Not to mention, they diet until they are auschwiz poster children, then they pay a doctor to inflate their tits with silicon [or whatever they use now] because they have removed the fat that gave their tits roundness. Nastiest thing I ever saw in a dressing room - a rail thin skank with loose floppy tits because there wasnt any fat on her at all - she bragged she had 3% body fat :eek:
The answer is because it is okay to be thin in our society, there’s no stigma. If you are fat, you’re invisible.
Why wouldn’t anyone, male or female, want to be socially acceptable? Life is a hell of a lot easier when you are.
What do you mean by “extremely thin”? I don’t think many women truly want to look like famine victims, and those that do are likely suffering from serious psychiatric problems. Plenty of women would like to be as thin as a Hollywood starlet, or at least on the slim side of the bell curve, and I don’t think there’s any great mystery there. Just look at how heavy women are treated and it should be obvious why many women would rather strive for thinness.
Of course, thin women are not always treated kindly either. I was quite skinny in my teens, and people sometimes said nasty things about my weight. But although this bothered me, I’m sure it would have been worse to be a fat girl. At least I could honestly tell myself that some of it was just envy, and that I was lucky not to have to worry about working to be skinny like so many other girls.
It would be easy enough to say that women should just strive to keep their weight within a normal range, but what’s “normal”? The average fashion model is far thinner than the average American woman. The weight of the average American is increasing every year, but I’ve read that models are averaging thinner and thinner. Average weight also varies with age, ethnicity, income level, and region. What seems “normal” is going to vary a lot depending on where a woman looks, so it’s no wonder that some women get skewed ideas.
When I was 18 and poor, partly to save money, partly because I knew I was overweight I cut way back on eating I started out 150 lbs. At that weight, I felt great and fit. I was active and wore a size 14, measurements 42-29-38. I had a lot of energy.
I got down to 120-125 lbs, measurements 38-26-36. Yes, I was only 5’ ft tall so even 120 lbs was overweight. It was uncomfortable to sit, or lay down on a non-padded surface. Laying down on my stomach, my hip bones and ribs felt like they were poking though. My cheeks became sunken. Naked, I looked rather like a skeleton with breasts flaps and hair. I had headaches most of the time and fainted more than a few times. My tongue was sore and sometimes bled. I felt shaky most of the time and usually did not feel at all hungry and was often nauseated. I could not pinch even a quarter inch of fat on my belly or under my arms, just skin. I felt tired all the time.
People told me that I looked better than ever! I should keep up the good work, and with some more will power I should be able to lose the rest of the weight. People still scolded me when I ate in public.
Eventually, I got tired of feeling sick, we had enough money to by groceries, and so I started to eat normally again.
I think (American, at least) society has a black/white view of so many issues, one of them being weight. If you are not THIN, you’re FAT. If you’re a few pounds overweight, you’re “fat”.
Even normal weight is viewed negatively because if you are normal weight, you are going to have some curves, and some fat on your body. I think a lot of women start out as slightly curvy and see themselves as needing to lose weight (compared to media images). And there’s an attitude that if some weight loss is good, then a lot of weight loss is even better. Better to be on the thinner side so there is room for fluctuations.
I do think that Americans (mostly women) have a mild to excessive eating-disordered mindset and body image that leads to what may be initial moderate dieting which can lead to more serious eating disorders and body hatred.
And of course, to reiterate the hatred spewed toward even normal-weight women with curves (I remember Howard Stern [maybe or not a reflection of american men attitude, at least outwardly] talking to a woman on the phone who said she was something like 5’6" and 140 pounds and he called her fat.), this and more would give anyone a complex about the prospect of being fat.
I was a size 7 and 129 pounds (5’5") when I saw myself as unacceptable and embarked on a dieting plan, which turned into an eating disorder and a horrible cycle of dieting/weight gain, which I have finally escaped, thank Og.
Thank you for asking this question. It is helpful for women to see men questioning this standard because I do think a certain element of it has to do with the desire to be attractive to the opposite sex.
peace
Actually, I don’t quite agree (no matter how many times I hear it!). Women hear this all the time from both men and women’s magazines. The problem? Well, for one, it is still kind of reinforcing the idea that women should look how men want them to (and that is not a top priority for most anorexics- control is). More importantly, perhaps, is that men who say this may have a warped idea of what “ultra thin” really is, and women know this. If these guys grew up with the same media we did, then they have been conned into believing only the most heroin addicted child model of the early 90s and Ally McBeal are overly thin, while stars like Alicia Silverstone (pre vegan) and Kate Winslet, hell, even Gisele Bundchen, are “curvy” aka overweight.
It is an extremely difficult problem. It really is. But I think society- men and women- can be trained to find just about anything attractive, including “normal” sized women. The only way to do it is through action- support the use of “real” women in advertising, magazines, etc. If you have a position in the media, use any influence you have to this purpose. And for the love of god, don’t feel good about yourself for putting these girls in an ad campaign and calling attention to the fact that they are “not so perfect,” even “plus sized.” As it stands, the only job inw hich women are paid significantly more than their male counterparts is one in which they are encouraged to have as little physical presence on this earth as possible- modelling. Until healthy-sized celebrities are being singled out for their weight, their body types will be publicly applauded but never actually sought after.
120lbs is normal weight for 5’, according to BMI. Maybe part of the problem is women think they’re overweight when they’re not. 
I think their brains are just wired to make them compete with anything they perceive to be prettier or more aesthetically pleasing. I don’t believe that the media “teaches” people how to view the world. People view the world the way their brain processes what they view. The media just presents imagery that will illicit the desired response.
That’s not true. Women are also paid significantly more in the porn industry. As an added bonus, women in porn generally conform to a healthy body standard. Maybe if more women watched porn, they’d begin to realize that a normal, healthy body is the most attractive.
Dammit, that didn’t come out right. By normal and heaalthy, I meant weight-wise and curviness. Obviously, the fake boobs are too much and project an unrealistic body image.
How true. The media helps reinforce this belief into people who are preprosed to think that way. Unfortunenitly this is not always benificial to the person recieving the message.
Myself, give me a full bodied mature female. Not too fat, not too thin. Just plain healthly who feels good about herself the way she is. That alone is just plain sexy.
Predisposed?
How can you possibly prove this, though?
If you’re born a girl, and all you see are stick thin models on TV, movies, magazines, etc., do you start feeling bad about yourself because you were somehow born “predisposed” to wanting to be thin, or is it because from the day you’re born you’re sent messages on a daily basis that your body isn’t good enough?
Fiji had a very low bulimia rate until MTV became available there, then their rates skyrocketed. Were those new bulimics just “predisposed” to it or could it be that they simply didn’t know their bodies were “inferior” until the damn TV told them they were?
Just because the media sucks in people that are “predisposed” dosen’t stop other people from jumping on the bandwagon. The “Thing” is an endless cycle that needs to be stopped. We need to start sending a message to girls that it is OK to be themselves.
However, if you look around, things are emphaticaly NOT all right. This is not really the time for unconditional self-love, medically speaking.
The majority of Americans (64% as of 2000) are overweight and more people than ever are obese, and the rest of the world – traditionally slimmer than the US – is faring only slightly better.
The Center for Disease Control considers overweight and obesity in the US a paramount matter. Take a look at this map, which indicates percentage range of obesity across the country. Four states have a quarter or more of their population classified as obese! The majority of the others are between 20 and 24% obese by population. That’s pretty scary.
I have nothing against a few extra pounds on a woman – particularly if said pounds happen to make tits and ass jucier – but there is a serious problem here. People outside of television and fashion aren’t getting skinnier, they’re getting fatter every day in spite of the much-discussed impact of television and fashion culture on body image.
Assuming that the modern American pop culture actively encourages women to be thin, I hesitate to think about the obesity rates without this kind of overt encouragement. That sounds like an endorsement for ultra-thin women, but it really is not (personally I far prefer the natural pornography type, who are curvy without being overweght, but in terms of health it is simply and plainly unhealthy to be obese or even overweight).
Everything above also applies to men of course. Men too increasingly have issues with perception of body image, and the majority of them are, like women, also overweight. I think it may be a few years before we see the proper impact of popular media on men’s psyches as we have seen on women, but fear not: it is coming.
I think women in general look better with curves. I am a thin person, I would rather gain pounds than lose pounds. My female friends who I think are most attractive are often called ‘fat’ by other people. I have heard males tell them “be careful what you eat, you don’t want to gain weight.” If a guy I was seeing DARED to say something like that to me I would punch him in the face. Other women too. I’ve known too many mothers that comment negatively on their daughter’s eating habbits.
I think people have this idea of thin = healthy and vice versa. I am one of the laziest people on the planet. The only reason I don’t gain 29342 pounds is because I have an extremely fast metabolism. Yet, people assume that because I am thin, I am fit.
I think the media is to blame.
For years the fashion magazines have been using computer enhanced images to make the models look actually thinner than they really are. (Source: The Beauty Myth* by Naomi Wolfe. I hope I spelled her last name right. The book is an eye-opener.
Wesley, thanks for asking this question. It is refreshing to hear this from a male. But I do think that we women tend to throw out this challenge to other women and do this to ourselves.
When I was in college in the early 1960’s, I don’t even remember anything smaller than a size 6 for anyone, although there were bound to have been exceptions. Now there are people who are smaller than size 0. Geez Louise! What does it take?
Jackie Kennedy was “a perfect size 10.” That’s what it was called in 1960. That might have been an 8 in today’s sizes. That was the ideal. Marilyn was a size 14 and sometimes a 16. Today that would be a size 10/12. She looked terrific. She didn’t look “heavy.” She was the norm.
Girls that were thin were called “skinny” and it wasn’t a compliment. (I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings; I know it’s not always a matter of choice.)
I think there is the very distinct possibility that the harder we try to be too thin for our own good, and the more obsessed we become with weight, the more likely we are to develop eating disorders of all kinds – including compulsive over-eating and binge eating – leading to obesity.
But that is all relative; you don’t provide figures such as weight, body fat, or BMI, only your own subjective impressions and those of people you know. For all we know you, who call yourself thin, might be completely normal, and the hot girls you refer to might also be completely normal and not at all fat as some around you have indicated… or vice versa.
Relatively thin people do tend to be healthier than relatively overweight people, with everything else being equal. Life expectancy is lower for overweight and obese people. There is even growing evidence that visceral adiposity (the fat that contributes to big waistlines) is a reliable predictor for maladies ranging from heart disease, to cancer, to hypertension. A BMI over 30 (and lower for Asians) is also a fairly good predictor of trouble.
Being fat is simply not good for your health, and (after all) what is attractive tends to be at least somewhat related to what is healthy. If the media were actually able to have an impact on obesity and overweight rates, I for one think it would be fantastic, regardless of a few bruised perceptions along the way. The problem is that the impact at present seems limited to a psychological one, to date predominantly among women; as our societies (from the US to China) see more and more beautiful slim women and men in the media, we keep getting fatter and fatter. It’s strange.
Oh yes; legs, for example, are routinely lengthened, since long legs are an important sexual signal. The overall figure is deformed according to the desires of the editor. And, of course, all hints of the most minute imperfections that may be visible under the mask of make-up are regularly airbrushed away. If you inspect carefully the majority of fashion magazines you can actually tell that these changes are more often blatant than subtle, it’s just that we are so used to expecting a certain standard of magazine beauty that we take these digitally enhanced physiques for granted.
Very true – mixed messages coming from the vox dei and from the mirror.
For the rest, I think you are generally referring to the fashion world, not the real world. Look around you today and you should see greater numbers of fat people than at any other time in history. Here is an interesting article about the problem:
I actually think we may be making some very small progress in select areas; whereas once the “waif” look was in, today the “beautiful women” tend to have stronger, more toned frames and bigger bosoms. And men… well, as the article mentions: Brad Pitt and the low-fat six-pack brigade.
It’s a real shame too – I have a coworker who’s about 30 Lbs over the “ideal” weight for a woman her height, and I think she looks absolutely gorgeous, curves and all. She’s constantly dieting and complaining about her weight, and sometimes I just want to tell her that she looks great and she shouldn’t worry so much about about changing her appearance to fit cultural ideals. Alas, I’ll probablly never say anyting about it for fear that it might be taken the wrong way. The last thing I want is to be accused of sexual harrassment.
Of course it’s unhealthy to be extremely fat or obese. But often for other people of more moderate overweight it’s often not so much all the fat that is unhealthy as the junk food they eat and more importantly the inactive lifestyle they lead that is unhealthy. A diet and lifestyle that besides being unhealthy also makes them fat.
If these girls are thin not so much because they work out as because they diet aggressively. Then it’s not a sign of good health. The extremely thin girls, the opposite of the obese, that looks like concentration camp escapees look decidedly unhealthy (and to me nearly as revolting as the obese). The skinny ideal is not driven by men, but women themselves. Men generally find a little more weight more desirable than women themselves.
Sick women (and not so common, men) with anorexic are not about looking good. It is about control.
aw. An awful testament to the rampage of sexual harrassment.laws if I ever saw one.