"Do I look fat in this?"
I'm hearing the question for the fifth time this morning, and my answer doesn't change.
"No"
She's standing in front of the large full-length mirror in our bedroom, a colorful pile of discarded clothes growing ever bigger next to her left foot. Most of the outfits still have price tag attached, and will likely find their way back to hangers, by the week's end, at one of the many Suburban Square boutiques she likes to frequent. It's a scene that's played out daily: She, sulking, battering me with accusations of patronage, "Oh, you're never honest with me!" while I struggle to convince her of my sincerity. It can get ugly.

I preach. "You're obsessed! Why don't you wake up to the fact that you're a beautiful girl and stop bashing yourself with this consumerist propaganda." Nice. But she's not buying.
"You're naive," she says matter-of-factly, her voice trailing off in disgust.
"You're vain!"
"So? At least I like to look good!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Sometimes, the bickering can go on for an hour or more. But just as often the drama closes quickly with her crumpled on the bed surrounded by the scattered remnants of her wardrobe while I soothe her with kind, reassuring words and soft kisses. "Baby this is ridiculous, you are NOT fat."
"But look, LOOK," she sobs, pointing to a fleshy spot under her arm. "Does it look terrible?" The tear-smudged mascara makes her look vampish.
"No, honey, NO. You look like a woman should look. You're just...thick, that's all."
"What the fuck's THAT supposed to mean?"
"J-just that, you know, you're built, you know? L-like strong." I'm digging to China here.
"Oh, what would you know?"

Fact is, I do know; and Lauren looks good. Sure, she's a little plump -- but more what you'd call voluptuous -- "Vol-UMP-tuous? Oh, so now I'm Vol-UMP-tuous huh?" -- She's proportioned well, has lovely features, large breasts -- "I'm having them reduced you know" -- and a smile that warms a room. But since she was a kid Lauren has struggled with issues about her weight. When she was a teenager she even dabbled with bulimia before discovering that repeated vomiting just wasn't for her. Since then she's fluctuated, never really finding that ideal size. Lately the issue has been generating more than a little frustration and angst. Frankly, it's driving me nuts.

At the breakfast table she starts in again. "That's it, starting tomorrow I'm starving myself."
"That sounds healthy."
"I did it before, you know."
"You told me."
"For seven days, all I drank was filtered water with lemon juice and cayenne pepper. By day-five, I was shitting black sludge."
"I'm eating here."
"No, it's good for you," she insists. "That's all the toxins coming out."
"Delightful," I smile back.
Suddenly, I'm not in the mood for scrapple and eggs. The thought of red meat Lauren ate when she was five being forced to eject itself tar-like after all those years brings a lump of bile to my throat. I put my fork down and walk over to where she is sitting. Her own plate has barely been touched. She is gently poking the yoke of her fried egg with her fork, testing the orange membrane -- sad, feeble -- I touch her hair, but she doesn't look up. I kneel beside her, take the fork from her hand, and begin to caress her fingers.
"Lauren, this has to stop."
"I'm going back to the center," she counters, ignoring my plea. "I'm going back tomorrow."
"You're obsessed."
***

Among the more notable ironies of the last 50 years must be counted our country's stringent codification of beauty. Consider that Britney Spears is the primary role model for girls between the ages of 12 and 17 and it's clear we have been marketed an unrealistic concept of beauty and worth that only serves to distort people's -- particularly women's -- expectations of themselves.

This notion has persisted despite the recent American Obesity Association (AOA) assertion that 64.5 percent of adult Americans (about 127 million) are overweight or obese. I'm thinking that's an awful lot of people. Enter a room, look around, and more than half the people you see will likely be fat -- or at least chubby.

And it's getting worse. Boston University predicts that in the future we can expect 7 out of 10 American women and a whopping 9 out of 10 men to be overweight.

If looking at all those fat people sweat isn't bad enough, consider this: the problem causes something like 300,000 deaths a year and is expensive, adding over $100 billion in healthcare costs to an already overtaxed system. The Surgeon General says obesity will soon beat smoking as the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S.

But we are nothing if not persistent. So for the past decade or so, sham weight-loss programs have been popping up like mushrooms. In 2001, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that at least 50 percent of the thousands of weight-loss claims in radio, television, and print advertisements were false. By 2005, things have improved, in large part due to the FTC's "Big Fat Lie" initiative that targeted such claims. But unscrupulous weight loss advertisers continue to plague on the fears of a growing base of gullibly plump consumers.

"False and misleading advertisements are about as credible as the tooth fairy," says FTC Chairperson Deborah Platt Majoras. But that hasn't stopped an awful lot of people from putting that molar under their pillow anyway. And they're not getting a dollar in return. Americans now spend from $1-2 billion a year on weight-loss programs -- at least half of which are unlikely to work -- and around $30 billion trying to lose weight or prevent weight gain.

***

At five o'clock the following evening, I pick Lauren up in front of the doctor's office where she works. She's standing curbside, talking to a heavy-set black woman. The woman is older than her, but not by much I suspect. Her size and the generic cut of her purple satin dress -- the gold hoop earrings, the red lipstick and eye makeup much too bright for her dark complexion -- they make her look swollen and matronly.

The ride to the weight-loss center is quiet. Steely Dan plays softly on the radio. Lauren watches out the window; I can see something is on her mind.
"Did you see her?" Lauren asks.
"Who?"
"Monique, the one I was talking to back there." The tone of her voice says she's losing patience with me. I see where this is going, so I do my best to derail the inevitable by ignoring the obvious. "Oh, well yea, she's...she looks like a nice enough girl. Friend of yours?"

She's been waiting for this. "Oh PLEASE," Lauren snaps. "She's huge, you're just saying that. Don't pull that shit on me. Huh! You want me to look like that."
"I just said she looks nice."

We pull into the parking lot and find a spot in front of the center. A large sign advertises the program. "LA Express" blinks in purple next to a neon palm tree. The reference to California is not unusual. There are innumerable health spas, tanning salons, gyms, and weight-loss centers up and down the East Coast with the letters "LA" somewhere in the name. It's as if the very mention of the Golden State evokes a mental image of tight hard bodies -- fit and tanned, sunning under a clear azure sky while those of us east of the Rockies jiggle under our parkas and swallow cheese steaks whole.

California sells, and America is buying.

Just inside the front door of the center is a small waiting room of cushioned armless chairs that make a sort of semi-circle around the receptionist counter. Seated furthest from the door is a middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing a faded baby-blue Ecko sweat suit and screaming pigeon Spanish into a cell phone. She holds an infant in one arm and the phone in the other. Her enormous ass hangs over the sides of the chair like a sack of flour and I understand now why the chairs come without arms.

Lauren and I sit next to each other on the opposite side of the room. Large framed photographs of smiling women in tight spandex engaged in an assortment of physical activities -- horseback riding, jogging -- adorn the walls. The women look like models and I'm pretty sure not one of them has ever gone through the program here. I try to imagine the Hispanic woman on a horse. When I mention this to Lauren, she smiles, and I can see she's happy to be back here.

They send Lauren home that day with a small box of accouterments -- her "toolbelt" they call it -- and a shining image of the woman she can be. The box is colorful and emblazoned with smiling faces and testimonials from satisfied customers. Unsatisfied customers presumably don't make it onto the box.

She is still recovering from the weigh-in. During this grueling ritual, members of Lauren's "action team" gather around a scale to record her current weight. For many of the women that come to the center, this is the first time they've been on a scale in months -- a traumatic experience that requires the support of others who "have been there". I'm told some women never make it to the weight-in.

Since Lauren weighs her self regularly, there is little revelation as the scale registers her weight after which we follow her team to a wall chart that maps ideal weight by age, gender, and height. I'm not surprised to see that Lauren actually falls right within range, though pushing the high end of the spectrum. But I seem to be the only one who notices. Within minutes we are hustled away from the chart into a small room where Lauren will meet her primary counselor.

The counselor tells Lauren that weight is an issue of control. She must refine her relationship with her body by discovering when and where her psyche developed this "skewed sense of responsibility" that resulted in her unhealthy relationship to eating. It apparently doesn't occur to anyone but me that Lauren's relationship with food is just fine; it's her perception of herself that's the issue. I keep my mouth shut and listen.

The counselor tells Lauren she's an "emotional eater" and that every time she picks up a fork she's trying to fill some void within her soul. The counselor calls this Lauren's "pit". "Your eating is not about physical hunger, Lauren, you're trying to fill the pit." By accepting this Lauren will be making the first step toward recovery. She's given a worksheet and asked to fill it out before her next visit.

As we drive, I see that Lauren's spirits have lifted considerably. She is humming in tune with a song that plays on the radio, and is more animated than she'd been on the drive over.

When we get home, Lauren puts the box on the kitchen table and sits looking at it for a while. The box represents the challenge that lies ahead -- as long as it remains unopened, it is still possible to turn back. Unopened, the box is a harmless cardboard cube and nothing more. We sit staring at the box together.

I finally break the silence. "Are you sure you want to go though with this?" What the hell, I take a stab at one last shot of reason. "I mean, did you even look at that chart? You're not really that much overweight you know."

At that, Lauren grabs the box off the table and starts to rip it open. "You just say that because you love me."

***

I'm sitting in my office surfing the AOA website and eating a Snickers bar. The group maintains a nice little portal -- with all kinds of fun facts -- that even sports an interactive Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator allowing visitors to see for themselves just how fat they really are. BMI is calculated by dividing a person's weight by his or her height squared, and then multiplying that total by another seemingly arbitrary, but no doubt metaphysically pertinent number.

I'm looking around the room suspiciously, like a 13-year-old porn addict with butterflies in his stomach and a raging hard-on in his jeans making sure Mom isn't lurking around; it's just too tempting. When I'm sure no one is around, I type in Lauren's dimensions and watch the little number blink into the flashing box on the screen.

As it turns out, she is slightly overweight -- slightly. And so am I.

This puts a whole new dimension on things. How could I be overweight? Sure, my size-32 jeans are a little tight lately, but only when I button them. I toss what's left of the candy bar in the trash. That night, Lauren is in good spirits and together we cook a meal of brown rice and chicken breast.

***

Obesity is not just an American problem anymore. Research from the International Obesity Task Force suggests that America's eating habits have been slowly infiltrating traditional food cultures from Vietnam to South America.

The Mediterranean islands of Malta, Sicily, Gibraltar, and Crete as well as the countries of Spain, Portugal, and Italy all report overweight and obesity levels exceeding 30% among children aged 7-11.

Meanwhile, in reaction, eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are skyrocketing in far flung places like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Brazil -- where visiting a plastic surgeon has become as ubiquitous as a trip to the dentist.

Wonder what's happening? Consider this: McDonald's opened its first European satellite in the Netherlands in 1971. Today, the company has more than 30,000 outlets in nearly 120 countries. Data suggests the corporation has exported more than just the happy meal. And that's big business.

In 2004, McDonald's reported over $19 billion in revenues, and the company's CEO, James R. Cantalupo, was said to have earned almost $8 million in 2003 between his salary, bonuses and stock. That was before he dropped dead -- of a heart attack -- in April 2004. He was just 60. Poetic justice? Maybe. I can't say with any certainty that he actually ate the food he sold, but around the world, they keep gobbling it up.

America sells and the world is dying.



About the author:
Christopher Moraff is a writer, journalist and photographer. His reporting has recently appeared in Dollars & Sense Magazine, In These Times, and Entrepreneur Magazine. He lives outside Philadelphia.

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