Feeding the Fatsos

As expected, my calendar has been quite active since previous posting.

During this past week was my first day of classes for the Fall Semester. As usual, there were several fires for me to put out upon my return to campus after a few weeks hiatus. These included, in no particular order:

* Catching up on the pile of mail in my departmental mailbox (most of it was junk, of course).

* Renewing my campus parking sticker -- which meant that I had to go to the Bursar's Office to make the payment. And, while I was there, retrieve my paycheck from the Summer Session. This was a bit more expeditious than initially envisioned. One of the front-line supervisors behind the Bursar's window happens to have been one of my students a few years ago. She called me to one of the unused windows, processed my parking payment, and got my paycheck for me. Less than 5 minutes total! But hey, was I supposed to turn down the gratuitous offer?

* Searching for the Syllabus for one of my classes. All of my Course handouts had been sent to the copy shop a few weeks ago by my Department Secretary, after I e-mailed the documents to her. She is very meticulous and trustworthy, so I knew that she wasn't the problem. Turns out that one of the copy jobs had inadvertently been wrapped in a package sent to one of my colleagues. When she opened her class handouts package, she immediately realized that the Syllabus was not hers, so she gave it to me. But ….

* Turns out that the copy shop had collated the job incorrectly. Fortunately, they were in a slight slack period, so they redid the copy job. Which was just as well, because there were a few changes to be made to the Syllabus (typo errors, relocation of the Course to another classroom in another building, change in some resource URLs on account of a total recast of the Library's website, et cetera). So they redid the copy job with the correct info in the Syllabus.

* Reserve audiovisual equipment for demonstration lecture planned for next week.

Classes went off without any unusual hitches. I think that I'll enjoy this semester.

And at another institution of higher education, my son is now moving into the dorms this weekend. He's looking forward to it (as are my wife and I).


And now, for the main purpose of this post:

Recall that this past Rosh Hashanah, we had a fatso couple as houseguests, who, per the posting of 16 September 2007, were referred to as "He" and "She." Unfortunately (but hardly unexpectedly), She dropped dead a few months ago, no doubt on account of her morbid obesity. Our houseguests this past Shabbat included He, who, ever the polite visitor, brought some dessert for after dinner. What did He bring? A Lemon Meringue Cake and a Napoleon Cake (from a reliable kosher bakery, of course).

And, of course, my wife, who has her own obesity issues, indulged in those delights which He brought. We usually do not have dessert for Shabbat dinner, but when we do it usually is fruits and/or sorbet. We do not go hot and heavy into the superfattening stuff like pies and cakes. Because if that stuff is ever brought to the table, then my wife will usually overindulge in it. Which is exactly what happened this past Shabbat (though only to a relatively minor degree -- it could have been much worse).

From viewing the old photographs of He and She, it is my hypothesis that once He married She, his diet made a significant change to all of those sugar-rich and fat-rich and fiber-poor victuals, many of which have metabolized into fat tissue. She never cooked anything non-fattening (my wife and I were hosted for dinner by He and She on numerous occasions). And, now that She is gone, He has yet to transition back to healthy eating.

Fatsos have enough of a problem as it is. And much of their problem is that they have been conditioned to stuff food into their mouths. Why do we have to feed them such things as would add to their weight? If your host or hostess is overweight, then don't bring them all of those fattening pastries and candies! Bring fruit or something like that! And don't encourage the feeding reflex!


Please Don't Feed the Fatsos!!

Transfatsos

We had some fatso houseguests for Rosh Hashanah (this is in addition to the one to whom I have been married for 20+ years). The couple (hereinafter referred to as "He" and "She") are long time friends of ours whose own house is currently undergoing reconstruction, so He and She stayed with us for the holiday. And they really are fine and wonderful people.

He was an athlete in his youth, and is still in reasonably good physical condition. She, on the other hand, makes my wife seem anorectic by comparison.

The sad truth is that She is too fat to walk more than about 25 feet without having to take a break. She is too fat to get up to light the candles for Rosh Hashanah or Shabbat. She is too fat to even get up to extend her reach a few inches so she can get the newspaper at the other end of the table. And She is obviously too fat to climb the short flight of stairs to the living room level of our house, let alone to the guest bedroom upstairs.

Which wouldn't be so bad, except that She is -- and there is no nice way of expressing this -- too fat to adequately tend to her personal hygiene. I'm not sure which is worse, the odor of her body fluids or the strong perfume She uses in a futile attempt to cover up the body fluid odors. I can ill tolerate being in the same room with her. After 3 days, it was really getting to be a bit much.

She spent the entire three days in one of three positions: (A) sitting on the chair in the ground-level den; (B) sitting on a chair in the dining room; and (C) using the ground-level bathroom of our house. While in Position B, the dining room, she ate quite a bit of fattening foods, while leaving the salads untouched. The most strenuous exercise that She ever gets is driving her car around the block. And so, She just keeps getting fatter and fatter.

[My wife may be significantly overweight, but at least she does get some amount of physical exercise in. My wife is able to walk a mile to Shul, and then another mile + to visit friends, and then return. Along with everything else she eats, my wife eats salads and other healthy foods (though her intake of other fattening foods is not really under adequate control). But for all her excessive weight, my wife can walk up and down stairs, can tend quite well to her personal hygiene, and sometimes even swims a few laps in our swimming pool.].

Fatso is not just a physical condition; Fatso is a state of mind. There are few fat people who do not engage in off-the-record munching which they fail to take into account when assessing their calorie intake (but which nevertheless is input to the metabolism processes). I know which dresser drawer my wife uses for her secret stash of chocolate. I have chosen to ignore it; my other alternative would be to call foul on it, after which she would only find some alternative location for her chocolate stash.

In any event, I note that Judge Holwell has just decided the case of New York State Restaurant Assn. v. New York City Board of Health, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66935 (S.D.N.Y., 07 Civ. 5710, September 11, 2007) which essentially invalidated the New York City rule that required fast food restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus. Without going into the merits or specifics of the case, I will observe that the fatsos -- the very persons the various state menu calorie count rules were intended benefit -- pay no heed to calorie counts or other nutritional info anyway. Fatsos see food and eat it. Period! These calorie count rules and nutrition labeling rules cannot be expected to induce fatsos to lose weight.

Nutritional labeling only distracts from the real issues. The fatties don't pay the nutritional labeling any mind, and those of us who eat responsibly don't really need the nutritional labeling. The fatso lobby wants us all to accept the fatties and not discriminate against them and all that. But it's time for the fatsos to take responsibility for their bodies!


Love the fatso, but hate the fatness!