Oh, how I long to revisit the days of my youth just so I could wholeheartedly thank my childhood bullies for taking time out of their busy schedules of being popular and beautiful to torment me in what I now see as an attempt to make me a better person. Unfortunately, all of their hard work was all for not and their relentless taunts and sharp words of truth fell on deaf ears. If I had only listened and taken the things they would say to me daily to heart, things would indeed be different. My whole life I have always been fat, and as I quickly approach thirty years of age, I have come to the realization that fat I shall remain.
In this day and age where beauty is everything, where is an obese persons rightful place? In magazines you only see fat people in weight-loss adds looking miserable as the before picture, in movies they are the comic relief as we are convincingly portrayed as slow both mentally and physically, fat people are never heroes, nor are we leaders, we even haunt some people as they develop a fear of becoming fat; so where exactly do we fit into this visually dominated society? We don’t, and it’s time to do something about it. My whole life I have only ever wanted to help people, but no matter how educated I become I have realized that no one will ever listen to me because my appearance is far to distracting. I suppose that is why I now hide my appearance behind this pen in hopes my words, void of a vessel, will hit their mark, so I can finally do something worthwhile with my life.
There are seven billion people on this planet we call home, and according to the website www.worldhunger.org “seven hundred and ninety million people are malnourished and are victims of hunger,” while according to the website www.who.int “1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight with 600 million considered to be obese.” In these figures alone I can see the silver lining, which is why I propose we make any and all obese persons twenty-five years and older a distant memory while helping those that are plagued by hunger, by finally giving these large eyesores a rightful place in the world as food for those in need. It is a well-known fact that metabolism slows down greatly at the age of twenty-five which makes it an appropriate cut off age for what shall be known as “The Great Harvest” where all of the world shall finally see our worth as we make the ultimate sacrifice.
I anticipate that there will at first be a certain amount of fear felt by those who know that they fall into this category, but I know that fear will eventually give way to pride as they soon realize this is a hero’s death. “The Great Harvest” will be a celebration of wasted lives that will finally find meaning by becoming nourishment for another, perhaps for one who will make something of themselves with hunger no longer being their main concern. It just makes sense that those who have chosen to gorge themselves year after year become food for those who have gone wanting.
We as people have free will, and it is wasted on those that are obese for they willingly become greedy, slothful, and gluttonous as they choose to devour fatty foods and not exercise. Obesity is a self-inflicted disease, a selfish act of those who do not care about themselves and therefore do not care for others. This type of behavior is contagious as young people who are raised in a home with obese parents will become a product of their environment and will also become obese; this was my fate. Obesity is also highly contagious to those closest to the overweight slobs, for you will find yourself trying to keep up with their insatiable appetite; and before you know it you too will become obese. I know that there are some that say food companies are to blame for making healthy foods so expensive and unhealthy foods inexpensive, also that the food companies add ingredients to make their food addictive, and even if it is true, no one is forcing the food on anyone. It is a matter of choice. As I grew, I chose to listen to those who further poisoned our society with talk of beauty being as much on the inside as it is on the outside, so I continued to dream big only to ultimately be let down, which only perpetuated the vicious cycle of obesity. A cycle I could have stopped feeding into, but I chose to eat my confused feelings.
I think what I was most confused about was love. I thought my prince charming would arrive, swoop me off my feet, we would fall in love, and get married; what I didn’t realize is that this dream of love comes with a weight limit. It’s not Disney’s fault, I was just to blind to see what I needed to do in order to find true love. If I had only loathed my many faults instead of loving them, I would have saved myself a lot of heart ache finding out that healthy men only practice their love-making skills on obese women so when they find an equally attractive woman they are on their best behavior, and who can blame them? If we as women wanted respect and true love we should have respected and truly loved ourselves, instead of making ourselves into giant walking billboards stating: “Do whatever you want, I don’t care.” Afterall, seeing is believing, and men are known to be highly visual creatures.
Getting back to the topic of making the world a better place, a place void of this highly contagious disease that knows no age, gender, or race. If we initiated “The Great Harvest,” worldwide starvation would be at an end, for I have estimated that one obese American could quite possibly feed a third world region for about a month if the meat was properly stored and distributed. Think of it, the United States would be a savior to those regions which could result in peaceful times between warring nations. As I mentioned before this will be a respectable fate, that many overweight souls will gladly choose to be a part of. Although I feel the need to clarify that pregnant women should be given a grace period of one year to get back to their original figure if over the age of twenty-five.
I feel the twenty-five year cut off mark to be very lenient and manageable for results to occur in those who are younger. For those, (myself included), who find themselves twenty-five or older let’s be honest; we are worn out and will most likely amount to nothing, but another shut-in that hard-earned tax dollars has to pay for. This is our chance to prove we have what it takes to be great and that we, too, matter. I, for one, am done polluting this world with my disease, as I will be the first tribute to be “Harvested”. I consider it an honor, for the beautiful people who will finally see me as someone important for this is where weight matters. I hope the people I feed do great things in this soon to be flawless world, because it will be as if I myself made it possible.
I dream of a world where, when young children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, reply: “I want to be harvested and help people less fortunate than me to achieve great things.” These selfless acts will be rewarded by being treated as something truly beautiful as they are pampered and fed until their harvest day comes. What a beautiful world it will finally be with no wars, no poverty, and no dead weight holding anyone back from achieving greatness.
