Not Well Enough

Like Ms. Chanandaler I took a health survey at work today (actually I told her to, sorry about that man). Unlike her, I was not inspired because I want to be healthy. I was inspired by the discounted premiums that we were promised if we took said survey.

And unlike her I was pissed by the results.

I was put into the 45 risk group. Because I have one parent with high blood pressure and one with high cholesterol and my BMI is .5 higher than "normal." Nevermind that my blood pressure I LOW (which is a risk factor for other things but whatever) and my cholesterol is freaking low. And even my doctor says BMI is bullshit. He told me that BMI holds people to a weight standard that is not healthy or obtainable for a lot of people and that my weight is fine. That I am fine.

So why does this survey bother me?

Well it is hard to say. Because I have enough health problems without some screen telling me I should lose fives pounds for no real reason. Because the survey didn't ask questions that might ferret out the real shit that is wrong with me. Because I am a normal girl who has issues with her body.

Am I fat?

I don't actually know. My mother spent my entire childhood obsessed with her weight. She is an excellent dieter and has lost large amounts of weight. And it takes her decades to gain it back. But we are German and we have asses and thighs and hips. And we eat starch. A lot of starch. With salt and gravy and more salt.

When I was in high school I got very ill my senior year. I dropped quite a bit of weight for me. It took me into the range that I had always wanted to be in. Funny thing was I still had an ass, I still had thighs, I just had sunken in eyes and grey skin to go with them.

I am a little obsessive about things and it would be so very easy for my weight to be one of them. I don't know how much I weigh. So I guess the BMI thing I filled out today could be total bullshit--it could be higher or lower I really do not know. When I get my physical I ask them not to tell me the number. I ask if I am up or down and if I am in normal range. For the last couple of years I have been down and in the normal range so I think that is fine.

But I am not thin. I have never really been thin. I can't imagine a time when I will ever be thin. And I work in fashion. With girls who have never seen this side of a size eight. Who would rather die than be the size I am.

It is hard not to wonder. It is not like my husband is going to turn to me and call me a fat ass. The man is not stupid. Besides, he likes a little junk in the trunk so it is going to have to come from somewhere else.

It is sad I have no perspective. I feel like a normal person, some one who looks good. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I am thinner than I imagine. More often I look in the mirror and am stunned that I am so large. Sick in the head I guess.

That is the danger with a BMI index. A one size fits all set of standards--especially a set that doctors say ask for very low body weights--just doesn't work for me. I can't really imagine they work for anyone.

Like Chanandaler I want to be healthy. Not for a baby, since I do not have one, not for my husband (though there is that). But for me. I think about our friend all the time, how she died for no reason. How she died for a problem she didn't even know she had.

Of course taking care of herself wouldn't have saved her. She was healthy. She just had a time bomb ticking in her chest that no one knew about it. But I want to be healthy. And for me, healthy means not listening to that health survey. Not taking their advice and start obsessing about food and exercise and freaking out about it. I am sure there are people who can do those things in moderation and live fuller lives for it.

I am just not well enough to do that.