Shows about big people: step in the right direction or more jokes about fatness?

Glee's new hot couple: Puck and Lauren.

If you haven’t noticed, there has been a drastic increase in the amount of big people on TV lately. There are still very few medium-sized people (which is a problem), but the rise of big people is worth noting.

We now have numerous shows about obese or overweight people: Mike & Molly, Huge, The Biggest Loser, and Dance Your Ass Off are the most obvious examples.

The question is, are these characters being presented in ways that are helping us a society or hurting us?

My favorite of these shows is Huge, a smart and moving scripted drama about teens at a fat camp, which I've written about before. Not only does this show avoid the usual fat jokes, it also treats each character as a unique and interesting individual, something I’d like to see more often with characters of all sizes. Unfortunately, this might be the only show on television that regular depicts big people as real people.

I don’t watch the reality shows about losing weight, and I’ve only seen one episode of Mike & Molly, and that was enough to turn me off. As Slate's Daniel Engber says in his outstanding photo and video essay, “Tele-Tubbies: The Rise of the Obese Actor on TV,” “Each episode [of Mike & Molly] delivers an onslaught of rim-shot-ready, anatomical putdowns. (Hey, this shirt looks like it was made in an awning store, ba-dum-bum!) After [several] months on the air, the scripts still vacillate between sweetness and fat shame. So what should we make of Mike & Molly? Does the show reflect some new phase of size acceptance in America, or just the opposite—a growing appetite for weight-based minstrelsy?”

Engber raises a good point—are shows about big people just a way for us to laugh at fatness? And if they are, is it still good for us to see people of different sizes on television or not?

The answer is ultimately that the jury is still out.

The most recent episodes of Glee have brought an obese character—Lauren, played by Ashley Fink who also has a supporting role on Huge—into the spotlight, but I still haven’t decided if Glee’s treatment of Lauren is good or bad.

Lauren joined the show last fall, but her character has taken center stage since one of the show’s main character’s—Puck—started pursuing her this winter.

On the one hand, it's nice to see someone Lauren’s size being depicted as the object of desire.

On the other hand, it’s disappointing and frustrating that a show as envelope-pushing as Glee still falls back on so many clichés—Lauren eats all the time, she’s loud and a bit crass, she has attitude to spare, etc.

Still, probably the most off-putting thing about the introduction of Lauren as a major character is that Puck sang Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” to her while he was trying to seduce her.

Thankfully, Lauren told him what she thought of that, explaining that though she’d always wanted a boy to sing to her, she never thought it would be a song like that, adequately expressing her—and our—disapproval. And, as some people have suggested, maybe that’s WHY the writers chose to have Puck sing that song, to demonstrate how insensitive and cruel people can be.

So, yes, the show is laughing a little bit at the “fat” thing by including such a song and showing Lauren as a lover of chocolate, but her character isn’t taking the abuse either, and just by doing that, she’s pushing the envelope.

As Lauren explains, “I look like America. Deal with it.” One of my friends called the war between Lauren and Santana (Puck’s on-again-off-again super fit girlfriend) "a fight between ide0logies": raising the question, what makes us happy? Having our bodies worshipped by men or accepting ourselves the way we are?

Ultimately, Lauren is intelligent, mature, and thoughtful, and not just there to make us laugh, and since Huge is the only other show on television with obese characters depicted this way, that makes her characterization a positive to me.

Like I said, the jury is still out on whether the increase in big people on our TVs is a good thing or a bad thing, but I think we can all agree, we’ve got to start somewhere.

Breaking my heart a little bit more

The other day I met with a student who surprised me.

I was talking to this student about his major and his life plans, and in that way, our discussion seemed pretty normal.

But then things got more serious.

Even though he is a creative writing major and loves to write, the student confessed he has always dreamed of becoming a chef. I want as many creative writing majors in our program as possible, but I also want our students to be happy, so I encouraged him to do follow his dreams.

Once he had let out that secret, I knew others would come out as well.

And so I wasn't surprised when he kept talking, admitting then that he had planned to go to cooking school all along but had chickened out at the last minute because he was afraid of failing.

At that moment, my heart leapt out to him—because I know as well as anyone what's it like to let fear hold us back.

But then things got even more intense. The student revealed he also had a desire to become a nutritionist, that he wanted to help people learn how to eat well.

And that's when he said something I did not see coming.

He said that he was afraid no one would take him seriously if he became a nutritionist. He paused then, as if working up the courage to continue, and finally said, "Because of my body size."

I guess I should add that this student is a pretty big guy. He kind of reminds me of a pre-diet Peter Jackson: a big and scruffy teddy bear of a guy.

I should also add that he has a huge heart, and he almost always puts it all out there, sharing himself without fear of judgment. That's probably what led him to reveal all of this to me.

And that's why I was determined to tell him what he needed to hear: that he should do whatever he wanted and do it well and not worry for an iota of a second about people judging him or not taking him seriously. And that if he was good at what he did, no one would think twice about his girth.

I told him exactly what I believe: I told him he had to go for it.

Mike & Molly premieres Monday, but still no show with people who look like this Molly

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CBS is launching a new sitcom called Mike & Molly on Monday September 20th at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time.

In some ways, the show is not unlike all of the other half-hour comedies we've been watching for years—it's just a show about two people falling for each other.

But there is one unique thing about the show. The two main characters—played by Melissa McCarthy (formerly of Gilmore Girls) and Billy Gardell (My Name is Earl)—are both obese.

First, I need to give this show the credit it deserves. As I said in my "Couples Retreat" post, over the past ten or so years sitcoms have fallen into a big-guy-thin-girl rut that is not only trite but also offensive. So a show about a big guy and a big girl feels revolutionary.

Sure, Roseanne did it first, but that was a show about a family struggling economically, and since we all know obesity is tied to income, the stars' sizes seemed to be making more of a comment on their economic class than their romantic appeal.

On the other hand, Mike & Molly is a show about falling in love. The two leads meet in the first episode—unfortunately at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting—and the show goes from there. Two big people as romantic leads? That really is revolutionary.

It's clear that we're having some kind of moment where shows about bigger people are suddenly hip—look at Huge, More to Love, or Drop Dead Diva—and I'm absolutely thrilled about that. But my concern is that, though Hollywood is finally starting to show people who are bigger, they're still not showing anyone in the middle. There is still no one on my small screen who looks like me.

Nevertheless, I'm happy about Mike & Molly and look forward to watching it Monday night. But what I'm really hoping is that shows like this and the others I've mentioned are just the beginning. That they are opening doors that desperately need to be opened. And that though we only see two sizes on TV now—big and little—we will soon seen people of all sizes.

Read all about it

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My husband and I have just finished editing an amazing collection of stories about commuting and travel called Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There (pictured to the left).

Though the theme of this book isn't directly related to this blog, there are several outstanding stories that relate to body issues, and I want to mention those here in case any of you are interested in buying the book—which is available for pre-order at the low price of just $9.00 until this Saturday, July 31st.

These stories include the following:

• "Lactational" by Sara Holcombe—I think it's safe to say that many women feel like their "girls" are lacking in some way. Some of us think they hang too low, others think they're too small or too big, and many of us wish we could change them in some way. It's one of the few body issues that I find women of all sizes share, which is one of the reasons I find this story—about women who sell their breast milk to health food stories for an impressive sum—so entertaining. FINALLY, we can make a profit from our bodies at any size.

• "Scream Queen" by Ed Gorman—What would happen if Lindsay Lohan disappeared from society and showed up at your local video store? This story imagines just that by following a geeky twenty-something video store clerk who figures out that one of his regular customers is really a famous B-movie actress who has recently disappeared from the public eye. Though he is initially disappointed in her obvious weight gain, the clerk—and his loser friends—eventually become infatuated with her, proving that beauty really does come in all sizes.

• "Who Loves You" by Eric Goodman—There is a long history of stories and novels about adultery—Anna Karenina anyone?—and this story continues that literary discussion from the point of view of a woman who has recently decided to forgive her husband for cheating on her. But her willingness to do so is challenged when she and her husband spend time with an old friend and his new—younger, thinner—girlfriend, challenging her belief that her husband still finds her attractive and wants to be with her.

• "Outbound Bus" by Yelizaveta P. Renfro—If we are being honest with ourselves, we have to admit that it's difficult for any of us to look at someone who is severely obese and not judge them in any way at all. Yes, we know intellectually that obesity is caused by many things besides over-eating—such as genes and chemicals—but this is also an issue people still struggle to comprehend on an emotional level, which is why Renfro's story about a woman who was once married to a severely obese man is so profound. We all know what it's like to try to hide our so-called flaws, and this character's attempts to literally hide her entire husband is both moving and chilling.

• "Strawberry Fields" by K. Terese Pampellonne—This touching story begins with a familiar premise: boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, but in this version, rather than lose the girl, this teenage boy gets his girlfriend pregnant, causing the two of them to run away together. As the story progresses, we find out that he is less interested in his girlfriend once she becomes "fat." Sure, his attitude is completely offensive, but that's why it's good to read and share stories like this—so we know why this kind of perspective is so wrong, making it a great story to have all your guy friends read. I tell my students that the best characters are the ones we like despite their flaws—think of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs—and the protagonist of this story is another outstanding example of a wonderfully flawed character.

There are more moving stories that deal with body issues—"Completo" by novelist Faye Moskowitz comes to mind—and much more, but I'll keep the other stories a surprise for those who decide to buy.

Click here to order a copy of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There.

Bless me, readers, I have sinned . . .

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According to food guru Michael Pollan, the obesity problem in our country would be solved if we all ate every meal at home from here on out.

I agree with Pollan, but I'd back away from his extreme solution by one step and say that we should all only allow ourselves one meal out a week.

I mean, come on, Michael.

You don't want us to EVER eat out again?

You can't expect a nation raised on Happy Meals and pan pizza to go cold turkey like that. And once a week is a pretty good goal. There's no way that wouldn't make a dent in our nation's collective girth.

And I don't mind sticking to once a week if I have to.

In fact, that's what Dave and I try to do. To be honest, we've become pretty darn routine about it. Saturday nights, we see a movie and go out to eat. It's downright scary how much we've become like my parents who took us out to eat every Saturday night after mass when I was growing up. I guess you could argue that Catholic mass is its own form of theatre, huh?

Despite the similarity of my own life to that of my parents', I'd be happy to stick to the eating-out-once-a-week routine if I could. The problem is that things keep getting in the way.

For instance, I had to go the doctor today—does this just happen more often as you get older?—and after numerous tests and x-rays and surgical gown changes, I decided that I deserved lunch out on the town.

(In case you're wondering, Dave and I went to Taquiera Azteca on Old Morgantown Road, which has some mean tacos de carne asada if you're ever in Bowling Green, Kentucky.)

I don't know why I always want to go out to eat after I go to the doctor. It just feels right—I figure if I have to suffer a little, I should live a little too. Know what I mean?

The problem is that it violates my only-eat-out-once-a-week rule.

And going to the doctor isn't the only thing that causes me to break this rule. Going shopping or to a movie also makes me want to eat out. As does running errands. Or going to campus when school's not in session. It's almost as if I think that if I leave the house at all, I deserve some kind of culinary reward.

And let's face it—that is seriously f***ed up.

Maybe Pollan's right. Maybe I should go cold turkey. But it's hard to imagine doing that if I can't even cut back to once a week.

Wow, just wow: Why Glee is the best show on TV

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I had already posted Tuesday's blog when I watched Glee on Tuesday night, which is too bad because ALL I WANTED TO DO after that was write about Glee.

Well, now I finally have my chance.

The reason I was so anxious to write about Glee is because, as Dave said while we were watching it, this week's episode was kind of like watching my blog being brought to life.

***WARNING—THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD—DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS EPISODE RUINED.***

As some of you know, one of the main characters on the show—Mercedes (played by the luminous Amber Riley below)—is not your typical skinny actress.

And in this episode, Mercedes is told by her new cheerleading coach—the always crazed Sue Sylvester—that she has to drop ten pounds in a week or be kicked off the team.

Mercedes responds by doing what any high schooler would do—she goes on a diet. But after eating chicken breast and salad for a few days, she hasn't lost weight. She's gained it.

So she turns to the other cheerleaders—all of them about as big as my pinky—and asks them for help. They tell Mercedes about the "Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse: water, maple syrup for glucose, lemon for acid, cayenne pepper to irritate the bowels, and a dash of Ipecac, a vomiting agen," all of which is designed to make them flush every unshakeable calorie out of their bodies.

Mercedes joins their cult, drinking the cleanse she even admits must be unhealthy and otherwise giving up food altogether. A few days later, she's on the verge of starving and starting to see visions—her glee club friends looking like giant pieces of food.

Not long after that, she passes out from hunger.

In the nurse's office, Mercedes runs into former head cheerleader Quinn (kicked off the squad for getting pregnant), who tells Mercedes:

"You are so lucky. You've always been at home in your body. Don't let Miss Sylvester take that away from you. . . You are beautiful. You know that."

The next time the Cheerios perform, Mercedes takes the floor and says this to a gym full of awkward, sweaty teenagers:

"So most of you know Cheerios is about perfection and winning, looking hot and being popular.

Well, I think that it should be about something different.

How many of you at this school feel fat? How many of you feel like maybe you’re not worth very much? And you’re ugly and you have too many pimples and not enough friends?

Well, I felt all of those things about myself at one time or another.

Hell, I felt all of those things about myself today. And that just ain't right.

And we’ve got something to say about it. And if you like what we have to say, come down here and sing it with us.”

After this call to action, Mercedes launches into a heartfelt rendition of Christina Aguilara's "Beautiful." If you don't know the lyrics, they go something like this:

You are beautiful no matter what they say

Words can't bring you down

You are beautiful in every single way

Yes, words can't bring you down

Don't you bring me down today...

Of course, everyone in the gym joins in before the song is over.

Obviously I loved this episode because it was incredibly uplifting, and I completely embrace its love-yourself-the-way-you-are message.

But it is so much more than that.

I also love that in this episode, they show a character who is overweight eating HEALTHY FOOD! In the past, we have seen so many overweight characters who have been depicted—ridiculed even—as junk-food-loving pigs.

I'm sure we all remember the awful "Fat Monica" on Friends—who was never shown without a candy bar in her hand.

Please.

Just because you're overweight does NOT mean you eat a lot. Trust me, as someone who eats healthy food six days a week at least, I know. A balanced diet does not always equal a skinny body.

My father-in-law always says that if you don't see an overweight person eating a lot of crap, it's because they're doing it in private.

Do I have to say it again?

Puh-leeze.

That is some of the biggest crap I have ever heard.

(It's right up there with the same father-in-law telling me, "Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?" when Dave and I moved in together. And we all know how that worked out. And, yes, it is not lost on me that I'm the "cow" in this scenario.)

If you know anything about science, you know that our genes and the chemicals surrounding us play a huge role in our body size. Assuming that everyone who struggles with their weight also stuffs their face is just plain ignorant.

And that's what I love about Glee. The writers get that. They get that just because you try to lose weight—just because you starve yourself or use miracle diet aids—that doesn't mean you'll be thin.

The other reason I love these writers is because they do something else that so few writers have done before—they broach the obesity issue head on.

As Entertainment Weekly said, "The weight loss subplot involving Mercedes may have been one of Glee's riskiest and edgiest storylines to date. Talking about teenage girl's weight is definitely a tricky topic."

Sure, every once in a while we see overweight characters who are not pigging out, but I can't think of a single other time when a television show or a movie actually addressed the issue of obesity with any seriousness. In fact, most of the time overweight characters are only there for comic relief. So it's insanely refreshing to see Mercedes' character being treated like a real person with real issues, real hopes and dreams, real assets and real flaws.

In my creative writing classes, I teach my students that all good characters must have both good and bad qualities if we are to find them believable, and that's what the Glee writers do so well.

Yes, Mercedes is overweight, but that doesn't mean she has to be treated like a punchline or that the writers have to feed us with immature fat jokes. No, the writers of this show get it—we want fun and uplifting entertainment about REAL, BELIEVABLE characters.

Thank you, Glee, for giving us just that.

Ruby Sundays

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Ruby Gettinger is back for her second season on the Style network starting this Sunday.

I had never heard of Ruby until I read about her in Entertainment Weekly this week. What I learned is that Ruby stars in her own reality show about her attempt to slim down from a dangerous 716 pounds. (I believe she's around 300 pounds in the picture above.) She lost 100 pounds last season and is back to try to lose even more this year.

The reason I'm interested in Ruby is because she says she's trying to lose the weight without surgery, shortcuts, or "miracle diets." She's a woman after my own heart.

I also appreciate that Ruby says we should all, "Enjoy [life] no matter what size you are."

I have long felt that this is the first step to being healthy. If you don't accept yourself the way you are, I truly believe you will never lose weight and keep it off.

I'm also interested in what Ruby will learn about her weight gain as she tries to lose that weight. As Ruby says, "How I got to be so big is a question I would like answered on my journey. I have battled this a long time. I feel like I am always getting in the boxing ring with this beast that has no name. He always seems to win. I start off strong and determined, and in the first three rounds I take him down. But right before my eyes—yet at the same I'm blinded by him—he grows bigger. Before I know it, he has knocked me out of the ring."

Anyone who has struggled with weight loss can relate to Ruby's admission that she feels like she can't win. We all know that it's not easy to be positive about losing weight the right way—slowly and over a long time. I know that sometimes I feel like throwing in the towel and eating all day long. It's on those days that I wonder if I too could end up severely obese. But I tell myself that if someone like Ruby can lose weight, so can I.

Entertainment Weekly says that "You might actually cheer out loud when Ruby Gettinger, the show's bubbly heroine who once weighed 716 pounds, pulls on her first pair of jeans . . . But when things get serious — like when she talks about her missing childhood memories — Ruby will feel like a friend you can't help rooting for."

Ruby airs on the Style network on Sundays at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and I know I'll be watching every week from here on out.

From one extreme to another

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I've been lucky enough to see two movies this week—Precious and Brothers.

If you haven't heard, Precious is about a teenage girl (a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Gabby Sidibe) who is the victim of sexual, physical, and verbal abuse at the hands of her parents.

And Brothers is about a Marine (Tobey Maguire, also in a Golden Globe-nominated performance) coming home from Afghanistan after being presumed dead for months. In the wake of what they believe to be his death, his widow (played by Natalie Portman) and his brother (Jake Gyllenhall) form a close bond.

Both movies are outstanding, and I recommend them to everyone.

But what I want to talk about is the way these characters look.

At the beginning of Brothers, Maguire's character looks like a normal Marine—muscular and fit. But after spending months as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan, he returns home literally as gaunt and drawn as someone in a concentration camp, which was incredibly disturbing to see.

Not only does Maguire's character come home with a new body, he also comes home with post-traumatic stress disorder and some seriously disturbing issues because of what happened in Afghanistan. As a result, it is nearly impossible for him to be affectionate or intimate with his family. His character—malnourished to the point of being emaciated—looks like the walking dead, and when he lashes out at his confused and frightened children, it's hard not to dislike him despite what he's been through.

On the other end of the spectrum is Precious. Sidibe's portrayal of the movie's titular character is the exact opposite of Maguire's. Yes, like his character, Precious is haunted by a prolonged traumatic experience, but rather than become emaciated as a result of the abuse she suffers, Precious becomes obese. (A transformation which occurs before the movie begins and which the viewer only witnesses when the film flashes back to pictures from her childhood.)

But despite the abuse Precious has suffered, she has not turned into a monster who lashes out at everyone in her path. Instead, unlike Maguire's character, she is warm and giving, always looking for an opportunity for connection rather than shunning it the way he does. As a result, Precious is able to find others to help her deal with her issues in a way that Maguire's character is not.

In other words, the obese character is likeable, and the gaunt character is not.

I suppose this isn't really completely surprising given that overweight people have long been cast as the clown or the funny sidekick. Still, Precious is the MAIN character of the film, the protagonist.

And she's morbidly obese.

And everyone she meets adores her.

And the audience routes for her.

Did I mention she's severely obese?

So I can't help but wonder then if this depiction signals some kind of shift in our society. One of the goals of Precious, the movie, is to demonstrate that Precious, the character, is much more than a number on the scale, much more than her BMI. These things do not define her, nor do they determine how much people like or accept her. In fact, they have almost nothing to do with her interaction with others.

Before Precious, overweight people were a punchline, something to laugh at. But writer Sapphire and director Lee Daniels have given us a fully-drawn, complex character who just happens to be obese.

This raises the question, is it possible that our society is becoming more accepting of different kinds of body shapes? Are we finally learning that a small waistline does not determine a person's self-worth?

The answers to these questions must be yes because there is no way that their depiction of Precious—and Jim Sheridan's depiction of Maguire's Marine—doesn't demonstrate a change in our thinking. No, it seems obvious that with Precious, a clear shift has occurred. We are becoming a more tolerant society. We are accepting the fact that people—likeable people, interesting people—come in all shapes and sizes.

And I all can say is it's about freaking time!

Processed foods and little pink houses: why we can't eat in a small town

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It's been a while since I've addressed the question of how I can lose weight without dieting, and I need to start getting back to that question. I've already talked about the importance of indulging and making exercise a fun and frequent part of our lives (meaning more than once a day), and I'd like to get through several more tenets of my non-dieting approach over the next few months. The one I want to start talking about first is processed foods—and I say start because this post is only going to talk about why processed foods are more of a problem in our society than I think most people realize.

One of the many problems in our society is what we eat. Many of us know that the quality of what we put in our mouths is as important as the quantity. In his bestselling book In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan talks about how bad processed foods are for us—they're high in sodium, high in calories, high in trans fats, and have little or no nutritional value. Pollan suggests avoiding these problem foods by shopping only in the outlying areas of the grocery store—the produce section, the meat section, the dairy section—and skipping the middle aisles—where boxed Mac 'n Cheese and canned soup rule. I think we all know that these foods should be avoided, but if we all know this, then why is it that people are still buying these foods? And not just buying them, but buying them en masse?

The answer to this question is more complicated than the fact that these foods taste good or they're easy to make, though those are clearly excuses that many of us make when we buy processed foods. But these aren't the only reasons our country is in the middle of a huge obesity epidemic.

I recently had the privilege of living in a small rural town in North Carolina called Laurinburg for two years of my adult life. Despite the inherent challenges of living in such a remote area, I believe that living there was a privilege for two reasons:

1) As anyone who works in academia knows, it is extremely difficult to get a full-time job teaching college English, and I recognize how lucky I was to get one—even if it was in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina. (Also, I worked with a number of amazing people, many of whom I hope to be friends with for years to come and who made my life in N.C. richer than one would imagine when looking up Laurinburg on a map.)

2) I also consider it a privilege to have lived in Laurinburg, North Carolina, because, during those two years, I believe I was able to learn more about how regular Americans live than I did in the eleven long years I lived in big cities like Washington, D.C. or Cincinnati.

For instance, I learned that movies don't become blockbusters because moviegoers want to see them. They become blockbusters because of the theatre owners who book them. Because if you live in a town with as little to do as Laurinburg and it's a thirty-minute drive to the closest multiplex, you're more than likely willing to see ANY movie that comes to the run-down two-screen cinema in your town. (What was equally interesting was that while I was living in North Carolina, I always knew what movie would win the weekend box office because it was always the same movie that opened at the theatre in our town that weekend.)

But I also learned a lot about how the average American eats.

When I moved to North Carolina, I had the false sense that we would have access to all kinds of fresh, local food because we'd be living in such a rural area. But if you know anything about the Sandhills of North Carolina, you know that they don't grow food there. They grow tobacco and cotton.

Still, it was a small town, people didn't make a lot of money, almost everything was cheap (housing, movie tickets, tuition), so I figured that food would be affordable too.

In some ways this was true. A huge Wal-Mart Super Center was so centrally located in Laurinburg that almost anyone who lived in the city limits could walk there if need be (and it wasn't unusual to see people doing so). There were a handful of other options for grocery shopping in town: two of them were pretty small and rundown and the third—Harris Teeter—was gorgeous and well stocked but too expensive for us and for most of the people we knew. Of course, if it was too expensive for us—two full-time college professors—it was obviously too expensive for most of the people who lived in Laurinburg. As a result, almost everybody did their grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, and initially we were no exception.

In the beginning, I did my best to focus on Wal-Mart's positive aspects: so many things were affordable (everything from picture frames to DVDs), and you could buy almost anything you needed in one place. But pretty soon I realized that there was one thing I could almost never buy at Wal-Mart without breaking my bank: produce.

Because, though the Mac 'n Cheese and the Ramen Noodles and the Ranch salad dressing were the cheapest I'd ever come across in my life, the grapes and the lettuce and the broccoli were outrageously overpriced. I remember one time I wanted to buy grapes for a get-together we were having at our house, and the regular-sized bag I picked up ended up costing eight dollars. Eight dollars! For grapes!

It was this experience that got me thinking about and paying more attention to the produce prices at Wal-Mart, and once I started really looking at them, I realized that—except for the few items that were on sale each week—the Wal-Mart in Laurinburg, North Carolina was price gouging its produce.*

Of course, I immediately understood that the consequence of this was that people in Laurinburg—especially people who couldn't afford or didn't have time to supplement their Wal-Mart shopping trips with stops at other grocery stores—probably weren't buying or eating as much produce as people in other parts of the country.

When I lived in Cincinnati, I eventually bought almost all of our produce and meat downtown at Findlay Market every Sunday, and I could do so for thirty bucks a week. I would come home with three huge paper bags stuffed full of fruits and vegetables (and half a bag of fish, chicken, and beef) and be shocked by how far our money would go there. But if I wanted to buy three bags of produce at Wal-Mart in rural North Carolina, I'd probably spend about four times as much doing so.

Not long after I figured out that Wal-Mart was making up for what they lost on frozen pizza by charging more for apples and oranges, I attended a Fourth of July celebration in nearby Maxton, North Carolina.

If I had thought Laurinburg was small, Maxton soon proved me wrong. In fact, it wasn't unusual for people from Maxton to drive the five miles to Laurinburg for an evening of cheap movies and fast food.

One of the things that I immediately noticed at the Maxton Fourth of July celebration was that it felt as if almost everyone there was obese.

Obese and poor.

As I had become used to seeing (even in a fancy grocery store like Harris Teeter), children were running around without their shoes on and many of them were in need of a bath and wearing old and ripped clothing. No, not everyone there fit this description, but most did, and in my Gap jeans and espadrilles, I stood out almost as much as Paris Hilton at a church revival. And I also noticed that, unlike other town festivals I'd been to, there were no rides or games, no Scrambler or Ring Toss. There was only one pathetic looking inflatable bouncing machine, the kind you see gracing suburban backyards for the birthday parties of kids who've never heard of, much less seen, places like Maxton.

Like many Americans, I immediately wondered how it was that people who appeared to be so poor were also so obese. How people who were clearly not rolling in money were spending so much of what they did have on food.

Then it it all came together for me: these people were not spending a lot of money on food. They were just spending it the wrong way. They weren't obese because they were pigging out at every meal; they were obese because every meal was high in sodium and calories and trans fats. They were overweight because they could afford as much Mac 'n Cheese as their hearts desired, but grapes were not in the budget.

Nevertheless, I knew that Wal-Mart was not alone in making the people of Maxton obese.

McDonalds—which was the only place open 24 hours a day in Laurinburg and which frequently had a drive-through line that extended into the street—and Burger King and Wendy's and Park Grill and Taco Bell and KFC and all of the twenty or so fast food restaurants in Laurinburg were complicit as well. Because in Laurinburg, not only couldn't you buy foods rich in iron like spinach and blueberries without spending five dollars, you also couldn't buy a healthy meal in a restaurant unless you went to the only fancy sit-down restaurant in town, a place where a salmon dinner costs around twenty dollars, a price far too high for most of the people who live there. But you could go to one of many fast food restaurants and get a 1000-calorie value meal for around three bucks and maybe even feed a family of three for the same price as that bag of grapes.

The eight-dollar grapes weren't the only reason I stopped going to Wal-Mart (a documentary called The High Cost of Low Prices also played a big role in that decision), but it was basically the final straw. And my goal here isn't to convince people to stop going to Wal-Mart (though that would be a nice side effect of this blog). My real goal is to point out how many people in this country—the people who live in places where Slumdog Millionaire and The Hurt Locker will never play—don't have very many choices about what they eat. Essentially, they eat what they're given, and the result is that many, many, many of them are obese.

I used to be surprised by how many more people in this country are now considered obese—especially by the increase in childhood obesity—and I used to believe that these people were just lazy and undisciplined. But after living two years in the middle of nowhere, the numbers don't surprise me anymore. It's not that these people—adults and kids alike—want to eat food that is so bad for them. It's that, sadly, they don't have much of a choice.

*I have not done an exhaustive study of the produce prices at Wal-Marts across America, but I do believe that one of the biggest contributors to obesity in this country is that fresh produce costs more than processed foods.

The 650-pound virgin

195.5 pounds
I talk a lot on this blog about how women need to accept their bodies no matter their size, but I don't intend to exclude men from this discussion. In fact, I think men suffer from the same kinds of issues as women. Let's face it, we all have trouble accepting ourselves the way we are.

So when I heard about a documentary being aired on TLC about a man who lost 400 pounds, I immediately couldn't wait to hear his story. (If you're interested, this show will be airing again at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15th and 1 a.m. on Thursday, July 16th.)

Thirty-two-year-old David Smith, the "650-pound virgin," finally decided to do something about his weight when his doctors told him that if he didn't, he would die within the next few years.

Smith told himself he had three options at that point: he could have gastric bypass surgery, he could change his diet and exercise habits, or he could kill himself. If seeing the incredibly depressing video and pictures of Smith at 650 pounds hadn't already been enough to make me feel completely horrified by his situation, his admission that he seriously considered taking his own life—and his graphic description of his plan to set himself on fire—certainly would have.

The truth is that Smith's story is heartbreakingly sad and, at times, almost too difficult to watch. He was so unhappy that he nearly ate himself to death. But no matter how hard it was to watch, I still think it's important for us to talk about people like Smith in order to avoid letting what happened to him happen to more people. I often complain about how we try to hide people who are overweight in our society, and Smith's situation proves how dangerous that can be. The more Smith was ridiculed for his weight, the more uncomfortable he became going out in public, and the more he stayed at home, the more he ate. At his worst, he described himself as simply sitting at the window of his house every day and watching the seasons change. His obesity was like a prison he could not escape.

Fortunately, Smith decided to change his entire life rather than end it. He reached out for help, and a selfless local trainer took on his case, initially having Smith do simple at-home exercises—like stand up from the sofa, lift water jugs, and climb the stairs over and over—to get in better shape.

In the end, Smith lost over 400 pounds, having surgery to remove the excess skin and repair other problems caused by his weight gain. And now, despite the scars left over from surgery, he looks like a regular guy.

Everything might sound fine for Smith now, but the problem is that while he was hiding away in his house, he missed crucial opportunities to develop as a person, specifically missing the chance to learn to interact with and date women. And Smith's desire to meet a woman, fall in love, and have sex for the first time in his life is how the show ended up being called "The 650-pound Virgin."

The catch is that he still sorely lacks the skills to approach women, much less ask them out on a date. And, to be honest, this was the saddest part of the documentary: when I realized that not only had Smith missed so much of his life but that he had also missed so much of the learning that happens when we experience life. Smith couldn't simply lose the weight and re-start his re-enter the world. He had to lose the weight, have major surgery, and only then could he even begin the difficult process of learning how to be a functional member of society. And he's still trying very hard to learn to do that.

Ultimately, what I think we can learn from Smith is how important it is to talk about our body issues before we let them get out of control. Smith dropped out of high school because he couldn't handle the constant ridicule from his peers. As it turned out, that was the worst decision he could make because once he disappeared from the world, he ate even more. It's also notable that things turned around for him when he found someone—his dedicated personal trainer—with whom he could talk about his problems, including being molested as a child and losing his mother at a young age.

When I saw the pictures of Smith as a boy—pictures that were described as showing him having problems with his weight at a young age—I honestly didn't think he looked that bad. But from Smith's point of view, he looked awful. And that makes me wonder if he saw himself as obese long before he could accurately be described that way. Did he initially stop interacting with others because of his own negative perceptions of himself? And this makes me wonder whether or not things would have ever gotten so bad for Smith if he simply lived in a society that was more accepting of people of all different sizes and shapes.

I guess the only thing we can do to help prevent this from happening to others is to simply try to be more accepting—not just of others, but also of ourselves.