12-25-12
He said he wasn’t hungry, but the lie was transparent. Of course he was hungry. We were all hungry. And even if we weren’t, say, starving, it was Christmas and people eat on Christmas; they eat a lot of Christmas. That’s just how it goes.
He’d woken up a few hours before, and he hadn’t eaten then, and it was striking the clock at four and yet he wasn’t hungry.
I’m not sure what the rest of the family thought; they told him to eat, half-jokingly, a little bit uncomfortably. Just meat and vegetables? One cousin asked him. Pretty much. No carbs? Sometimes.
He wasn’t starving; at least not in the long run; he was very muscled and strong, bulked up like the Hulk, almost excessively so. So no one bothered beyond the usual questions to get him to eat. After all, he was twenty-one; maybe he really wasn’t hungry.
But, I knew he was. The way he bit his nails; he made conversation, was a good sport. But, he stayed glued to his seat as if even getting up to go to the bathroom might compel his body towards that buffet line and all the enticing, devil foods—that stuffing and turkey and bread with little butter packets. He couldn’t risk that.
Right before we left, he stuck his hand in the chip bowl, then swung his hand into the dip, and crunched on the salty crumbs. It was then that I saw the boy—man, maybe—that my brother might have been had things gone differently. One who could enjoy a meal with his family, without having to worry about the hours of weight lifting he’d force himself to do a few hours later; a guy who could eat junk food and treats in public, not just in the confines of our house late at night when everyone else was asleep; a man who I could eat with: a slice of pizza, a sandwich, fries from Wendy’s.
Food is important for the obvious reason: sustenance. I think we ignore, sometimes, how important it is in our daily lives, though. But, in my seventeen years I’ve learned more than anything how truly important food is in our American culture. There’s no need to cue the nasty remarks about obesity and fat people now; that’s not what I mean. America may be obese, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our food, and our meals, with our family; it doesn’t mean we abuse food.
I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’ll still hear the constant banter about Fat America coming from Americans themselves; I’ll still see the magazine articles about cutting calories; I’ll still watch the hulking men and the waif women making passionate sex in The Movies; I’ll see my brother, every Christmas, picking at his nails, avoiding eye contact. Not eating that delicious stuffing, the bread my Aunt bakes fresh.
The worst part?
Nobody seems to think there’s anything wrong with that.
He said he wasn’t hungry, but the lie was transparent. Of course he was hungry. We were all hungry. And even if we weren’t, say, starving, it was Christmas and people eat on Christmas; they eat a lot of Christmas. That’s just how it goes.
He’d woken up a few hours before, and he hadn’t eaten then, and it was striking the clock at four and yet he wasn’t hungry.
I’m not sure what the rest of the family thought; they told him to eat, half-jokingly, a little bit uncomfortably. Just meat and vegetables? One cousin asked him. Pretty much. No carbs? Sometimes.
He wasn’t starving; at least not in the long run; he was very muscled and strong, bulked up like the Hulk, almost excessively so. So no one bothered beyond the usual questions to get him to eat. After all, he was twenty-one; maybe he really wasn’t hungry.
But, I knew he was. The way he bit his nails; he made conversation, was a good sport. But, he stayed glued to his seat as if even getting up to go to the bathroom might compel his body towards that buffet line and all the enticing, devil foods—that stuffing and turkey and bread with little butter packets. He couldn’t risk that.
Right before we left, he stuck his hand in the chip bowl, then swung his hand into the dip, and crunched on the salty crumbs. It was then that I saw the boy—man, maybe—that my brother might have been had things gone differently. One who could enjoy a meal with his family, without having to worry about the hours of weight lifting he’d force himself to do a few hours later; a guy who could eat junk food and treats in public, not just in the confines of our house late at night when everyone else was asleep; a man who I could eat with: a slice of pizza, a sandwich, fries from Wendy’s.
Food is important for the obvious reason: sustenance. I think we ignore, sometimes, how important it is in our daily lives, though. But, in my seventeen years I’ve learned more than anything how truly important food is in our American culture. There’s no need to cue the nasty remarks about obesity and fat people now; that’s not what I mean. America may be obese, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our food, and our meals, with our family; it doesn’t mean we abuse food.
I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’ll still hear the constant banter about Fat America coming from Americans themselves; I’ll still see the magazine articles about cutting calories; I’ll still watch the hulking men and the waif women making passionate sex in The Movies; I’ll see my brother, every Christmas, picking at his nails, avoiding eye contact. Not eating that delicious stuffing, the bread my Aunt bakes fresh.
The worst part?
Nobody seems to think there’s anything wrong with that.
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