Body worlds

Yesterday, I visited Body Worlds at the Ontario Science Centre and was amazed and repulsed all at the same time. Needless to say I came home and ate a carcass free dinner with a big ass salad. The human body is amazing and seeing all those folks carved up reminded me that we are all basically the same underneath and start with the same raw material.

This Body Worlds exhibity was focused on the human heart. There were also loads of examples of healthy organs and unhealthy organs. Obese bodies, and fit bodies. And so on and so on.

Illness, obesity and deconditioning doesn't discriminate based on socioeconomic status, gender, family status, sexual orientation. We all start off, for the most part, with a similar chance to live healthy lives and over time, we really determine what is going to happen.

What was especially interesting for me, was the obese body sliced in half. I saw up close what visceral fat looks like (the fat under skin around organs). I talk about visceral fat almost every day with clients trying to get a healthy waist girth. I saw how visceral fat deposits itself all through our organs and how unnatural it looked in a human body.

The smokers lungs and the lungs with tumors were really freaky. Seeing how black lungs get from smoking was something else. I wish I could refer to those lungs anytime I have a craving for a cigarette (glass of wine in hand of course). And I'm not saying I indulge those cravings ok!

One of the most interesting parts of it all was the controversy surrounding the overall concept of the exhibit. Looking at these bodies, I kept wondering how they ended up on display and if this whole death art exhibit was ethical at all. We have an obsession with our mortality which explains the huge crowds of people waiting to stare in awe at our universally uniform insides.

Jane