Whose body is it, anyway?

Recently, I have gotten into the habit of asking my friends: “Do you like your body?” The answers they give me are quite telling: “My nose is crooked”, “My hair is so stringy, I can’t do anything with it”, “I have a big butt”, “I need to lose a couple of pounds”, etc., often followed by: “Why do you ask? Do you see something else wrong with me?” The only person who didn’t mention her appearance is a woman of 87 who told me: “Well, I liked it a whole lot better when I was ten years younger. I could walk faster, I could eat almost anything, I didn’t have to take pills and I had a lot more energy.” At 87, you don’t care anymore if your nose is crooked or your butt is too big: you don’t need to impress anyone and you don’t care if you don’t. What you care about is how well you feel. Why wait to reach that age to decide what’s important?

For centuries, people were taught that they had a spirit, the superior part of themselves, which they needed to turn over to God lest they would burn in hell, a mind worthy of educating, cultivating and improving, and a despicable and treacherous body, the devil’s tool, stupid, greedy, weak and basically worthless, that they needed to “crucify” in order to tame it when it acted up and to ignore the rest of the time. Even though we’ve made tremendous progress, there is still a deep sense of shame attached to the body and many people have a rather estranged relationship with it, especially in this country. Many founders of religious movements, such as Martin Luther, were known to scourge themselves and inflict on themselves horrible tortures, while others, such as Mary Baker Eddy, viewed disease as a manifestation of a sinful nature and advocated prayer and faith healing; although medicine could be sought after when all else had failed, there exist countless reports of cases involving people and children dying unnecessarily, for want of timely medical intervention. And although we have, indeed, made progress, many preachers and churches still use that outdated vocabulary: “the flesh is stupid”, “we must crucify the flesh”, “sin brings about disease”, “we must repent and pray God for a healing”. With such a legacy, it should be no wonder that people are still afraid of their body.

As a result, people are constantly split and ambiguous about it. They have an acute awareness of its appearance reinforced by the media, mixed with a gross lack of understanding of its functions and how much they impact on its exterior. In addition, every other health book written for the general public purports to help them bridge the gap by making well-meaning yet cliché analogies which still miss the mark. I can’t tell you how many times I have picked up a book stating: “Your body is like a car. As it needs fuel to run, so do you need food to function”, “your body is like an engine: it needs regular oil changes and tune ups”, “being overweight is like driving an overloaded car: it drags and can’t pick up speed and it increases the wear and tear”. I have yet to hear someone tell me: “Whoa! What an eye opener to realize that my body is like a car! The realization hit me so hard that I joined a gym right away and lost 20 lbs!” The problem with the car analogy is that it is too superficial and not quite relevant: people own a car which they bought and know they will use only over a limited period of time: no one buys a car thinking that it will last forever. Hoping, maybe, but not really believing it. Deep inside, they know that, when the car malfunctions, they can take it to the mechanics, give him the keys and leave it there for however long it takes him to repair it. They don’t need to know what’s wrong with it: it’s the mechanics’ job and that’s what they pay him to do. If push comes to shove and the car dies, they can buy another one.

A friend of mine, 60 lbs overweight and miserable about it, was showing me one of those self-help books mentioning the “overloaded car”. With a pitiful look on her face, she said: “Here is my problem: I have three kids and a husband. If the car was overloaded and it started huffing and puffing, I’d get out and ask them to unload the excess weight. Who’s going to unload my 60 lbs? All that book is telling me is that being the way I am is dangerous. If I don’t have the energy to hit the gym, it doesn’t tell me how to regain it in the first place. So now, I am overweight, I am still in no shape to exercise and, in addition, I am scared. To top if off, if I follow the diet they recommend, all I’ll be doing is cook. I’m a full time employee, mom and wife. Where am I going to find that kind of time? The guy who wrote that book wrote about what worked for him. He doesn’t know what works for me!” She made a few good points and, come to realize, if those books were the answer for everyone, why would we need thousands of them?

Your body is not a car. It is with you for the rest of your life. You can’t lease it, trade it or junk it. No, let me rephrase: you can junk it but you’re still stuck with it. You’re stuck in a rut, wanting desperately to regain your health and your energy. You could, if you followed the advices of self-help books. But those advices require you to make the kind of efforts… which require the kind of energy you don’t have in the first place. Some predicament!

The next problem we face is the emotional aspect of that estranged relationship people have with their body: they don’t really want to know what’s inside. It makes them feel uncomfortable. It scares them to find out. It grosses them out. Well, I got news for you: like every organism, it eats, it poops and it reproduces. It is an incredible masterpiece of engineering, similar to 6 billion other bodies… but not alike. There is no body like yours. No two bodies function the exact same way. As a result, no one can know your own body better than you. What is good for the goose may not always be good for the gander. What I can digest may be different from what your body tolerates. What I am allergic to may be different from what you are allergic to.

When we treat our body like a car, we expect a mechanics’ job from our doctor: we bring it to him and let him figure it out on the basis of look, feel, noise, smells, misfiring and apparent malfunctions. Our doctor’s knowledge is based on the study of similarities: everyone has a heart, a liver, a pancreas, etc. Theoretically, they are supposed to perform certain functions, which they do in a similar fashion… but not exactly alike. The order in which chemicals are produced may be the same. Their quantity may differ, based on heredity, environment, prior illnesses, toxicity, immune deficiencies, etc. As a matter of fact, when you have lab work done, the results show ranges within which things are considered “normal” or “abnormal”. Those ranges were established based on statistics. “Statistics: the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.” Evan Esar.If we were completely alike, one single number would apply to everyone without exception, prescriptions would work exactly in the same manner for everyone and side effects would be clearly defined and automatic instead of potential. In other words, we didn’t come from an assembly line. No one but us can find out how we function.

So, where do you start? Three words: research, research, research. And… guts, faith, hope, expectation. All good things. Where do you start your research? www.drnatura.com And if you have any question, write me at Cbrightlife@aol.com

Christine