I’ve been thinking about our insides. The health of them or the lack thereof. On the eve of my friend's surgery to check the state of the cysts on her only remaining ovary and after a weekend of watching the complete first season of House MD, I am struck by the degree to which our insides so rarely match up to our outsides.
My friend is in excellent shape, she eats very well and is always nagging the rest of us to eat better. Not that we’re slouches – we all run, lift weights and eat our five a day. Yet, she’s a drill sergeant when it comes to checking labels for partially hydrogenated oils, sucrose, fructose, lactose and all other toses that might, one day, give us something we’d rather not have. So why her? Why is she the one who goes under the knife tomorrow? I’ve watched enough House MD to know it could be anything – or nothing -- she’s done. And that is why I can’t stop thinking about our insides. The guts of us.
In a city that places so much value on how one looks, I see first hand every day what people do to measure up. Nine times out of ten, what people do to look good on the outside – in the want it now, right now, 20 minutes or less world we live in -- is ruinous for the inside. I see women drinking Red Bull for breakfast and eating hot tamale candy for lunch (fat-free! few calories!). They drink a diet coke, split a small salad with a friend for dinner and hit the gym. Healthy? No. Will it keep you thin? Yes.
There are more plastic surgeries performed here than anywhere else in the country. I am surrounded by women who are modified, altered, rearranged. They voluntarily go under the knife, get switched around and stitched back up. Feeling a little overweight and don’t want to wait the three months it would take to lose extra pounds the healthy way? Just cut them out. Have a tummy tuck. Perhaps a little gastric bypass. Already thin but don’t have time to hit the gym to build muscle? No worries, get a few implants. Need to look good by next week? Never fear – do the seven day lemonade diet (wherein, yes, one is only allowed to drink lemonade) and you’ll drop 20 pounds in a week.
This would all be rather hilarious – outrageous even -- if it weren’t true.
I can’t pretend I’ve sorted it all out, but I’ve gotten to this: there is no outer reward for inner health. Men don’t check you out on the street because your arteries are looking good. You don’t get compliments from co-workers when you’ve lowered your cholesterol or increased your iron count. Yet if I slightly alter the shade of highlights in my hair, people notice. If I lose five pounds or gain more definition in my arm muscle, I feel like I’m a prom queen. The compliments are endless. How backwards is that? Yet in a city like LA, where such value is placed on appearances, its easy to see (or is it?) how people get caught up in the game.
Of course, those who really are healthy inside, tend to look good on the outside. But I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about the ones who harm their bodies in order to meet some arbitrary standard set by – who? Hollywood movie producers. Magazines. TV ads. I'm talking about those who want the results but don’t want to do the work. I could begin a long jag here about fast food being cheaper than healthy food, about couches and TV being more interesting than walking after dinner. But I won’t.
I would like to think there will be a day – for all of us – when the healthy living will pay off. When our heart doctors shake their heads in confusion as our test results show – again – that while we may be 60, our heart still looks like its 40.
But here is where I get hung up. Whether you are healthy inside or not, there is no one there to know it when the truth comes out. Just you and your doctor. Maybe close family and friends.
Those who spend so much time harming their bodies to look good may, after all, never have a thing wrong with them. If they do, we will never know. And those - like my dear friend - who take such good care of the bodies they’ve been given, may have something wrong with them that can’t be fixed.
That just pisses me off.
