There it is right on the cover of the February 2009 issue of Southern Living magazine. The title and the picture; a banana pudding made with nutter butters instead of vanilla wafers. According to Nabisco’s web site, there are a billion calories, all from fat, in just one Nutter Butter. Well, okay, I didn’t actually look but I’m confident that’s about right.
According to the CDC, quite a few of us in the USA are obese — not just overweight, but obese. To show where most of the obese live, they break it down by state. In 2007 (latest numbers) the three highest are Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. The lowest is Colorado. Not too much of a stretch to understand that. We in the Southeast fry everything, including tomatoes, but people in Colorado only eat the bounties of nature they find while hiking. A seven-course meal for us is a possum and a six pack. For them it’s three acorns, two berries, a sip of snow runoff, and a daisy for dessert. They live longer; we require jumbo coffins.
Because I’m considered a marriage expert, I must point out a major problem with the fattening of America beyond the physical and health issues. Often people tell me that they love their spouses more than ever, but no longer wish to make love to them because they are repulsed by their bulging bodies. As one fellow said, “She was beautiful and would be again if she were thin. But when she asks me if her weight bothers me, I think of how much I love her and tell a ‘smiley faced lie.’ She doesn’t have a medical condition; she just has no discipline. I love her; I just don’t want to make love to her.”
When I mention that in workshops where marriage counselors and therapists attend, I hear from most of them that they run into this same dilemma in their practices, but in our politically correct world they fear saying much about it. I agree that prejudice toward anyone for anything, including weight, is uncalled for. At the same time, I know that this is causing a great deal of marital distress. One lady called my radio program and told me that when she asked her husband if she were fat, he said yes. “That was three years ago and he still hasn’t asked me to forgive him,” she said. I told her that he didn’t need forgiving for telling the truth and that if she didn’t want to know she shouldn’t have asked him.
If you ask your spouse if your weight affects his/her desire to make love to you, I figure one of three things will happen if the answer is yes. 1) S/he will answer honestly and then the two of you can work together to get back in shape. 2) S/he will answer honestly and in response you will punish the honest answer. 3) S/he will lie to keep peace. The only one of those options that work well and make love grow is number one.
The US Dept. of Health has a handy online Body Mass Index tool that will tell you if you are underweight, normal, overweight, or obese.
No, it’s none of your business what mine is.