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 reason to be thin and to look down on the obese.
‘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…).
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.
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.
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 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.’
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.
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.
That’s not accurate either. If you’re very muscular, for example, you can have a very high BMI without being fat.
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.”
So there is a direct correlation. It’s just not a 100% correlation. There’s a difference.
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Depends… Are airline/theater/stadium seats still the same size as they are now? Or are they larger in this alternate reality?
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
Thanks for the insight. Hadn’t thought about that, for men.
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?