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@rtc:
Good post. I appreciate you approaching your side of the discussion with a little more critical thought than some others have exhibited.
I will say the insurance argument, while perhaps true, is further proof of the anti-fat bias. We hear a lot about how obese people drive up insurance costs for everyone, but they are not the only cause of the problem. The insurance industry itself drives up costs. Frivolous lawsuits drive up costs. Other unhealthy choices (smoking/drinking/high risk lifestyles) drive up the cost. And yet we usually just hear about overweight people as the reason for rising costs.
Healthcare is a discussion for a different day, but I think the example sufficiently highlights the persistence of the biases against overweight people.
I don't doubt there are many other reasons that healthcare is expensive overall, but in general, the obese spend more but cannot be legally charged more. Additionally, many insurers will pay towards weight loss surgeries and treatments and fertility treatments (obese women have higher rates of infertility). A smoker can be charged more for their insurance, even through a company plan (where I work, smokers have to pay an extra $400 a year). I would say they actually receive a favorable bias in healthcare.
“Obese men rack up an additional $1,152 a year in medical spending, especially for hospitalizations and prescription drugs, Cawley and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University reported in January in the Journal of HealthEconomics. Obese women account for an extra $3,613 a year. Using data from 9,852 men (average BMI: 28) and 13,837 women (average BMI: 27) ages 20 to 64, among whom 28 percent were obese, the researchers found even higher costs among the uninsured: annual medical spending for an obese person was $3,271 compared with $512 for the non-obese.”
I am physically unable to fit into a size 0-2. When I was clinically underweight and ill I never went below a size 9, my body is simply unable to do so because of the size of my hips.
I lift weights and exercise 3-5 days a week while maintaining a fairly strict diet and I'll never look like a fitness model. It gets irritating when people tell me I just have to 'exercise more and make it a priority!' when I already do. Not everyone will have the same results.
Nor should you have to look like a fitness model. This thread evolved into discussing healthy representations of women for young girls to look up to. Athletes are one representation, but you certainly don't have to train like an athlete or spend 12 hours a week in the gym to be healthy. That just adds another kind of pressure to this entire business--look at the implication that people who aren't gym rats are lazy and not trying hard enough. That's not what little girls need, either.
I do agree with this. There is a great deal of value that comes with not giving a f*** about what others think about you. In fact, reaching that point for me is what allowed me to begin pursuing the types of women I really wanted because I was not limiting myself to society's ideals anymore and as a result I was no longer "image conscious."
However I still consider the issue of cultural values a valid concern, however are we not better for restraining our biases? Are we not better for withholding judgment when we don't know the whole picture? Are we not better when we respect the dignity of everyone around us even if he or she does not conform to the ideal?
Very much agree.
I don't give a hoot what others have to say as far as I'm concerned when it comes to my body, I know myself and my circumstance and how I feel about me the good and the bad. I'm always a work in progress in my life and what I want, but I'm not interested in attaining someone else's standards of right or wrong. My gripe and purpose is helping other people men and women feel ok to feel good about their bodies as they work toward either achieving a change or staying as they are. Find comfort in loving oneself in the now not as one hopes to be and especially not seek your self esteem in the eyes of what others think you should be or achieve. I imagine, partly, I don't have the self esteem issue is I never had to deal much with the ridicule in my personal, including my dating life that others did as a fat person, plus, my bullying and torment happened when I was a young thin girl, so any of the other stuff can't touch that in comparison, stupid just rolls off.
As far as achieving, being and staying healthy, which is of major importance, at any size, that should be something each individual should take up with their doctors. Hopefully their doctors are ones that are knowledgeable, not all are in the matter, some just spout as much nonsense as the next uninformed lay person since not all take the time to really study the issue beyond the very basic. Some years ago, when I was at the weight I would like to get back to, my then GI doctor, very sternly look up at me and said, I hope you are not planning to lose anymore weight. Now mind you, I carry my weight very differently than some other people, at a size 8, I would look emaciated, I've been that size and and very much criticized, didn't look good on me at all. 12 looks best on me. 10 if I want to look kind of skinny, which I don't. I lose enough arse at a size 12.
My then GI doctor, also, wanted to know what my diet was as he wished to share some of the details with other patients, due to me having drastically turned all my bad numbers around simply with my much improved eating habits. But he was very serious about me staying at the weight I had gotten to at that point. I wanted to, at a minimum, drop another 20 lbs from my body. I did manage to drop another ten lbs during that period. Life has since been an up and down battle with the scale, but I'm not beating myself up about it, nor are my doctors, they no my numbers and they know I make honest efforts at every turn.
The problem is that we're not talking about adults but the kids that watch these Disney cartoons and are filled with the imagery of what a princess looks like. It's not enough to be thin. You have to have long hair, perfect skin, sculpted hips, a perfect chest etc etc. Kids aren't always well equipped to deal with it. And so far subjecting them to this imagery hasn't turned us into a utopian society. So I really don't see the harm and showing a princess that isn't perfectly balanced in every way. There are plenty of builds and body type s between where they are now and obese. I do not understand the need to jump to opposite extremes that some of you jump to to prove your "point."
The problem is that we're not talking about adults but the kids that watch these Disney cartoons and are filled with the imagery of what a princess looks like. It's not enough to be thin. You have to have long hair, perfect skin, sculpted hips, a perfect chest etc etc. Kids aren't always well equipped to deal with it. And so far subjecting them to this imagery hasn't turned us into a utopian society. So I really don't see the harm and showing a princess that isn't perfectly balanced in every way. There are plenty of builds and body type s between where they are now and obese. I do not understand the need to jump to opposite extremes that some of you jump to to prove your "point."
That's just it, who sets decides what extreme is, some people at a certain size aren't at all fat except by other peoples standards. It's the adults that set the standards for these kids, children look to adults for the most part for their self-esteem, if adults can't project a positive emotion about themselves to the kids what hope do these kids have. The young girl that is featured in the OP opening comments of this thread is on the heavier end of the spectrum, but, I haven't any idea if she is healthy or not, but I think she is adorable and think she makes for a lovely young princess going with that character for the sake of the thread. Now if we're talking the character from fun size, then I would be hesitant to agree with using that image. Either direction too far in either direction, sure, not good, but how is everyone to coming to their conclusion of what is an acceptable size and weight, we already know that dress size and BMI can be deceptive.
I agree with you on the individual level. But on the collective level is where I disagree. We share this society. I am one of these "it takes a whole village" kind of guys, but I do believe indifference toward a certain type of behavior is bad for everyone. When we cherry pick who gets treated decently and whose dignity is expendable we have problems. And of course, these problems manifest themselves not just toward overweight people, I am fully aware of that. The difference is it is still very much politically and socially acceptable to target overweight people as objects for scorn.
I don't let other's ideas bother me insomuch as I respect one's right to feel as he does about something. I just wish people would hold themselves to a higher standard of decency and respect for his fellow man.
You have a point actually and I wonder if creating more images in the media of overweight people will change the perception or the way in which people treat fatter people. I also think that it is a good idea to as I said showcase different body types and sizes, race, etc rather than just showing the types we tend to promote as the ideal: the thin or super fit white woman. It makes so many groups feel isolated and it ends up normalizing ideals that some of us will never meet.
After reading a lot of comments in this thread, my eyes have certainly opened. It is amazing to hear the stories of women of all sizes who feel misrepresented or who have struggled to get to a certain size or look., despite the fact that they were healthy and active. It just means that it's way to difficult to quantify what sizes are truly average without really considering all the components that come into weight, and pant size.
In terms of the girl that initially sparked this thread while I still feel that she doesn't represent a size I would want to be, or one that would be healthy for me, it was complete projection on my part to say that she needed to lose weight or that she wasnt healthy. It's funny too because I was just talking to the girls that I work with and two of them look soooo much smaller than what they weigh, and going by their weight they are bigger then their ideal size BUT they look slim and certainly not overweight. And one of the girls is the same height as me, and we wear the same size pants but we look VERY different so taking that into account I've definitely changed my perspective on this and I do think that it may not necessarily hurt to allow this young woman to start her own platform for bigger girls.
On the same hand I still feel like something needs to be done to help the youth counter the current obesity epidemic--people are bigger than ever and they keep getting bigger. There are health risks and issues related to being significantly overweight, so on a health level I do wonder if normalizing fatter people, that we also begin to ignore, or down play the problems that comes with having that fatter body. While we need to promote acceptance and create realistic relatable images in the media we also need to work with these girls-where it's visible that they are overweight-get to a healthier size and promote awareness that while you can love yourself even if you are plus sized, you also need to know how your weight can eventually impact the quality of life. Which is why I feel sad for that girl in a sense because she is very pretty but there are health implications that might impact her quality of life.
That's just it, who sets decides what extreme is, some people at a certain size aren't at all fat except by other peoples standards. It's the adults that set the standards for these kids, children look to adults for the most part for their self-esteem, if adults can't project a positive emotion about themselves to the kids what hope do these kids have. The young girl that is featured in the OP opening comments of this thread is on the heavier end of the spectrum, but, I haven't any idea if she is healthy or not, but I think she is adorable and think she makes for a lovely young princess going with that character for the sake of the thread. Now if we're talking the character from fun size, then I would be hesitant to agree with using that image. Either direction too far in either direction, sure, not good, but how is everyone to coming to their conclusion of what is an acceptable size and weight, we already know that dress size and BMI can be deceptive.
By extremes I meant that some commenter's here seem to believe that if we don't continue to maintain the perfect standard of Disney princesses we as a society will be giving our kids the green light to eat themselves into morbidly obese oblivion. That somehow this is the last bastion of defense we have for the few people that are not fat. I do not think all is lost if we give.our children a more relaxed and more realistic view of body types. Especially since the cartoons themselves are practically unobtainable.
By extremes I meant that some commenter's here seem to believe that if we don't continue to maintain the perfect standard of Disney princesses we as a society will be giving our kids the green light to eat themselves into morbidly obese oblivion. That somehow this is the last bastion of defense we have for the few people that are not fat. I do not think all is lost if we give.our children a more relaxed and more realistic view of body types. Especially since the cartoons themselves are practically unobtainable.
Well said. Some make it sound like the obesity apocalypse if Disney showed a princess who was chubby.
By extremes I meant that some commenter's here seem to believe that if we don't continue to maintain the perfect standard of Disney princesses we as a society will be giving our kids the green light to eat themselves into morbidly obese oblivion. That somehow this is the last bastion of defense we have for the few people that are not fat. I do not think all is lost if we give.our children a more relaxed and more realistic view of body types. Especially since the cartoons themselves are practically unobtainable.
I appreciate and understand what you are saying.. I just wonder how other than some people's appendages are to be the determining factor which so often has been the theme for so many when discussing the female form and what is or isn't appropriate.
I didn't feel like sifting through 16 pages, but wouldn't Princess Fiona be considered a plus-sized Princess, at least by society's standards, even though she's a great size?
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