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"If anyone wants to say these thin models are helping us to keep our weight down ... crap, is what I say."

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Use of real women in ads sparks debate on obesity

Feminist women: what is your experience of weight and how it's used in mainstream culture? How does the control of weight and commentary about weight affect self esteem, self determination, etc.?

I don't think there are a lot of people, obese women included, who think that being morbidly obese is something to strive for. I certainly don't.

I think that what causes obesity is basically overeating and/or underexercising. Throw in a fucked up metabolism (which I think is caused by yo-yo and fad dieting) and that really messes things up.

So let's get to the root cause of overeating. I think people who eat compulsively do so for psychological reasons. Low self-esteem, boredom, misery/unhappiness, depression, dissatisfaction with their lives, despair/resignation, whatever.

I can think of some reasons for underexercising too: low self-confidence, lack of opportunity to exercise in fun ways, lack of physical stamina, and lack of motivation. Also, lack of money plays a part too for a lot of women, depending on what kind of physical activity they might like to do. And any kind of physical activity can cost money, even if just for the clothing and shoes you need to do it.

Now, let's think about how showing exclusively thin women in the media with bodies that are unattainable by the majority of women might feed to those root causes of underexercising and overeating.

Yo-yo and crash dieting fucks up metabolisms. I think that's been pretty well documented. And yet some people think that if we stop showing extremely thin women in the media, it will be a bad thing because it will stop women from trying to reach that ideal? Well, the way most women try to reach it is by dieting. And I think studies have shown that almost all diets end with the person gaining back all the weight they lost, and usually a few pounds on top of it. It's in the high 90's, percentage-wise.

Now, causes of overeating - low self-esteem. I think it's pretty self-evident how never seeing your body type in the media can contribute to low self-esteem. Misery and unhappiness - I found this more as a teenager than now as an adult but it's still here to some degree - but you find that when you and everyone else around you buys into the skinny=beautiful, fat=ugly idea, life can be pretty damned miserable. You eventually learn to accept that you're considered ugly by most people, and you learn to live with it and compensate in other ways, but there's always that underlying consciousness there, and that's no fun. Again, not so much now for me, even though I know it's there, but in my teens, I don't think there was an hour that went by where I didn't agonize over my body once. And strangely enough, that DOESN'T make a person lose weight! It makes you feel despairing and resigned and, if you're an overeater, to seek comfort in food.

Underexercising...well, lack of self-confidence is a huge factor, at least for me. I love team sports but I wouldn't be caught dead signing up for one. I go to a yoga class now, but it took a long time for me to get the nerve up to go to the first class, and that was only after I had the money to buy a pair of loose pants (all I have are jeans for casualwear, and business casual for work). Even if you wanted to start incorporating an hour of walking per day into your lifestyle, you'd have to have comfortable shoes, and that is not always accessible for everyone. To do sports that require access to a gym or a league, it costs money.

And when you see nobody except thin women participating in sports in the media (and since most exercise clothing comes only in smaller sizes at any sports stores), it's not exactly the type of thing that inspires fat women to go out and participate. Not to mention that most of us have probably had nightmare gym class experiences of being picked last for teams, sadistic asshole gym teachers, etc. Would seeing more fat women in the media make fat women feel more confident about being seen publicly to participate in sports and other "active" activities? I tend to think so.

It stands to reason (perhaps) that if there were more fat women (even really fat women) portrayed as "normal" in the media and advertisements, that maybe women wouldn't feel such a need to diet down to the media "normal". In which case they wouldn't be fucking up their metabolisms, they would feel comfortable riding their bikes and playing sports, and they wouldn't experience so much of the misery that comes with "feeling ugly", which in turn might inspire them not to drown their misery in food.

I'm not very active now, the back problem has caused nerve damage in my left leg and that has a way of making even a walk with the dogs seem like a safari. I putter in the garden and in the greenhouse but anything strenuous gets handed over to an offspring...(what else did we feed'em for, eh?!).

I don't think I'm much influenced by the anorexics, or by the clothes they model. But I do have a real "thing" about very obese people, and I'm gender non-specific with that.

Watched a thing on TV last night about a 720+ pound woman who had a gastric operation, in an effort to lose weight. I listened to her for a while and thought Hey, there's more going on here than "weight". The programme talked about a "fat gene" (which I've also heard described as a "thrifty gene") but I got the impression that is really reaching for reasons/excuses. You put more calories in than you're using and you're going to gain. But I know for some people it's much more than just going off ice cream and chocolate bars, and I know some people are made absolutely miserable by their weight.

I watch the grandchildren. We have one whom I won't identify who is what I think of as "a greedy child". Absolutely gobbles down anything sweet, has gorped on cake to the point she is gagging trying to get it down fast enough...so she and I are doing a thing together..see how long we can keep the nice taste on our tongues... enjoy the taste...mmmmmm, I can still taste that, can you? I have no idea if this will "work", but I'd rather have her sprawled in the chair with me, cuddled up, sticking out tongues out to see if there is any shred of chocolate left in view than have her signing on for the next starvation regime. Or worse, feeling there's no sense even trying to lose because already she's lost a ton and she still feels fat and ugly.

I do think Health Canada needs to put some teeth in the government's ass...sugar here sugar there, MSG somewhere else, processed this and processed that and WHY when we know the stuff is crap, almost devoid of nutrition, and responsible for an increase in diabetes among kids? Why not get as tough with the non-food industry as they got with the tobacco industry?

At one point my family doctor at the time prescribed me some medication which made me gain 30 pounds on my small frame. This same doctor, I should point out, was also the one who 'helped' me with some aspects of my eating disorder. Anyways, after sitting around my apartment in such a fit of self-loathing (I mean extreme self-loathing) I decided that I had two choices. I could hate myself even more and fall deeper into a cycle of loathing, or I could try to do something about my body that will make me love it, bigger or smaller.

Michelle, I completely understand the feelings and lack of motivation to get to the gym. My self-confidence was so low, I couldn't bring myself to go. I buckled down, got a membership and haven't looked back since. I try to work out so I can gain some weight and be stronger so I can defend myself. I find that I get quite a bit of people picking on me because of my size, with people constantly telling me to eat, to eat meat, to stop dieting, etc. I don't diet. I have no interest in diet but I do eat very carefully because I now understand my trigger foods and the feelings that lead to them.

I did this research paper on 18th century women and anorexia, in particular how cultural and societal pressures have managed to keep women in a perpetual war against food and loss of control.

As a feminist, I think the biggest issue for both bigger and smaller people is lack of control - over out own lives, our own bodies, and the way in which this world is structured to fragment a whole woman into such tiny little pieces, each of which amount to nothing.

As far as I can tell, my friend doesn't eat more or much more than normal, but she gets very little exercise - the vicious circle others have described. It is very sad.

[ 26 September 2005: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]

With that in mind, if folks don't mind, I would prefer to keep conversations in the thread centred around the issue of overweight, rather than underweight or just fitness generally. Fitness in relation to dealing with a weight problem is still A-OK though.

I don't mean to be a Supreme Dick-tater about it, but think that the Weight-Loss support thread will be more effective/interesting if it is focussed.

Thanks!

Retread, I'm betting that part of the "lack of interest" IS lack of self-confidence, although certainly I can't speak for everyone. Not too many of us are interested in feeling humiliated. Seriously though - it could also be a lack of interest in whatever particular form of exercise is most accessible to the person, as opposed to what they'd really LIKE to do.

For instance: the physical activities that I really love to do tend to be team sports like baeball, volleyball, and soccer, as well as other "social" activities, like walking with friends, or dancing.

The type of physical activities I am either not crazy about doing, or downright dislike are the solitary kind that you do just for the exercise, like walking around just for the sake of exercise, or running, or aerobics, or biking, or using stationary exercise equipment like bikes, treadmills, stairmasters, rowing machines, etc. I just find that stuff exceedingly boring and solitary. And really, that's not a put-down of anyone who likes doing that stuff - this is just me. I can understand on an intellectual level what the attraction of solitary sports and exercise are for people, but I just can't do it myself. I like spending my alone time quietly and introspectively, alone with my thoughts and no other distractions. Which, I think, is why yoga seems to be a bit of an exception to my rule.

Unfortunately, the type of stuff I would really like doing (like team sports, or dancing lessons) have some barriers.

Joining teams or taking dance classes cost money, and the budget is tight. Walking with friends is not expensive, but that CAN be a time thing, just making the time between two schedules to get together, and for social get-togethers, people don't always want to spend them walking around. Dancing lessons (I'm talking learning popular dance-floor dancing, not ballet or tap) usually cost money. There's this club near me that offers free salsa lessons, and you don't even have to bring a partner. But I find that very difficult to just walk cold into something like that alone!

Team sports not only cost money, but I always figure that at my age, they're going to expect a certain skill level which I don't have, and I worry about being the worst on the team, etc. However, I love playing pick-up games of this and that when the very occasional opportunity arises, and it's such fun!

Personally, my weight issues haven't been overly crippling in society, but I have definitely felt pressure from family & others. Someone mentioned that they received praise for losing weight, not academic achievement and that certainly happened in my case as well. I was in college for a spell, after having a baby, and as a single mother, got myself on the dean's list but people really only commented on what I looked like and when/how I planned on getting rid of post-pregnancy weight. I gotta say, at the time, that was last on my list. Later on, my appearance was exactly what earned my living, so I was very fixated on my weight. I managed it with a narcotic diet. Almost all the money I earned went right back into maintaining my appearance. After quitting that lifestyle, it was a freedom to hack around in jeans and no makeup.

Anyway, about a year and a half ago, I decided I needed to work on my health as I was feeling poorly and having some immune system issues. I went gluten free, quit smoking, and started swimming. I chose swimming because, in the past, it had always been my favourite form of exercise. I'd tortured myself with gyms and stupid fads that I hated and I figured if I was gonna stick with something, I'd have to go back to the basics.

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Originally posted by writer:

How does the control of weight and commentary about weight affect self esteem, self determination, etc.?

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Weight affects my self-determination a lot more than I would like it to. When I feel good about my weight, I feel like I am in charge of things. The times in my life that I have set ambitious goals or done serious thinking about where I want to go in life, I have also felt good about my weight. When I feel bad about my weight I take less risks and I am less likely to envision future goals. In this frame of mind, self-determination is hard. Instead I kind of feel myself sinking to the safe, shallow, expected-of-me world.

Intellectually I know this is crap. It's just ingrained so deeply that I've had no success in rooting it out.

I have given a lot of thought to the relationship between weight and that I-can-seize-the-world feeling. For me, it's only ten pounds difference between feeling like I can do anything and feeling like I should just crawl into my hole. Rationally I know that ten pounds has nothing to do with my job performance, my intellectual ability, my athleticism -- hell, ten pounds doesn't even affect my looks that much! And yet, I can't shake the effect that those ten pounds have on my ambition and self-determination.

I'm sure it has something to do with the culture, the media, and so on. I got that message somehow and it wasn't from my immediate family. It just got a little hinky in me because usually you hear that thin models make women feel like they have to be thin to be desirable, and for me I feel like I have to be thin to be ambitious and successful. I don't like it, but there it is.

What has been done to us that we are so often the most negative and critical viewers of ourselves?

I admit to a "thing" about grossly obese people. It's my "thing". I'm trying to look past that to the person, but I don't make any promises.

With the exception of the grossly obese I find most women look just fine. But I bet if we were to ask "most women" what they think of how they look very few would consider themselves "just fine". And that's sad, and it's enraging to me.

I don't have much to offer to this thread; I'm fine with my weight, and reasonably fine with my fitness level, but I do want to thank all of you for what you've written. I'm learning a whole bunch!

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Originally posted by disobedient:
I have an obese friend who is in management at a major telco, and it has often struck me, how rare it is to see obese people in management (though I think manufacturing companies aren't as strict as most corporations), so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that obese or overweight people get marginalized in the workplace. I've never looked up stats, don't know if there are any, just going on observations here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by writer:

Use of real women in ads sparks debate on obesity

Feminist women: what is your experience of weight and how it's used in mainstream culture? How does the control of weight and commentary about weight affect self esteem, self determination, etc.?

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quote:

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I did this research paper on 18th century women and anorexia, in particular how cultural and societal pressures have managed to keep women in a perpetual war against food and loss of control.

As a feminist, I think the biggest issue for both bigger and smaller people is lack of control - over out own lives, our own bodies, and the way in which this world is structured to fragment a whole woman into such tiny little pieces, each of which amount to nothing.

I feel as if I have made no sense here. Sorry.

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skdadl goes Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding! *wry smiley*

Stargazer, I haven't done it with food, but I've done it with some other substances. That dynamic -- anxiety about loss/absence of control = find something that feels like exercise of control, no matter how unhealthy, up to and including slow suicide -- that dynamic I think I grasp. I have certainly performed that translation.

It has been a long time since skinny models had much of an impact on my subconscious, but the world can have similar effects on us in other ways. Physically, I have always been able to live in disguise since I am the eternal boring Medium. But my goodness: the rot under the surface.

I'm very aware of the dynamic you describe. Sometimes I think I can defy it. Sometimes I don't.

Anne pointed it out when she said:

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I do think Health Canada needs to put some teeth in the government's ass...sugar here sugar there, MSG somewhere else, processed this and processed that and WHY when we know the stuff is crap, almost devoid of nutrition, and responsible for an increase in diabetes among kids? Why not get as tough with the non-food industry as they got with the tobacco industry?

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and I would just add that one big reason why the food industry puts sugar into just about every single one of their products is that they get it cheaply from over-subsidized corn crops. Highly processed corn syrup is really, really sweet, high in fructose and easy to add to just about anything, from candy to bread to pop and juice.

Add that to the fact that a lot of people don't have time, or never learned to cook; the ubiquity and variety of fast-food; and the rise of all kinds of digital and visual pursuits, it's pretty easy to see why we have the problems we do. This isn't a concern that's specific to women - I see just as many morbidly and mildly obese men as I do women.

But what is more specific to women is the body image/aesthetics versus real-life power issue. I was pretty lucky to have experienced this first-hand as a kid (or maybe unlucky, at least I would've said so at the time) when I was in gymnastics. How I looked (specifically, from the neck down) was so vitally important to me that I wonder if I even thought about anything else. The gym walls were plastered with posters and photos of impossibly lithe and muscular young women, and every single one of us was painfully aware that if our bodies didn't look exactly like theirs, we might as well just give up. I learned to look carefully at every single meal I ate to make sure there weren't any useless calories, and if I felt particularly strong and motivated, I would renounce desserts or sweets - it was a kind of a power trip I had over myself. Also, there were weekly weigh-ins on Sunday mornings and if my weight went down or stayed the same, I felt good about myself. If it went up even by a pound or so, it was like impending disaster (actually, I discovered that puberty was an impending disaster in itself. ) The weight gain I inevitably had during my delayed puberty was a kind of a disaster, because the physical power I had as a gymnast was severely affected, and I had to drop out after a series of growth-related injuries.

Once I was out of that particular environment, weight completely ceased to be an issue for me. However, if I had hung on to some secret desire to be a model or an actor, it's easy to see how the desire to keep controlling my weight could have continued. I've asked some men if they ever seriously wanted to be an actor when they were teenagers, and few said it ever occurred to them, even as a secret dream. On the other hand, it's much more common for young girls and teenagers to want to be models, pop singers or actors (even if they don't seriously consider it as a real option) - I'm pretty sure it's their way of finding how they can be valued by society, in a strange way. (I guess that's because North American society is pretty strange...)

Weight issues are huge for models and actors, obviously, and as long as those careers continue to appear so financially and personally rewarding, body aesthetics will be synonymous with personal power - for women. For some women in a real way, and for others by ricochet.

I'm fascinated by the way that is so patently untrue, however: just as in gymnastics, the real power was wielded by coaches, judges and team delegates who often had surprisingly ample, blowsy bodies, in the entertainment and fashion world, the power is in the hands of directors, producers and designers, and nobody knows or cares what they look like.

(Edited for clarity, or at least I strive for clarity...)

[ 27 September 2005: Message edited by: brebis noire ]

Now I actually like soliday sports, running especially, and did do two 10k races back in the day. But I'd damage my knees trying to run at this weight.

Whilst I don't mind walking, it is not very intense. I tried walking a lot a few years ago, and didn't lose an ounce. I'd have to walk continuously 8 hours a day or something for it to have any effect....(maybe I could switch jobs to being a letter-carrier! Hehehe) I don't have access to a pool, so swimming is out. Biking can't realistically be done in the winter (unless I want to end up under an 18-wheeler). I do bike a bit in the summer, but it is fairly low-intensity so it has the same non-effect on my weight as walking.

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Originally posted by vmichel:
"Weight affects my self-determination a lot more than I would like it to. When I feel good about my weight, I feel like I am in charge of things. ...

Intellectually I know this is crap. It's just ingrained so deeply that I've had no success in rooting it out.

I have given a lot of thought to the relationship between weight and that I-can-seize-the-world feeling. For me, it's only ten pounds difference between feeling like I can do anything and feeling like I should just crawl into my hole. Rationally I know that ten pounds has nothing to do with my job performance, my intellectual ability, my athleticism ...

I got that message somehow and it wasn't from my immediate family. It just got a little hinky in me because usually you hear that thin models make women feel like they have to be thin to be desirable, ...

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Originally posted by writer:
A quick reminder: I requested that only women post on this thread in the feminism forum. Respecting this request would be a very pro-feminist thing to do. I encourage general discussion amongst those who are not feminist women in another thread and/or another forum.

Thanks again!

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Writer, ... you appear to have succeeded in silencing that talkative Magoo! Congradulations!

With that, I'd like to come back to:

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Feminist women: what is your experience of weight and how it's used in mainstream culture?

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Over the last few months, I've noticed a whole slew of celebrity magazines opining that an increasing number of stars are too thin, or asking the question about whether they are. The coverage started with Calista Flockhart and Lara Flynn Boyle years ago, but now the "trend" is getting lots of ink. Yet nothing much about male celebrities getting too thin, or too fat, for that matter.

Lindsay Lohan 'I was too thin'
Is Nicole Richie Too Skinny?
Are They Too Thin? (poll)
Celebrity Bodies: Whose Business Is It?

[ 27 September 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

[ 27 September 2005: Message edited by: vmichel ]

Even as a teenager, I look at pictures and see that while I was heavier than my peers, the difference wasn't that significant - I was perhaps a size 14, compared to mostly size 8s, 10s & 12s. And I was incredibly fit as a young teenager. Between ages 12 and 15, I used to swim for 2 hours a day, at least 5 days a week, and often ride my bike home for an hour over hilly country roads. Despite that, I still thought I was too fat. It never occurred to me that, at that level of physical activity, if I wasn't losing weight, perhaps I wasn't meant to.

I put on weight after I quit the swim team, and I quit the swim team because, being heavier, I couldn't compete at the same level as my teammates. There was a new coach, to whom competing and winning were very important. He wanted to (and eventually did) coach medallists (one of the women on my team went on to compete at the Olympics). I wasn't ever going to be a medallist, and so I didn't really belong on the team anymore. I'm not blaming here: I'm not suggesting that it's that coach's fault that I got fat, I'm just considering how limiting sports can be to even moderately heavy people.

I think I've had a different experience of being fat than most fat women in that I haven't had those moments of intense body loathing. I made a decision early on, as early as my first year of undergraduate study, after a series of useless diets had failed, that it was going to be easier and more pleasurable to love the body I had and live in it, than to hate it and force it to change. I remember thinking that my body was healthy and strong and that was enough: it was too much to ask for it also to be a size 4.

I never engaged in any really destructive behaviour, no eating disorders or substance abuse, though I did use sex with men to prove to myself that my body was attractive and desireable. It took me quite a long time to realize that the primary thing that (most) men were attracted to about me was my availability, not the body I happened to be walking around in. Fortunately, by the time I figured that out, I'd started to believe my own propaganda and was convinced that I actually was the best looking woman I know. And further fortunately, lots of people are attracted to that kind of self-assured cockiness.

Being fat has also caused me to prioritise in some weird ways. For example, I will never deny myself flattering clothing, no matter how much it costs. If a garment looks good, and makes me feel good about how I look, then it's worth every penny that I might have to scrape together for it. I figure there's enough messages in the world to make me feel bad about my figure, whatever it costs to counteract them is well worthwhile.

Honestly, I would like to lose some weight, mainly because I'd like to have access to a broader range of clothing choices (yes, it is all about me and my vanity) but also because I'm getting older and feeling like I ought to. I was denied life insurance last year for no other reason than because I'm considered too fat: blood work was fine, cholesterol was fine, blood pressure was A-OK, non-smoker, social drinker but too fat means unhealthy. But though I'd like to lose some weight, I'm not interested in committing my life to it as a goal, which it often seems to have to be. I have too many other things to do besides count calories, monitor carbs or weigh vegetables. I'm working on increasing my exercise: walking when I can, gardening (bought a push mower, not the motor kind), taking the stairs instead of the elvevator.

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Last summer, I gained 30 pounds. I needed to gain weight - I was finally the right weight for my height. Everyone I saw told me how good I looked. I looked healthy instead of skinny; to me, I just looked fat.

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My Hot Fat Girl Manifesto
As a teenager, I had always been eager to fight for abortion rights and against police brutality and queer-bashing. I didn't see fat as a serious political issue. But it is. To illustrate my point, I've written the "Hot Fat Girl Manifesto" (see below). If you like it, print it on stickers and put it on lockers, bus seats and bathroom walls.

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I think we do need to address this problem without singling anyone out.

One thing I found strange was that the HFG thought there was something wrong with the fact that she tended to prefer slender partners. Not everyone does, and there is a wide range of preferences. The real problem is shame among those attracted to chubbier people (to women, mostly, and here I'm talking mostly about heterosexual relations) for reasons of class prejudice ("On sort avec les minces, mais on rentre avec les grosses") .

[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: cat09tails ]

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AS an actress I was used to people comp-lementing me on how "lovely" and thin I was. As an anorexic I knew I was close to emaciated ...

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I've known a few women who've had the same experience while being treated for cancer. They'd meet up with people they knew socially who weren't aware of their condition. These people would gush about how great the women looked, asking how they'd lost weight.

[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

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I've known a few women who've had the same experience while being treated for cancer. They'd meet up with people they knew socially who weren't aware of their condition. These people would gush about how great the women looked, asking how they'd lost weight.

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[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: cat09tails ]

If a bunch of us women, ill in various ways, are being complemented on our figures when we're thin for unhealthy reasons, then there really is a standard set that certainly is unrealistic for most healthy women to meet. Arg.

[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: Amy ]

[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: cat09tails ]

[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: cat09tails ]

[ 09 November 2005: Message edited by: cat09tails ]

[ 24 November 2005: Message edited by: Makwa ]

quote:

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Feminist women: what is your experience of weight and how it's used in mainstream culture? How does the control of weight and commentary about weight affect self esteem, self determination, etc.?

I am specifically asking that this be a woman-only exploration, with posters who self-identify as feminists. Others wanting to tackle the issue(s) from a non-feminist perspective and/or wanting to include both genders are invited to start their own thread.

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I got this book from the library and I found it very helpful:

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With respect, a gentle reminder this thread in the feminism forum was framed as such:

quote:
Feminist women: what is your experience of weight and how it's used in mainstream culture? How does the control of weight and commentary about weight affect self esteem, self determination, etc.?
I am specifically asking that this be a woman-only exploration, with posters who self-identify as feminists. Others wanting to tackle the issue(s) from a non-feminist perspective and/or wanting to include both genders are invited to start their own thread.

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Originally posted by cat09tails:
to clarify - cat09tails is my own id. I had problems trying to figure out how to get the password, so I used my roommate's id (lonewolf2) temporarily.

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Then why did you identify yourself as "a feminist man" when you were using his account? I'm confused.

Anyhow, as writer says, this thread was outlined as a discussion of weight issues as experienced by women. Starting another thread to talk about male experiences, or male and female experiences with weight issues would be okay, though.

[ 24 November 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I always bought clothes that were too large, I could not look at my full body in a mirror while shopping for clothes (or any other time, for that matter).

Like Michelle, I was always petrified of going to a gym or doing any solo exercise in public - I thought that everyone would be secretly laughing at me, "look at the fat girl, why does she even bother exercising...".

I could not look at photos of myself as I thought I was so fat and ugly. I did not like others to take pictures of me either.

And then something happened. I was very ill for a year and the medication I was given (wrongly, it turns out) had a wonderful/horrible side effect of increasing my appetite dramatically. Added to this, because I was ill I could not exercise, I gained 75 lbs. and then I realized, horror of horrors, now I was fat but I hadn't really been fat at all before. I had never been more than 140 lbs, which on my 5'6.5", large boned frame was really rather nice and I was never more than 125 lbs while in high school. But now I was over 215 lbs.

Strangely, my self image kind of improved.

I'm still 200 lbs but am 38 weeks pregnant and weigh less than my pre-pregnancy weight. This was due to some health problems. I too have been told that I look great, better than most pregnant women. (This irks me...as an earlier poster mentioned, getting compliments because you've lost weight because you have been ill makes me think, what did I look like when I was well, shit?)

I don't know to what degree I was influenced by media images of women (I like to think not at all, but then I am fooling myself, aren't I?). I was a voracious reader of Seventeen magazine when younger and of course, there was my father...

[ 25 November 2005: Message edited by: cat09tails ]

The weight debate must be quelled. We do live in a society of extremes, those extremes are brought on by the extreme unhealthiness of our society in general.

I will not suggest how individuals should act because I think that it is unjust to blame individuals, we are in the midst of a cultural crisis.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Fresh, healthy foods are very tasty. The reason they are pumped full of trans-fats and sugar is because they are frozen, stored, tinned, processed to the extent that they would have no flavour at all without all the crap added to them.

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Trans-fats are added not for taste, but for cost. Baked and fried goods made with non-hydrogenated fats taste as good or better, but cost more or don't keep as well, or make the food non-Kosher/Halal.

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Originally posted by writer:

Use of real women in ads sparks debate on obesity

Feminist women: what is your experience of weight and how it's used in mainstream culture? How does the control of weight and commentary about weight affect self esteem, self determination, etc.?

I am specifically asking that this be a woman-only exploration, with posters who self-identify as feminists. Others wanting to tackle the issue(s) from a non-feminist perspective and/or wanting to include both genders are invited to start their own thread.

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[ 01 December 2005: Message edited by: marcella ]

[ 01 December 2005: Message edited by: marcella ]

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Originally posted by andrean:
[QB]When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time worrying that I was too fat. I'd been hassled about my weight by family members my entire childhood and had fully come to believe their mantra, "you'd be so pretty if only you'd lose some weight!" I look at photos of me as a child now and see that I was just a plump little girl. Just plump - not even fat, certainly not obese - just a plump, healthy little girl who might have grown out of it if she'd been left alone.[QUOTE]

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Ooooooooh, I HATE that! Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends and whoever else might be reading this. Never, ever tell a girl: "you'd be so pretty if only you'd lose some weight!" All it tells her is that no matter what else she does in life she will never be good enough as long as she is overweight!

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Originally posted by indiemuse:

Ooooooooh, I HATE that! Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends and whoever else might be reading this. Never, ever tell a girl: "you'd be so pretty if only you'd lose some weight!" All it tells her is that no matter what else she does in life she will never be good enough as long as she is overweight!

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We would never say this or think this about a boy, would we? My concerns with my own kids (both boys) are always about developing healthy eating habits, making sure they eat fruit, vegetables and protein, ensuring they're learning about how food contains the vitamins, energy and proteins their bodies need, how to make simple recipes, having enough energy, getting enough exercise, etc.

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Well, obviously having been bombarded for the last 40 years with almost exclusively extremely thin women in the media hasn't caused the average woman to become a size 2, so I don't see how having fat women featured in the media will cause the average woman to become a size 22.
I don't think there are a lot of people, obese women included, who think that being morbidly obese is something to strive for. I certainly don't.

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Michelle - I might have misunderstood your post. Do you think that a size 22 woman, or any of the women in the Real Beauty Campaign are 'morbidly obese'? 'Fat' is even kind of a stretch.

I too was teased about my 'weight'. My family would comment on my disproportionately large hips. I look at my old highschool photos and my shoulders are boney looking. Seems I wasn't overweight at the time. I just had a very curvy bottom. Still, I felt so much shame that I was embarrassed to walk around in a bathing suit and always wore long shirts to cover my hips. I honestly thought that the magazine and movie star physique was attainable, that there was something wrong with me for not looking that thin.

Today I am (according to north american clothing labels) TWICE the size I used to be. I really resent the cookie-cutter beauty ideal, but mostly I've got the confidence to appreciate my size 18 curves.

[ 05 December 2005: Message edited by: Accidental Altruist ]

My Bro' and I are about equally plump. Both of us could stand to lose about 100 lb. and we both know it. We bring our families over and get together with my parents for lunch every now and then. At these gatherings, my mother has on more than one occasion made some comment about my weight or the amount I am eating etc., whereas no similar comments are made with respect to my brother.

My mother once mentioned to me that as a young woman (in the 1950s) she preferred dating taller, larger, men because it made her look "petite." That is obviously an ideal for her.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
If women lose enough of their body fat - talking starvation as in famines or concentration camps, and also among the severely anorexic - they simply stop menstruating. Men's libido plummets as well.

It is understandable that in countries where famine is common, heftier women should be preferred as brides. In Mauritania, young girls are systematically force-fed, and women encouraged to maintain a level of obesity that is very detrimental to their health and mobility.

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