- I got to eat all I want of whatever I want.
- They were less likely to draft me. (Why take good care of government
property (since that's apparently what I am), anyway?)
- The health effects weren't proven, e.g. my father is fat, and was at
that time perfectly healthy.
- I thought there was likely to be a nuclear war before I was old
enough to suffer any irreversible health effects. If not, I can
lose weight then. (Actually, unbeknownst to me, it was generally,
but wrongly, believed at this time that the health effects were
irreversible.)
- I wrongly believed that weight loss requires hunger.
- I correctly believed that weight loss requires exercise, which
I wrongly believed is a kind of torture, and is something virtually all
adults stop doing as soon as they're allowed. (I flunked gym twice
in high school, thus had to take it four years. I knew nothing about
exercise, and thus didn't realize the cause of the pain was that I was
immediately reaching my anaerobic limit. At the time, I thought that
exercise was inherently unpleasant and painful, and appealed only to
masochists. I had noticed that adults generally drove rather than walked
or biked, even short distances. And used elevators rather than stairs,
even when going up or down one floor. And that everything from
lawnmowers and saws to can openers and car windows had motors in them,
and people were willing to spend the higher prices for these motorized
devices, presumably because exerting oneself is so unpleasant. Needless
to say, gym taught me nothing. One gym teacher said "lose 100
pounds or I will flunk you". He flunked me.)
- It underscored how ridiculous it was that they would say I had
broken into offices by crawling through
ceilings and otherwise making like spider-man.
Last updated July 4th, 1995.