I’m a Bulimist

Without a trace of doubt in my mind…Oh wait that’s I’m a Believer from the Monkees I am thinking about.  The bulimist line came from a movie I saw this weekend entitled, The Perks of Being a Wallflower – a very cute coming of age movie but I thought that line was hysterical.

Now you know I like people to be thin but usually not at the price of an eating disorder.  Although, if one could turn it on and off, and one chose to live their lives as a bulimic then maybe???? Seriously, though, what struck me when I was watching the movie was that eating disorders are on the rise and that many young people do use them as a way of controlling how many calories they consume – especially young men and boys.  There are many support groups on the internet and they learn how to do it from each other.

All I know is that I want to stick my finger down my throat right now because all of this television coverage is driving me mad over a storm that is wreaking havoc in our region but honestly, it is not a disaster movie.  It’s not like The Day After Tomorrow where a storm plunged the world into a new Ice Age and a giant tanker went up Fifth Avenue.  It’s just rain and wind folks.  Stay safe and don’t do anything stupid and you will most likely live.

But of course not, the entire mass transit system is shut down, Wall street is closed and evacuated and there are no garbage pails on the street corners – what am I supposed to do with Remington’s you know what? And now they are closing the tunnels intoManhattan.  And they boarded up all the subway grates and still no rain.  I am calling it Irene 2 – Sandy the Sequel. #things that make me crazy

I guess what bothers me about this is that the media has spent enormous amounts of time covering an event that will last a week at most and possibly cause a few deaths and billions of dollars of damages.  Yet, they spend almost no time covering the diabetes epidemic that costs billions each year and kills millions.  That is what they should be talking about each and every day.  That is a state of emergency and yet who talks about it.  Why isn’t that the national zeitgeist conversation every day? I mean this is stuff that we need to be discussing on a daily basis.

I went on an errand the other morning because a patient had cancelled unexpectedly and my assistant was busy.  It was around 9:15 in the morning.  And if you have ever walked around the streets of Grand Central at that time of the day, man, it was brutal. I felt like I needed a defensive lineman in front of me because I was walking against the tide of human traffic towards GCT and not away from it.

But, that’s not my point.  I had to walk around the block and I passed 7 places to get something to eat and every one of those places was packed with people buying food as if there was a famine and it was their last meal.  Two thoughts popped into my mind: 1. Do you really need all of that? 2. Does anyone eat at home anymore? And the third thought was: Do you realize how many chemicals, and preservatives were being served in such a short period of time?

Not to mention the cost.  Breakfast is easily 10 dollars and lunch upwards of 15 and yet people say that eating organically is too expensive.  I know I can have breakfast and lunch for a week for what these people spend in a day.

Of course, I wouldn’t keep any of it down – I am a bulimist

Hurray – finally the good housewives are about to begin – ATL and BH; set your DVR’s

Until next time….