What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

So, the much-procrastinated "what I learned on my summer vacation" post.

I'm not really a newbie to the tropics--I've done research in 4 equatorial countries at this point.  But I still unfailingly learn new things and gain new cultural insights on every trip, even repeat trips to the same country. The trip I took last month was especially interesting, because it was a new continent for me, and thus home to much different cultures, language, people, foods, social norms, etc.

One thing that is unendingly novel about working in Third World countries is that people aren't so image-focused, and being ultra-thin is not necessarily chic.  People talk about other things at meals besides how guilty they feel for the food they're taking in, it's amazing. There are few (if any) fat-free or light versions of foods, and calorie labels are a lot less prevalent (or convenient, ever try to figure out the calories in a granola bar when the package lists it in joules per 100g instead of calories per serving? I have, unfortunately...).  You want a latte as a treat in the city? You get a latte, not a skinny latte or a light latte or sugar-free soy latte, but a mf original latte.  Of course, you don't get them in 24 oz cups, but that's a whole 'nother discussion for another time and place.

 In the country where I did my Master's thesis work, the ideal for a woman's body is to be very curvy, and most people are indeed curvy or "pleasantly plump" and that's great.  Being too thin is seen as a being a sign that you are sort of low status and struggling, mostly because there even people with fairly low incomes can afford enough rice and potato chips to give their family roughly enough calories to stay on at least the average- to high-side of what we'd consider "normal" weight range (the processed food issue is another 'nother issue for another time and place).
Random anecdotes:
-- I will never forget our camp cook looking at me one night at dinner and saying wistfully: "Mija, you would be so pretty if only you could be fat."  LOL how often have you heard someone say that in the States?
-- Another day, my local field assistants (all male) worked up the courage to ask me if men in the U.S. really prefer their women to be so thin (yes, collective cringe at the "their" women), and I don't know if they ever really believed me when I told them that yes, in general that was the preference, but they seemed to get a kick out of it anyway, like I'd told them American guys like their women with pointy elf ears or something.
-- I was showing some of my family photos to the same camp cook mentioned above (she was sort of like a mother figure to our field crew), and she spotted a treadmill in the background of one of the photos.  She asked me about it, and I tried my best to explain it, and she literally sat down because she was laughing so hard.  This is a 50ish year old woman who easily looks 15 years older and walks about 8-10 km on mountain trails each way to work every day.  She told me, to paraphrase, that maybe that's why Americans have poor pale skinny daughters like me, must be why I got to my age (I was 23) without having a husband and kids yet, such a shame.  Burn...

The difference between my old research country and my PhD research country is that in PhD Country, curves are still appreciated and higher weight is a sign of status...but there, most people are still very thin, unlike in MS Country where people tend to be pretty stocky. In the cities most people were fairly healthy, but the countryside was a different story.

I'm talking about crowds full of sunken faces, bony street children literally asking if they could have the half-drunk cup of coffee I was carrying.  I'm talking about dozens and dozens of people lined up to shell out a few coins for the local stimulant leaf to chew so they won't be hungry for the dinner that never comes, I'm talking about 6+ foot tall grown men with biceps smaller than mine.  I'm talking about grocery stores that have to have guards with machine guns and metal detectors manning the doors.

It wasn't uncommon to see men (always men, for whatever reason), either alone or in groups, just sprawled on the ground in public places, just laying there on their backs.  So overwhelmed with disease, exhaustion, overexertion, malnutrition, and god knows what else that their bodies just could not do anything.  We would sometimes see someone miles, miles, even hours away from any town, just laying there next to the road, flat out with his arm flung across his eyes to protect them from the broiling sun.  The first time we saw someone like that, I asked the driver if he thought we should stop, maybe the man was sick, and he glanced over as we whooshed past and said "no, he is just hungry."  And that was it, just how things are, hunger is part of existence and that's that.

After seeing that portrait of utter "spent-ness" over and over again, it really hit home with me how lucky I am that I have the choice to never put my body through that.  I feel awful for how much I take for granted, especially since I've put so incredibly much time, pain, and mental energy over the years into keeping my body in a state of deprivation.  It really made me want to resolve to do better, to not take a single day, or meal, or doctor's visit, or well-fueled run through my safe neighborhood for granted, because if the cards of the universe had been dealt differently, it could have been me lying there on the side of the road, skin and bones sun-cooked in the dirt. Not even able to imagine the riches of comfort that the real me has a history of arbitrarily denying herself.  Just makes you think, you know?

So I felt all that while I was there, and then came right back and started struggling with the ED stuff again....hypocrisy acknowledged and guilt burning, I assure you. But I do think it gave me the perspective and even what I will tentatively call a "healthy degree of disgust" with myself, if that's possible, to want to pull out of it and make the most of the advantages I have in life. I know that I got them by luck rather than by virtue, and deluding myself I deserve those privileges enough to waste them is just...not something I want to carry.

Okay, so that's that.  I've probably been to Starbucks about 8 times in the 2+ weeks I've been back, and there has not been a single time that I reached for my cup of coffee from the barista without thinking about that grubby child on the street holding his stick-arms up for my last half-cup of caffeine water.  It's haunting, but at the same time part of me hopes I never let myself let it go.




Disclaimer: NONE of that is a moral judgment on ED sufferers, because I 100% believe that an ED is a valid disease with bio/physiological underpinnings, and no one person would choose to be that sick or does it to consciously thumb their nose at privileges. I think that sometimes certain experiences can just sort of jolt your motivation to fight off what is indeed a legit disease, and that's all I meant by this post.