Hooray! I'm Obese!

The world we live in...I'd be furious, but this is a world where genocide, kidnapping, raping and torturing human beings is an everyday occurrence.

I caught a glimpse of this article and immediately read it, because I adopted a child from Asia and was curious to see what China was up to now. I originally intended to adopt through China, but midway through the process their rules changed and because I was under 30 I was ineligible. In the end I was so glad I didn't go through China, because in my meetings with other families who've adopted from that country, the grand majority of girls had serious health problems, a lot of them stemming from malnutrition. Besides, it always rubbed me the wrong way that Chinese society just threw these girls away because they weren't male.

So now, China has decided to ban anyone who is single (which I was at the time), under 30 (ditto), who take medication for psychiatric conditions including depression and anxiety (I have at certain times), AND the obese! Oh yeah, the only categories I don't fall under are the new "severe facial deformity," as well as their previous anti-gay stance.

According to this article, anyone with a BMI over 40 is ineligible to adopt. At the time I adopted my daughter my BMI was around 50. And I wasn't alone. I'm pretty sure most of the people in my group that traveled to Vietnam were above a 40 BMI, or darn close. One couple I traveled with had already been turned down by Korea because of their weight limit.

I would have had to lose 67 -70 pounds to be determined a "fit" parent. What burns me up is that Chinese families are dumping off these babies like common refuse just because they don't have a penis. They're hidden away and starved, or left to die in a field. But if a person is fat or has a severe cleft palate, or heaven forbid they love someone of the same sex, somehow they're not good enough to take care of this country's "garbage?"

I could fume about this more, but it's not going to get me anywhere. China will do whatever the heck it wants to do, and little ol' me isn't going to do much about the rising tide of fatism in this world of ours.

On a lighter note, in writing and calculating the above, I discovered I recently moved from the "severely obese" BMI category into the simply "obese." Yippee, I'm obese! Shout it from the rooftops! And if I can get to 185, I will be "slightly overweight." Ah, to think, I'm only 29 pounds away! But right now my immediate goals are to 1) survive the holidays without going back into "severe" land and 2) make 2007 my Onederful Year.

And I have to admit, it's tough going this week. Everywhere I go it's Christmas food -- candy, nuts, cookies, all the holiday goodies you only get once a year. My dear mother-in-law already sent over her "famous" fruit cake, which Hubby has been digging into with some glee. I'm sticking to my guns, reminding myself I will stick to my routine until Saturday, when I host my mom's side of the family and provide the ham dinner. Sunday is dinner with my dad and a party at my friends' house, and Sunday is the turkey dinner at the in-laws. I'm pretty darn sure Dec. 23, 24 and 25 will be three days of food, food, food, and only someone with a will of steel (or a bad stomach bug) would be able to resist. Knowing that, I'm doing everything I can to limit it to those three days. It's difficult, but I know I'll be happier with myself come January 1 if I minimize the yuletide damage as much as I can.

Gotta go. My mother's arrived. Hopefully not bearing food!