October 16, 2013
Have ya seen this pic? Tens of thousands of people have commented on it and it's flying around Facebook faster than Oreos fly out of an opened package. (More on this later.)
I believe how you read, take and respond to this question says more about your own inner psyche than it does about the person asking the question.
As just ONE example, a reader, Michelle, comments, "I'm not fat so please don't take it as I'm ‘miserable' and ‘unhappy' with myself, but not everybody wants to look just like you!! Just saying! Posting pics of yourself and your hot body and telling everybody that they don't have an excuse and that they should look just like you is NOT ok! We all can see that you have a hot body, but posting pics and telling people that they should look just like you will only make them feel worse about themselves when they realize that they can't!!"
Wow - Michelle, I'm glad you are not overweight, but you may want to watch your stereotypical statements. By medical standards, I am obese - so I COULD take offense to the first sentence of your rant. Not all people who are fat are miserable and unhappy about themselves. But instead I take your point as being about you, not me. When I look at this pic, I definitely don't feel worse about myself and I don't immediately think Maria is telling me I should look like this.
I wish more women did this. But it is so hard. With all the hot bodies, super models and touching up out there in the media, it feels nearly impossible for any normal person to measure up fitness and body-wise. It becomes a natural instinct for us, as women, to jump to the critical and defensive conclusion "I'm not good enough." But when will we stop comparing ourselves to each other? When will we stop competing with each other in relation to our bodies and how we feel about them?
Here's my thought: What if the context behind this pic was "What's your excuse TO work out and get fit?" Maybe Maria's excuse to GET fit is keeping up with a 3-year-old, 2-year-old and 8-month-old (definitely no easy feat!). Why do we hate on a person because she has found a way to get a body that she wants? Why do we immediately jump to an inference of how WE should look when it could just be about Maria's story?
Stop the hate, ladies - Maria looks fabulous and probably feels fabulous too. We really shouldn't be angry (or jealous) about that.
Now back to the Oreos, did you know that they are as addictive as cocaine? Students at Connecticut College found that when lab rats ate Oreos they formed an equally strong association with the cookies as when other rats were injected with cocaine or morphine. Additionally, researchers found eating the cookies activated even more neurons in the rats’ brain “pleasure centers” than the addictive drugs.
“Our research supports the theory that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” Neuroscience Professor Joseph Schroeder said in a school press release. “It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”
So, will knowing that Oreos can cause addictive behavior change your food habits? Should they be made illegal? Do we infer that because we eat Oreos we just can't help ourselves, we are addicted?
Or can we, as humans, make our choices and own up to them? I say God gave us all a brain, and one with reasoning to boot. Let's use those brains and theorize that anything we "like" or find pleasurable will activate more neurons in our brain pleasure center. This whole area of this brain is called a "pleasure center" for goodness sakes. Sorry, Connecticut College, it's not rocket-science. Whether we find pleasure in eating Oreos (or chips and salsa, for me), drinking wine, reading, having sex (for me, only with my spouse), or God forbid, exercise, whatever trips your trigger, -- when we experience pleasure, we will want more. Over time the euphoric responses we have to pleasurable experiences will become addictive. This is how we were designed. The only excuse we have is: we are human.
So, don't hate on the Oreos, have some. And then go for a run or call up the hubby/wife for a nooner! It's all good. We all could use a lot more pleasure in this world.
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