Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, the Olsen twins, Christina Aguilera… yes, these are our most treasured citizens, the cream of the crop. Let their light travel all across the land, illuminating us poor peasants who cannot attain their physique or high social graces.
Excepting Paris and Nicole Ritchie (who were lucky enough to be the daughters of the wealthy) You’re trying to tell me that people don’t (and shouldn’t) dream of being as rich, successful, and famous as the Olson twins and Christina Aguilera? What’s wrong with thinking of the Olsen twins as good positive role models? They are more than cute babies, adorable children, or hot young women? These two in particular also represent more than role models to young women, but to parents as well. Which unfamous parents that led their children to fame can you say did a better job than the parents of the Olsen twins? I mean, these two girls have a billion dollar empire!
Uh… aren’t these the two “positive young women” that were caught boozing it up underage and also abusing illegal drugs? Though you’re right, their combined gross product is something to be saluted for.
Prisoner, please elaborate on exactly what healthy lifestyle choices I can learn from the Olson twins or Christina Aguilera (who is very skinny woman, btw).
My goal in life has nothing to do with billions of dollars - it’s more along the lines of earning my doctorate, having healthy, happy relationships - and gosh, it’s never really occurred to me that my goals were at all lacking…
Please pretend the word “for” was not in that sentence.
Also, what aurelian said. I think the reason people are reacting badly to this thread is because you’re attacking people who don’t really have any desire to be rich or famous or even wildly attractive for not wanting to be those things, and saying it’s because of jealousy or whatever. I don’t want to own the next McDonald’s, I don’t want to be a rich-bitch superstar. I just want to get through life with enough money to live on, while spending as much of my time doing the things I love. Owning a multi-national business would put a damper on those plans. You (prisoner) also seem to want to speak for all men wrt female attractiveness, when it’s been pointed out time and again that not all people are attracted to skinny women. So, you do. Great for you. Don’t know why you think it has to be the “ideal” for everyone, though.
One size does not fit all.
Mary-Kate Olsen has recently been treated for an eating disorder. It is kind of pathetic that you would herald her as a role model in a thread where you talk about body shape.
It is also insane to state that people like Angelina Jolie and Brittany Spears develop their bodies and their looks for themselves and not for “you”. They are spotlight celebrities. Their existence as celebrities depends on their attractiveness to the audience. Have you seen how people like Anna Nicole Smith, Kirstie Alley, and even Oprah attract massive negative attention when they put on weight? That statement is almost the same as saying that supermodels maintain their bodies only for themselves and not for anyone else. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Okay, let me try to connect the dots. We are talking about role models. Most have positive and negative attributes. But they are still role models. People want to emulate them. Those that are in hollywood and other media have to be active go-getters because there is always someone right behind them fighting to get their job and fame. People with lots of energy and exert lots of activity tend to be thinner. It’s only natural. So there is a greater chance that people in the media will be thinner. The average size of those in the media will be thinner than the average person of the general population. Some of it might have to do with pressures of the actors to lose weight, but you must not forget that those people that think that they deserve to break into hollywood are go-getters and full of energy and are by that very nature thinner. I’m not really trying to say that you should try to get famous or start up the next McDonalds. What I’m trying to get across is that those in the media are thinner than us because they have to be in order to survive, or because they are who they are. They don’t (necessarily) make themselves thin to get acting jobs. But being thin is a by-product of being healthy.
Now as to role models. They are all role models. How you interpret the role model is your own choice. Some don’t see Madonna as a positive role model at all. Some might see Madonna as a role model for her beauty. But a lot of people see her as a role model for her singing. Maybe a couple see her as a role model for acting, hee hee. But I’ll bet many people see her as a role model for her business savviness, and ability to self promote. (Sorry, I couldn’t think of a more recent example than Madonna.) Does Madonna perpetuate the idea that you have to be skin and bones to be considered beautiful? Hardly. But she was once considered to be one of the most beautiful women alive. And you could hardly even now call her portly, full-figured, or even average (by American standards). She is thin. She didn’t last so long because she was skinny and attractive. She made it because she is smart and a go-getter, and possibly talented artistically.
The point is that we look to the media for our role models, like it or not. They are generally thinner than us. Many of us try to be like them in many ways. And it’s only natural to want to look like them too. We idolize the population of the media in general, not just one specific aspect of the population. Thinness is an attribute of the media. Many of us want to be like the media. So being thin is one way for many of us to be like them. Sorry if it’s not possible for you to be thin. I’m happy for you that you are happy with your bodies. But please stop perpetuating the myth that the media is to blame for other people calling you plump or pudgy or even fat.
continuity erorNow, where did you guys get the impression from this thread that I think that skinnyness is attractive? Thin yes. In general it is considered attractive. But not skin and bones. I’m mostly arguing against the idea that the media creates skinny people and the media is to blame for making people feel fat. The media attracts the healthy cream of the crop. Therefore, the weight of the population of the media drops and the weight of the general population increases (because thin people are moving to the media population).
Please stop perpetuating the myth that “It’s only natural.” You don’t need to be a go-getter to tend to be thin. All you need is the “go-gettiveness” to get several handfuls of amphetamines and Ex-Lax (Hello, Mary-Kate…glad you’re feeling better). But I suppose we should go for “natural” speed and laxatives, since “It’s only natural.”
Cutting to the meat of your argument, you’re saying that all motivated people tend to be thin. It’s natural because they have more energy and that energy, quite as naturally, is spent on treadmills and the like (because surely it wouldn’t be used reading a book or consulting with a business group in a meeting, or developing new products, or developing new medicines). Motivation could not possibly mean anything other than getting thin, could it.
Take this thought…in any given population of people, there is a subset of “motivated” people. I would bet that the distribution of BMI or whatever other thinness measure you chose, would mimic the distribution in the general population. Why, I’d venture to say that it’s only natural.
I don’t use celebrities as role models. How could I? I really and truly do not want anything they have because their careers and lifestyles are not something I have ever aspired too and wouldn’t take it if it were given to me. I suppose some people use them as role models but I don’t even watch TV. It is just a job. BTW, most of them get into the business when they are very young and when everyone is thin. They have to stay that way to keep their job. It is really that simple.
If anybody, my role models are some people on the SDMB and people that I personally know and admire.
Why are you focused on TV celebrities as role models yourself? That seems unusually shallow for a SDMB member.
BTW, I am fit and thin and I don’t think of it even close to the same way you do. My thin and fit wife says the same.
Just because someone is in the public spotlight does not mean they are a role model. (My local paper carries more photos and articles on Scott Peterson than all of Hollywood put together.) Maybe people do want to emulate them. That doesn’t make it healthy or correct. The Olsen twins are poor role models.
Why does this not apply to other fields? Most nurses are on thier feet for long, hard shifts. Go down to your local hospital and look around, and count the number of size 2s. By following your logic, any job that requires an active go-getter would be populated almost entirely by thin, buff people.
Really? What evidence are you backing this claim up with? Do you personally know a lot of movie stars? How do you know they’re not lazy in their personal lives, and force themselves to go to the gym because their livelyhood depends on it?
Is this a typo or are you directly contradicting what you said above?
So are you saying that movie producers don’t require their actors to be good looking or fit? Why, then, did producers for Raising Helen supply Kate Hudson with $40,000 worth of gym equipment so she could get back into shape after having a baby? It’s just an accident that they’re good looking? Or is it that the issue has never come up, because an actor/celebrity by their very nature is good looking? I think you are mistaking correlation for causation.
The point you’re missing, or refuse to acknowledge, is that people in hollywood are required to be both attractive/thin and driven/talented.
Dude, speak for yourself.
We are bombarded with images of unrealistic body images. Studies have shown (I’ll find you some when I get home from work) that women feel worse about their looks after browsing fashion magazines. This isn’t something we should explore or address? Why not? Because you say so?
He was talking about the Olsen twins. I was the one who argued that in common perception thin meant skinny, and your use of that word led people to believe you were talking about “skin and bones”. Others backed me up. Please re-read the thread.
This is the most lunatic premise I’ve ever heard. Americans who are not in the media are getting fatter because thin people are migrating to the ‘media population’. This might be the epitome of fuzzy math. Could you please, please, PLEASE explain the logic of this?
Slacker!
Hey! I get to cite a logical fallacy! prisoner has commited the fallacy of Wrong Direction and has reversed the cause and the effect. Is Christina Aguillera skinny because she is famous or famous because she is skinny? Or, more accurately, is she famous because of a convergence of adequate facial structure and singing skills along with a figure that meets a current standard of attractiveness. Add in enough marketing dollars and you have one flash-in-the-pan superstar.
What he is also missing, and for this reason I assume he’s young and unaware of the history of popular culture, is the error of assuming that his taste is the universal taste and he doesn’t realize what is considered attractive today is not what was considered attractive sixty years ago. Betty Grable was the pinup queen of WWII. Today? Maybe kinda cute but there’d be plenty of jokes about “the junk in her trunk” and those dimpled knees. Was she any less driven to succeed than the Olsen Twins? I doubt it yet she weighed more than the two of them put together.
I coming to the conclusion that he’s afraid that those fatties might get uppity. They might forget for a moment that they are supposed to be hideous losers. They might realize that not everyone thinks they are unattractive. We mustn’t have that! We’ve got to make sure that the fatties know their place. They must constantly be reminded that they are ugly and don’t measure up. Not for a second should they forget this.
For that, yosemite, I am thankful I am a guy and haven’t had the same pressures a woman built like me would.
The Olsen Twins won a cute baby contest and were given the role in Full House. Their parents parlayed that success into a marketing empire that has made them both very wealthy girls. There is almost certainly another set of twins born in LA on the exact same day that weren’t as cute – that didn’t get that lucky break of being born attractive – and are struggling to make ends meet, instead of struggling to spend their millions on curing their eating disorders.
Ben Franklin did get lucky. Have you read his autobiography? If he had chosen to work for a different printer in Philadelphia, he would never have gotten some of the very lucrative contracts he did. If he had not known just the right people, he would have been bankrupted by the printing-press debacle overseas (when he wanted to go into business for himself and was relying on a letter of credit from a prominent citizen who defaulted). Hell, he was lucky to have an older brother who would take him as an apprentice! Sure he worked hard. And now I’m going to turn the trap around on you: he worked hard as hell, and he was still a portly son of a gun.
Call it “energy” or “drive” or whatever, but here it is: diet and exercise can do a lot, but they can’t polish a turd. If you are unlucky enough to be born homely or big-boned, you can do whatever you want and you will never catch up to the level of attractiveness that your average Playmate was born with. Sure, they have to work to maintain it, but you’ll work twice as hard trying just to approach their natural figure. The luckiest ones are born with a thin physique and a naturally symmetrical face; all they have to do is dance in a club or wait tables or be a booth babe at a trade show for enough years to afford (or ask daddy to shell out for) “upgrades” and they’ve got an “ideal” figure. Work as hard as you want, but if you’re born with Marilyn Monroe’s body type, you’re never going to be shaped like them.
That’s such crap. I don’t even know how you can begin to think that’s a verifiable statement. You’re arguing the Lamarckian view of evolution: “People become physically attractive because they need to be that way to keep their jobs.”
We, the opposition, are arguing the Darwinian view: “There are attractive and unattractive people; the free entertainment market selects for physical attractiveness; therefore the physically attractive become wealthy and successful.”
Giraffes do not stretch their necks to reach taller trees; their babies do not inherit stretched necks.
No I’m not. I keep saying that it’s statistics. You keep ignoring that. The CHANCES that someone among the motivated will be thin is greater than the chances of the unmotivated being thin.
Sorry, but please. If cracking into Hollywood required the same type of energy as becoming a top athelete, then maybe you’d have a point. But it doesn’t. Most of it’s strong people skills, good connections, tireless self-promotion, photogenicity, and talent. Oh yeah, and luck. Most of these things have little to do with how well someone can balance calorie input with calorie output.
I’ve seen plenty of overweight people who know how to sell themselves, can sing/act their asses off, and who know someone who knows someone etc. I’ve seen plenty of “go-getters” who are fat. The truth is, the most motivated and determined people aren’t always hired. All things being equal, the fat actress will have a tougher time than the thin one.
You are contradicting yourself, apparently. If celebrities are thinner in order to “survive”, how is it that they are NOT making themselves thin to get acting jobs? And why are you assuming that health and media success have anything to do with each other? Sure, many stars exercise vigorously and eat special diets, but is their goal to be healthy? Or to look a certain way?
How is Madonna marketed? When you think of Madonna do you think of her music first, or her image? Presentation is an active ingredient in how you will view a potential role model.
Imagine if Madonna was not thin. Do you think she would have made it as far? Do you think the media would have made a big deal about the “plus-sized superstar”? Would more people see as a joke than a role model?
You’re saying that Madonna didn’t make it because she was thin and attractive, as if those attributes had nothing to do with her success. Tell me, can you point to many women in Madonna’s league who have a similar level of drive and ambition and who are not thin and attractive? Are we supposed to deduce from this derth of ugly female celebrities that ugly females inherently don’t try hard enough? Or is it more logical to assume that selective forces in the music and acting industry tend to weed out unattractive and heavier women?
Which has been the point of many you seem to disagree with: the media has influenced our perception of beauty.
Hey, I’m thin and have always been that way. That doesn’t keep me from being aware of the subtle messages conveyed in the media.
WHAT statistics?
Show them. Link to them. Quote them. How can you accuse people of ignoring what they haven’t seen?
Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that claims do not become truth simply because YOU state them.
Oh, but he’s happy for us! He’s glad we’ve made peace with our uglyness!
(As long as we accept that it’s entirely our own fault because we’re not go-getters. If we were, we’d not only be thin, we’d be famous! In fact, I have a friend who’s going to be famous any day now. After all, she’s thin and thin people migrate to the media population)
He said that that was just ONE of the factors of the obesity epidemic out of hundreds.
If it were a “simple” matter of going to the gym and eating right, no one would be fat. Because everyone would have the information they needed to get and remain fit.
And it’s not a matter of lack of hard work either, as someone else pointed out. Americans work some of the longest hours of any country going. And the poor and less educated (among the more obese) tend to work the longest and hardest, so that doesn’t make them “thin, beautiful and successful” either.
Sorry, genetics, bone structure, birth status, and just plain luck have a HELL of a lot to do with success, particularly regarding hollyweird, it’s not “drive”.
Eee gads, can we try to split the difference a bit here?
First off, prisoner, people really do come in different natural shapes and sizes. I knew a woman who had had anorexia when she was younger…And, at least part of the reason, I believe is that she had an unrealistic image of what her body could obtain in terms of thinness. When I knew her, she was in remarkable physical shape…Ran marathons (and in something under 3h 45 min, as I recall). One time, another male friend and I went on a hike with her in the afternoon after she had already run over 10 miles that morning. Both the friend and I thought we were in good shape. (I was doing hiking mountains weekly, playing ultimate frisbee, …) But, simply put, we could not keep up with her. (Of course, being proud men, we didn’t let on that she was nearly freakin’ killing us but instead just got really interested in stopping to admire the view every now and then.) Nonetheless, this woman, while no-doubt very healthy and probably having pretty low body fat, still was probably not the classical “thin” build just because that was not the way her body was built to be. (To be fair, I don’t think anyone but an extremist would consider her at all fat either and she certainly wasn’t hurting for male attention, from myself among others.)
On the other hand, I think that people in this thread like CanvasShoes go a little too far the other way in implying that obesity is probably due primarily to genetic factors. If you compare the U.S. to other countries like Europe and Japan where obesity rates are much lower, the difference seems to be that they eat differently in both quality and quantity and they get a lot more incidental exercise through walking to get places and such. The extent to which we have eliminated incidental exercise in our lives is, I believe, an important overlooked factor. And, a fast food diet is another disaster.
When I walked down the streets in Japan, I simply did not see obese people. (I know that sumo wrestlers exist…but I didn’t see them walking around.) And, I don’t think this is primarily a matter of genetics (and, in fact, I think I’ve heard that the rates of obesity among Japanese Americans is rising as they adopt a more American diet). In fact, I think I may have lost some weight when I was there and eating the Japanese diet even though I love Japanese food and felt like I was “pigging out”.