I don’t know about Doug, but I don’t have anything to say about your post. Chill out.
When I graduated from college in 2005, I couldn’t find a single damn job. Since I had to pay my student loans, I got a part time job at Lane Bryant. Oh.my.God. I couldn’t freaking stand that whole “real woman” bullshit. They have promos where if you spend $50 now, you get a coupon for 25 “Real Woman Dollars” (that can be used a few weeks from that day). One of their slogans is (or was) “What real women wear”.
No, it’s what fat women wear. Yes, fat women are real women, but so are the women who can shop at Wet Seal or Express or 5-7-9.
I agree that making it a medical issue instead of a personal failing is a good idea, but it’s very difficult to balance between the two. There are many many overweight women who pride themselves on being “real women”; I talked to them every shift at LB. They had no plan on getting smaller any time soon, because “I don’t want to be no stick figure! I wanna be a REAL WOMAN!”
Sorry I didn’t respond to this sooner, I don’t know how I missed it. First off, I sure as Hell wasn’t equating skinny with healthy, that’s why I said “ideal weight for height.” I thought the health aspect would be obvious.
Second, it bugs me when people try to blame fashion models. Nobody wants to look like those sallow grass blades. They are not the standard of beauty. They are walking coat hangers to drape clothes on. The true standard of beauty in the real world is people that look like, say, Salma Hayek. That is what beauty looks like. She is not built like a fashion model, and thankfully never will be. People who hold up “the fashion industry” as skewing women’s perception of beauty are looking for a scapegoat. Don’t talk about the damn fashion industry because no one wants to look like that, anyway.
Unfortunately, the self-estimation programs that are popular of late in schools and with parents are more properly self-satisfaction programs.
“Feel good about yourself, and the way you are! You are so special!” Gag.
Good self-esteem: “I think I can do this, if I try.”
Bad self-esteem: “I am great the way I am.”
Fuck that. Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative – fecking improve yourself.
Of course, the Beauty Standard is a different animal altogether. No one should feel shit because they fall short of an unattainable ideal.
FWIW, Kirstie Alley was paid over a million dollars to talk about how fat she was. Don’t give her too much credit. She can cover her body with as many feather boas as she want’s but she’s stilll no toothpick.
I don’t get your rant though. What school is doing this? Who ever said that average weight = healthy weight? Don’t they use the BMI to determine if your overweight? And aren’t any guys in Alabama overweight or developing a front butt, or just women?
Oh dear.
Fair enough, but I can still like her. The way I take it is that she got fat, but was centered enough to realize that she needed to do something about it; and clever enough to parlay her, um, gravitational shortcoming into some serious cash.
That would be ForumBot’s University. It’s in the OP.
Wow. I know it’s the Pit, but why so nasty?
But no, I suspect you don’t understand self esteem nearly as well as you think you do. I should have phrased “positive self assessment” better, because the way you took it is pretty much opposite of how I meant it. I meant “Honest self assessment but without negative judgement.” It’s really, truly possible to have a loving and nurturing relationship with yourself and still realize that you have to get to a healthier weight. It’s people that beat themselves up emotionally that have the lowest success in weight loss. They tend to give up.
Don’t fall into the trap that self esteem means lying to yourself and ignoring the bloody obvious. As I said, too many people fal into that trap.
And that Baumeister study is bullshit. Most psychologists recognize that. I read the full white paper a couple of years ago, and I was astonished at how sloppy the study was. I’m amazed it ever passed peer review.
I take it that men don’t have obesity problems? I see more overweight men than women.
:smack: Fiery. It took me all day to figure out how to spell that.
you talk as though you believe a size 14 is horrendously obese. Since when? Many women will be overweight at a size 14, yes, but not obese. Not grossly, comprimising their health, serious problems are coming overweight. As a matter of fact, when I am a size 14 I am only 10 pounds higher than my weight chart ideal. (not that I’m there now. I’m currently fat.)
I would think those posters were not to make seriously overweight women think they didn’t have a problem, but to help girls who are feeling too much pressure to lose weight they shouldn’t. Too many girls feel like unless they are a size 2 they are fat. Well guess what, not everyone is built to be a size 2. those posters sound like a good way to start the conversation.
Here at the hospital we see far more men than women. More than 4:1. Of course, that could just mean that more women want to do something about their weight.
If you paid anyone a million dollars they’re going to lose weight. I’ve read that fewer than 7 out of 100 people that were on Jenny Craig that weighed the same weight as she did lost as much. I’d be willing to bet she had surgery or lypo.
If you insist on a cite, I’ll hunt it down. But I read that her contract with Jenny Craig had a “no plastic surgery” clause.
Think about it; if she had surgery and the news got out, at the least, it would be a huge embarrassment for the company, and at most it might have legal ramifications as fraud.
I don’t insist on a cite, I believe that. I still think the million dollars would motivate anyone.
I’m still trying to figure out why **ForumBot ** is pitting women and giving men a pass.
If Jenny Craig gave me a million dollars I could lose some serious weight too.
I’d have money and time for a personal trainer to whoop my ass everyday. No stress from work or school. All those super fit/skinny celebs have those expensive trainers and probably chefs to make them healthy meals.
I’ve got a BMI within the acceptable limits and my only real worry is not looking like shit in my bikini from beer weight. But give me a million bucks and I’ll lose all the weight I can without blowing away in the wind.
I’m not. You seem to be missing my point. It’s the damn self esteem programs that I hate. As Larry Mudd described them, the current M.O. for these things seem to be “Feel good about yourself, and the way you are! You are so special!”. There is no self accountability.
Look, I am all for people having enough self confidence to change oneself. I completely understand how self confidence is necessary. But too many of these programs don’t do that. This is the part you need to understand: People need negative self judgment. You can’t whitewash it away. Remorse, guilt, pain, and humility are all emotions that evolved to teach us stupid apes not to make the same mistakes twice. The self esteem movement in education seems to want to wipe those emotions out.
Self esteem cannot and should not be taught. It has to be earned after experiencing the aforementioned emotions. To try to teach it instills weakness and too often the students end up just giving up when they finally encounter harder problems.
Educationally, it’s a horrible idea. Johnny feels bad because he got an “F”. That’s good. Maybe he won’t get another one. He should not be told that it’s normal to fail - because then he will.
Lastly, this: You asked why I was “so nasty”. It’s because I bristle when the opposing side in a debate uses the passive voice. It shows lack of character, and “It seems that you don’t quite understand the true nature of…” is exactly the type of weaselly, nobody’s accountable for anything, phrasing that the self esteem movement teaches. What ever happened to “no, you are wrong”?
On preview: Caridwen, Forumbot isn’t “pitting women and giving men a pass”. Where the fuck did that come from, anyway? Forumbot is rather mildly pitting one very specific billboard and the University sanctioned “health squad” that commissioned said billboard for “self esteem week”.
According to Dane Cook, if a woman asks you “Do I look fat?,” the proper period of time to wait before saying no is 2.4 seconds.
Of course, if you have a front butt, who are you really fooling?
OK, I see your point. I don’t entirely agree, but I understand where you are coming from.
Yes, but instilling Johnny with the feeling that he’s a failure is bad too. Consider these (none too nuanced) responses:
A: “Johnny, you got an F. Why are you such a failure?”
B: “Johnny, you know I love you, but this F disappoints me. I know you’re capable of doing better. Next time let’s go for an A.”
C. “Hey Johnny, you got an A! Way to go, champ!”
I’m sure that you’ll agree that response A is harmful. Johnny is going to eventually believe that he’s nothing more than a fuckup, and won’t even try. And his self-image is tied to his grade. C is just a lie, and either keeps Johnny in a fantasy world, or he’ll just stop believing his idiot parents. B makes him accountable. He realizes that he is loved and is a good person, but he needs to make some changes.
I’m defending B. I think you’re bothered by C. I agree.
And my words were not weaselly. You were very very wrong about that.
However, negative self-judgements like remorse, guilt and pain don’t really belong in a healthy-eating-and-exercise program, IMHO.
Yes, it’s important to be aware when we do bad things to other people and to recognize the need for remorse and guilt about it, so that we don’t make those mistakes again. However, feeling remorseful and guilty about having put on some extra pounds doesn’t really accomplish anything worthwhile, AFAICT.
Most people seem to have an easier time getting in shape when they’re already feeling positive about themselves. Feeling “I want to lose weight so I’ll look better” is more motivating and encouraging than feeling “I want to lose weight so I’ll stop being such an ugly schlub”.
Yes, the self-esteem movement should not try to tell us that we never need to feel bad about anything, no matter what we do. But telling us that we don’t need to feel bad about wearing a size 14 is not psychologically harmful, AFAICT. Nor, AFAICT, does it actually discourage people from trying to get in shape and lose weight.
I agree, and I think “self esteem” is a misleading expression. What size-14 women need to be encouraged in is not “self esteem” but rather “rejection of self-hatred and self-loathing”.
The point is not that you should believe that you’re just totally perfect as you are and lose interest in striving for improvement. Rather, the point is that you should overcome the temptation to believe that you’re ugly and worthless just because you’re less than perfect.