the roads are getting nearer
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005
` Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Not inspired by Milan Kundera but by a recent television programme, which focused on the disturbing increase in cases of anorexia nervosa in Singapore amongst our womenfolk. In a particularly cringe-worthy segment, near-skeletal adolescent girls had no qualms telling the host how much thinner they wanted to be, despite looking worse for wear. A recovered anorexic described how the condition resulted in a downward spiral of guilt, and the body's inability to ingest food at the critical stage of the illness. What was troubling to learn was that about 20% of sufferers may eventually die from weakness or suicide.
Back in the college days, I remembered this girl from my faculty who'd never joined her friends for meals but instead went on extended daily jogging sessions after school. She started to look very gaunt and lost a lot of weight, but it was to the extent that onlookers were concerned about whether she had health problems. I never saw her return to school towards the examination period and after that, which had me convinced that she might have been suffering from the slimmers' disease.
On a less sombre note, I'm slightly troubled by the fact that if a person is genetically predisposed to be thin (for example, yours truly), one is seldom spared from the torrent of 'concern' from well-meaning parties who are convinced that either 1. I'm not eating enough, 2. I will fall sick easily if I don't eat more (seriously, I really don't see the correlation there) or 3. I must be very stressed at work or something's been troubling me (yes, if boredom is considered a stress factor). Still (with no smug intentions), I think the most rhetorical question of all time would be "Why are you so thin?". Up till today, I'm still trying to figure out a politically correct way of answering the question without having to sound 1. arrogant ("Yes, because I'm born thin. Duh."), 2. helpless ("I don't know. Really. I do happen to eat and not throw up my food.") or 3. downright rude ("Oh yes, I guess that's when I'm being compared to you, no?"). Trust me, this is probably tougher to decipher than rocket science.