# If there were absolutely zero health risks to being overweight, would we still value being thin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706 "2010-01-20T15:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/61 "2010-01-21T20:39:21Z")
There’s also a class issue at play here. Lower-class people are more likely to be overweight, and so social strivers have a high incentive to lose weight. Even if there’s no health disadvantage, there may well be a [signalling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory) reason to be thin and to look down on the obese. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/62 "2010-01-21T20:53:03Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Speaking as a very thin male, I can assure you that _women_ do not generally value thin _men_. > > This society’s ideal for _men_ is stocky and muscular. I don’t see any men with _my_ build on magazine covers, it’s all square-headed bodybuilder types, not long-headed gracile types like me. We’re comic relief, or evil criminals - we’re never the leading man. > > So _half_ of society _doesn’t_ “value being thin”. ‘Thin’ doesn’t mean ‘skinny’ to most people. It just mean ‘not fat’. So I would say that all of society values being thin as in not being overfat (putting aside the fact that stocky bodybuilders and athletes are often obese by BMI). You’re absolutely right that skinny men are far, far from the current male beauty ideal. As a woman I have the super-thin body type that’s so in vogue currently in modeling and among actresses, but plenty of people do not find my body ideal or attractive at all (and some of them like to tell me so..). ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/63 "2010-01-21T21:00:07Z")
An even more extreme example of something not being associated with good health but being considered attractive anyway: Chinese foot binding. That left women barely able to walk, and sometimes resulted in infection or even death. If that could be considered beautiful, I can’t see any reason why being thin couldn’t even if it had no health benefits. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/64 "2010-01-22T00:35:13Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, the thing that I object to in the FA movement online, at least, is that it’s so…defensive. Like on the blog Shapely Prose there is a comment policy where they talk about the moderators being bitchy towards out of line posters because that’s just how they are…and there are threads/posts where they’ll just out and out say, “Comments that say x won’t be approved because we don’t want to deal with them.” (There was one talking about racism in some photo shoot and anyone who said that “Well, the racism is just one interpretation” wouldn’t be allowed to speak.) A little head in the sand for my taste. > > Plus there seems to be a general antipathy to weight loss–I don’t get this. I mean, I get loving your body but why does that mean that wanting to lose weight=bad? Some people genuinely do need to. I read one Shapely Prose advice column about a woman who said she wanted to do Healthy at Every Size but she still felt that since she’d recently gained about twenty pounds after letting herself go and not dieting as stringently that she wanted to lose weight and what did the columnist think of that…and pretty much everyone came up with the idea that maybe this is just her natural weight and why did she have to lose? > > I hate to sound bitchy, but I just got such a misery loves company vibe from the whole thing–of course they don’t want anyone to lose weight if they’re trying to feel better about being fat. As far as losing weight, I’m guessing it varies on why a person loses weight. Most people who try to lose weight on some level feel they ‘have’ to in order to be sexually attractive or avoid ridicule. And the resistance could be based on that. Plus it could be based on an awareness that it is more of a cycle. For many people who want to lose weight they do not go from thinking ‘I am fat and discontent’ to thinking ‘I am thin and content’. It is basically just chronic fears of being fat no matter what the size. I have heard women who were stick thin, thin, chubby, fat and obese all talk about how fat they were. If the obese woman loses weight and becomes chubby, she will still likely have a neurotic self hatred. So I think part of the antipathy to weight loss comes from that, the realization that weight loss isn’t the solution (addressing the neurotic loathing of bodyfat is the solution). But it is the individuals choice how they live their own life. For me, a big motivator of the FA movement is awareness of the damage that an obsession over bodyfat does to us collectively. The psychological damage (especially to women) of teaching them to feel like bodyfat is a disgusting invader (rather than part of their biology) is pretty severe and leads to emotional problems. Not only that, but fear of getting fat is a major reason people take up smoking and refuse to quit. So my point is that, a person can be opposed to the obesity wars w/o it being done because they are fat and miserable and want everyone else to be too. That does honestly play a role, but part of it is just being upset at seeing how ingrained and destructive these attitudes are. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/65 "2010-01-22T01:15:50Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Speaking as a very thin male, I can assure you that _women_ do not generally value thin _men_. > > This society’s ideal for _men_ is stocky and muscular. I don’t see any men with _my_ build on magazine covers, it’s all square-headed bodybuilder types, not long-headed gracile types like me. We’re comic relief, or evil criminals - we’re never the leading man. > > So _half_ of society _doesn’t_ “value being thin”. You need to start a band and/or hang out with more hipsters. As for a society that might go to pains to be anything but thin ([link](http://jezebel.com/5453743/eating-for-beauty-not-as-fun-as-it-sounds/gallery/) to a piece on force feeding girls in Mauritania). In a culture where famine is common, being fat signifies wealth and health and how much space a woman ‘takes up in her husband’s heart.’ ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/66 "2010-01-22T02:19:33Z")
It’s not like skinny guys get no love. But they are definitely not the male beauty ‘ideal’, and are extremely underrepresented in the media. Most fat people I know are partnered or dating FWIW. That doesn’t mean they don’t face a lot of discrimination for their weight. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/67 "2010-01-22T08:43:52Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > You need to start a band and/or hang out with more hipsters. Works in your 20s and early 30s, but I’m 44. Being skinny in middle age, in this overweight society, means that people assume you’re a drug addict or have some kind of serious illness. Not _all_ people, but I’ve had quite a few people tell me that when they first met me, one or the other was their assumption. Anyhoo, my point here was that unless you’re in the middle of the normal range, you’re going to have a hard time, and the more you differ from the median the harder it will be. I get quite offended when people talk about how “thin is society’s ideal” - no, **medium** is society’s ideal. “Thin” does not mean “not fat”, it means “thin”. Right in the middle, between the fatties and the skinnies, that’s **normal**. Before the obesity epidemic, _most_ people had medium builds. So please, folks, stop using the word “thin” as if it meant “not fat”. As a scrawny kid I got teased endlessly about it, and as an adult people make negative assumptions about me because of it, so hearing people talk about how “being thin is society’s ideal” really pisses me off. The fact that some catwalk models have a similar build to me doesn’t prove anything: First of all, it’s never the _male_ models, and secondly if you look at the models in magazines that are marketed to men, the women are all T&A, not catwalk-model slim. Society, on the whole, does not value the thin. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/68 "2010-01-22T17:05:55Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > I am a little confused. You **can** have a high BMI and still be healthy, just as you can have a low BMI and be unhealthy. A high BMI is _linked to_ and _associated with_ certain health issues, but there is NOT a direct correlation with a high BMI and poor health; there just isn’t. And yet, it’s still brought up all the time. I mean, that is the whole point the FA people are making,; you can be fat and still be healthy… That’s not accurate either. If you’re very muscular, for example, you can have a very high BMI without being fat. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/69 "2010-01-22T17:08:12Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > And if you CAN be fat and healthy, then it absolutely means “being fat doesn’t negatively affect their health.” What else would it mean? It would mean that there’s not a 100% correlation between being fat and being unhealthy. This strikes me as a much more precise formulation than saying “being fat doesn’t negatively affect their health.” ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/70 "2010-01-22T17:40:22Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > I said it isn’t a **direct** correlation. Being fat does not absolutely mean you WILL have these health problems. It means you have a higher risk for having them. So there is a direct correlation. It’s just not a 100% correlation. There’s a difference. See: [Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions](http://www.answers.com/topic/direct-correlation) ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/71 "2010-01-22T17:52:45Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > In the fat acceptance thread, there’s talk of weight and health and the impact on society, among other things. And in the “fatosphere” (blogs devoted to fat acceptance, or the idea of loving people’s bodies as they are without pressuring them to lose weight), people tout the idea that fat doesn’t mean unhealthy, that you can have health at any size (HAES). > > A lot of people on these blogs talk about how “I’m worried about your health” is a red herring, that people don’t really care about fat people’s health, but rather how they look. But they say that introducing health transforms an aesthetic issue into more of a moral one. > > I’m not sure how true that is or isn’t. But leaving that aside, what if it were true–that you could weigh, say, 200 or 300 lbs or whatever, and you’d have no risks to health, would we still want to be skinny? It would still look good to be thin and would make getting around easily. > > Speaking personally I know I’d still want to be thin because…well, I’m shallow and all that. But could we really look down on someone for not being thin if there were no risk? I suppose you could argue that it’s still sort of gluttonous to eat a lot, but a lot of thin people eat tons and we don’t judge them…do we? > > Thoughts? Depends… Are airline/theater/stadium seats still the same size as they are now? Or are they larger in this alternate reality? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/72 "2010-01-23T02:40:06Z")
I think we need to define terms. Just what do people mean by “fat”, “overweight”, and “obese”. I ask because I don’t know anyone who I would term “obese” even though I personally am bordering on obese by BMI. I know plenty of people who could stand to lose a few pounds, but I can’t say I know anyone at all who is fat enough to attract comment or criticism, is it common to know very fat people in the US? The problem with “fat acceptance” is that it gives some people, who really _should_ try and do something about their weight, an excuse not to. ---
**Author:** ![Suse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Suse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suse)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/73 "2010-01-23T17:36:44Z")
[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:72, topic:525706”] The problem with “fat acceptance” is that it gives some people, who really _should_ try and do something about their weight, an excuse not to. [/QUOTE] If no one’s asking for reasons or looking down upon a person because of their weight, no excuses are needed. But to answer the OP, if the health correlations didn’t exist it wouldn’t matter. Fat people would still be viewed negatively. It just wouldn’t allow anyone to justify their anti-fat person attitudes with fake solicitude for the person’s health. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Gnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_gnomer/32/3466_2.png) [@Miss\_Gnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Gnomer)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2010, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/74 "2010-01-24T22:58:58Z")
I just HAVE to bring it up … think of the food!! oh my!!! I think it is nearly impossible to predict how you would react in a very different culture … because without all the health scares of being overweight, so many more people would be overweight (I’m guessing here … but take away the health beliefs, more people are going to eat that extra large serve of fries) … if the bell curve moves so that the norm becomes heavier, then our whole perspective is going to change (it already has!). I’m still thinking of the food you’d eat though!! ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/75 "2010-01-25T06:04:20Z")
To answer the OP - humans are always going to find ways to ostracize people who are different, so yes, even if there were no health risks to being overweight, there would still be enormous pressure to be thin. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/76 "2010-01-25T11:35:12Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > I said it isn’t a **direct** correlation. Being fat does not absolutely mean you WILL have these health problems. It means you have a higher risk for having them. There are lots of other risk factors associated with heart problems and diabetes, and none of them are demonized like being fat is. > > And if you CAN be fat and healthy, then it absolutely means “being fat doesn’t negatively affect their health.” What else would it mean? But there isn’t a 100% correlation between smoking and lung cancer. But there is a much higher risk if it. “it’s not a 100% correlation” isn’t really an argument. There isn’t even a 100% correlation between falling out of an airplane without a parachute and death, but I have no doubt that anyone’s planning on trying it any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/77 "2010-01-25T23:57:56Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Works in your 20s and early 30s, but I’m 44. > > Being skinny in middle age, in this overweight society, means that people assume you’re a drug addict or have some kind of serious illness. Not _all_ people, but I’ve had quite a few people tell me that when they first met me, one or the other was their assumption. Thanks for the insight. Hadn’t thought about that, for men. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706/78 "2010-01-26T01:18:05Z")
I would still not want to be fat even if it wasn’t bad for my health. It is too restrictive being overweight. I don’t really diet and am normal weight but have had high cholesterol since my 30’s. It runs in my family. I remember as a kid when Eul Gibbons that did the Grapenuts commercial died of a heart attack. I seriously started to doubt health guru’s after that. They have changed opinions on a healthy food pyramid so many times. Also on good fats, vitamins, you name it. The last study I read said that children born of a mother and father that were both very thin lived the longest. A Swiss study dating back from when the crops were poor showed this over 4 generations. So parents being thin and starving helps your children’s DNA. At least until the next study comes out? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-were-absolutely-zero-health-risks-to-being-overweight-would-we-still-value-being-thin/525706.md?page=3)