Insulting the Overweight

Yall should move to Houston, here if you are under 200 pounds you are skinny! <3 Just wanted to remind everyone that you are BEAUTIFUL, and we can always lose weight, but the 'weightier' issue is definitely how we treat our fellow man, our brothers and sisters. Yall know that kindness, unconditional love, understanding, wisdom, compassion, courage, justice and mercy, are more significant to our health than any thing that has to do with our physical selves. By taking care of our earthly vehicles, we show we love ourselves and it demonstrates that we have self control to a degree when it comes to food/fuel. How can one see with the natural eye, the other degrees of self control? Such as holding our tongue when someone has been cruel, not flipping off other drivers and cursing others we find inconvenient etc.? You cannot see those things of course, in a measure of a person's size. You guys have each demonstrated a level of caring and sharing, from your inner man/woman that is admirable. Just my observation. Keep going my friends!

I have seen tube-fed. Anorexic women in psych wards. Well, obviously the tube is the tube, no escaping it. You see it. But not just that. Frighteningly horrible dull looking skin and other unhealthy characteristics are clearly visible too. So I , personally, can telll the difference between a sickly looking anorexic in need of inpatient and genetically skinny people. So when I see skinny people without tubes etc., I always assume that they are genetically trim. Unless proven otherwise with crystal clear evidence.

Precisely. I remember how my late grandma, an hour-glass shaped woman who had aa very clear waistline at seventy five, said: "In French Royal court, women without a bust were not considered women,' when we discussed the literature of the period.

And now they are!

But that is good news, not bad news.

The fashion industry does not have to model itself after revolutionary psychology. Its goal is to sell cloothes. It is easier to demonstrate clothes on skinny models without breasts and hips. Breasts and hips otherwise get in the way. So the skinniness of fashion models is a functional requirement, just as the thinness of newer smartphones is a functional requirement. It has a rational purpose.

I've had naturally thin friends, friends who were average, friends who were fat because of medication, friends who were fat from their diet. I've seen people say they don't eat much and wonder why they don't lose weight, and then eat a huge plate of spaghetti and cheese for dinner. At the end of the day though, they are all adults. It's not my job to police their body and their diet. (Unless they are children, or specifically my children... which is something I'm not planning on).

Picking on any body shape is pretty low in my book though I understand why it happens. Being hassled happens when you are outside of what is considered acceptable. Whether that's fat, disabled, gay, trans, not white, etc. (I'm not comparing any of these things, btw, just saying they are all at some level consciously or unconsciously considered "bad" by american culture and thus people can experience some grief over it). And it's very common who feel wronged to lash out at the "others" who they feel have walked all over them. Even if the person in question doesn't even know them and their only crime was being a member of that targeted group. This goes both ways. Bigotry does not solve bigotry, and at the end of the day you're still living in a society that has vicious undercurrents of hate swirling between every group conceivable. It's not all cynical though, hatred isn't the only thing around, there are also these vast webs of love and friendship that tie people together. And every emotion that comes between hate and love too. Things can get tangled though. Human beings are really complicated.

I don't even remember where I was going with this. But I don't think the goal of the end game should be to eliminate negative things. Understand what they are, why they happen. Build yourself up to work through them to reach a point of understanding and mutual respect and tolerance.

What people say and think about obese people is sickening. I was obese all my life until age 40, when at 311 pounds BMI 54, I was tormented as a child and teen, denied employment as an adult. No one wanted date me or be seen with me, stare at me eating.

I had a big complicated WLS to ensure I would lose weight and never gain it back. For the last 12 years I have been normal weight, have a great job and people who care about me. I can see how others treat the obese and it make me shutter how cruel people are. In today's society, it is not acceptable to be a raciest or make fun of handicapped, mentally challenged, LGBT, or people who are different, but it is open season to discriminate on fat people.

Fat people are still people.

I could not agree more. Shall we discriminate against others for their lifestyle choices? Far be it from us beloved. Peace is achieved in no other way than Live and Let Live.

I don't quite understand your reasoning. I won't argue that it isn't the reasoning of the fashion industry, but, if it is, their reasoning is flawed.

I agree that the fashion industry doesn't have to model itself after evolutionary psychology. However, it ought to if it wants to sell clothes. Sexy and healthy sell. Sickly and emaciated do not...

The vast majority of women have breasts and hips, and these are the women the fashion industry is actually marketing their products to. Why design clothes that are tailored for stick-think models when the vast majority of consumers - normal women - have a very different body type? How is that shirt going to look when the person wearing it doesn't look like a ten-year-old boy?

This sounds like a anime film that I watched. It's called Ergo Proxy.
In the show, there is a great wall around the city. Only model citizens are allowed in.

That is very simple - on a stick person, the shirt attracts the attention to the shirt. On an hourglass figure, it attracts attention to t&a.

But do not worry, I can speak on behalf of the women with breasts and hips (currently on the slightly zaftig side, but not too bad) - we are still doing OK, we are not going anywhere, we are not becoming extinct, and the fact that the fashion industry does not portray us as the industry standard does not affect to us too much. We still mate and reproduce and all the rest of that. I do not see any crisis in the fact that the fashion industry uses thin models.

And the outlandish make-up, revealing outfits, deliberate breast-flashing, and hip swaying all common in fashion shows don't distract? Or their protruding hip bones ... which tend not only to distract, but to disgust ...

As a man, yes, I would be more interested in the t&a if the models were actually attractive. But I'm not the one buying the clothes. And as a bisexual man, I don't particularly find attractive male models all that distracting either.

I would surmise that the reason all these high fashion models look like adolescent boys (not only in body shape, but also in their angular face and strong jaw) is because the people choosing them to model clothing are homosexual men.

Anyway ... Both are a problem. And they seem to feed off each other (no pun intended). The more the obesity problem grows, the more people become obsessed with "health" and thinness, which leads to eating disorders and the like. And stress. Which leads to more health and weight problems...

Haha! No pun intended, but appreciated

I have heard the version about homosexual men ruling haute couture and only homosexuals owning the top salons in NYC and all that. Maybe.

Wow, I didn't realize previously that this topic seems to be a hot button issue? Very successful thread, a little surprised by this but I learn something new every day. I must live under a rock I suppose lol. Is World War 2 over yet?

Eh, enough about this. I'm about to go start a religious thread...who's with me?

As a straight woman not planning to marry in the immediate future, I will still benefit if gay marriage becomes legal in California, because the state will become a better place to live overall, for everybody. Even though I, personally, am not gay and am not currently into marriage (so both the gay part and the marriage part is irrelevant to me as an individual person), it is just nice to know that more people are accepted, receive equal rights, and all the rest of that.

Similarly, the acceptance of extreme thinness is a step forward from the older standard that only accepted figures that are more or less like mine (until a few years ago) - no thinner, no fatter.

Now - very thin,- thin, -regular shape are all OK. So this progress that has so far led to the acceptance of extreme thinness eventually will lead to the acceptance of bigger bodies as well.

So it is a good thing, not a bad thing, in the grand scheme of things. Just wait a bit more. Hopefully in our lifetime.

LMAO! How about a thread about politics and then one on money?! Out of the frying pan into the fire my friend

Aye! ... Where is this thread being held?

I'll be sure to let you know once I post it. Or actually...just follow the masses. You'll know you're in the right place once you see the pitchforks and torches.

I don't know I kind of get the impression a lot of that is still acceptable unfortunatly. I mean there is still a lot of stigma towards LGBT, and people with mental issues I mean if you make fun of someone with a physical handicap or look down on them then people will think you're a jerk...if you accuse a mentally ill person of not trying hard enough to just go get a job that's not as unacceptable from societies standpoint. Also from the politicians themselves you here how the mentally ill and poor who aren't employed are just burdens and that the social safety network is a waste of funds.

But yeah it seems society has kind of an obsession with weight and some people attacking others for their weight aren't so physically fit themselves so who are they to even judge someone else's health issues. Sadly there is still a lot of stigma to go around in society.

Many, many people "FIght this battle every day" As I have shared, I was obese most of my life. That is also why I go to the gym 5-6 days a week and really watch what I eat. And I screw up and then I try again. It is a fight I will have to fight everyday for the rest of my life (or not)and I found out something that I didnt know before-May people who are of normal weight don't just say "its their metabolism" It's because they work hard at it too. I use to look at thin people and hate them cause it seemed they didn't have sacrifice to have sweets or whatever-what I didn't see ( all is not what it seems) was they were doing the work to keep themselves in shape (duh me) So -in some ways maybe the majority of people struggle, obese, overweight, anorexic or "normal weighted people" So maybe we should just give wide berths to everyone, learn what we can/do what we can, and move on when we can. And no I don't need to post in a nursing/medical site. I belong in this site.(As well as medical-and if it came up, I would post the same) THe medical community is well aware of these issues, and interestingly enough, alot of them, depsite the knowledge are grossly overweight-their people first with all their complexities, issues ect-
What can we learn/what can we do/ how can we help/lets pick up and try

I didn't start this thread to be lectured about my weight. I didn't start it as a venue for anti-obesity critics to tell other members how they should live their lives and why.

I should have titled it something else but I can't edit the title now.

I started it for those of us who are overweight as a thread where we could discuss amongst ourselves the issue of how people abuse us in the public domain.

The trouble is, if you start ANY thread in the PUBLIC domain, you get responses from ANYBODY. If you want to control membership, then maybe a private chatroom is the answer.

Yes, I suppose there will always be people who will hammer the nail whether it needs it or not.

You're right. I can't control anything.

i was 100 pounds overweight for close to ten years. even though i had both remarkable academic and athletic acheivments, and had survived hellish jobs in the landscaping business and the resteraunt business, the only praise i ever received from my family was about losing that extra weight. then i realized how evil our usa mainstream culture is toward overweight citizens. this seems diabolical and reminiscant of nazi ism. self comforting with food should not be a crime, with those who become emotionally dependant on this self soothing technique, being shunned and ridiculed. this bullying is sick. i avoid those who make those jokes. my wife was overweight, and her fear of socializing killed her too soon. she was too embarrased to be in public to exercise and feel healthy, because of this stima. i can never forget her anguish and lonelyness caused by her fear of ridicule. thanks...