Switcheroo

"Oh no, I wouldn't eat that. It has fat in it." There seems to be a terrible fear of fat among some. Everything the fat fearfuls eat is tasteless, bland and unimaginative  but this makes them only happier. They fry in chemical-laden spritz-ons, crunch leaves with fatless  additive-laden dressings and drink caffeine-free coffee with cream that comes from a factory not a cow. So you take a look at their bodies, these rigidly disciplined clothes hanger frames who  avoid everything with natural fats and what do you see? There they are, human wire coat hangers. Their bones show, their rears are flat, their cheeks sunken and their hair lank. Their brows however, are strangely knit and their eyes rove back and forth searching for labels that say, lite, fat free, low cal, no carb.   They live with green bits in their teeth, hands forever knotted in salad fork rictus. They read all labels for calorie and carb counts. You hear them in restaurants when they aren't talking about their diets, perusing the menu for items without calories. You see them at the gym treading and lifting and groaning and cycling going nowhere fast. They sweat and say "no pain without gain" but they mean "no gain, yippee, if pain". They worry, they fret, they know of nothing else but losing weight. Their eyes search magazines with ads for substances that will take off pounds fast: diets, shots, drinks, boxed meals, bars, powders. Their entire lives are fixated upon losing weight. They revere the Hollywoodites whose near-death bony bodies clearly reflect addiction to pills. On the other side of the world, there are people who can't put on enough weight. They would laugh at the diet foods and gladly eat as many calories as their counterparts shun.  One wonders why the two don't simply shift into the others' countries. It seems a fair and happy exchange.