BY
Adejoh Idoko Momoh
First
it was at the Wal-Mart, then the Premium Outlet would follow. It would be the
same thing at the local Wendy’s or Burger King: all fat people.
Some
riding automated carts so they didn't have to walk about shopping for
their groceries or ordering the most fattening item on the menu irrespective of
their balloon-sized-weight. It wouldn’t be too long before I would ask
myself:
‘Where’s
all the fitness, sexiness Hollywood has made me believe is synonymous with
America?’
I
would go to Food Courts, look around for a snack: candy, frozen yoghurt, sugar
coated Danish and I would conclude America is a society that encourages obesity
among its young. A society that charges a higher premium on small soda packs
only so you are encouraged to purchase larger ones.
I
would see this first hand when with a Nigerian friend training as a doctor in
Florida at the time; I would go to the Altapointe Mall in Winterpark. Tired
from seeing ‘Elysium’ and window shopping, we would settle for a blizzard. I would
ask for a mini cone and my friend a medium, the red haired server lady would
ask:
‘a
mini?’ wearing that look sales people wear when they think you made the wrong
choice and can do better. ‘if you’d upgrade your mini to a medium, you could
get both cones for 99 cents each as opposed to the $1.30 cost of a mini or $2
medium’.
My
friend, himself a few pounds heavier now would say;
‘Take
the upgrade, whatever you have left over, I’d finish’. I would look to him and smile. Run my palm
over my now slightly bulging tummy and say, ‘I’d take the upgrade’. The lady
would smile back as though I had made the wiser choice.
She
would turn the cone up-side-down as though to show the blizzard was frozen
stiff and I would remember my friend saying to me earlier nothing is quite as
good as a blizzards frozen deliciousness.
As
we took our seats to enjoy our blizzards, I would notice a white haired lady
with her American accent bent to reach the lowest layer of a phone case booth,
her thighs about half the size of my waist and I would wonder: how in a society
with unlimited options and organic food, people still couldn’t make the simple
choice of living healthier lives.
Adejoh Momoh (momoh.adejoh@gmail.com) can be followed on twitter @adejoh
