I'm also really divided on the health subject. On one hand there are statistics. But I know how easily can you make a simple statistic to support whatever you want or believe. Or, more innocently, they hardly represnt individual people or sometimes even the majority because a couple of odd cases can completely screw with it. They're of course not without merit, otherwise no-one would even bother doing them in the first place, but the general public often misinterprets the results to mean something that's not neccesarily true.

I would believe the bad effect on joints, just as I don't doubt the negative effect of junk food or lack of exercise, though.

The funny thing is, I'm pretty health-conscious regarding what I put in my body. How much of it, that is a different story. I just like to eat and I have a problem with not finishing the plate or even having left-overs. I'm also not a fan of high-impact exercise. Dancing, yoga, hiking, swimming, a week worth of backpacking, a physical part time job, I love doing that, but ask me to run... and I will - run away, that is.

I'm not one of those people who can drop weight just by not eating sweets and soda and go for a daily brisk walk. It is reasonably doable, but I just need to put in more effort than that. One good thing is, for the time being I'm completely healthy, had a routine check up last month, also I get tests when donating blood, and they always say everything comes back "excellent", so at least that is one thing I don't need to worry about too much... But then, I'm still quite young and I've been this weight for a very long time.

The one thing that really interests me, though, is knowing what is it like, to be a young, thin and attractive woman. "Young" has an expiration date to it so it's not like I can put it off forever. It is an experience I would surely regret not having when I get older, even if I found out I'm more comfortable being larger or simply gained the weight back for whatever reason. It seems rather shallow, though. But never underestimate the power of sheer curiosity, especially when it comes to myself Hmm. I wonder if I could bring myself to it in the name of a social/psychological experiment...