Scared.

Edit: I recommend that anyone struggling with the same feelings read the comments to this entry. I got so many words of encouragement, it made me feel much more at ease with what's going on. 

It's been a week since I threw out my scale. I've been eating freely, stocking up on food, and I've given up all the rules I was taught about eating. Don't have candy and cookies in the house; don't eat every time you feel like it; don't buy something on an impulse. Above all, don't waste food. I've given up on all of that.

The first few days, I had the feeling of a huge weight lifting off me. I felt like I was floating on air, being accepted for who I was. My mind was free to work on what it wanted to; the thought cycles were gone and I felt free and... alive. But the high has gone out somewhat by now. I think I'm giving into the worries and fears a little bit. A part of me is very impatient to eat "normally" and be thrifty and stop this madness. A part of me thinks this is all bullshit and regrets giving up the scale, because I feel like I've gone too long without and need the reassurance. I miss that feeling of control, even if it never once helped me feel better.

Is it normal that I'm still overeating after a week? My appetite confuses me. I had expected some overindulgence on the first couple of days, but still? I get this urge to eat everything all at once and it feels suffocating to be full and know there are more treats than I can possibly eat. I thought the cravings were supposed to stop. When do they stop? Do I just crave until the day I finally no longer question my right to eat? Or maybe cravings are OK?

I'm quite sure I've gained weight, which makes me, frankly, a little bit miserable. On the plus side, I'm at least less miserable than I used to be, because I don't have a scale to stand on over and over, nor am I staring in the mirror all the time. I'm trying to focus on other things, so my mind is somewhat occupied by other things, and the body shifts out of focus. But there's a great temptation to fall into the pit of "I'm so fat and all I do is eat".


I do worry about gaining weight endlessly until I literally blow up. I know it's probably impossible, and I haven't been able to empty my fridge since I started stocking up.

Should it matter how much weight I gain and how much food I eat? What if I haven't even gained weight? Maybe I'm just imagining it, because I fear losing control. But my pants are tight on me, so I suppose I'm not imagining things. I feel like sending people before and after photos and verifying if I've gained weight, in lieu of having a scale. My preoccupation with how big I actually am is a bit worrying. I may have been deluding myself about it before. Until now, I haven't realized how much I really think about it, like my whole identity comes from my size.

I just feel like my body's slipping from my fingers, falling apart like I'm made of sand. I've lost all control. I'm scared to death.

Calm Down, We Can ALL Be Eating Disordered

Edit: The commenter apologized in the previous post, so you can go read her response there. I think I'll keep the post up, because it's so symptomatic of how people respond to fat people with eating disorders, but there's no ongoing fight or grudge going on here. We all lash out sometimes.

"Anonymous said...
wow you must've looked hilarious buying four chocolate bars. disgusting. Four is so unnecessary. and bullSHIT you have an eating disorder, unless its binge eating. You insult me, and others, who actually fear calories and would be suicidal at a third your size."

This is a comment I got to my previous post, where I discussed throwing out the scale and buying lots of food so I can eat what I want. I did this as a gesture of healing from what I call an eating disorder, although I don't have a diagnosis or more precise name for it. I just feel miserable and guilty about my eating habits, think about my weight all the time, weigh myself too often, get anxiety attacks over fat hate, etc. etc. My friend Robyn, who has suffered from anorexia, was the one to tell me I need to kill it dead. So today, obviously another anorexic tells me I insult her by thinking I have a problem.

I could have deleted it as a flame, but I kept it and responded. It's obviously meant to be both humiliating and insulting - drawing attention to my size, exaggerating it (a third my size? Bwah), using bully tactics, denying my right to name my problem. This tells me the person felt very mad and threatened when she read my post.

As I mentioned, I don't have a diagnosis. That means I'm not taking anyone's bed or place in therapy. I'm naming my problem and fighting against it, with the help of my boyfriend and closest friends. If I saw a doctor and told them everything I told Robyn, they may diagnose me, or they may just conclude that I need to eat less. Even if a doctor gave me a diagnosis, I probably couldn't expect for a lot of sympathy or support in healing; a lot of people would question the diagnosis and whether it's "a real eating disorder". Atypical eating disorders - or even binge eating disorder/compulsive eating - are very little known and there's very little help available. And OK, let's say I technically don't have an eating disorder (yet); it's still a serious problem that I have these thought patterns and guilt feelings. I need to ease my pressure or it will really depress me. In fact, I'm already on antidepressants.

Here's the big question: Why should it INSULT someone if I think I have an eating disorder? It helps me conceptualize the problem and be determined to change it. If I need to see the problem as a separate creature that I need to destroy, what's it to you?

I've thought of it a lot and here's my conclusion: the commenter is angry because she does not want to be lumped together with a fatty. If a fat person can have an eating disorder, then the concept of eating disorders is tarnished with fat and gluttony, and it makes her anorexia look like a joke. This is sad, but it's just the eating disorder speaking. My disorder is different in nature, but it has similar thought patterns. For instance, I was pretty angry at first when I read about HAES and fat people who exercise. "They're bringing the slim world's antics into the fat world! It will be tainted!" It's really just the same thing turned around.

The sad part is, this would pretty much be my parents' reaction, without the whole "you insult me because I have a REAL problem". I had bulimia symptoms at ages 15 and 18; both times, my mother told me I do not have an eating disorder and I need to stop dramatizing. "We all binge," she said, as if our family sits around eating until we throw up. This is pretty much how our culture deals with a fat girl who feels she has a problem. In a way, fat people are seen as unhealthy; in another way, we're seen as "healthy", as in "you look healthy". If you look healthy, how can you be sick inside?

Of course, I share this problem with all the normalweight people with eating disorders. If you're not critically skinny, people will usually not see you as sick. Normalweight is the ideal, so how could someone at that size be sick? As an added bonus, a fat person is expected to think and behave in eating disordered ways. We should be counting the calories of every bite. We should be overexercising. We should hate our bodies and consider them unattractive. It's understandable if we sit around thinking about the weight all the time; that just means we have a problem and have to do something about it.

It's sad that sometimes, people who could understand and support each other are unable to do so, because the disorder does just that. Robyn isn't controlled by her disorder anymore, so she can see we're not that different. In this comment above, I just see the disorder creature spitting and growling at me. I recognize its hideous face. That's why it's hard to be mad at the commenter, even if her words did hurt; I'm still vulnerable and ashamed of myself. But it helps to know where it's coming from.

These are complex issues and it's always hard to talk about such a topic without someone else's pain crashing into your own. I hope everyone struggling with eating disorders, diagnosed or unrecognized, will get help and support from someone.

I Am Awesome!

I THREW OUT MY SCALE LIKE A BOSS!!!

I threw out that motherfucking death machine in an act of guerilla warfare.
...Um, Robyn suggested looking at it in war terms, because fighting against an eating disorder is like facing a war machine.

So I did it. It was really hard. I was scared and angry. I shook and felt sick and coddled the scale to my chest before throwing it out. But I was able to do it.

For the first time in 14 years, I feel like I'm on top of the weight anxiety. I'm controlling it, it's not controlling me.

I've never had a diagnosis and I still don't. I don't know if I technically fill the requirements of an eating disorder. But as Robyn said, "Do you need a diagnosis to know you feel terrible about eating, which you need to do to live?"
I guess I don't.

I just needed someone's permission to throw out the scale, because people don't usually acknowledge that a fat girl could have an eating disorder. That it might be better to NOT watch your weight and what you eat.
That maybe sometimes, what a fat girl needs is MORE FREEDOM and less guilt, not the other way around.

So I went to the store today, like a boss, and I bought two packs of Ben&Jerry's Coconutterly Fair. I bought marshmallows, four chocolate bars, a frozen pizza, mayonnaise and white bread, Parmese ham, chicken Kiev with blue cheese potatoes. I'm just going to try the "Fat is a Feminist Issue" method: eating exactly what I feel like, stocking up food home so it's always available when I crave it. Just eating.

There's one rule though: no guilt. Food disappears once it goes in my mouth. No contemplating afterwards on how many calories, what I should ahve eaten instead, whether I've had too many treats on that day. No thoughts on good and bad foods. JUST EATING.
Like a boss.

Micro Fatressions

I have started a Tumblr called Micro Fatgressions. The idea comes from migro aggressions, which also have a Tumblr dedicated to them.

A migro aggression is a small, annoying comment, often said in the guise of a joke. It's something that you can't really help, but that stays under your skin. If you should react, you'll be told "Lighten up" or "You're so sensitive".

Do you get comments about your size? Any pent-up feelings of frustration and anger for your loved ones, friends, coworkers? Don't hesitate to submit! No comment is too minor. (You can submit by clicking "vent fatgressions here". Oh, I apparently haven't decided yet if it's "fatressions" or "fatgressions". Any opinions?)

It has fat in the title, but comments about thinness are also welcome. It's still about fat if it's about the absence thereof.

All of these so far are from me, and I'm really beginning to notice how annoying my Mom is with this...

Exercise: It's Never Enough

I made the mistake of reading a health-related article in the mass media. It just seemed too appealing. On the cover of the latest Suomen Kuvalehti, there's a non-trim (but not fat either) man's belly strapped with drinking bottles. The man is obviously in motion. The caption reads: "Working for Nothing - Exercise the Reason behind Lack of Fitness?"  (translation mine) This is, of course, a totally misleading title that has nothing to do with the content. If you're triggered by expert scorn, stop reading here.

I'll admit that I cherry-pick. I only read health-related articles when they seem like they're going to refute something we all "know for a fact"(tm). I already know all the basic claims against fatness and a sedentary lifestyle, so I don't think I'll become ignorant from not reading every single article reiterating these "facts". I suppose I'm guilty of only reading things that strengthen my own conviction and skipping other things, but so is everyone who ever skimmed thru a fat acceptance blog and left a comment saying "go join a gym". So I'm not going to feel too bad.

The article begins with a recap of statistics about how much Finnish people supposedly exercise; apparently surprisingly many people exercise daily. The question is: why do we still have so much diabetes, obesity, blablabla, if people are exercising more than before? The answer, according to this article, is "slacking": going for a walk but at a leisurely pace, so you talk more than you walk; or skipping the hardest parts of the workout; or, god forbid, going to the gym but parking your car as close to the entrance as possible.

So, as the UKK Institute expert says, it's not enough to just do the minimum amount of exercise (30 minutes a day plus 45 minutes three times a week). It has to be strenuous exercise. It has to be sweatty and tough and and and. So it's not that people don't exercise, it's that the workout isn't good enough. If it were good enough, the people would be slimmer, and healthier, and less diabetic. "Excess weight" is mentioned among diseases like high cholesterol and diabetes; there is no admission that sometimes, people who exercise a lot are still fat. There's a calculation of what a diabetic costs society. Many illustrious examples follow, and the journalist is obviously ridiculing people who think they're so good for doing just a little exercise here and there.

Then, for a little sidestep, we are offered the idea that perhaps health education can lead to resistance and health moralizing may offend and annoy people. This, however, is not really looked into, it's merely mentioned. The expert is never called into question. In fact, it's hard to tell how much of the article is the journalist's own ideas and how much is paraphrased from the expert.

I'm not here to refute the health effects of exercise, given that it seems to be the one thing all experts can agree on. So let's agree that exercise is a good thing for your health, and a natural thing. But I hate the tone of the piece and the whole underlying idea:  that there's a "right way" and "wrong way" to take care of your health, and even when people try to take care of themselves, they can be told off for being slackers.

Ever since my childhood, health articles have had this impact on me: I begin to feel guilty in an irremeedable way. I do actually walk in my everyday life, and I've never thought I'm in particularly good shape, so there was no "OMG I've been doing it wrong" awakening. What I feel is sadness and inferiority: even if I walk to work, and to the store, it's not good enough if it's not strenuous. It's precisely strenuous exercise that makes me pant and sweat that I've always hated. Yes, I've tried the exercycle, and brisk walking, and cycling. I do enjoy some aspects of all of these, but I've never been able to make them a habit. I'll ignore the obvious, yet judgemental idea that I may just be lazy. Maybe I am; but I work damn hard mentally, so I suppose you can't have everything. Whatever the reason, exercise has always been the thing that I just can't do.

So I was happy when there was this "at least move 30 minutes a day" thing. I felt like I can do this- hey, I'm already doing this! It made me more positively disposed to exercise, and probably made me do a bit more walking than I had previously done. So now it's all "that's not enough"?


I thought I was over this by now, but I'm not. I can't even look at the article again to refer to the journalist and expert by name, and I do apologize. The truth is, I was terribly depressed by the piece. I don't think my guilt stems from a genuine remorse for "living wrong". It's just the shame of never being quite good enough, no matter how much you want to live healthier. This feeling is also the reason why I've never made much of an effort. It just hurts too much to be told you did something, but it wasn't enough because you're not an athlete.

The article mentions different attitudes on exercise. Some people crave it, others abhor it. There is no pondering on why this might be so, if it's so very natural for humans, as a species, to be on the move. I think this is the most interesting question: why do we strive to move less? Perhaps we're not all meant to exercise equal amounts. Perhaps we aren't all meant to be fit. I don't know. I don't have any particular theory on this, I just wish the journalist had tackled this question. It would have been nice to have some kind of thought behind the article, but as it is, it just seems to be a mouthpiece for experts who are disappointed in us. Because we want to do something, but really we're just lazy.

Maybe I should decide that what I'm doing now is enough and I'll never have to Have Exercise (tm), no matter what the experts say. That is the only way I can be happy with myself, to be honest. I don't know if it's self-deception... Well, I suppose it isn't, because I'm not denying anything, just allowing myself to be sedentary. Maybe it's OK.

So the article had the opposite effect on me than it perhaps should have had. But hey, it was nice to see the non-fit guy's belly on the cover. He's hot.

In Which I Can't Let Go of Ian McEwan's "Solar"

Mr McEwan, your book is bad and you should feel bad.

Apparently, some people found Solar hi-la-ri-ous because of all the "fatty eats a lot" stuff. It's so ironic, you see. Michael Wood from the Huffington Post writes:

We can't miss the relish in the writing here, the pileup of horrible detail; but it's worth pausing over the relish's double focus: Beard is wallowing in his own gluttony and recklessness, while McEwan's narrator is writing with the mesmerized horror of a much thinner person. This sort of disjunction is essential to the novel's irony, allows us our complex laughter, and means that McEwan, or his narrator, can treat Beard without sympathy and without condemnation. 

(It's actually a very nice, complex review, if you're interested in reading more about the novel. But I must take opposition with this bit. I'm obviously not part of the "us".) 

First of all, there's nothing complex about laughter at fat people. Fat jokes have been skinned to the bone; there is nothing left but "fatty like to eat haha". It's really elementary school humor dressed up as intellectual fiction with some clever word choices. Secondly, this is exactly why I felt so alienated while reading it. Looking at the first chapter, I was hoping to see a realistically depicted, self-aware fat person, but then all the gluttony comes in and ruins it. It's just not very realistic, and we're obviously meant to see the fat person as an Other. While I may make excuses - he's a man, he's older than me, he drinks so much, etc. - I can't escape the fact that Beard has the same amount of "excess weight" that I have. So McEwan might actually be writing about me, among other people. And he imagines that his intellectual readers are going to be slim.

I did come to realize, though, that the mesmerized horror might actually not be so far off from a fat person's inner dialogue. Most of us have that voice inside of us, even those who are fat acceptant. The voice says, "OMG you're getting so HUGE! Will you stop eating so much!" or perhaps "Oh, eating a chocolate bar, are we? No wonder you're so fat." If you're a fat person and you eat anything, but especially specific "fatty foods" like bacon, chocolate, chips, etc. (which Beard also indulges in), you're bound to hear a voice inside you that says you really shouldn't. That's what this culture does to us. Exploring that voice might have been interesting, but McEwan doesn't bother to do that.

The problem with Solar is that it seems to suggest this is the voice of reason, not internalized fat hatred talking. This is, of course, what most people already think. Should I expect McEwan to rise above such cultural norms? Well, I'll say yes - he wrote Atonement, On Chesil Beach and many other beautiful novels where he really went into the characters' heads, even if these characters are women from another time. But apparently he can't afford such empathy and humanity with fat people.

I also disagree that the book is without condemnation. Bearing in mind that Beard drives an SUV (because he can't fit into other cars),  flies planes constantly, and eats primarily meat, McEwan might even be suggesting that fat people are particularly guilty of ecological "crimes" that cause CO2 emissions. Beard never once contemplates on this. When it comes to his body, even if Beard is aware of the fatness, he is also in deep denial about how bad things are. When the doctor gives his list of predictions, we're meant to think it's time for Beard to wake up - and yet he lapses into a blissful feeling of freedom as soon as he leaves the doctor's office. The ending of the book is left open, but most likely he has a heart attack and dies. It's alluded to in no uncertain terms. It may also be seen as a final judgement or punishment for his indulgence. 

In my view, the book would be a lot more powerful if Beard went on his big diet, lost all the weight, and became physically fit but was still a really disgusting human being. That might actually be a lot more current and deep-thought: poking fun at the fitness culture and people's obsession with their bodies; showing that someone who has "will power" over their body is not always a good person in other ways.

After writing the previous post, I've also thought of Battlestar Galactica and my favorite character, Gaius Baltar. Baltar is loathsome in many ways: cowardly, selfish, weak, arrogant, often rude. He has a lot in common with Beard in these ways. Interestingly, however, he is not fat. He is short, like Beard, and this might be an instance of lookism (or heightism?) in both stories. But Baltar was, throughout most of the seasons, quite thin. He indulged in smoking, drinking, women, and arrogance, but not in food. I never really thought of this before, but I like that. What if he had been fat? Would he have been even more irredeemable in some people's eyes? He is already loathed by many fans, but I love him. It might be because the writer Ron D. Moore and the actor James Callis decided to give him some humanity. Some empathy, a lot of guilt, a position as a pawn. There's a lot of humanity to his weakness.

Well, now I digress into my fandoms. My point was going to be this: if you have anti-hero character, and you wish people to care about it, you need to give him something we can relate to. Nobody is completely evil, and if you draw your protagonist that way, you're making a caricature, not a character. Beard is indulgent, selfish, despises most people, and doesn't even care about his own child. As he is the most central character, that soon begins to grate. On topic: Jason Cowley with The Guardian finds the protagonist one-dimensional. Tell me about it. 

It was always going to be high risk, wagering so much on having as your central character a comic grotesque so loathsome and self-pitying, with thoughts mostly so banal, and then leaving the reader trapped, unrelieved, in his company for nearly 300 pages.

I must say, this description is much closer to my feelings than the "complex laughter" quote above.

McEwan won a humor literature prize for Solar. He bought a pig and named it after the protagonist. How deliciously ironic.

This whole has angered me so much that I have decided to make an art project out of it. I decided to cut up the book and place some of the words on my fat body. I'm not sure if McEwan cares - in fact, I'm quite sure he doesn't - but the blubber wants to talk back. And it will.

Some preliminary ideas (my camera doesn't handle small text very well, sadly):

(These are not meant to be erotic pictures, more like feminist art. So I hope you don't mind the nudity.)

Fat Hate in a Time of Climate Change: Ian McEwan's "Solar"

I love Ian McEwan. Atonement is one of my favorite books ever, and I re-read Solid Geometry (from First Love, Last Rites) about once a year to enjoy a great, if bleak, surrealist fantasy. McEwan's writing is often dark and shows humanity and life in a pretty grim light. But in his new book, Solar, this is particularly pronounced, and I'm sorry to say, exaggerated. If you're going to write about an anti-hero, you should at least give him some human moments. Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica is a good example: he's cowardly, weak, selfish, sometimes loathsome, but he does have some skill for empathy and redeeming moments. McEwan doesn't afford Michael Beard anything redeeming at all. His protagonist is, I wouldn't even say anti-hero, just a plain old villain. He is a Nobel laureate working for alternative energy sources, even if he doesn't truly care about saving the planet. He is a complete douchebag: lazy, selfish, uninterested in basically anything, indulgent and perhaps a complete narcissist. He fails to love his women and even his own child. When his character flaws bring him problems, he refuses to acknowledge it was his fault. Til the last minute, he denies any problems and just goes on as before.

He is also increasingly fat. This is used as shorthand for the usual character flaws: sloth, gluttony, lack of self-control, complete negligence of one's health. It starts off fine, with him gaining a little weight and resolving to lose some - he is at least aware of it - but then, as the years go by, he gets fatter and fatter, eats more and more, and is just plain out of control. This makes me mad.

To be perfectly honest, I liked it at first, because I have a weight-gain fetish. It's really very sexy to me to read about someone's wanton weight gaining. But the more I think about it, the more it troubles me. Obviously we're meant to hate Beard. Many online reviews mention his eating habits as "disgusting". He eats enormous amounts of food, basically nothing but meat, butter, cheese, chips, chocolate, and the like. He hates salad (of course!), and even if he vows to start a healthier life, he never does. He is also an unwitting alcoholic, constantly drinking gin and scotch.

So that's my first issue with this book: I feel like I'm supposed to find him irredeemable, inhumanely gross and disgusting, but I don't. I can relate to his lifestyle. I don't eat anywhere near as much, but it's human to eat like that. He's being offered food everywhere; it's natural for human beings to crave food when it's presented to them on a plane or at a conference. It's normal to eat pancakes and bacon when you're  on a trip to America. It's normal to crave chips and make them a daily habit. If you gain weight, it's normal for your appetite to increase, because you need more calories just to get around. And even if I'm not an addict, I find even the alcoholism relatable. It's a disease, not something I'm going to despise people for. Beard could even suffer from binge eating disorder, considering his guilt over his eating habits and the constant inability to stop himself. But I have a feeling that's not where McEwan is going. I'm sure most readers will find him irredeemable, comical, and pathetic. But what about his fat readers? What about the readers who perhaps do eat like this? Do we not exist?

The second issue is with the details. This is a difficult issue, because not everyone will feel the same weight in the same way, but it really reads like "fat is a death sentence" and "no fat person could possibly be comfortable in their own skin". The book is divided into three parts: 2000, 2005, and 2009. I'll leave out the rest of the plot, but in 2000, Beard is 15 pounds overweight and his weight is still a side issue; in 2005, he is 35 pounds overweight, tired and achy, and eats and drinks constantly; in 2009, he is 65 pounds overweight and his heart and liver are failing. He's eating even more than before, has trouble breathing and walking.

I began to wonder at some point if McEwan did his research for this, specifically the number of pounds. In the first chapter, Beard is described as "human blubber" (p. 7) (at least in his own eyes); he has trouble getting out of a low-riding car and bending over. When I got to "He was fifteen pounds overweight. Act now or die early" (p.101), I basically exclaimed, "A measly fifteen pounds?!" I had expected him to be at least forty pounds overweight, what with all the references to his girth. I might have the wrong idea of male bodies; maybe fifteen pounds feels like more when it's all on the waist. But still, it just seems off to me.

I'll quote form the 2009 section and a doctor's visit. This is where it really gets ugly.

"It was true, the doctor did not lecture or moralize, but he compensated with a disengaged, insulting frankness. With each instance, each looming physical catastrophe, the wise turtle head protruded a little further and he gently tapped his own palm with a pencil. No one, he said, not even Beard, would choose to walk around with a body like Beard's." (p. 329)

Stopping here for a minute just to say - is this not a judgement? Also, we're probably meant to think that his hate of doctors' judgements is simply a form of denial. He should be ashamed and humiliated and berated for his lifestyle.

"He was carrying an extra sixty-five pounds, the equivalent of a combat infantry-man's full pack.  His knees and ankles were swollen from the weight, osteoarthritis was a growing possibility, his liver was enlarged, blood pressure was up again and there was a growing risk of congestive heart failure. His bad cholesterol was high, even by English standards. He was clearly experiencing breathing difficulties, he stood a decent chance of diabetes mellitus as well as advancing the likelihood of prostate and kidney cancer and thrombosis. His one piece of luck - luck, Beard observed, not virtue - was that he was not addicted to cigarettes, otherwise he might already be dead." (p.329-330) 

OMG 65 pounds! OMG SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS. It must sound like a huge load to McEwan, but I'm at about 65 pounds overweight and.. I feel fine? I mean, sometimes my knees do ache, but I have no heart and liver trouble, I don't have trouble breathing, and in general feel fine. The complete physical decay described here seems pretty exaggerated. In addition, Beard is an alcoholic, completely sedentary, has a lot of stress, travels a lot, and is sixty-two. All of these factors are going to play into it. But I get the feeling the book is telling us that his OMG GLUTTONY IS KILLING HIM and he doesn't even CARE.

As for the infantryman's pack? It's not exactly scientific to make such an analogy. Obviously, any extra weight is an extra strain on your system, IF we assume that there's a definite point where it becomes "extra". If sixty-five pounds "overweight" is the smallest a person can be, it might actually be the right weight for their bodies. Weight is individual. That said, I realize a doctor might well not share these views, and might say that about the pack.

"As he listened to Parks enumarate his possible futures, he decided not to mention his recent acquisition of a classical symptom: a feeling of tightness around his chest. It would only make him appear even more foolish and doomed. Nor could he admit that he didn't have it in him to eat and drink less, that exercise was a fantasy. He could not command his body to do it, he had no will for it." (p. 330) 

It's all about willpower, y'all! He may want to do it, but he's too weak to even try. He might be dying, but he's not going to admit it to his doctor, because he's too proud or something. I'm not sure how to read this. Maybe we're meant to think he deserves his just desserts - pun intended - and should die from a heart attack right now, because his lifestyle is so omg bad? Or are we to see it as an endearing human frailty, this pride and inability to admit to his failing health? I have a feeling we're not. 

Throughout the book, his weight is a hindrance to him and feels like a huge burden. I can't really argue that it's an unrealistic depiction, because some men might beg to differ. Some women way bigger than me can dance all night and have no knee problems; some women way smaller have high blood pressure and feel tired. Weight affects people differently. But I'd still say that this is a lot of scare tactics. Beard's whole life is, at this point, falling apart; his career and relationships are feeling the strain of his flaws, and so is his body. He also has melanoma (how ironic, a sun-related ailment on a scientist working on solar systems!). His out-of-control eating is just one instance of his flawed nature, his inability to be good. It's very disappointing, because McEwan is an intelligent writer. It's lazy thinking, really.

In his future books, perhaps McEwan will explore some other deliciously bad characters. Like a really hysterical woman! Or a fanatic Christian who hates all non-Christians! Or a lazy Mexican, or flamboyant nymphomaniac homosexual... The opportunities are endless! I see a great future for him as a comedy writer.