No 199: Have your cake and eat it too.

I feel that drug free campaigns in Singapore are overhyped. Not because they aren't as important a social cause but that other social issues are not dealt with, with enough regard. Frankly speaking, nobody talks about eating disorders around here, although it is plain to see that many females are obviously disordered in that sense. So you have drug rehabilitation centres, alcoholics annoymous, is there any support group you see here for people with ED? This whole issue is totally swept clean underneath the carpet. The thing is people seldom see beyond the root problem, or at least, people who have not encountered these ED.


It is easy to stamp a frivolous term like that of a 'fussy vainpot' to girls who are overly concerned with their weight. Seriously, how many girls can hold their own, be themselves, and not get so flighty over their weight? There are more underlying causes to ED. First, the body image perception. The level of self-esteem being tied to the numbers on the scales. Really we have been bombarded by this barrage of slimming centres ads, all hyping about weight loss. I am not saying that people are not perceptive enough to hold their stand and that all of them get all rolled up into the ads like tumbleweed. But I don't see it as a particularly healthy influence or whatsoever.


There was a period in jc where i lost a crazy amount of weight. Not that i intentionally started off with that in mind, but hockey trainings were physically exhausting. It pushes you to the point of total fatigue, so much so that you didnt know your body was actually capable of doing that crazy amount of squats and all. That was serious calorie blasting. Soon before i knew, it became really interesting to see the fats melt off, the number on the scales falling [the hair also =(], and finally, i didnt know i had a ribcage till then. I didn't recognise my body, the change was too fast, so i still felt like a fat kid in a relatively thinner body. Now in retrospect, it was insane, losing about 10 kg plus in one month odd.


The hockey girls were really fit, and in secondary school my 2.4km timing was always hovering around the just pass region. The last couple of hundred metres was the most excruciating. Prolly akin to dragging a cow to slaughter. At hockey, the coach made us duckwalk up this very steep slope, then do a burst up the final stretch of the slope. Ten repitions we were supposed to do, and by the 7th, most of us were basically kissing the grass. I digressed anyways.


So it got to a point that i was actually hooked on this adrendaline high. I needed to run everyday, and it almost reached the point of obsession. The whole day i was thinking of ways to train so that i could be the fastest person on the girl's team. Insane. At the peak of my exercising frenzy, i ran 60 km per week, and i remembered i ran 27.1km on a particular day.


I suppose this sounds like a really healthy lifestyle, that is if you eat the adequate amount of food to match the calorie melting. Of course i didnt. I remembered feeling really woozy in the head. While on the bus, i held on to the bar handles really tight till the skin around my knuckles were really all taut and whitish. The dizzy spells were frequent and i didnt want to faint on the bus, so that was the only way to go. During that period, (it sounds very warped to say this), i felt immensely strong inside although i was kind of frail. You feel that you don't exactly need to eat. Honestly, I felt no temptation at all even when others were to stuff a cake under my nose. Its like you attained nirvana from food. Totally hard to grasp, but ya, i felt something to that extent.


It is not only me that went through that period. My cousin's friend died of an ED, and i do know of some friends who told me that they were clawed by this before. Obviously there are girls out there who are suffering from a distortion in their body image. But again, this issue is simply not getting enough due attention. If you were to bring this problem to the root causation, isnt the over concern about weight a intrinsic lack of self-confidence? I mean that is the way is seems to me because if you are truly proud of yourself, isnt the body just a house for the soul?


I can go on and rattle about this topic, but i must admit that it is difficult to go beyond the physical. Ultimately, if you were to look towards the long haul, it is by far better to concentrate more on developing the interior. The exterior concerns are overhyped, the interior concerns are understated. Maybe inate qualities are a better focus to life, rather than this relentless pursuit for a some-body.


Food for thought.