The Last Mon Standing

Karen and Kate, though twins are extremely different. Kate has always been regarded as the prettier. One morning while I was in Isabela last week, my three, turning-8 years old cousins (the fraternal twins, Karen and Kate, and Jessa) went with our Grandmother who visited, Rex, our other cousin, who had been in the hospital for three days because of peptic ulcer. When they returned, my grandmother told us that the three were weighed and Karen registered 25kg in the weighing scale against Kate’s 16kg. Some of our older cousins taunted Karen and told her she’s fat. With me smelling a diminishing self-esteem (Karen is the nicer but the quieter one) told her that her weight was just normal, adding that I weighed the same when I was in grade two.

That afternoon, the three went to me one afternoon while I was lying on my Grandmother’s bed they went at my bedside. Normally they are hostile to me, but that this time they were extremely nice.

It was Jessa who spoke first in Ilocano, “Manong Mon, mayat met dyay C-Lium para ubing, aya? (C-Lium is not forbidden to children, is it?)

I was utterly bewildered by the question because I thought that the word C-Lium was an Ilocano word, so I asked them to repeat it and have it explained. It turned out that C-Lium is a brand of anti-constipation-fiber supplement that Kate and Karen’s big sister drinks to reduce her weight. Unfortunately the real indication of the fiber supplement was obviously distorted by their big sister’s reason of taking the medicine, and now the children think that it is a weight reducing pill.

I was shocked of course when it dawned to me that the three were thinking of following the Diet regimen of a seventeen year old teenager. So I asked them if they were thinking of dieting. I told them that they are not fat on the contrary are very skinny. Karen answered back by squeezing her tummy and pulling the non-existent layers of blubbers, while Jessa defensively said,”Bakit, sinabi ba namin? Nagtatanong lang kami!” (Why, did we say? We were just asking!)

I have always known that the three has some sort of eating disorder since they were three years old. Back then Karen would never eat if her plate was, according to her, “ugly”. While Jessa would never eat any viand, no matter how appetizing and mouth-watering it is, except Milo. Kate was the worst, until now she would never eat anything except salted eggs. They always have a separate food cooked according to their instruction.

My… my…

Usually a person’s eating disorder starts at the age of 11 to 12. What causes eating disorders is really vague, but a combination of many factors are said to contribute to the disorder. According to a research 42% of Grade one-three students (I am not sure if the reasearch is worldwide and includes the Philippines) want to be thinner while 81% of ten-year old kids are scared of being fat.

So tell me, are they now included in the statistics?