TabTV today

I just watched an episode of TabTV. Usually I don’t watch this show but today’s one was about eating disorders, a subject pretty close to my heart. I don’t know. I just have to say that I feel very dissatisfied with the result of the show. I think it was better that I didn’t watch it actually. It only upset me and ruined my evening.

Ok, first they showed a re-enactment of this girl with bulimia. That was kinda satisfactory because in the end they displayed that it was because of psychological trauma of being sexually abused by her relative that she turned to binge eating and purging. I understand that cos the underlying problem of her bulimia was the psychological problem. Fine.

The second segment I had more problems with. They re-enacted a fat boy in school who tried to go anorexic in order to lose weight – to stop people from calling him fatty, to be more attractive to a girl he’s got a crush on. The poor boy practically starved himself (he ate minimal amounts), and exercised obsessively (going gym and running home from school). In the end, all that happened was he got weaker and sickly and got the girl he liked calling him strange and weird and getting scolding from teachers for not paying attention in class. In short, more problems than he started out with. It was supposed to be a happy ending when the show ended that segment by saying that he got help for his eating disorder and was now eating normally (by normally, they showed him eating lots of rice and kueh and stuff). In the end we see the girl on the arm of some slim ang moh guy. *bitch*

My problem with this is, that didn’t really help solve his underlying problem. Sure, maybe the programme could argue that his problem was that he developed anorexia and that’s bad. But they didn’t address the deeper problem that his weight was creating psychological problems like the name calling and the bullying AND the inferiority complex that came with all that.  I was really sad for him when they showed a scene of him in his room after his crushing defeat, crying and tearing down all the posters of the trim and taut bodies of celebs that he tried to emulate by exercise and calorie counting.

Then after that, they had this ‘talk’ with a counsellor from NUH, Selena Tan and someone who had suffered from eating disorder (girl called nicole who took laxatives and slimming pills).  And they were all like, oh it’s all about the inner beauty and feeling good about yourself that’s all that matters. They talk about the psychological implications of putting a poor primary school kid in the TAF programme in school (TAF=FAT backwards). Nicole did some kind of sharing about her history and how she eventually came to a realisation about her self-destructive behaviour. Selena Tan talked about how she was always thinking about having to go on diet but being too lazy to do so and now saying that it’s good she didn’t. At the same time, she acknowledged that especially in the acting industry, being slim gets you good solid leading roles, rather than being fat and getting the roles where you play the comic relief.

Anyway, I said that this subject is really close to my heart.  I know they have millions of shows that talk about this subject. Just now, I was really hoping that they would address the fine line between anorexia and dieting. Cos just now, the boy didn’t exactly stop eating altogether. He calorie counted and exercised. Drank skim milk and didn’t eat the egg yolks and all that. AND he exercised. And yet in the end, nothing happened and he still remained fat. So…? It upsets me. My weight is none too good. I try to exercise with what little time I have. I eat less when I’m in school (I can’t control that at home). But nothing’s happening. And that upsets me too. And at the end of the day, the inevitable fact is that slim is good, fat is not. It SO did not help that at the end of the programme when they ‘interviewed’ people on the street, most of them said, oh well, inner beauty is fine but being slim is better – some were saying that slim was more pleasing to the eye, slim people dress better etc etc.

See the contradiction? Sure, the medical people all say that being too thin is not good and you must be comfortable with your weight and don’t try to emulate those skinny models. But at the same time, society demands that you be slim and look like those skinny models and ostracises fat people.  I’m bordering overweight. My mum tells me I’m fat and need to slim down on a regular basis (or rather, she says I need to grow taller, which is essentially the same thing). I’m surrounded by people who are slim but keep insisting that they are fat. People who have all lost weight since I met them. I on the other hand, am going the opposite direction. And that hurts a lot. I try to say that I don’t care but I do. It’s painful to see a nice dress or top in a store and to know I can’t have it cos I can’t fit into it. To stand in pictures with people and be the biggest one there. It’s worse in an Asian society cos people are naturally smaller.

Everytime I see an article in the papers about this, I feel very dissatisfied. Like I said, they never addressed the root cause which is society’s perception of fat people vs slim people. The fact is that slim people get places. Slim people are the ones who are noticed and are considered attractive. No one says anything if a slim person eats junk food all day. I see slim people still stay slim despite eating junk food all day. Whereas there’s fat people who try their hardest but nothing seems to work for them. Diet, exercise, starving whatever the range of the spectrum. Ya so, my point is, it doesn’t matter how many articles appear telling people that eating disorders are bad and being skinny is not good and they need to put on weight and telling skinny people that they are skinny enough. That brings something else to mind. I keep getting the feeling that all these articles and programmes about eating disorders are targeted at skinny people who are anorexic or bulimic. It didn’t help that the girl in the first segment was skinny to begin with. What about those fat people out there who read and watch these media and get depressed when it doesn’t include them in the discourse?

(An aside, as I was typing this, I suddenly felt that it would be interesting to do an CDA analysis on this episode. Maybe if I got nothing better to do during the holidays and manage to get hold of a transcript. Prof Chng should be proud of me.)

I don’t know if what I’ve just said makes any sense and I’m not going to read it through tonight. I’m really really upset about this situation and really feel that something should be done to address the other side of the audience – the people who have no choice and are forced to resort to this because nothing else seems to work for them and their weight does not change despite the healthy measures. I think things won’t change anytime soon. It’s not easy to change society’s perceptions of weight.

I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
I’ve become so tired so much more aware
I’m becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
I’ve become so tired so much more aware
I’m becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know I may end up failing too
But I know You were just like me
With someone disappointed in you

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
I’ve become so tired so much more aware
I’m becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

~ by mezzogal on November 15, 2007.