Obesity

I am a “big girl.” 

Like many of us with physical and emotional challenges, I don’t drive, and never have, except for a brief four years when my ex-husband insisted that I learn. It was a disaster. All of the stuff about driving is the subject for another blog, but the upshot is that I rely mainly on public transportation to get around.

In taking the bus from Bangor to Albany, I was, of course, confronted with a full bus. There is a reason why so many people travel on certain days before a holiday. We work up until that day.

Because I don’t walk very well, I wanted a seat close to the front of the bus. When I went to sit on an available aisle seat, the man sitting in the window seat said, “You might want a different seat. I’m a big guy and you’re pretty big, too.” He didn’t look that big, but I took the hint. I found a seat  much further back next to a young man who seemed not to have a problem when I asked if he minded if I said with him. (Note to self- the first guy was white (or appeared so) the second guy was black (or seemed so). A cultural thing? or just a nicer person?

In Canada, I read that the Canadian Human Rights Commission is deliberating about whether obesity, per se is a disability, and therefore indicative of accommodation in public transportation. 

Many of us know that when mobility is difficult, when depression is a factor, when certain conditions make exertion/energy/breathing difficult, when we are taking certain medications, obesity is often part of the constellation of condition-related consequences.

At the same time, if body size could be thought of as an aspect of diversity, and, in the best of all possible worlds, not be loaded with the many judgments that come with it — laziness, emotional deficits, lack of control, lack of discipline, lack, lack, lack… I guess that’s too much to ask for…

This sounding whiney, and I don’t mean it to. 

Of course, I’d like to weigh less. I am very much aware of the trade-offs I live with, and many other people who have complicating factors with obesity are well aware of them as well.

It is great to be able to walk.

It is great to be able to function emotionally in the world.

It is great to be able to maintain enough evenness in my blood sugar to be able to think.

It is great to be able to get places using public transportation.

It is great to have friends who accept me as I am.

It is hard to endure media stories and advice and depictions of people who are large, who have mobility challenges, who have emotional challenges, who have intellectual challenges.

We belong.