SubscribeWhich is, of course, hate. (It is not acceptable to dislike someone for their skin color, now is it?)
posted by aaron at 10:00 PM on October 8, 2001
:::ding!::: Just like white people used to be trained that African-Americans were "subhuman savages." Just like they used to be trained way back when that the ultimate in attractiveness was to be as fat and pale as humanly possible, because it indicated you were an aristrocrat and didn't have to live and work outside like the serfs. It is entirely TRAINING. You are trained to dislike and disparage overweight people. You ought to see a major, major problem with that.
well, then, those people don't understand the nature of attraction.
No, we understand it perfectly. And as the article makes clear, your (universal you) "lack of attraction" for overweight people is so overwhelming that it directly negatively affects every aspect of how you treat them as human beings, in platonic friendships, work relationships, everything across the board.
And even if it were completely limited to matters of dating, we would have just as much right to be enraged, because again, the hatred is near universal. Doug tries to make the specious argument about "some people not liking people with long hair or blue eyes," but the reality is that there are huge percentages of people that DO go for people with long hair or blue eyes, so the overall effect for long-haired blue-eyed people is nil. But if you're fat, practically everyone will completely ignore you romantically, unless you, you know, "stay with your own kind," as the Old School bigots would say. So yes, even on matters of attraction it's societal ostracization and hatred.
Just own up to it: You are a bigot. We all are in some ways ... you, me, everyone in this thread, everyone on earth. We have advanced as a society at least partially, to the point where those people who are members of groups with large amounts of money and media access have finally been able to shame society into providing them some small measure of pseudoequality. The overweight just haven't developed a good enough lobbying organization yet, and humans all still have a feral need to label and stomp upon SOMEBODY in order to establish that they themselves are not at the bottom of the totem pole, so right now fat people are still acceptable targets.
And then there are people like Aikido, who seems to actually revel in their hate:
I don't feel sorry for obese people unless its genetic (which for most isn't)
You have no way of knowing that at all. And you especially have no way of knowing through casual eye contact whether any random person's weight is genetic or slovenly. Ergo, you are a bigot. QED. (Not that the rest of your hate spewage in that paragraph doesn't already indicate that...)
Rebecca, not long ago there was a study done of successful career women and weight. It was discovered that if a female in the United States is overweight, she has almost ZERO chance of ever making it into management at any company, no matter her prior successes, brains or ability. The number was literally 3%. If you are a female and overweight, you are almost completely doomed to be a low-level salaried employee until the day you die. So please, don't even try to compare your own experiences to those of the overweight, because it isn't even in the same ballpark. (It is somewhat less horrid for men, by the way, but only when comparing to overweight women. For men it was around 18%, as I recall, which is still in the realm of widespread societal evil.)
And for the record, I have always considered Catherine Zeta-Jones to be a remarkably plain-looking woman, with an ego so massive and such a warped view of her own importance that I couldn't stand to be around her for two seconds. So yeah, I'd absolutely go for Manheim first.
posted by aaron at 11:43 PM on October 8, 2001
dreama: I don't watch any tv to speak of, but what about that female lawyer on that one law show? (sorry--I really *don't * watch tv.) it also starred that incredibly emaciated woman who used to be on twin peaks.Her name is Camryn Manheim. She and other 'women of girth' were discussed at length at MeFi's previous Annual Fat Women on TV Thread.
Similarly, if Americans are getting fatter, and they definitely appear to be, while each one of them should change their lifestyle we still need to figure out why so many people's lifestyles and eating habits are so crappy to begin with. This dismissive fat-hating thing- yeah, it is bigoted and more so it's stupid and thoughtless. If we were just talking about the one town fat guy, like Mayberry's one town drunk, that'd be one thing- but if 30, 40, 50% of Americans are becoming close to or clinically obese, then that's a national problem.
aenemated: i was fat because i sat around and played video games as a kid, eating swiss cake rolls, pop tarts, fudge rounds
Well, then you were a gluttonous lazy fuck, but don't hold your own poor habits against the rest of us. Christ, you're like a born-again Christian, except about cellulite! For the record, I myself am a somewhat chubby guy who eats healthy food in normal-sized portions- I grew up with a clinical dietician Mom and have always known how to eat right, no mountain dew or snacky cakes for me. However, the long hours I put into being a sysadmin- for which I make an irresistably higher salary than both of my parents' combined- means a lot of time sitting motionless over a keyboard, and that has slowed my body down completely. A little math: just 100 calories a day- equal to just a half a soda- for a year equals 10 extra pounds of calories. So it doesn't take much imbalance in lifestyle to start adding up over two or three years, even without considering the virus or genetic theories. Fat people may be fat, but they're still fucking human beings. Why hate them?
posted by hincandenza at 2:11 AM on October 9, 2001
Sedentary workplaces and home lives, along with the limited carb-heavy dietary choices available to us such as preprocessed and packaged foods and fast foods, all heavy in sugar, fat, and basic carbohydrates: these seem to be the real culprit, of which a large percentage of Americans are falling prey. Sugars and fats and grain are super cheap produce; meats and especially fruits and vegetables are more expensive and harder to package/preserve reliably for store shelves. Again, we are still individually responsible, each of us, for that choice- but the choice is made easy, even ubiquitous and irresistible. Consider that eating healthy has to even be an effort, that it requires great motivation to change those eating habits, and that IMO is a problem that overshadows mere individual decisions.
Yes, the media is partly to blame...
A great deal of television advertising tells us again and again to reach for that fast food or snack food- and we do. Surprise, surprise! So let me ask: either that advertising is effective in changing our behavior- hence the need to actually work hard to create a simply, healthy diet- or the tens, even hundreds of billions in advertising dollars spent each year to affect our behavior, our desires, our sense of what is important is a complete waste of money, and the biggest scam ever perpetrated on businesses. wasted money. Which scenario do you prefer? This is a critical point to remember: we can't just whitewash the media influence, not when so much money is spent to tell us that 5% body fat is desirable, yet tell us our lives will be more exciting and fun when we GO EXTREME! with the latest soda or snack chip. We're a materialist, consumerist society, and hundreds of billions of dollars are spent to reinforce this notion. So either businesses around this country are wasting a SHITLOAD of money for no reason, and advertisers are the latest snake-oil salesmen- or maybe, just maybe, those advertisers are effective at what they're doing, effective enough that Coca-Cola and McDonald's still feel the need to advertise persistently. Newsflash: they aren't still advertising because they worry someone might not have heard of their companies....
posted by hincandenza at 12:34 PM on October 9, 2001
Oh, and please be so kind as to send me a photocopy of the final letter you write, thanks. I'll be looking forward to it- when did you say you were going to write it?
posted by hincandenza at 3:09 PM on October 9, 2001
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If 3% of TV characters are overweight, and 90% are average or underweight...
where the heck are the other 7%??
Ditto for "real life:" if one in four (25%) is overweight, and half (50%) are average or underweight, what are the remaining 25%?
I smell a pantload. Here's a better question: do these studies reflect anything other than made-up bullshit?
posted by UncleFes at 9:09 PM on October 8, 2001