OCTOBER 23 — I am sick of talking about how sick I am but that is perhaps healthier than being morose about it.
What irks me, though, is when I tell my friends my weight keeps dropping (last week my waist was shrinking by a centimetre daily) they congratulate me.
Hello?
I know that if you look at every treatment suggestion for nearly every ailment, one of the recommendations will always be to lose some weight.
Rapid weight loss is a symptom, not an achievement.
This is how people easily get scammed into buying dodgy and harmful supplements or following the latest fad diet — the elusive dream of quickly losing those unwanted kilos.
Too many fads
I was most entertained by a dietitian scoffing at intermittent fasting.
“It’s just skipping breakfast!” Which science has shown to be bad for you, by the way.
I was born in the late 70s, grew up in the 80s and 90s, then muddled my way through the 2000s and you know what all of them had in common? Diet culture.
Magazines and newspaper articles were full of advice on how to lose that extra weight for that photo shoot (apparently the secret is dehydration, just ask fitness competitors), what food to avoid and what diet would lose you the most weight in two weeks.
Even my own father was a big follower of the Atkins diet and would lecture hapless waiters in restaurants if they dared add sugar to his Milo.
“There’s already sugar in Milo!” he would protest.
While there was some wisdom in Atkins’ recommendations about all the added, hidden sugars in our food, it’s gotten to the point that there’s now a strange social media campaign targeting Chinese brand Mixue for having too much sugar in its drinks and desserts.
I used to love bubble tea though I rarely have it now but I know that singling out Mixue when the same things can be said about any bubble tea or non-alcoholic drink chain is ridiculous.
Even supposedly healthier juices aren’t actually that healthy.
Dieticians will tell you it’s far healthier to eat whole fruits rather than their juices because juicing strips away fibre and leaves behind mostly liquid and sugar.
Fructose is not white sugar, but it still is sugar so drinking a lot of juice might not actually be a healthier alternative.
Rise of eating disorders
It’s also disturbing for me to see ana-chic return.
Kate Moss made the phrase, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” popular but regrets it now.
She should, considering how many women repeated it like a mantra as they deprived themselves of food.
Having been skinny (not by choice) to the point I was blacking out daily, my experience is that it’s far worse being sick when you’re too thin than when you have at least some fat on your bones.
When you’re sick, the body burns fat first as fuel but if you’re too lean, guess where it takes it from?
The answer is your muscles.
That’s how you lose muscle tone very quickly and that is, also from experience, very annoying to rebuild.
Sure, obesity is a serious health problem but I think the real problem is getting people fed well.
In some cases, genetics also play a role so no matter how some people try, they will never be as slender as the Kate Mosses of the world.
Perhaps at the end of the day, it should be about lowering the barrier to achieving good health outcomes with food assistance and generally helping the average human get the ideal amount of nutrition, rest and healthcare.
The supposed obesity epidemic is a symptom — not of poor life choices but inequality and addressing that is far more constructive than some minister complaining about Malaysians just being “too fat”.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
