prisoner, I don’t believe you’re talking statistics. I believe you’re taking a giant WAG.
prosoner, the most effective way to stay ‘thin’ is by smoking tobacco and shooting heroin. Of course no rational journal would advocate that.
I am constantly amazed that so many people feel that genetics are the main culprit of the obesity epidemic. Other cultures and other times didn’t have this epidemic. The main variable is the current trend of excessive diet and lack of exercise. The strange leap in logic I may never comprehend is that there must be a fat gene that goes haywire when introduced to a lifestyle of excessive eating and lack of exercise. How about just the plain old eating and sedentary lifestyle being the cause in the great majority of cases? Unless we have some special American gene, the main cause is clearly dietary.
prisoner, you’ve got some crazy arguments going on in this thread. If I were you, I’d concede every thought you’ve put forward that referenced Hollywood in any way as being misguided, and proceed from there. Because there is an idea in your OP I tried to put forth in the “extremely thin” thread that was either ignored or misunderstood. I’m assuming it was my lack of presentation skills that caused that.
I think the pressure for women to be thin is the exact same in scale and scope (and self-esteem destructiveness) as the pressure for men to be wealthy. And yet we don’t have massive epidemics of men with money disorders. When men get depressed about their lack of money, they don’t tend to go spend money. Yet when people of either sex get depressed about being fat, they tend to eat junk food.
Because of this, the thin-ideal is derided as being unrealistic, while the wealth-ideal retains at least tacit approval. So you don’t see a backlash against the nice cars; men still strive as hard as they can to get nice stuff. Yet many men and women give up on trying to lose weight because they feel it is impossible, and get that feeling validated by countless other overweight people agreeing with them. Then we here about studies of rats with shimmldebop genes that make them fat and are eager to preach from the mountaintop “Lo, and we saw that it was bad, and verily we knew it was not our fault, yay though we wish we could lose the weight, all our effort will be driven asunder, that no man may fight his genes.”
Then this attitude gets more traction, and more people become obese, and more people feel the only answer is a magic pill from science that will melt away the pounds.
Men understand that the evil pressure to be wealthy does not currently, and will never have, a quick fix. It requires unyielding dedication and consistent, lifelong pursuit to achieve and maintain. Many give up, many do not have the need or desire in the first place, but most buy into the American Dream of prosperity.
In the same way, many women give up trying to lose weight, many do not feel a need to conform to the current beauty standard, but most buy into the American Dream of beauty. The problem is that many are starting to believe that it shouldn’t take hard work, a lifelong commitment, and unyielding dedication to become fit, but are searching in vain for a quick fix that will never arrive. A Ponzi scheme of weight loss, if you will. Often cited will be stories of how much effort was expended to lose weight with little or no results, or worse, resulted in gaining weight. This is not news. How much effort has been expended in attempting to earn money that produced little or no results, or worse, resulted in loss of money? Failure is a part of life. Giving up should not be.
That’s the disconnect. Men hear women badmouthing the ideal and rejecting it as unrealistic, and we wonder why they can’t understand that life is hard, the ideals are hard to achieve, and the enormous amount of hard work required is the fundamental, underlying principle upon which this country was founded. So we end up with the basic reaction that we do need to put fatties in their place, because they are undermining the high standards for which we should be striving, claiming that it shouldn’t be hard, and if it is hard, then we’d all be better off if nobody tried in the first place, and instead, we all just accepted that failure is good.
Men don’t need to be wealthy to live a happy life. Women don’t need to be fit to live a happy life. However, we dismiss those ideals as realistic goals at our peril. Attacking those goals as bad is not productive in any way, unless we want to abolish currency and unhealthy foods altogether. Short of this, yes, I concede that we’d all be okay if we were 20 pounds overweight and 20% over the poverty line, but I would be loathe to spread this gospel as the ideal. I would hate to see failed businessmen trying to convince other men that they didn’t need to strive to be successful with the exact distaste I feel when I hear women claim that being fit and thin is an impossible standard that should be rejected.
There is clearly a continuum compromising a multitude of exceptions and shades of gray, but this post hopefully conveys the broad strokes I am so desperately trying to impart. Your thoughts, prisoner?
Despite the fact that I feel a pitting coming on, I’m submitting this anyway.
Oops, I was trying to keep this as non-inflammatory as possible, but I missed that “failure”. That should read mediocrity. Apologies if I offended.
I wouldn’t say that. I’d be amazed if many people said that it was the main culprit. A culprit? Yes, for some. But not for all. Other factors, emotional, financial, lifestyle, etc. are factors.
There’s “impossible” and then there’s "impossible." I don’t think that many people are saying that it is “impossible” for them to be at some relatively healthy weight. At least I would hope not. What they are saying is that it is impossible for them to look like Paris Hilton. Because it is for many of them. They just don’t have the body type, or if they wanted to have a figure like Paris Hilton, they’d have to expend so much energy and effort that it simply would not be reasonable by most standards.
Also, some of them are saying that it simply isn’t as important for them to work to that ideal. They don’t care. Being healthy is one thing, looking fabulous is another. Nobody should feel pressured to try to work really hard to look fabulous.
To put in another way, most people, if they really worked at it, could learn how to write in the calligraphic style. I learned it from a book; it was something I was interested in learning. It wasn’t easy, but I wanted to do it. I am told that anyone can pretty much learn it if they want to–when young school kids are taught it they master it quite easily. It’s not impossible.
Yet, a lot of people don’t care to learn. It’s not that important. Regular cursive writing suits them just fine. The ideal of italic calligraphy (which I believe cursive is based on) can be achieved, if you care enough. But that doesn’t mean everyone cares.
It’s unquestionably harder for some people than for others.
I agree with that to a cetain extent, but see, for some people, it isn’t as hard. For most, I agree, it can be done (meaning, they can be at a healthy weight–not necessarily adhering to the “ideal”), while for some, it can be done but it is absolute torture. So it’s not a one size fits all sort of thing.
Giving up on the “ideal” and simply aiming for “not unhealthy” certainly should be acceptable, if the person can actually attain “not unealthy” but would be constantly miserable (for whatever reason) if they felt they had to work at the ideal. Or, if they don’t frigging care, which is another real possiblity.
I’ll say it again–reminding people that they need to meet a certain standard for good general health isn’t bad. However, there is absolutely no need to put fatties in their place by telling them how ugly they are, and telling them that they should be working hard for the ideal. That’s nobody else’s call to make but their own. It’s between them and their doctor. How good they look shouldn’t measure into it.
As long as they can support themselves and are not at a weight that is seriously detrimental to their health, it’s really nobody’s business. Encouraging a mindset that makes it okay to treat someone like crap because they don’t “measure up” to the highest standard is crap. This only causes a backlash. I think what you are seeing now is part of that backlash.
But I see a one-sided backlash. I still see men striving to become as wealthy as possible, and when some fail, because it is torture for their personality type to succeed at a high level, they do not try to convince other men that they shouldn’t buy the fancy cars. That is my entire point. The backlash is only about one aspect of the struggle to attain the ideal. And the worst part is that people can get along fine with less money, but people are not getting along fine with the increasing acceptance of being overweight. In fact, it is very much the opposite.
Women constantly are saying in these threads that even though men tell them they look good, in the back of their minds they believe the men are lying, or fooling themselves, and that the women know deep down they’d look better if they were thinner. Is this really the mentality we want to risk buying into the fact that they don’t need to stay fit and trim?
What happens when the doctors tell them they are at greater risk? In 20 years, will that insidious inner voice be overriding the health experts and telling them that they are really fine, in the same way that the current inner voices are telling them that they really don’t look appealing to men despite what actual men are telling them?
And is the backlash against striving to better oneself a good thing? If a grassroots movement began among the lower middle class and lower class that it would be better not to try to move up in society, is that really a good thing? I see no difference between that attitude and the “thin is unattainable, so why bother?” attitude.
One point you seem to have overlooked is that the same amount of negativity women who aren’t thin get is heaped onto unsuccessful men. Is your advice to those men really that being unsuccessful is okay? Is the justification for that advice that we can dig up a couple dozen anecdotes of men who are happier now that they are out of the rat race? I see that as destructive to society.
I don’t care if half the men in the country feel inadequate because they want more money, it is good to strive to be successful, and that attitude should be ingrained in our culture. Do you not?
Here’s to hypotheticals for you. A woman is 20 pounds overweight, and she has tried yoy-yo dieting for the past 10 years to no sustainable success. She is finding it difficult to find a suitable man. What is your advice to her?
No consider a guy who has been variously underemployed for the past 10 years, and is now working as a short order cook, but has collected welfare for a time. He is finding it difficult to find a suitable woman. What is your advice to him?
Cute Babies? Adorable children? Lovely young women they are now yes (why am I channeling Yoda??), but as kids brrrrrr…shudder, they more resembled the evil twins of cabbage patch dolls.
I’m sure that many others in this thread have already said this, but No, they’re not “role models”. They’re entertainers. The only role they model is for others who wish to become actors.
A role model is a person who holds up his or her life as an example of character, accomplishments and success. Where accomplishments and success may, or may not include factors of wealth and fame.
Hollywood, hollywood, hollywood, fame, media, media, media…etc.
First of all, SOME people emulate them, not “people emulate them”. There are a hell of a lot more positive role models than those hollyweird has to offer.
You’re talking apples and oranges here. You’re mixing several different issues all up in one pie crust and trying to make them all apply to each other.
Second, people who are in the public eye, especially those where looks have a great deal to do with their career ARE going to make it part of their job to keep fit and attractive. Just as an engineer keeps taking classes, or a surgeon keeps sharp on new operating techniques and technologies.
They stay that way because the industry requires it, and the public requires it, NOT because they just naturally all love the gym or something.
Third the by-products of all that they do during their careers probably does have an added calorie burning benefit, this isn’t something they cleverly plan, it’s just a by product of their job, just like the engineer getting more and more math savvy, and the surgeon becoming more and more talented the more operations and the more technology he learns.
And? This has been established already, it really has no more bearing on what the general public “should” do, anymore than the fact that there are many brilliant Nobel Prize winners out there means that Americans “should” go strive for a mensa membership or something.
Are you acquainted with each and every popular star of today’s entertainment world? No? Well, as sometime reader of People, while i’m waiting at the docs office, I assure you that many, MANY actresses do indeed do exactly what you’re claiming they don’t, as you say “necessarily make themselves thin to get into acting”. Jennifer Aniston for one, she was about 30 pounds overweight and getting only “best friend” and limited roles before her agent finally told her she should lose some weight. Victoria Principal for another. Marilyn Monroe was noted for running through hollywood alleyways in the early morning and even weightlifting to get into star like shape. Liz Taylor has fought weight her entire career.
Now you’re contradicting yourself. First you were saying that their fame was due to their beauty, as evidenced by their thinness and fitness, which was in turn a product of only their drive. Now you’re saying, at least in Madonna’s case, that it’s their talent, brains and go-getterness. THAT we don’t disagree with, what we disagree with is that that in itself then creates the beauty.
No, actually “we” don’t look to the media for our role models. Teeny bopper girls, desparate housewives and springerites might, but most normal adults look to a wide variety of people, events, and life experiences for their role models, as would be expected of a thinking person.
Actually, many in the “media” aren’t thin at all, the stars that the media COVERS are for the most part, but the media is really made up of fat, thin, ugly, normal, semi-attractive and attractive people, just like we normal folks.
No one is saying that the media “creates” skinny people. What they do is glorify it, ala Kate Moss and Calista Flockhart, and the “Friends” girls when they all got very radically concentration camp thin. Courtney Cox during her “Scream 2” and Scream 3 movies looked horrible. The media may not have “created” her, but it certainly glorifies that look, and holds it up as not “AN” example of beauty, but problaims it to be THE only acceptable form of beauty, and that is what people are protesting.
To be fair, some of the media do occasionally allow and praise some variations, but they have tunnel vision and limited imagination and can’t keep it up for more than one issue, or a small segment on a newzine.
Excuse me? You have me confused with some other poster, I have NOT ever said that obesity is due “primarily” or otherwise to genetic factors. I agree with the 10% or less genetic factors posted by, I think it was Ellis Dee?
The only thing I said to that end in this thread, was that that was just ONE of hundreds of factors listed in the CDC and other sources as being a cause of obesity.
Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!!! Wrong. I work (well, right now anyway) 5 different jobs.
2 of them are aerobics classes, one class for one employer and two classes for a second employer, one is at the community schools and the other two are university classes.
My second job is as a shift manager at a gym, where I am on my feet for 8 hours and walk about 5 miles per shift checking everything out.
My third job (though dead right now, it will be starting again in the spring as it always does), involves going hiking in the woods, sampling icky drums and orphaned containers and analyzing the sample results to properly remove them and save the bunnies and trees.
My fourth job is a temp. It’s on and off, but I take a bus to get to them, lotsa walking there.
My fifth job is as a bookkeeper/auto mechanic’s helper for my sister’s business.
I’m not thin, I’m not fat, but I’m certainly not movie star body material. I can definitely stand to lose some junk in my trunk.
people want to know “where the HELL do you get your energy”??? I dunno, I’m driven. Hasn’t made me thin yet. Before I gained the junk in my trunk when I broke my darn leg, I STILL wasn’t thin. I was monroe-esque, and had NO complaints from the male half of the population.
And as someone else here mentioned, I see “me” all over the country. “Me” with 3, 4 jobs, managing a family, elderly parents, etc etc. All “driven, go-getters” but hardly any of them thin or beautiful by the media’s or Hollyweird’s standards. And many, many “driven” people are heavy, fat even. And guess what made some of them fat? Yup, being driven, BEING go-getters. Working 100 hour weeks on a surgery rotation with no time for sleep or proper meals, or trying to “make partner” at a law firm to the tune of 20 hours a day.
Ambition alone doesn’t burn calories. Your thread shows you to be very shortsighted, and tunnel-visioned, and very, very naive.
I don’t know how my post got misconstrued so that someone thought I agreed with the 'obesity is caused primarily by genetics" school of thought, but I don’t. Not at ALL.
My problem is that yes, people are eating too much, and too much of the wrong foods, and not exercising enough and exercising properly. My beef, is that too many people, at this point start spouting the MOST useless and idiotic slogan in the history of man.
You know the one “it’s so SIMPLE, eat less, exercise more”. Sigh. Really, it’s THAT simple huh? 30 percent of our fellow Americans are completely unaware that they’re eating too much and not exercising enough?
ReallY? That’s it? The real reason, the whole cure? (MASSIVE sarcasm and frustration).
Yes, that IS the problem. But what almost none of these proponent of the world’s most useless mantra ever take into consideration is the WHY behind the overeating and underexercising.
Someone in another thread said it exactly right. We’re a rich nation, our obesity problem is a direct result of that. Yes, yes it is. But WHY? Our focus as a nation regarding “success” is that it’s primarily wealth and “keeping up with the Joneses”.
While the Americans out there living the American Dream may be (at least 30 percent of them) obese, they are NOT lazy. Not when you’ve got people working these tremendous hours, and then pulling all the second shifts of taking the kids to every sports and a activity imaginable, taking care of ailing parents, etc.
They working alright, but they have no time or energy for the RIGHT kind of work. Our ancestor’s worked long hard hours, but they were mostly physical, and mostly for themselves.
Aaaah, I could go on. and on. We can blame and point the finger and namecall and label obese people with things like “lazy, uncaring” and all that other stuff. But that’s NOT addressing the underlying issue, and that is, what is causing them to eat and not exercise in the first place?
Lack of time? Self esteem, that the emphasis for what makes a “successful” American is all on the almighty dollar? Would it help to, as a nation, start placing emphasis regarding “success” on things other than wealth and what you’ve "got"and more to what you ARE?
Does that mean that I think all of these are good “excuses” and that people should just go “oh, okay, that’s why were too fat as a nation, as you were”? HELL NO, it means I think that in order TO start solving the obesity epidemic (and obese people have been told for about 20 years or so now to "eat less and exercise more, and it AIN’T workin’), we need to get to what is causing the overeating, and lack of proper exercise in the first place.
One, why have our nations schools steadily decreased funding in the sports programs, more and more making parents pay for them, so that only the kids who can afford it can participate?
Two, why are our schools STILL not actively providing up to date nutritional information and matching school lunch programs?
And so on. But, brain is slowly closing down, it’s nearly 1am, and I have to go to another job at 7am, (I hope I remember which one when the alarm goes off :D).
Damn, wish I’d gotten this far before I posted.
YES! YES! YES! I don’t know about Yosimete but MY advice to those men is not necessarily “being unsuccessful is okay” but “money doesn’t necessarily equal success”. What if the guy wants to be a teacher or something, and he’s a DAMN good one, but only makes X amount a year (not up on what teachers make, sorry). By society’s standards, and wrongly IMnsHO, he’s not “successful” because he’s not pulling in a couple hundred grand a year.
So??? Is he a loving man? Is he a good teacher, gives back to his community? Yeah, the media gives some occasional light lip service to these sorts of things, but really, the OP does make a good point by his insistance upon how important hollywood ideals are. And right now, the wealthy man is what is considered “successful”.
No, I don’t agree, well I agree that is is CURRENTLY ingrained in our society, but I think that that one-sided opinion needs to make room for more than just one defintion of “success”.
I know you’re asking Yosimete, but here’s my take. I’d ask each of them. “imagine that you’d been given a year to live, what would you do differently than you are doing now, what would you LOVE to do with your life, given what you have to work with now? Think on that, and take steps to do THAT thing, whatever it may be.”
Bearing in mind that no one, not poor, rich, thick or thin, is going to be able to find an “insta-love” of course. And I’d give my advice based on having those people make their OWN definitions of success, NOT adhere to and be enslaved by society’s.
So what? So what if men aren’t doing that to each other? We’re not talking about men, we’re talking about weight and appearance, which, as it happens, affects both men and women.
Some women think that, sure. Many don’t. They see the genuine attraction in their men’s eyes, and they know that they “measure up.”
Need to in what context? A health context, or an appearance context? They need to consider the health factors, as they always have, and always will. The appearance thing—that’s up to them. They have no obligation to look good. They never have.
They’re telling them that now. They’ll always be telling them that.
A backlash against being acceptably healthy? I don’t think that this is what the backlash is about. It’s a backlash against torturing yourself to try to look like Paris Hilton, or in believing that you must be a hideous cow if you aren’t her. They’re two different things. It is unfortunate if someone ignores health advice as a result of getting so fed up at being pressured into an unrealistic (or unwelcome) beauty standard, but the fact is, they aren’t necessarily saying, “I don’t care if I’m healthy,” they’re saying, “I don’t care if I’m as beautiful as Paris Hilton.”
It’s really nobody’s business. I don’t understand what this obsession with “bettering yourself” is, and why you think it must mean “moving up in society.”
I just don’t get this. This was not how I was raised. I was not raised by a father and mother who thought this way. I was raised to believe that it mattered to support yourself, have a little tucked away, but it was far more important to be happy. I suppose that’s why my dad, who many times over could have risen the ranks at his place of employment (Post Office), kept on turning down offers to be supervisor. He just didn’t want the responsibility—the hassle. He’d rather be home with his family, listening to his Sibelius records, planning the next family outing to see the wildflowers. To think that he should have been continually striving for more when what he had was making him far happier—well, that’s twisted. I don’t think that anyone—man or woman—should be expected to do that.
It depends on your definition of “unsuccessful.” Was my dad “unsuccessful”? I don’t think so. He earned a steady living and he provided for his family. He could have gone up in society, gotten a better job (supervisor), but it would have made him miserable. I would never advise any man to do that. Just make enough to be comfortable, make sure that the future is provided for in a reasonable manner, and be happy.
Dude, that’s twisted. No. I don’t think that a guy has to constantly be fighting that rat race. Making enough to be comfortable (at whatever level of comfort he settles for) is sufficient. What’s more important is that he be a good person—a good husband and father (if he marries and has kids). My dad was all those things. He was a success in my book, even though he never fought and clawed to “move up iin society.”
Are you trying to say that her 20 pounds extra is the cause for not finding a suitable man? I doubt it.
I’d tell her to look at what she finds “suitable” in man. Perhaps she needs to reevaulate what kind of man she is really looking for.
I’d ask her what her doctor says about her yo-yo dieting—how detrimental it is to her health. I’m not a doctor, and I’m not saying that 20 pounds is nothing, but I don’t think it’s some super-scary health risk that is putting her on death’s door either.
Is he happy? Is he making enough to get by? If he’s been on welfare, it doesn’t sound like he’s quite making enough to consistently get by. However, it depends on how often he’s been on welfare, and for what reason. There is a minimum standard to be met in the definition of “Getting by,” I should think.
However, if he’s working some dead-end drudge job, but he’s a good worker and doesn’t slack off, and he meets all his bills, has considered the future, then does he need to strive harder than that, if his current job makes him happy (perhaps gives him time for his passion of bird-watching)? No, I don’t think so. And if he’s having trouble finding a woman that appreciates his bird-watching, he’s looking in the wrong places.
I claimed I thought there was a genetic cause for some cases of obesity (or, well, being overweight). (Why people keep blaming others for what I say I don’t know, but I think this is the third time in this thread alone) Some is not all. Some is not most. It’s not even many. The number I guessed at was 10%, but I just made that up. Is it so hard to believe there might be a small percentage of cases where it is medical and not just lifestyle?
What I think a lot of people are getting at is not so much that genetics makes you fat. It can make you predisposed to getting fat, IF you don’t take care of yourself. There are people who, due to their genetic makeup, can behave in the exact same way and be thin. Everyone knows those people with a high metabolism who eat crap and never EVER work out. I have a friend who is very thin, eats like a man, and has been trying for years to put on enough weight she doesn’t look like a 12 year old boy.
Then there is someone like myself. If I have ONE donut, I’ll gain weight. My entire family is like that. I have photographic evidence of chubby women going back 5 generations.* Does that mean I get an excuse to be obese? No. But obviously maintaining a healthy weight is a lot harder for me than my skinny friend. I don’t appreciate being made to feel like a lazy slob because I did something naturally thin people take for granted, like have gravvy at thanksgiving. Or because I got sick and didn’t work out for a week. Healthy is attainable. Thin is not. Striving for thin will only make me sick. Telling me that it’s easy and simple is a slap in the face.
My anger is against the segment of the population that tells a woman with a BMI of 22.5 that she needs to lose weight. (If you think I made that up, a poster in the other thread said exactly that about his girlfriend).
If my doctor says I’m healthy, if I eat my veggies and excercise regularly, then, yes, it is wrong and offensive for society to expect me to strive for further weight loss. It is pure vanity and I have better things to do.
*FWIW, however, said women also tend to be otherwise healthy and very long lived, lacking the diabetes & heart problems that are generally associated with an elevated BMI.
P.S. Ellis Dee, I don’t think you deserve a pitting. You are making reasoned arguments some of us happen to not agree with. There’s nothing wrong with that. prisoner deserves to be pitted for tossing around crazy, unsubstatiated notions and refusing to back them up or even actually discuss them.
I think wealth is more analogous to beauty than thinness. Generally, everyone wants to be beautiful, just as everyone wants to be wealthy. But thinness does not always constitute beauty. Beauty does not always come in a thin form, either. Women who can not and do not fall into the “thin” category have a big self-esteem problem on their hands when they can’t reconcile the notion of beauty with being un-thin. The media helps perpetuate the idea that beauty and thinness are synomous terms. Wealth is not comparable in the same way. You either have money or you don’t. It’s not subjective like beauty is.
Men don’t get "depressed’ about money; they get insecure. And yes, many guys do cope with that insecurity by buying a whole bunch of stuff. I know a guy who is so self-conscious about people thinking he’s poor that he wants to buy his fiance a wedding ring loaded with so many diamonds that it borders on gawdy. I know another guy in his late 20s who still lives with his parents, but drives a ridiculously expensive BMW that he can barely afford, just so that he looks rich and successful.
Perhaps some women’s obsession with attaining a certain physique leads to a lack of self-acceptance that leads to depression and overeating behavior. If self-acceptance is needed to stop the food addiction cycle, then self-acceptance should be encouraged. You seem to think self-acceptance means someone has to “give up”. I tend to think of it more along the lines of “This is me, I love myself regardless of how much I weigh, and I have many non-weight related attributes that are worthy of respect, that make me wonderful and beautiful.”
If men’s obsession with wealth led to unhealthy behavior, I should hope a similar message would be given.
And yet turn on the tube and there are also countless other messages telling people that a size 6 is only a can of SlimFast away. When people are bombared with messages of either extreme (“weight loss is easy” and “weight loss is impossible”) their expectations get unrealistic. No, weight loss is not always going to be as easy as taking a pill a day, but it’s also not always going to be an unsummountable challenge. Moderation in the message is the key.
I don’t think more people are getting obese because of the idea that obesity is genetic-based. Some may use it as an excuse as to why they can’t lose weight, but it’s not like they would not just find some other excuse if they couldn’t use the “my DNA may me do it” defense.
If that’s the case, why do white-collar criminals exist? Surely there are plenty of men who believe wealth is just a sucker away, or there wouldn’t be identity theft, bank robberies, or pyramid schemers.
Again, fit does not always equal thin. And thinness does not always equal beauty. Like I said earlier, the problems come in when a woman–despite her efforts to be be fit, such as exercising, eating well–can not look “thin” (by Hollywood’s standards) and considers herself ugly because of that, even though many men (and women) find her attractive.
An enormous amount of hard work…for what and at what cost? A nation of women obsessed with looking like Pamela Anderson, to the point of rejecting their natural-born assets for silcone ones, and refusing to eat more than low-carb rabbit food and TrimSpa, and calling the liposuction doctor at the slightest sign of hip fat…why is this potential reality something NOT to be feared and rejected? Yes, ideals are hard to achieve. But at some point it makes sense to question the ideals we impose on ourselves.
Whoa, why should women be striving for some allusive ideal that most can not attain? If “Pamela Anderson” is the ideal, what is inherently good about a woman constantly asking herself how well she measures up to what basically amounts to a surgically-enhanced, Photoshop incarnation? If a WHR of .7 is the ideal, what is inherently good about a woman constantly fretting about the narrowness of her waist, to the point that she thinks there is something wrong with her if her ratio is not perfect.
If “fitness” is the ideal that you are talking about, then that would be something great to strive for, since being fit is a part of being healthy and having a good quality of life. But one can be fit and still not meet the ideal of beauty that is sold by the media. You don’t seem to understand that.
Yes! I was going to bring that up.
Let’s put it in a different way. It appears that some men assume that women will automatically be (or at least put in the effort), by default, to be beautiful if they are thin. But what if there was a trend that cropped up that had women—trim, fit women—shaving their heads, painting their faces all white, wearing tattered, ill-fitting clothes, and bathing enough to not stink, but not being exactly “fresh” all the time (if you know what I mean, and I think you do). But hey! They’d be thin! THIN THIN THIN! That’s all there is to it—thin! Would guys like Ellis Dee be happy if all women lost weight, were thin, if they took on this new trend of not-terribly-fresh and white painted faces? I think not. Because they’d be thin and trim, but they still would not fit his ideal of beautiful. And beauty—his idea of beauty—is what this is all about.
Thin can be one aspect of “beauty” (to some people), but it’s not the only aspect. So, I am guessing that some people think that it is right and proper for women to try to be as beautiful as they can, (according to someone else’s idea of beauty, which apparently includes thin). And see, I don’t think that’s an appropriate expectation. Women are not some sort of ornament, who have some sort of social obligation to be as pretty as they can.
Exactly. She may not “measure up” to some guys’ idea of “beautiful” (though I am sure she’d measure up to many), but tough titties. So she’s not beautiful enough. So she could try harder, if she really wanted to and squeeze some more beauty out of herself. But why would she want to do that? For whom is she doing that? For herself? No, she’s beautful enough, and her doctor says she’s healthy enough. For random guys on the street, who are distressed because they see a woman that is not beautiful (according to their idea of beauty) enough? Well, once again, tough titties to the guys who feel that some of these women fall short of their full beauty potential. She does not live to be pleasing to their eyes.
You know? I’ve gotten to the point where I SO resent the whole weird “women collectively belong to the male half of the human race and should comport themselves accordingly” thing, that I’ve decided to enter into "Purple Hat"dom early.
I don’t want to have to deal with the “looks”. So, I wear the most gigantic things I can find, I keep my hair in a ponytail, and rarely wear makeup. If I HAD a purple hat, and could get away with it at work, I’d probably do that too 
But yes, your post makes such sense. As I’ve said before in similar threads. It’s as if many men (and no, of COURSE not all) seem to view women as some sort of collective “property” of men in general.
And included in that mentality is the unspoken requirement that women fit “the most perfect and spectacular sex slave” mode so that she’s “acceptable” to them.
Bah!!! Next to that? Purple hat it is!!! (I’ll try to find the purple hat story in case some don’t know what I’m talking about).
[illuminating hijack]
CanvasShoes,
I believe it’s “Red Hat” and purple clothing. My mother refers to it as her cult.
[/illuminating hijack]
Of course we do. It’s called “debt.” It’s a huge and growing problem.
And it’s got a lot of parallels to obesity.
Obesity: Taking in more calories than you can afford.
Debt: Spending more money than you can afford.
The solution for both is the simplistic: Stop doing that.
It’s easier to hide being in debt than it is to hide being fat, so the fat get more direct personal insults, but read a thread about debt sometimes and listen to the accusations. It’s very similar.
Interesting point, and on the face of it, and obvious one at that. I should have realized that.
I’m running out of steam in this thread. I’ve said what I wanted to say as clearly as I could, and even I’m not 100% convinced about my own argument. At least I got the concept out there. I will reply to some of these retorts before I finish up here.
No, wealth is exactly as subjective as beauty. The small town hottie is the big city hag, just as no matter how nice your car is, there is another guy in the room with a nicer one.
We are in complete agreement on this one. This sentiment is the diametric opposite of the backlash I have railed against.
Then I’m all on board. I agree with this position completely. I worry that the wrong message is being sent, though. Being thin isn’t necessarily bad, but you’d never know when hearing people speak out against the unrealistic ideals. And for the record, my dead grandmother is currently as beautiful as Paris Hilton. Ugh.
No, I get it. I’m not all about the media beauty standards. I’m more of a girl next door fan. Fitness is indeed the standard I’m describing, not Hollywood beauty. I’ve said this before, though not in this thread, but I’m against breast implants, and I’m not a big fan of makeup, either. Lipstick in particular. I think a fit, healthy woman is the sexiest thing going. Too thin skeeves me out, as do big fake boobies. Then again, I’m not a fan of the giant anchor scars you get from breast reduction surgery, either, but hey, back pain isn’t fun. I don’t think women should be motivated to look “like” anybody, certainly not anybody famous. Women should be motivated to look like a healthy version of themselves. Once the mission is achieved, don’t beat yourself up because you don’t look like the media’s flavor of the week. That’s where the real problem lies, IMO. Women’s magazines. I tend to give Hollywood a pass on looking for skinny actresses because the camera, apparently, legitimately does add the appearance of weight. But women shouldn’t strive to be as beautiful as starlet x in the exact same way that men shouldn’t strive to be as wealthy as businessman y. Women should strive to be fit, and men should strive to be comfortable.
You aren’t really hearing my position, but rather you are dissecting my words in an attempt to read ulterior motives into them in order to refute them in a way that furthers your agenda.
No, I would not like a world of bald women. Apparently, that makes me bad. So be it.
What I would like is for women to have some self esteem. I think that would translate into a more fit female population, and a huge decrease in plastic surgery, in particular breast implants. That would make me happy. Too bad it seems to be a pipe dream.
What I would not like is the current fascination with hyper-thin celebrities. Equally distasteful to me would be a backlash against that ideal leading to the position that overweight is preferable to fit.
My whole point with the wealth thing is that men know exactly how it feels to be judged unfairly by the opposite sex on factors outside of your control. It does suck. Just don’t take it so personally that it crushes your self esteem.
In the same way that nice guys shouldn’t judge women who happen to be with rich guys, overweight women shouldn’t judge men who happen to be with fit women. That’s all I’m saying.