Inconvience of dieting.

Facebook is not just a reflection of dieting behaviour, but Facebook and weight watching are deeply interconnected. Many of the same influences that cause dieting are also culprits of Facebook obsessions. The persistent tweeking of one’s Facebook profile is clearly encouraged by the same culture that encourages women to tweek their weight. If one is feeling rotten about their self-image, it is now common to give their Facebook profile a facelift. When more people see me online than in person I care more about my profile than I’d like to admit.

Furthermore, the changes in the food market which have been damaging to our health are actually partially held responsible for the side effect that causes Facebookitis. As food becomes more and more convenient (and less and less healthy) more time is freed up in a day. Peeling, boiling, and mashing potatoes is replaced with French fries and 38 minutes to browse your cousins vacation photos from Cambodia. Our society has begun to reach its goal of being as convenient as imaginable. The consequence is that we are left with a lot of potentially free time. This has birthed a culture of guilt as there is always a better way to spend one’s time and there is always something healthier to eat.

Next time you want to check Facebook, go exercise instead. Hit two birds with one stone.

Parallels of dieting.

Food is not the only plague of middle class gluttony. I have found Facebook to be treated in much the same way as food. Facebook is a social network originally designed for sharing photos and networking students. It has been expanded to be a multifaceted virtual world complete with live chat, email-like messaging, link sharing, fan collecting, group making, a marketplace, etc. Facebook has unlimited possibilities through its do-it-yourself applications that allow users to buy and raise virtual pets, make and send virtual gifts, and anything else that can be imagined. Consequently the time one can spend on Facebook is unlimited and almost as satisfying as eating a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

Recently I have noticed a trend with Facebook that parallels weight watching after the introduction of too-convenient-food. In the same way that one repeatedly swears off of fast food, people are repeatedly giving up their Facebook accounts, only to find themselves back in a week stuffing their face with newsfeed updates (that almost seem richer after a week of fasting). I call these people the purgers. They stick a finger down their throat, because of the guilt of hours wasted or pounds gained. They’re the ones most likely to relapse. But we are all weak. The modern majority relates to their sentiments and tries to use Facebook less. Without any concrete goals, moderates promise to themselves that starting tomorrow they’ll spend less time snacking on facebook, creep less people, stick to the news feed and replies. Unfortunately, sometimes the constant worrying about facebook activity will actually increase the number of hours logged. Not unlike our dedicated dieters who find that not eating cookies only makes them want them more. Addiction strikes again.

The joys of Ryan Air.

The best part about living in Europe is how close everything is. Every day I am meeting someone from another country or learning a new word in a different language. And I don't just have to wait for culture to come to me, with Ryan Air, the highly unethical but very affordable discount airline, I am able to travel wherever I want without emptying my wallet. This past weekend, the south of France.

In Marseille the city buses can take you to extraordinary places. We took a couple to where the road ends. It sounds poetic and it is. At the road's end along the coast there are these adorably quaint fishing villages with just a few houses, a harbour, a couple restaurants, and a fish market. If you walk behind them you can continue into the hills that are basically grassy white stone cliffs. AMAZING rock climbing. We walked 45 min past one village and reached a hamlet of just three homes and a bar. Its a hike-in or boat-in town with no road at all and a beautiful sandy beach tucked into a moutnainous cove. To top it off, it was a perfectly sunny day.

Culture of dieting.

Universal health care. Democracy. Eating disorders. It seems that these have become the markers of a developed country. I do not mean to imply that underdeveloped countries don’t have eating disorders, but with the exception of malnutrition by poverty and famine, there is much less of a focus on them. Contrastingly, in wealthy countries anorexia, bulimia, and overeating are popular topics. Here I hope to divulge some of my feelings on the consuming topic of overeating and weight.

As an underweight minority in North America, I have often been ostracized from the associated female bonding ritual of weight watching and weight bitching. The culture (which we are debatably in control of), dictates that we, women, are hyper-sensitive to our physical appearances. And of course, the most important feature or our appearance is our weight. The content of most waiting room magazines reflects our obsession with weight and the related topics of dieting, fitness, movie stars and fast food.

It is a magical point in a relationship between two women, when they first confess their dissatisfaction with the shape of their own bodies. The more similarly shaped a pair of woman, the sooner on in the relationship that such confidences are exchanged, but even women in different weight categories commonly will rant about their often imagined obesity. I sit on the sidelines for this ritual as ‘too skinny’ is not a valid complaint in the land of dieting and I am left with a quirky envy of my more curvy peers.