In FatLand, people celebrate No Diet Day, not as the day that they shouldn't diet, since they don't, but as a day on which to cook and bake their finest and most luscious meals, snacks and desserts. Many restaurants have sidewalk cafe exhibits and tastings, and there are music and clothing exhibits and outside art showings and fiction and poetry readings. A gigantic all day festival, in other words.
However, yet another aspect, a more serious one, is commemorated in the FatLand Archives and Cultural and Historical Museum. Not only are records, books and archives relating to dieting mentioned, but the roll of the numbers of people who died as a result of dieting is read. This roll is recompiled every year. It is kept meticulously.
In schools, students discuss what diets were and what they caused. Exhibits vary from year to year. One exhibit that gained some notoriety was that of a scale. FatLand students had never seen a scale. A video showing kids lining up to get weighed was also shown. Some students cried on seeing the cruelty and insensitivity of this procedure. The teachers who were showing the video started a discussion on why The Other Side/USA utilized this mostly useless system and then how it was proven to be dangerous as well as useless. They directed the discussion loosely into why living in FatLand liberated people from being weighed and from having to diet.
Lunch was then served, with a make-your-own sundae bar featured for dessert.
No comments:
Post a Comment