I'm mad as hell!

I guess it’s because of all the New Year’s Resolutions being thrown about that my mind has been occupied by weight. Most of my colleagues are doing South Beach – they’re miserably existing on salads right now, and it’s turned the knob on the staff Crank-o-Meter all the way up to 11. That’s fine by me, because, to be frank, I’ve been a mite cranky about weight, too. Not mine – for once, I’m perfectly content with the numbers – but with the weight of the guilt that society places on eating.

At lunch the other day, one of the South Beach women (barely filling out her size 4 pants, mind you) said that she had been “so bad” over the holidays. She’d had *gasp* cheesecake three nights in a row! She’d had – oh so bad – hors d’œuvres! You know, hors d’œuvres? The cause of the decline of Western Civilization? What really tweaks me is that people say they are bad when they eat something indulgent. I can’t say this enough: what you eat does not make you bad. It might make you chubby, unhappy, or sick to your stomach, but it most certainly does not make you bad.

I have had enough – enough! – of people turning meals into moral issues. I’m fed up with people existing on leafy greens and low-fat yogurt and saying that they’re “being good.” Abstemious eating makes you no more “good” than wallowing in a vat of melted chocolate. It may make you thinner, light-headed, and hungry again in an hour, but it won’t make you “good.” Hitler was a vegetarian. Was he “good?”

I’m sick of the phrase “guilt-free” when applied to food. Why should I feel guilty about anything I eat? Who is judging me? And who gives anyone the right to judge me based solely on what I eat, goddammit! NO ONE has that right, and I refuse to kowtow to the fat-free, sugar-free, flavor-fucking-free nazis promoting this lifestyle any longer.

I’ve had enough of women forcing themselves to attend weigh-ins and meetings where they are praised for resisting the evil lure of a cookie. Enough of the diet industry selling salvation by preying on womens’ insecurities and low self-esteem. Enough of size 4 women constantly dieting and calling themselves “bad” for enjoying their food! Enough, enough, ENOUGH!!!

Eat it or don’t eat it. It’s your hips and your choice. But for fuck’s sake, if you eat it, own it and enjoy it. You will still be a good person, if you ever were to begin with, if you eat the cheesecake or not. So live, dammit!