So Apparently I’m an Apple Shape...

Image via Diane Kennedy

A few weeks back, I popped by the pharmacy to get my chronic medication. Gosh, the word ‘chronic’ makes me sound like I’m an invalid on death’s door. Let me rephrase – I went to get my monthly medication, hay fever tablets and the like. When I reached the front of the agonisingly long queue, my ‘friendly pharmacist’, who is actually friendly in real life and quite good-looking too, stared deeply into my eyes and reminded me that I had not yet been for my Vitality Health screening. Yes, he even makes health screenings sound ridiculously romantic.

I decided that I would be able to spare a few minutes, and fortunately the nurse on duty at my local Clicks pharmacy was available immediately. This was quite a rarity, as I’m used to seeing an impressive line of people waiting outside the ‘clinic’, which can hardly be described as a clinic since it’s actually a room no bigger than a shoebox.

In any case, she welcomed me in, filled out my details and then did all the tests included in the Discovery Health screening – cholesterol, blood pressure and HIV. She then took all my measurements – height, weight, waist and hip circumference – to work out my BMI. The conversation that took place between nursie and I offers enough material for another blog post, so I will not digress.

At the end of the screening, I was handed a print out of the results. Being a results oriented person, I was proud to see that I had aced the tests, but it wasn’t until a few days later that I really looked at the print-out and saw the words (I quote directly):

You are at a greater risk of lifestyle related diseases (heart disease etc) because you are an APPLE SHAPE (rather than a pear shape).

Huh? Let me just say that I’ve never been a fan of what appears to be a ‘medical’ system that compares women’s body shapes to fruit. I can think of many things that my body may abstractly resemble, but please, a fruit? And then, of all the fruits that exist – an apple!?

I’m that girl who has always been described as petite. My mom bought me a blazer at the start of high school so big that I literally drowned in it, yet she was convinced that I would grow into it – I never did. I’m 24, and if I had to pull out that blazer today I would still drown in it. A carrot maybe, a banana perhaps, but an apple? An apple is round. In fact, my personal body shape aside, who have you ever laid eyes on and thought, ‘ah ha, that girl looks just like the apple I ate this morning’?

And then to top it all off, I’m apparently screwed for looking like an apple. A pear, now that would be ideal, since we’re comparing fruits and all. I still don’t get it, but there it is printed out in black and white on an official looking form – you (Amy) are an apple shape ... and a bad apple at that. 

Third Time Lucky? A Blogger’s Tale

Welcome to Life on a Polka Dot, my third attempt at starting a blog. My disclaimer for this entire blog: Amy is not a constant; Amy is a variable. I have not arrived at my life’s destination and I haven’t the faintest clue where that destination can be found. A couple of years back, I was so sure I was in possession of the map to my life *cough* - apparently not.

Fortunately, I have learnt some lessons about blogging that I hope will steer this one in the right direction:

Lesson 1: Avoid Narrow Topics

Do not, I repeat, do not start a blog about a topic so narrow that you run out of post ideas in the space of one week.

Lesson 2: Avoid Broad Topics

At all costs, avoid starting a blog about a topic so broad that your blog could be described as being about ‘nothing’ or ‘anything’. You will lack inspiration and your blog will be left to gather digital dust in the vast space that is the blogosphere.

I am contradicting myself somewhat, but I hope to strike a balance third time around. Somewhere in-between broad and narrow is a topic just personal enough that people can relate and just broad enough that you won’t scare everyone away.

Life on a Polka Dot is my attempt at writing about things that are light, fun and slightly on the frivolous side, but yet relate to my life – on a space of the world so small it could be said to be the size of a polka dot. I’m reminded of that movie, Horton Hears a Who, in which the kangaroo refuses to believe Horton when he says he believes a whole community exists on a speck. At the end of the movie, the narrator says:

And so, all ended well for both Horton and Who's, and for all in the jungle, even kangaroos. So let that be a lesson to one and to all; a person is a person, no matter how small. 

Yes world, I DO exist! 

I mean, for all the kangaroo knew, her world could also be viewed as just a speck by someone else. It’s all relative at the end of the day. After all, my small little world is big to me.