[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna]
Please define “sexually abused”. I looked up your stats, and they seem to a) only appear on sites which have a clear agenda (albeit a well-intentioned one) and b) are never accompanied by a description of what, exactly, falls under the scope of “sexually abused”.
A BF got me drunk when I was 17 and tried to cop a feel. Does that count?
[/QUOTE]
Depending on the age of your boyfriend, maybe. Another 17 year old…no. A 47 year old man who you met on the internet a week ago…yeah.
[QUOTE=Ogre]
This is so obviously a troll trying to flame out spectacularly, but so far, it’s just sort of a damp fizzle.
[/QUOTE]
Every 4th of July someone will pick one of these up and put out their eye. Let’s be careful out there.
“Tiny feet” is a well-known euphemism for not having a really big firecracker.
[QUOTE=elmwood]
I’ll try to word this in the most PC manner possible.
There has to be a reason why the bulk of mass-market clothing for larger women is in “unattractive colors and prints” versus mass-market clothing for those of weight-proportionate-to-height and slimmer builds. Why?
<snip>
The only reason I can think of is that it’s because of market preference; retailers are just catering to the tastes of their customer base.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not just obese women. It’s anybody who diverges from the very narrow standard which has the broadest possible appeal.
I am 5’9", size 10-14 (depending on the store … my weight has remained constant over my last five annual physical exams), “mesomorphic” body type, feet appropriately sized and shaped for someone of my height.
In other words I am pretty average sized. I am taller than many women but so are most models, who are supposed to be the epitome of commercial fashion. I am not remarkable in any dimension, there are lots and lots of women who are taller and shorter and fatter and skinnier and bigger-boobed and smaller-boobed and longer-legged and shorter-legged than I am. And yet whenever I go shopping I end up feeling like a giant, fat, flat-footed mutant destined never to be fashionable. I don’t think that it is anybody’s intention to make me feel this way, but it’s certainly the effect.
I cannot buy clothes targeted towards the mass market. I can’t buy most jeans (e.g. the everyday brands at Levis and the Gap) because they don’t make them in an inseam long enough. I can’t buy shoes in regular shoe stores because my feet are too wide and my arches too high. I can’t buy boots because my ankles are too narrow. I can’t buy jackets off the rack because they are never big enough for my arms and shoulders, I can’t buy blouses off the rack because if they cover my boobs they don’t come anywhere near my waistline, and I can’t buy regular T-shirts because they show my navel after a few loads of laundry. I can’t find a Calvin Klein bra in my size. I can’t buy most things from most boutiques because they only ever go up to size 14 at all and usually the few size 14s don’t last very long.
Fashion is targeted towards a very narrow mass market. People who exceed the “typical” size in any dimension have a very, very hard time finding clothes that fit. (Go on, ask any woman!)
Finally: Anyone who thinks that fat women need to be told they’re fat (because they don’t know already?) is either an idiot or an asshole. Probably both.
[QUOTE=faire_jour]
Depending on the age of your boyfriend, maybe. Another 17 year old…no. A 47 year old man who you met on the internet a week ago…yeah.
[/QUOTE]
Soooo… your definition of sexual abuse is limited to 47 year old men met on the internet getting 17 year olds drunk and copping a feel?
[QUOTE=Malthus]
While this is more of a general questions or great debates type issue - I read the link and found it interesting, but I find it somewhat (if you will excuse the expression!) hard to swallow that obesity is as genetically based as claimed; after all, obesity rates are changing very rapidly among a non-deprived population (North Americans). How can “genetics” account for the fact that the population is overall fatter now on average than in the 1970s? Our genetics haven’t changed.
…
To my mind, while genetics and psycology no doubt play their parts, the real key is the social acceptance of eating vast quantities of food.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it is an interesting question, but, as you said, probably more suited to those other forums. As a quick hit, there are excellent arguements out there that North Americans are only very moderately heavier than they used to be.
For one thing, as heights go up, BMIs (which are admittedly inaccurate, but are used for convenience’s sake by just about everyone doing the research and writing the reports) go up as well, even if body fat percentages stay the same. (Picture a cylinder getting taller, and you’ll understand why.) The CDC says that adult weights are up around 25 pounds on average, and heights have increased more than an inch between 1960 and 2004. Yes, BMIs have increased, and more than direct scaling would account for, but hardly at “epidemic levels”. This is during a span of time where chronic disease numbers dropped dramatically and life spans steadily increased.
Who exactly was overweight and obese was also redefined in 1998, suddenly moving 30 million people into the overweight category who were considered normal weight before. In 2000 the charts were adjusted to use BMI instead of just weight vs. height, and a bunch of children were also instantly reclassified as being over the 85th percentile.
In more recent trends, children’s BMIs did not change significantly between 1999 and 2006. Adult weights have been flat since 2003 - I read somewhere that the total average weight gain since 1980 was 9 pounds, but I’m having trouble finding that cite right now.
Even if obesity was as much of a crisis as is played up in the media, there’s not much that most overweight people can do about it, as for the vast majority diets don’twork.
Of course, as far as “fat girl fashion” there’s always QVC and Quacker Factory. If you don’t mind being a middle-aged woman who dresses like her 95-year-old mother who thinks she’s still 7 picked her clothes out.
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna]
Soooo… your definition of sexual abuse is limited to 47 year old men met on the internet getting 17 year olds drunk and copping a feel?
[/QUOTE]
What? That’s a completely ludicrous interpretation of her post. Switch “is limited to” to “includes” and you’ll be closer.
[QUOTE=Risha]
Well, it is an interesting question, but, as you said, probably more suited to those other forums. As a quick hit, there are excellent arguements out there that North Americans are only very moderately heavier than they used to be.
For one thing, as heights go up, BMIs (which are admittedly inaccurate, but are used for convenience’s sake by just about everyone doing the research and writing the reports) go up as well, even if body fat percentages stay the same. (Picture a cylinder getting taller, and you’ll understand why.) The CDC says that adult weights are up around 25 pounds on average, and heights have increased more than an inch between 1960 and 2004. Yes, BMIs have increased, and more than direct scaling would account for, but hardly at “epidemic levels”. This is during a span of time where chronic disease numbers dropped dramatically and life spans steadily increased.
Who exactly was overweight and obese was also redefined in 1998, suddenly moving 30 million people into the overweight category who were considered normal weight before. In 2000 the charts were adjusted to use BMI instead of just weight vs. height, and a bunch of children were also instantly reclassified as being over the 85th percentile.
In more recent trends, children’s BMIs did not change significantly between 1999 and 2006. Adult weights have been flat since 2003 - I read somewhere that the total average weight gain since 1980 was 9 pounds, but I’m having trouble finding that cite right now.
Even if obesity was as much of a crisis as is played up in the media, there’s not much that most overweight people can do about it, as for the vast majority diets don’twork.
[/QUOTE]
Your first link seems to indicate that weights are increasing at a greater rate than the increase in heights would account for.
The increase in the case of children is certainly of concern:
The height gains are minor compared to the weight gains. For example, a 10yo boy gains 10.8 pounds and 0.5 inches (out of a total height and weight of 85 pounds and 55.7 inches in 2002). That’s a 13% gain in weight and a .08% gain in height.
To my mind the 4 decade results are more conclusive than those over a shorter period.
I’m not concerned about the “reclassification” of BMI - I agree that there is a bit of a pubic ‘scare’ on. I simply contend that in general North Americans are growing fatter (as well as somewhat taller) at a rate that genetics alone cannot explain.
Anecdotally, I’m not sure what is meant by “diets don’t work”. I would agree that going on a crash diet and then going back to eating as one did before doesn’t work. What does, in my experience, is dieting as a continual thing (that is a “crash” diet followed by a permanent change in eating habits and exercise).
I myself lost 50 pounds and, two years later, have not gained it back (I am 6’ tall and weigh 190 pounds as of this AM - I used to weigh 240). Why was I fat? Not I assure you because I was sexually abused or hated myself - personally I attribute it to a sedentary job sitting in front of a computer, a dislike of exercise, and a love of chips, pizza, hamburgers and wine (plus quitting smoking). I attribute being not-so-fat to eating more in the way of salads and vegitables combined with visits to the gym twice a week and moderate exercise between.
[I still eat pizza and burgers and drink wine on occasion, but not as a general rule.]
[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
What? That’s a completely ludicrous interpretation of her post. Switch “is limited to” to “includes” and you’ll be closer.
[/QUOTE]
I think the point was that faire_jour hasn’t defined sexual abuse as used in his/her statistics. Without that, it’s not clear how to interpret them. I know a lot of women well enough to discuss this sort of thing, and the 1 in 3 statistic seems way off unless you define “sexual abuse” very loosely.
[QUOTE=Giraffe]
I think that’s a pretty retarded interpretation. If this weren’t the five millionth time someone on the Internet has made the observation that they find fat people to be unattractive, you might have a point. If an obese woman had solicited opinions about her appearance and then gotten outraged when all the responses weren’t uniformly positive, you might have a point. If fat people in this country weren’t constantly bombarded with the message that thin is attractive and fat isn’t, you might have a point.
But none of those are true, so you don’t. By the five millionth time some tard logs onto the web to share his view that omg fat people are gross lol, the only real response is to mock them and tell them to shut up. Not because the viewpoint is so abhorrent that it must be censored, but because it’s boring, rude, and overdone.
[/QUOTE]
Really? I’m still at a loss to see how any fat person could be threatened by this thread, giving that the OP was in for a smackdown the moment the electrons hit the screen.
As a fattie in remission - I don’t think I dare say “ex-fattie” at this stage of the game - I acknowledge that if I have been found physically unattractive throughout my adult life I could choose between doing something to make myself more attractive, or arguing for a wholesale redefinition of attractiveness. One of those two options, I think, was pretty retarded.
[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
What? That’s a completely ludicrous interpretation of her post. Switch “is limited to” to “includes” and you’ll be closer.
[/QUOTE]
I was simply matching one kind of hyperbole with another to make a point.
As Telemark points out, based on anecdotal evidence alone, 1 in 3 seems pretty odd unless we’re working with a VERY loose definition. I’d take a poll in IMHO to back up my hunch, but it wouldn’t work very well without some kind of benchmark of what is abuse vs. what isn’t.
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Really? I’m still at a loss to see how any fat person could be threatened by this thread, giving that the OP was in for a smackdown the moment the electrons hit the screen.
As a fattie in remission - I don’t think I dare say “ex-fattie” at this stage of the game - I acknowledge that if I have been found physically unattractive throughout my adult life I could choose between doing something to make myself more attractive, or arguing for a wholesale redefinition of attractiveness. One of those two options, I think, was pretty retarded.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure why you quoted my post, because this has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote, which was rebutting this statement of yours:
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Really? I thought threads like this just served to reinforce the lesson that obese people generally are above criticism, and only mindless trolls don’t realize this.
[/QUOTE]
You asserted this the pile-on of the OP was due to the fact that we all believe that obesity is fine and can’t be criticized, while I countered that you were wrong, obesity is constantly being criticized, and the OP is being piled on for being stupid and boring more than anything else.
So your latest post doesn’t make any sense to me, since you’ve restated that argument to be one we weren’t actually having.
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Really? I’m still at a loss to see how any fat person could be threatened by this thread, giving that the OP was in for a smackdown the moment the electrons hit the screen.
As a fattie in remission - I don’t think I dare say “ex-fattie” at this stage of the game - I acknowledge that if I have been found physically unattractive throughout my adult life I could choose between doing something to make myself more attractive, or arguing for a wholesale redefinition of attractiveness. One of those two options, I think, was pretty retarded.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t imagine that any fat person is “threatened” by this thread. And it’s not that the obese are immune from criticism; we get that daily as we go about our lives, mostly unsolicited, and many times intended and designed to embarrass the recipient to the maximum amount possible in the situation. It’s that the OP asked a question which, although it does have legitimate answers that have been provided, also included statements such as “not that anyone wants to look at them anyway” and “they don’t know what they have become”. Were it a sincere question, the snide asides wouldn’t have been present; as it is, it was just another instance of sneaking in some sniping at fat people. Yawn.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that a wholesale redefinition of attractiveness is called for, either. Your response to perceiving that you were physically unattractive was to lose weight (and congratulations to you on achieving what obviously was an important goal), but is it so hard to understand that another person might think ‘screw you, I don’t give a damn what you think about me as long as I’m happy with myself’? And in the materials that I have read*, that’s all the FA movement is about - being happy with one’s self at any size and making it clear to the rest of society to mind their own business and keep their comments to themselves unless they are requested. In other words, simple politeness. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
*I haven’t researched this topic too extensively, just going on the statements in the blogs that I have read.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
Your first link seems to indicate that weights are increasing at a greater rate than the increase in heights would account for.
…
I simply contend that in general North Americans are growing fatter (as well as somewhat taller) at a rate that genetics alone cannot explain.
[/quote]
And I think that I said, “Yes, BMIs have increased, and more than direct scaling would account for”. I just don’t think that it’s at the level of direness that the scaremongers on TV keep yelling about. Is an extra 25 pounds really a death knell for the average sized person? Not to mention that it’s a minor drop in the bucket for someone in the obese category. By those numbers, in 1960 I would have been 5’ 11" and 325 pounds. I missed my chance to be skinny!
(That’s not even going into the studies that say that people in the “overweight” category live the longest, healthiest lives. And that being underweight is far worse for your health than all but the highest level of morbid obesity. That’s when you start to question who’s decided who’s normal versus overweight, and what criteria they used.)
I have a husband waiting impatiently for me for dinner, so I’ll have to continue the conversation later!
[QUOTE=nofloyd]
. . . For me, the skirt/dress issue is a pantyhose issue - It’s quite an effort at this size to twist and bend to get pantyhose on, then the pantyhose makes you too hot. Then when you need the bathroom you have to struggle with that layer over again and I never get the pantyhose to sit right again. It’s all icky enough I avoid skirts/dresses except some summer wear without hose. . .
[/QUOTE]
I concur with this. I have to add that there is the extra consideration of leg shaving when you get into the skirt and pantyhose area. To have a chance of being worn by me with any regularity, a skirt must be long enough to cover the tops of knee socks.
Also, I’ve gotten used to carrying my keys and wallet in my pants pockets. If I tried to carry a purse, I’d probably lose it, at this point. Most skirts have either no pockets or tiny, wallet-expelling ones. Since I hate to shop, and the odds of finding a skirt that has the right length, the proper pockets, and an acceptable fabric on any given stopping trip are slim, I generally wear pants.
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna]
I was simply matching one kind of hyperbole with another to make a point.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I agree with the point you’re claiming to make (these “you probably sexually assaulted seventeen women before you even had breakfast” stats are always nebulous), but I still don’t see how completely misrepresenting faire_jour’s post made that point. Never mind, anyhow.
- personally I attribute it to a sedentary job sitting in front of a computer, a dislike of exercise, and a love of chips, pizza, hamburgers and wine (plus quitting smoking). I attribute being not-so-fat to eating more in the way of salads and vegitables combined with visits to the gym twice a week and moderate exercise between.
