I Love You Like A Fat Kid Loves Cake... Or Do I?

Everyone is familiar with the Oedipus Complex and the Napoleon Complex. Today, I would like to take this time to educate you about the Fat Kid Complex. This complex is a group of largely unconscious, repressed ideas and feelings which center around the desire to be accepted as a fully functional, healthy normal adult instead of the bucket of pudge they were as a child. According to modern psychoanalytic miotic bioposy motion picture theory (Big words make it sound real, right?), the complex appears post puberty once the subject loses their baby weight, but close family and friends refuse to recognize them as a different person and still percieve them as some sort of freak Baby Huey. Growing up as a chubby kid, I have developed this complex innately and have suffered its repercussions.

For some reason, if you were a fat kid growing up, it will follow you for the rest of your life. Even if you lose the baby fat, your family and friends that knew you growing up will only see you as a fat kid. Take Jerry O'Connell for instance. Even though he is married to Rebecca Romijn and has had slue of crappy shows and horrible movies, he will be forever remembered as the fat kid from Stand By Me. You will always get XL sweaters from grandma for Christmas. When you visit distant relatives in far off lands, they will always tell you how they remembered how you were yay big and this wide. Even though you have taken your sweet time to hide mortifying photos of you in your bigger days, somehow your mother will always manage to bring out the one photo you have in a yellow polka dot bikini with all your little rolls hanging out when you bring someone over. (No, I'm not bitter at all.) Sure, it was cute then, but there is no need to relive the past.

Carl Jung insists that the core of this complex is the archtyple figure of the Maury Povich Baby, but he does not go on to explain the relationship between the subject and the said architype. The image of the Maury Povich Baby is not to be taken literally of course, but the meaning behind the Maury Povich Baby,  paired with the fact that parents actually feed babies eight sticks of melted butter instead of milk and 17 Denny's Grand Slams with a side of bacon, points to the ubiquitous existence of this particular archetype. Think about it. Babies on the Maury Povich show are morbidly obese because of their parents' needs to appease them and make them happy. Growing up, they may or may not lose this weight. If they do, great. But since they are already predisposed to this, their parents and other family have grown accustomed to them being a certain way and this way is apparently the chubby kid, that they never want to be again.

Case in point, Mom parental units of former chubby kids--we are no longer the chubby kids you raised, but young adults. We do not need to be reminded that we were overweight as children and no, we do not need to wear extra large clothing. Please slow your roll because your overparenting will only lead us to develop additional complexes and turn to binge drinking, promiscuity, and/or bulimia. K? Thanks. :)

Fatty Loves Turkey.

There was that perfect turkey full of goodness perfect for the food coma that ensued. You absolutely had to have that delicious stuffing tryptophan with those delectable buttered (mmm... butter) mashed potatoes and no, you didn't skimp on that gravy. Oh, and the pies. You can't forget the pies. We have this ridiculously amazing home cooked multi-course feast to just shove in our faces.  Let's face it, the holidays are an excuse to engage in arguably the best of the seven deadly sins, gluttony. But why? I'll tell you why. I have a theory.

Inside all of us there is a little fat kid waiting to come out. We manage to ignore him for most of the year with our crazy fad diets and our wild work out routines. But for some reason, we indulge our inner chub and let him run rampant. We give him the extra brownie a la mode. We take those seconds---maybe even thirds. We put a little extra butter on the... well... if your like me, you'll take extra butter on anything. You eat til you have unbutton your pants and lay in there in food coma heaven. But I realized, that we only eat around the holidays because there really isn't anything for us to do otherwise.

When I was a kid, I thought Thanksgiving was the worst. It was just close family. There were no other kids around besides my brother, who I was already sick of by that point since he was always around. Everyone had to comment on how tall we got and didn't skimp on the cheek pinching. No one understood how epic The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were. All anyone wanted to do was eat. It was the worst. The only prime discussion I got as a kid at Thanksgiving dinner is everyone asked me what I wanted for Christmas. This conversation was crucial... for about 5 to 9 years give or take. For in the two to three minutes that these conservations would last, I would have the faintest whisper of hope because that meant Christmas was not too far. At that time, to me, Christmas was just like my birthday, but EVERYONE got presents. (In other words, it was like my birthday, but not as special.) The older you get, the more you come to terms with Santa not being real and Christmas, therefore, being a sham of a holiday. You realize it's all for the kids.

That's when you indulge in what you got left during the holidays--the food. At first, you still don't really dig Thanksgiving, but you start to notice that hey, Christmas dinner isn't so bad. You got some succulent braised beef and some of that green bean almondine. Everyone's pulling out all the stops for ol' JC's day of birth. After awhile, you notice Thanksgiving and you end up liking that holiday more. There's more food on that day then Christmas. Christmas might as well be called Thanksgiving II because the only difference is that you sit around watching kids open presents and put in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Food is all you got left as an adult during the holidays.

So I guess what I am saying is, eat up. Screw the gym. Food is the real meaning of the holidays.