IT'S YOUR BODY - TAKE CARE OF IT

GUIDELINES FOR A HEALTHY 1992

By

Jimmy Joe Meeker

First Published in The Wilson County Advocate, Vol. 2, No. 1 ©January 7, 1992 by Donald W. Gillette

Since it's a new year, a lot of you have probably made some kind of resolutions concerning your health. You know, quitting smoking, or losing weight, or trying minoxodil to get your hair back. Stuff like that.

I've noticed an abundance of magazine and newspaper articles on health lately which leads me to believe that we're all overly concerned about our bodies. How's yours? Soft, smooth, thin, and well-tanned, with a cute, little, rounded behind, I hope.

Anyway, the body seems to be a really important topic lately. I suppose it's all we've got left since our souls went out to lunch around 1970 and never came back. And frankly, our minds behaved so badly during the 80's that we'll never trust them again. So that leaves us with these big sacks of blood and crap we call home.

Let's take this opportunity to examine some of our most compelling beliefs about the body and its social role and physical function. (I borrowed that sentence from the babes over at Good Housekeeping, so don't spit on it or anything because I've got to get it back to them for their February article on divorced lesbians who raise there sons as queers.) For instance, remember "feed a cold and starve a fever?", "bread crust makes your hair curly?", and how you get polio from drinking from public drinking fountains? Those are old wive's tales. You never hear them anymore. What you hear now are young girls you've been living with tales:

Ø The absolute worst thing for you in the whole wide world, worse than anything else, is commercial white bread.

Ø And the only thing worse than that is refined, white sugar.

Ø In fact, anything white such as white rice, is bad, while anything brown, such as brown rice, is good.

Ø The only thing white that's good for you is white wine.

Ø The only other white things that are good for you are fish and chicken which are much better for you than beef, which is really bad for you unless it's veal, in which case it's sort of okay unless fried.

Ø In fact, fish is so good for you that it's almost like a vegetable.

Ø Exercise is really good for you. The more vigorous the exercise, the better. But you shouldn't work too hard because work really wears you down.

Ø Cancer is a result of having a certain personality type that represses emotions and things.

Ø Only really square "business" types repress emotions. And our mothers.

Ø Almost all the diseases we get are caused by the foods we eat.

Ø Almost all the diseases we get are caused by the environment we live in.

Ø American eating habits are very unhealthy and Americans are very unhealthy, even if the statistics do say that we live longer than everybody else in the world.

Ø All folk medicine works very well, especially Chinese folk medicine.

Ø Doctor's don't know anything about medicine.

Ø It is more natural for a baby to be born on a geodesic houseboat in San Juan than in a hospital in Nashville.

Ø Karate, Judo, and Tae Kwan Do are good, but fighting is bad.

Ø Women have more endurance than men.

Ø Shaving under your arms and shaving your legs is barbaric, but putting three holes in each ear is good.

XXX