“All my friends are on a diet. It’s just not cool to actually eat lunch. We just sit around the [lunch] table and talk instead.” (Janie, a fourth-grader)

Human nature drives our desires to want that which we cannot have. For those who eventually achieve what once seemed physically unattainable, they are usually met with feelings of emptiness and solitude. Their journeys to their supposed mountaintops are not joyous and redeeming but lonely and demoralizing. Their motivations are out of fear, False Evidence Appearing Real. For most, the apex is nonexistent. It is merely an oasis, a delusion of grandeur. Someday, they will come face to face with the reality that the days that have passed are gone forever. What remains is not worth the pain.