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Monday, December 12, 2005 12:00 AM

'Tis the season to obsess about food

Thanksgiving yams, Chanukah latkes, Christmas cookies ... for me, they all add up to a holiday-size serving of self-hatred.

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  • Monday, December 12, 2005 01:15 PM

    You are thin; how I envy you

    Recently at a meeting a thin friend of mine piped up with the news that Canada is considering not giving medical care to fat people if they refuse to diet. The fat woman sitting next to her certainly enjoyed hearing that! But she was sufficiently cowed not to say anything about being so rudely attacked. Like my friend was sitting next to this gal, thinking, "Boy she's fat. I'm so glad I'm thin and therefore morally correct, not a slob like her."

    Fat women put up with a lot of casual insults like that. So I'm surprised to hear skinny women say they get insulted for being skinny. And my experience is that no matter how hag-ridden and flabby a woman who has lost weight looks, she will receive praise and will be bombared with "How did you do it?" questions.

    I feel sorry for cadaverous women, but I figure they have chosen their fate. And I hear those who say they can't help the way they're built. But I must say that I know more than a few thin women who confuse their body type with moral virtue.

    I'm lucky to have a female shape, and I'm not going to diet away my breasts and hips to conform to the fashions of the day. I get insulted by thin people too, even though my weight and build are far from putting me in the "fat" category. It's oh yes you do this and that and isn't fine, but you ARE overweight. This last insult was delivered to me by a stick figure of a man who lives on candy. My wonderful husband looked puzzled and said, "Are you overweight?" Ha!

    And I don't know what planet Anon inhabits, but women talk about little else but diets and losing/gaining weight, as far as my experience goes. I wager he's a man that women don't want to talk to!

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