I´m Fat?

A person´s weight, especially a woman´s weight, is discussed here in Peru just like people talk about the weather. When you see some one you haven´t seen in a while, it´s always "Hi, how are you? You look fat". To Americans this is down right rude. But I´m getting used to it. Mostly because when people talk about my weight, they talk about how skinny I am. I don´t feel all that thin. My stature is so much bigger than most men in this country, so a lot of the time I feel large and mannish. The reason all the woman at my gym praise my figure is cause I flat tummy. For whatever reason, most Peruvian woman have pudgy tummies, even if the rest of them is thin. They have all kinds of crazy techniques for slimming down their midriffs. The main one is rubbing Icy Hot on their stomachs, wrapping in it in Saran Wrap and working out like that. Every day I get asked how I get my stomach flat and I tell them it´s genetics. I´d really like to give these women a class on how wrapping your stomach in plastic is not going to make you loose weight, but I don´t think any one would believe me.

I think some one was talking about my stomach in the locker room after class last night, cause when I walked out of the shower, my aerobics teacher said "yeah but she has cellulite on her thighs". I said "What?" very surprised because I´m not used to people talking about me like that and because I never thought I had cellulite on my thighs. Then she proceeded to lift up my towel, grab my thigh and show the women in the locker room what she meant. I knew what she was talking about. I have a layer of fat that I´ve had on my thighs since high school. Its not cellulite, and you can only see it if you squeeze my thigh and look hard. I´m not really sure why my aerobics teacher decided to expose me like this. To them, I guess this knd of behavior is normal. To me it was a bit rude and invasive and to other American women it might have been mortifying. Good thing I have a pretty good self image of myself or I might need therapy.

I did get up this morning and examine my thighs in my reflection of the window ( I don´t have a mirror). Reassuring myself that my thighs are just fine, I took a deep breath and thought, just another cultural experience in Peru.