# Lagerfeld: take care of the zillions of fat before denouncing skinny people **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 4, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805 "2009-01-04T10:03:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EpiGirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8c91f0/32.png) [@EpiGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpiGirl)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/21 "2009-01-05T04:41:56Z")
So we should not care about anorexia because there are more people who are obese than anorexic? Interesting line of reasoning. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Themenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Themenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Themenin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/22 "2009-01-05T07:15:15Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > There are far more fat people than skinny people so leave us skinny people alone. What, is there some sort of ‘caring’ deficit? Is it a zero sum sort of thing? > > Looks like a major case of misdirection to me. Why am I all of a sudden remembering fashion designers pledging not to hire models with BMIs under the healthy limit? Yeah, Lager should not do that since there are so many more fat people. Well, it doesn’t need to be zero-sum for KL to make sense (however improbable that may sound). The fashion industry is berated for encouraging folks to want to be thinner. This may contribute to anorexia for a **small** number of people. KL is saying that a very **large** number of people _need_ encouraging to be thinner. Go fashion industry. Personally I think that the fashion industry should be taken to task for encouraging people to be superficial and venal, but I’ll have to give them a pass on the skinny thing. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/23 "2009-01-05T08:47:02Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#): > > This leaves the figures open to some interpretation, and I’m no mathematician or statistician, but I must disagree with yours. Couldn’t there be a discrepancy between a 6% fatality rate of anorexia [eventually, due to all related causes] and a 6% fatality rate per annum? Ah, yep. Fair point. See, this is what happens when you leave me alone with maths 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/24 "2009-01-05T09:20:11Z")
But wouldn’t there be leftover older anorexics dying to get the total deaths _per annum_ back to whatever level? \_ Actually, on reflection, I do think it’s silly to say we can’t worry about both. But Lagerfeld struck a chord with me–the sense that somehow diabetic obesity is “normal” whereas not only anorexics but the skinny are scorned. But that’s probably an illusion & a straw man. We should worry about both. Where the fashion industry goes nuts is that they don’t just use thin models, they use models with uncommonly elongated bone structure, because they want human coat hangers. Most of us could never look thin enough for Marc Bouwer, no matter how long we starved. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/25 "2009-01-05T13:47:37Z")
Fashion designer makes inane comments. Film at 11. I’d really like to know wherefrom he pulled that 30% though. Or maybe not, come to think about it… ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/26 "2009-01-05T14:37:26Z")
FWIW: [http://hewittlab.psych.ubc.ca/pdfs/2001hcs.pdf](http://hewittlab.psych.ubc.ca/pdfs/2001hcs.pdf) > [@](#): > > Data from over 10 million death records (all National Center for Health Statistic registered deaths in the USA for 1986± 90) were examined for mention of anorexia nervosa as a primary or contributing cause of death. Only 724 were found, which equals an average of 145 annual deaths, and a rate of 6.73 per 100,000 deaths. ---
**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 5, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/27 "2009-01-05T16:34:40Z")
A distinction really needs to be drawn between anorexia nervosa and disordered eating. Or, at least, the spectrum of disordered eating has to be acknowledged. is every girl who reads fashion magazines going to end up thinking she’s fat after starving herself down to 80 lbs? No. Wanting to shrink away to nothing is just as likely to be genetic or as a reaction to unwanted sexual attention or abuse. Will teenagers and women feel fat and worthless at 5 ft 5 and 120 lbs? There’s a decent chance, if they can’t avoid tabloids of even ‘health’ magazines (Shape, I’m looking at you). Will they spend more time dieting and working out than concentrating on actual life skills and pleasurable hobbies, get a bit obsessive about food ? Probably. They may not be near death, but it’s certainly cutting into living life to its fullest. And as **even sven** ointed out, anorexia is probably one of the only diseases or disorders that draws compliments in sufferers (at least initially). Dieting and hating your body has become the norm for girls and women. Watch a show aimed at women and every second commercial is for Weight Watchers or a low-calorie yogurt. Good god, there was even a hair dye commercial about food-related colors (e.g. mocha brown, burnt sugar) that assured viewers they could indulge without ‘feeling guilty.’ Because it’s assumed that they would otherwise. I wouldn’t say the fashion industry is solely to blame, but they are certainly the best friends of the multi-million (billion?) dollar diet industry, especially as high fashion has become ‘attainable’ (think teens with nylon, ‘cheap’ Prada purses) and supermodels are household names. Even on these boards I cringe when someone describes a woman as ‘model hot.’ Hollywood also has plenty of explaining to do as female stars’ roles increase as their BMIs decrease (think Jennifer Aniston or Reese Witherspoon), encouraging stars to attribute it all to their naturally high metabolisms rather than hours of exercise, a trainer, dietician and/or cocaine and an ED (often before revealing their EDs a few years later, a la Portia DeRossi and Calista Flockhart). If girls and women are told 0 is the ideal and anything above it is obese – that Gisele Bundchen is ‘curvy,’ with absolutely no middle ground, – even if they are initially overweight, it doesn’t exactly encourage slow, healthy weight loss plans. It’s all or nothing. Be ugly or invisible, or go on an insane crash diet that will likely fail unless you have the ‘will power’ for an ED. Oh, and someone needs to go back in time and punch Fat Karl Lagerfeld in the gut. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/28 "2009-01-05T16:47:06Z")
And yet, despite all the inspiration in that rant, it’s still obesity that’s the much more prevalent condition. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/29 "2009-01-05T17:19:54Z")
> [@George\_Kaplin](#): > > I think the fashion industry should definitely shoulder some of the blame. What does this mean? What action do you think should be taken or not taken based on this pronouncement? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/30 "2009-01-05T17:26:04Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Actually, on reflection, I do think it’s silly to say we can’t worry about both. But Lagerfeld struck a chord with me–the sense that somehow diabetic obesity is “normal” whereas not only anorexics but the skinny are scorned. But that’s probably an illusion & a straw man. We should worry about both. Huh? Which country-- or Universe even-- is it O.K. to be fat and skinny people are scorned? There is a false equivalency that both you and Karl are indulging in. It isn’t O.K. to be morbidly obese just as it shouldn’t be O.K. to have a BMI of 5 and just because some have pointed out that many models are too skinny for their own good does NOT mean some are not pointing out that fat people are fat. > [@Malacandra](#): > > And yet, despite all the inspiration in that rant, it’s still obesity that’s the much more prevalent condition. Yes, I’d say there are many more obese people than people with an unhealthy BMI. So? What does one have to do with the other? Karl seems to be saying we should all overlook models dropping down dead in the middle of fashion shows because there are so many more fat people. But Karl doesn’t deal with the fat people of the world. His world is filled with women who have eating disorders and drug problems because they need to stay at an unhealthy weight in order to find work. Why would anybody say anything to Karl about fat people? ---
**Author:** ![EpiGirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8c91f0/32.png) [@EpiGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpiGirl)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/31 "2009-01-05T17:31:52Z")
> [@Themenin](#): > > The fashion industry is berated for encouraging folks to want to be thinner. This may contribute to anorexia for a **small** number of people. KL is saying that a very **large** number of people _need_ encouraging to be thinner. Go fashion industry. It is not merely encouraging people to be thinner but encouraging them to aspire to physiques that they will never be able to have. Most girls and women, even with healthy diet and exercise, will never be the size and shape of a model. IMO, the fashion industry and moreso the media (Hollywood, commercials, etc.), aren’t encouraging a healthy weight but thinness at any cost, which translates into crash dieting and unhealthy behaviors that, while they may result in weight loss in the short term, can’t be sustained. There seems to be no healthy median. Is there something wrong with telling women they can be a size 8 and healthy? The only alternative presented (by the media) to being obese is being rail thin and for most women that is unattainable. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/32 "2009-01-05T17:38:55Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > What does this mean? What action do you think should be taken or not taken based on this pronouncement? In one 12 month period from the end of 07 through 08, 3 models died of anorexia-- one while actually strutting across the catwalk-- and many designers pledged to not use models under a certain BMI. Karl doesn’t like this scrutiny on his business. Look at all the fat people, why should anyone bother themselves about models dropping dead on stage? ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/33 "2009-01-05T17:49:41Z")
> [@Rand Rover](#): > > What does this mean? What action do you think should be taken or not taken based on this pronouncement? They should just use more realistic images in their adverts. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/34 "2009-01-05T18:09:19Z")
> [@George\_Kaplin](#): > > They should just use more realistic images in their adverts. Or what? They have to pay a fine? Should this requirement apply to all adverts or just to fashion ads? who determines whether ads are realistic or not? Do food companies have to depict realistic representations of their food? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/35 "2009-01-05T18:18:43Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Or what? They have to pay a fine? > > Should this requirement apply to all adverts or just to fashion ads? who determines whether ads are realistic or not? Do food companies have to depict realistic representations of their food? Saying that someone should do something isn’t the same as advocating legal requirements or fines or standards boards. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/36 "2009-01-05T18:29:02Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Saying that someone should do something isn’t the same as advocating legal requirements or fines or standards boards. :rolleyes: You’re right. It could also just be empty rhetoric, an announcement that “I will be mad at X if they don’t do Y because X should do Y,” which amounts to absolutely nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/37 "2009-01-05T18:30:22Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > You’re right. It could also just be empty rhetoric, an announcement that “I will be mad at X if they don’t do Y because X should do Y,” which amounts to absolutely nothing. Or it could be a suggestion, such as “ **Rand Rover** should stop posting Objectivist bullshit on message boards, because it serves no purpose other than making him look like a major asshole.” Hint, hint. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/38 "2009-01-05T18:40:22Z")
Well, there’s no law that racist caricatures not be used in movies or advertising. But they typically aren’t, or when someone does use them (those Asian stereotypes for Abercrombie and Fitch shirts), there’s typically an outcry. Not saying that that should happen for too skinny models, but it’s a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/39 "2009-01-05T18:40:44Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > Or it could be a suggestion, such as “ **Rand Rover** should stop posting Objectivist bullshit on message boards, because it serves no purpose other than making him look like a major asshole.” Hint, hint. As I said in another recent thread, being called an asshole by the likes of you is high praise. So thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805/40 "2009-01-05T18:43:24Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, there’s no law that racist caricatures not be used in movies or advertising. But they typically aren’t, or when someone does use them (those Asian stereotypes for Abercrombie and Fitch shirts), there’s typically an outcry. > > Not saying that that should happen for too skinny models, but it’s a possibility. Ok, this makes sense to me–it’s a call to arms of sorts. Thanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lagerfeld-take-care-of-the-zillions-of-fat-before-denouncing-skinny-people/479805.md?page=3)