I’ve been considering a bit of a hang-up that I have. This comes out of the string of medical appointments that I’ve had since the start of the month. Yes, this relates in part to The Condition and it is somewhat in a weird way.

I am short according to the various tables of “average” heights in the USA. Where in the world might I be someone of average height? Apparently that would includes places like:

  • Turkmenistan
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Spain
  • Jordan
  • Moldova
  • Dominican Republic
  • People’s Republic of China
  • Singapore
  • Poland

Yeah, I doubt that table on Wikipedia some days. In this instance it seems to be right. I’ll roll with it.

Yes, my height is below average for a man in the United States. There were school kids bigger than me at a restaurant that I visited with family on Sunday after church. I know my height is below average but seriously I feel like a halfling some days.

My height would be considered tall for a woman in the United States. A recent struggle has been trying to figure out why one of The Specialist Doctors keeps addressing me as a woman. Is it due to my height and not having a basso profundo voice? That particular one of The Specialist Doctors likely has some cultural baggage of their own that they’re looking at me through, I think.

Why the worries about height? I think it ties in to the weight issue that was being discussed with one of the other doctors. When it comes to dealing with The Condition there are some paradoxes to deal with. Being overweight but having a hemoglobin A1C around 4 means that high blood sugar is not contributing to the obesity. It also means that Popular Injectible Drug is highly contraindicated for use and you end up reading papers about {REDACTED} and {REDACTED} that very few people would ever read about since the Orphan Drug Act would end up getting invoked.

That brings me back to the body weight problem. I’ve sat down with the clinical dietitian and reviewed what it would take to get things under control. Why am I not succeeding getting things under control?

I think this comes down to environmental factors. A man my age in my local community generally has a BMI of 30+. Even if I am shorter than the average man in my local community I am likely unconsciously trying to fit in. At my height at a BMI of 24.9 based upon the way things look in morph software I would look somehow more alien than I already do in my community. The bias towards conformance is pretty strong as well as the push to “look my age” though the health complications that come from trying to do that outweigh the benefits, it seems.

On Tuesday there was a story in Ohio Capital Journal by Susan Tebben talking about the really bad healthcare situation here in Ohio. What makes it sad is how many world class hospitals are located here in Ohio! The default in communities like Ashtabula is to be unhealthy and for adults to have BMIs of 30+. That could also be why we have such an unhealthy community that even the Washington Post syndicates stories about how strangely this county is screwed up.

Now that I know what the hang up is I have to figure out what to do about it. Again, the popular class of Popular Injectible Drug are found to not work in people with The Condition and research is in progress on options for people with The Condition. Until then I just have to remember that my caloric needs are far less than the recommended average seen on nutrition labels. Making change isn’t nearly as simple as it may seem.

Of course, it doesn’t help that people with The Condition have weight problems and it is even seen as a diagnostic symptom. As someone who processes insulin in a hyper-efficient manner I have to be careful in how this whole issue of weight management gets approached.