"The Bathroom" By Fernando Botero
Anna is a young lady, keen on night clubs and disco music. She was a frequent visitor of Tbilisi’s night clubs, such as Guru and Bambarum, till the bouncers haven’t let her in. On December 25 she couldn’t border, so called, face control of Guru Club. She was told that it had been a new rule of this club. Neither people with casual wear, nor obese people are permitted to disco parties. Anna is overweight. Some weeks later she was told the same in Bambarum.
Tamar Baramidze is 26-years-old girl, living in the suburb of Tbilisi. She has suffered from obesity since childhood. Her job of dream is an art criticism, but Baramidze never worked in this field because she walks barely and she’s afraid, people can judge her appearance. Tamara lives with her mother. According to her mother’s words, Tamar can’t leave alone at home.
“I was told, when I was born, I weighted 4,9 kg. I was a lovely, plump child. Neither my paediatrician, nor my parents could predict my problem,” says Tamar Baramidze, “In the school everybody was pinching me. The boys never looked at me like a woman, even at the university. All my friends had boyfriends, but me.”
At age 20 Tamar was able to give up studding. As she claims, she worried because of her “fat legs and hands”. At that time she weighted only 105 kg. (231 pounds), now her weight is more than 140 kg (308 pounds). Some years later she has lost all of her friends.
The doctors evaluated her problem as the obesity of third degree. The prescription for Tamara was stern diet during fifteen months, without cakes, fast foods, gas drinks and fried meals, but she couldn’t manage it, in spite of her attempt to be on a diet, that lasted for two weeks. She thinks she has not a will anymore, she’s fond of eating anyway. The mother of Tamar Baramidze blames the endocrinologist of her daughter. She claims, they have no practice of working with people having such problems. But Tamara has her own argument; the major causes of her pessimistic mood are her inactivity and the stigmatization of people, like her.
“Our society is very intolerant towards the fat people.” – She says.
The only entertainment, helping her to live with her disease is watching movies. She has a great collection of movies, downloaded from internet to DVD and she calls herself a self-taught cinema critic.
The psychologist Elene Abramia has her point of view about this issue. She rejects the idea of such radical stigmatization among Georgian society.
“Sometimes people with different problems, lose the ability to be objective.” – Says the psychologist, “In some cases person, who can’t prove himself/herself, blames those who are around him/her, and, mostly, a blamed one is society.”
But in spite of these words, Mrs. Abramia doesn’t ignore the problem of stigmatization towards the overweight people among Georgian society. She considers that, generally, Georgians are prone to stigmas and there are a lot of obese people in Tbilisi, but they avoid a frequent contact with public.
“If you pay attention, anyone can notice that it’s very rare to meet mentally and physically handicapped and very obese people in the streets.” – Says Abramia, “This fact is classical example of stigmatization, common for our society.”
The chairman of The Diabetes and Endocrinology Association in Georgia Ramaz Kurashvili says that obesity is a pandemic of the 21st century, which can damage human’s mind.
“I remember one of my patients, a young obese boy, who couldn’t come to me frequently and was used to take recommendations by telephone. He was shy to go outside,” says Ramaz Kurashvili, “This is the case, when the medicine is powerless. A person should force himself to be in contact with the outer world. The public must support them.”
No one can suggest statistics about how many obese people are in Georgia now. But part of this problem may be that these people tend to be out of sight, because they don’t feel accepted.
Tamar Baramidze is a young lady, disappointed and isolated from society for her appearance. She says that the major achievement in life is to stop yourself at that moment, when you should stop to keep yourself.
“I couldn’t save myself from this disease at the right time, I couldn’t stop.” says Tamara.
