Flavour of the Good Life

I recently skimmed through Eve Ensler's The Good Body and came across this: "When a group of ethnically diverse, economically disadvantaged women in the U.S. was recently asked about the one thing they would change in their lives if they could, the majority of these women said they would lose weight." You might have read that before; I've seen it floating around the internet. Why choose losing weight over finding a dream job or having better schooling in the neighbourhood or free health care? Is it that weight loss is perceived as one arena in which these women feel a sense of power? Has weight loss become an illusory panacea for all social ills?

I have some friends that work off whatever they eat right after eating in a show of good health, and now my daughter has friends like this too. I find the trend disturbing. I prefer to enjoy food's taste and texture without thinking about my thighs. I thought discussions of body image would end after high school, but that's only the beginning. I swear I was the only girl in high school who actually liked my own body. I didn't want to change a thing. I also didn't think about it much, and never understood whole evenings spent with other girls with our bodies at the center of every conversation.

I'm no beauty queen. I'm more of an "if only" type. If only she were taller. If only she would wear some make-up. If only she'd do something about her hair, clothes, hairy legs, A-cups, etc. The ending is, of course, ...then she might be good looking. But despite the litany of crap that's come my way, I still feel attractive in my own skin. I feel sensuous. I've honestly never been on a diet. I'm not privy to the ins and outs of calorie counting. I don't exercise or go to a gym, but I do bike, toboggan, and play a lot, and I walk everywhere. Want to lose weight? Sell your car.

And, of course I never date the guys who sing the "if only" song. I wonder about the women who do. Is it that they're perfect or somehow able to create a different dynamic that makes these men change their tune? Or do they just tolerate a lot of crap? This is my concern, that they're taking this shit. Taking it right in, and letting it eat them alive. My most weight-obsessed friend is an exercise junkie whose husband won't even let her give him a blow job. He's insanely jealous of her talking to another man, but he doesn't want to actually have to touch her himself. They both work out hours every day, getting more contact from their personal trainers than from one another. It's so sad.

I give credit for my good body image largely to my dad. He was passionate about my mom whose round body made five kids in seven years with a whole lot of beer chasers. She dressed only in polyester thrilled with its endurance, and she neither shaved nor plucked the hair on her body and face. Just the other night my guy plucked my first whisker while we snuggled in bed together! He's such a romantic. My dad called my mom beautiful, sincerely. They held hands while eating dinner. Her beauty was the standard I was aiming for. Looking like my mom would get me a guy like my dad. And, back in the day, he looked like Frankie Avalon. I think if we want to affect the body image of the next generation, we need more people to glorify mom and dad's soft curves, warm hands, and striking eyes.

There's another new diet out, something about getting more flavour into each meal. Pleasure is all relative, and since so much junk has such intense flavour, fruits and veggies pale by comparison. The world's largest flavour company, International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) created the taste of McFries and also the smell of Calvin Klein's Eternity perfume. The flavours being created today are developing our desires for more. We can only feel pleasure from relative intensity. Once I watched two very intense films back to back: Pink Floyd's The Wall and Pulp Fiction. Try it, in that order. You'll be amazed how The Wall's pacing renders Pulp Fiction painfully slow. I watch my favourite old movies alone. Very few can tolerate the stilted tempo anymore. We need to reaquaint our palates with real food instead of hungering for stronger flavours from a bottle. Or else our hunger could be never ending.

All weight loss diets are variations on the same theme: eat less, move more. What motivates someone to do either is very individual and will resist a general formula. It's similar to the philosophy of the good life, of happiness. Every philosopher really says the same thing: move towards pleasure and away from pain, but each one has a different idea of each constituent. Some think we'll get pleasure from good friendships insisting, "It's better to eat bologna with a buddy than steak alone" (to paraphrase), or from ignoring the body's desires in favour of contemplation, or from ignoring your own needs in order to help others, or from a good piss-up now and again; they go on and on.

It all comes down to the art of measurement - personally measuring pleasures and pains taking care to account for correct perception. A distant pleasure can be mistaken as smaller than a closer one; a short term joy can translate to long-term grief if you're not careful. But all this measuring takes work. It's so much easier to just jump on the latest trends. We all know the basics, and it's a matter of developing the details for ourselves. But with happiness as with weight loss, sometimes the more you work at getting it, the more elusive it becomes. Sometimes not working at it or even thinking about it is the best route.

Personally, I get pleasure from a good balance of time with my children, my guy and myself -a calculation that must be constantly re-worked. I get pain from hangovers and unresolved arguments. But on weight loss, I don't give a flying fuck at a doughnut.