By Morf Morford

Tacoma Daily Index

It’s not as if we needed any more reminders of the accumulated impact of the past year or so on every aspect of our lives from work schedules to the cost or availability of basic products from gas to toilet paper, but to add insult to injury, we currently have yet another quarantine sponsored assault on our basic sensibilities – a national weight gain.

Over the past few decades, statistics have shown that the average American gains three pounds a year.

For a year or two, this is not terribly consequential, but over time, like compounding interest, the accumulating effects can be overwhelming.

Enter COVID and the associated quarantine.

According to the most recent research, the average American has gained one and a half pounds each month – that’s almost a full ounce EACH day.

And perilously close to twenty pounds – not just three – in a single year.

As always with averages, some of us are above and some of us are below average.

Some of us in fact, have even lost weight in the past year or so.

Weight gain, like everything else in America right now it seems, from politics to taste in music to financial stability, hits each one of us in different ways.

The all-too-familiar “K”formula strikes again – and like the spotty economy, some of us are pointed up and some are pointed down. But instead of financial possibilities, it’s weight gain.

It’s complicated

In this strangest of strange times, some of us have embarked on exercise regimens – I have one friend for example who, well into his sixties, is training for a season of mountain climbing by going on an extended hike every other day.

Meanwhile other friends are bingeing on Netflix and YouTube – and snack food.

The home-baking craze hasn’t helped either.

The whole idea of “comfort food” has taken on a new meaning.

Instead of going out to eat, more of us are eating at home.

And instead of eating with others, more of us are eating on our own.

And we are eating more.

At least statistically we are.

True to the “K” model, some of us are going the opposite direction.

Some of us are going WAY opposite.

Fasting, of all things, is borderline viral across social media.

So in typical American fashion, some of us are bingeing on exercise while others are coping by bingeing on cookies.

I also see vastly more people out in my neighborhood walking or on bikes.

So the split between couch-potato and exercise fanatic has also become a split between those of us active outside or taking refuge inside.

Weather, of course, is a defining factor.

Those glorious sunny days (or moments) of early spring draw us out as we, with blinking eyes, marvel at the emergence of color among our (seemingly forever) drab streets and lawns.

The cliché for our time is that we are all in the same storm, but we are all in different boats.

And we each cope or react in our own ways.

Finding comfort in food is perfectly natural – as is seeking the “runner’s high” of intense exercise.

I’m always glad to see people out on bikes or at our local parks.

And I’m heartened by the resurgence of home cooking – especially exploratory baking.

And more and more of us are experimenting with gardening and food preparation we never would have attempted before.

In both directions we might take an enduring lesson from what we may be learning from the current pandemic: time, and how we use it, is our greatest investment.

How we emerge from this crisis, and how well-equipped we are to face the next one shows, more than anything else, what we are made of.

You might think of bingeing on either sweets or exercise as the social equivalent of inhaling and exhaling.

Socializing and cocooning are two ends of a spectrum, either one insufficient, but the ever-fluid balance between the two create a fullness neither one can achieve.

Book-clubs and neighborhood groups are flourishing, each one offering its own oasis in a difficult time.

Activities, thanks to spring, herd-immunity or changing restrictions, are opening up.

You can see a partial list of some upcoming changes here – https://www.traveltacoma.com/blog/post/things-to-do-in-pierce-county-for-spring-time/.

We’ll all be glad to travel and mix as we did not so long ago, but I can’t help feeling that we’ll all be a bit chastened and maybe a good deal more appreciative of the choices, companions and community that we have at hand.

More bicycles, more home cooking, book clubs and the revival of poetry.

2021 is looking different from any other year already.