The Naturally Thin and the Naturally Average

There are those among us who can eat without care and will never get fat. They have a fast metabolism that actually demands that they keep eating. I have known a few of these in my life. I particularly remember Richard, a fellow musician when I was in college, tall and rangy, who ate everything in sight. He was always hungry and always thin. He still is, and he is nearly 60 now. I can claim one advantage: I'd last longer on that desert island.

I have read, particularly over at Shapely Prose (in the comments to a recent post), that many of these thin folks tend to be more accepting of fatties because they recognize how difficult it is to change your weight. I expect this is generally true. It's much easier to empathize when you have a similar, even though opposite, condition.

There is another group, not given an unusually high metabolism but who grew up average weight (so-called) without effort, and who have never wavered from that weight by much. At times they may jump up ten or even twenty pounds during a difficult time, or lose ten or twenty during a different difficult time or because of extra exercise or diet.

I have friends and family members in this group. I can't count how many times I have heard many of them say "I can't eat X" or "I have to stay away from Y" or "If I eat any more I will gain ten pounds". Recently I ate out with a group and one member of this group said she no longer bought a certain type of vegan mayonnaise because it tastes too good. This group is a subset of the larger group of averages.

It's clear from the comments they make about their own bodies that they honestly believe that without their constant vigilance they would lapse into real fatness. It is only their dedication to a good diet and exercise that keeps them from from becoming what I am, in other words. They don't say this but it's clear that's what they think. And some of them really do say it, trying to be helpful. They will point out that they tried this or that diet and lost the 10 pounds that so troubled them. Suggesting I might have similar success. In the case of the thin mayo person above, she believed she would gain astronomical amounts of weight if she indulged her preference for that one food.

It simply is not true. It becomes true, at least to a degree, if their level of diligence becomes an unhealthy need to follow reduced-calorie diets. In other words, if they get on that diet treadmill they may be condemned forever to monitoring their intake. And yet even if they do screw up their own perfectly decent metabolisms in this way it is unlikely they will ever reach the level of fat I reach. There is a lot more going on here than that so-called simple equation of calories in, calories out.

In future posts here I will elaborate on this theme especially because I suspect that the belief that "There but for the grace of my diligence go I" is pervasive in this society and contributes to the general lack of understanding of fat people and to the extreme prejudice against us.