented all of my greatest fears.  I can’t tell you how hard her words hit me.  I think my inside reaction (God forbid I should show any outward sign that my feelings were hurt!) scared even me, even though she was merely verbalizing what I had been thinking about myself for my entire life.

For whatever reason, on that particular day, as we sat in that empty classroom together waiting for the first students to arrive, she decided to tell me exactly what she had been thinking about me for the past few months.  The conversation went something like this:

HER: Can I tell you something?

ME: Sure.

HER: Do you remember when you started here last year?

ME: Yeah…

HER: You want to know what I honestly thought of you when I first saw you?

ME: …uh…

HER:  No, it’s good.  Listen to this.  When you walked in that first day and I met you and saw how big you were, I was like, “Oh my God!  These poor kids!  They’re gonna be SO scared of their OWN teacher!”  I just felt so bad for them, ya know what I mean?

ME: …uh…

HER: …so I just wanted you to know…now that I ‘ve gotten to know you and see how you are with the kids and how much they love you, I can finally see beyond what you look like.  You are a beautiful, caring person inside, and that’s all that counts, right?

ME: …uh…

HER: Come here!  Give me a hug!  I love you so much!

ME: …uh…

The funny thing is, I really did like this woman, a lot, and still do, which made it hurt all-the-more.  But even as she was saying it, I could tell that she really believed that she was giving me a complement and that she really thought what she was saying was going to make me feel better about myself.

It didn’t.

What happened?  Well, I was being bullied by the teacher.  He hated me.  Why?  Because I had a weight problem.  Think I am exaggerating?  Read on…

Every Friday, during that “free” silent reading hour, this teacher would lean over my desk and give me what he wanted me to read.  Now you have to picture what this was like for me.  I was a very sensitive, shy kid, my desk was wedged between the back wall and the wall of windows, and he was leaning over me, his body over my head, and each of his hands grasping a side of my desktop.  I was literally surrounded.  He would whisper that he had found another diet that I might want to read-up on because I was “getting really big now.”  The one that always sticks out in my mind is “the hot dog diet.”  It was in a magazine that he flipped through to find the right page for me, and I was forced to allow this to go on, as I had no where to go.  All the while I wanted to run away, fearing that all the kids in the room could hear what he was saying or see what he was giving me.   After he left, I felt obligated to read it – like he was going to be watching to make sure that I did.  That particular article talked about replacing all your main meals with 2 hot dogs.  That was pretty much it.  Can you imagine?  Giving an 11-year-old the advice to eat nothing but hot dogs, of all things?!

Another day, my class was playing a game of kickball against his class, which was something I feared with every fiber of my being.  I was a slow runner, a clumsy kicker, and was never able to make a single catch, not to mention the fact that I was always, always, ALWAYS picked last.  It was an all-around horrible experience.  I must’ve been the only kid in the entire history of my elementary school to hope that my fellow students would act so badly all week that this Friday afternoon ritual would get cancelled.  (P.S. – wishing for rain never worked because we would just switch to a game of indoor volleyball, which was the only thing I dreaded more than kickball!)  Anyway, one day, as I walked up to the plate to kick the ball, this teacher yells-out, “If you put all your weight into it, it’ll go right over the fence!”  Of course, everyone had a really good laugh at my expense.  The saddest part of all was that my teacher never said a word.  He just allowed this jerk to bully me in front of everyone.  (Gee, I wonder what kind of message this was sending?!)  That was the last time I ever played that game.  Somehow I managed to get up the nerve to tell my teacher that I refused to play anymore.  I assume that at that moment, the pain of humiliation out-weighed my usually paralytic shyness.  My teacher reluctantly gave me permission to bring my markers and paper outside so I could draw pictures rather than play that stupid game.  At the time, I thought this arrangement was the greatest thing that could happen to me.  But looking back, I know that deep down inside, I hated myself for quitting, I hated myself for being fat and uncoordinated, and I hated myself for being afraid.