Fat and thin

A FEW months ago while standing in a queue at the Centennial Airport to check in for a flight to San Francisco, I suddenly realized I was surrounded by a lot of very obese Filipinos. I couldn't interview each of the "suspects" but their accents (and constant whining, "Jesus, why is the line so long?" and I'm sure they weren't trying to talk to God) and their clothes (shorts, T-shirts and sneakers, which admittedly make the fat look fatter) told me they were mostly Filipinos now living in the United States.

Ah, I thought, how sad that the affluent life in America-giant-sized servings of food, having a car, an office job where stapling papers is the heaviest physical labor you'll ever do-may actually produce many potential health problems, maybe even shorter life expectancies.

'Supersize Me'

For years now, we've been bombarded with studies connecting obesity to higher risks for a long list of diseases-from back problems and osteoporosis to diabetes and heart diseases. The alarm bells rang loudly, the mass media warning about millions of fat people in danger of premature deaths.

This was well dramatized in the film "Supersize Me," where the lead actor (who was also the producer and director) subjected himself to a month of pure unadulterated McDonald's food and drinks. As a proper scientific study would have it, he had himself weighed and had his blood chemistry taken before the diet, the weighing and tests repeated regularly as he went through the regimen.

As he put on more weight, his worried doctors warned him of possible irreversible damage to his heart, liver, kidneys. On a more banal level, his vegetarian girlfriend was interviewed as well lamenting on how the McDonald's diet was ruining her boyfriend, including an under-performing Manoy.

There, I should be catching the attention of male readers now. Yup, the long list of obesity's grim effects includes problems there, although I do wonder if it really matters: with all that abdominal blubber, you probably wouldn't notice anyway. Out of sight, out of mind.

'Taba, payat'

While waiting in that airport queue, I wondered too how our Filipino-American friends now greet each other. It's all too normal in the Philippines (and many parts of Asia) to comment on a friend's weight as part of greetings: "Uy, ang taba-taba mo ngayon" ["You're getting fat"] and that's meant as a compliment.

In a country where under-nutrition is so widespread, fat is actually seen as a sign of health, prosperity, success. Men feel they're being complimented as good providers when they're told their wives are "taba" [fat], and mothers feel their parenting skills are being praised when their children are described as taba.

On the other hand, a greeting of "Uy, pumapayat ka" ["You're losing weight"] comes through as ominous, almost like, "Do you have cancer?" (Or tuberculosis? Or AIDS?) I should know, being on the lean side. I'm saying lean, which is different from "payat." Note that we don't have Filipino words for lean, which has positive connotations: to be "lean and mean" evokes fitness, which is how I feel most of the time... until I get greeted, "Pumapayat ka," -- "payat" meaning skinny, scrawny, starving.

Fat, as taba, is good in the Philippines. Women even judge "hiyang," or the fitness of a contraceptive brand by the way it makes them gain weight, not realizing that the weight-gain is actually a side effect of the pills, one which Western women dislike.

Times do change, much to my delight. While people my age now worry about heart disease and diabetes, I can just smile, gloating at being payat. "Uy, you look younger than your picture in the Inquirer," people will say and I'll go, with feigned modesty, "No naman," followed by a vengeful, "You know, we payat people don't age as quickly."

Suddenly payat's good. While poor Filipinos complain about how difficult it is to stretch their household budgets for food, the well-off pay through their nose to lose weight: expensive membership fees in fitness clubs, the latest brand-name jogging outfits and sneakers, Bangkok pills, books explaining Atkins, South Beach, or whatever the latest diet fads are.

Body in the mind

Let me get back to my airport story. Eventually everyone did get checked in and we took off without incident, although I have to admit I did have a momentary panic attack as we waited for the flight to leave, wondering if the plane could take off with all the pudgy Filipino-Americans. How come, I thought, airlines charge for excess baggage but not for overweight passengers?

Yet, wonder of wonders, the day after I arrived in the States, the papers all had front-page articles about a new study downplaying the dangers of fat, claiming that being overweight wasn't a bad thing, that in fact they lived a bit longer than thinner mortals. It was obesity, meaning very overweight and which was said to affect a smaller percentage of Americans, that meant shorter life expectancies.

Immediately, that news brought protests and accusations that the research was flawed. Columnists asked about the sponsors of the study. Could it have been the fast-food industry, or others who stood to gain from getting people to gain weight?

But lo and behold, other wise commentators noted how the protesters also had their own vested interests. It turns out America now has an entire "fat industry": people who gain from getting people to lose weight. These are the ones who tout lose-weight diets, the owners of the fitness farms, even the cosmetic surgeons who do lipo and staple abdomens. In so many words, these are the ones who tell you: "Fat's bad for you" and snicker behind your backs, "But it's good for us."

So take it from payat: I think we need some balance. We do tend to overdo things. Young girls, encouraged to eat all they can so they'll be cute, suddenly hear a change of tune. Praised as cuddly before, they're now told they're pudgy. So you have 8-year-olds wondering if they should lose weight. In a few years, we'll probably have more cases of anorexia, where people literally stop eating for fear of putting on weight and being ridiculed.

My bias is still to be on the lean side, especially as we grow older. It's bad enough how age slows us down, bones and joints creaking, without extra weight slowing us down even more. But if you honestly feel good on the heavier side, well and good. Society can be really bothersome, dictating what your "correct" body size should be.

I tend to think the body's in the mind. Don't look at yourself as fat; think voluptuous. And to my fellow emaciated Filipinos: We're not skinny; we're slim, slender, sleek, svelte. I know, that's four adjectives versus voluptuous. I'll be kind: Fat's ... let me think ... fat's, well, "seksi."

But payat's sexy (pronounced zekkkkzzy).