Calling pedants, teachers, wordsmiths and class warriors.

What is the opposite of inner beauty, I wonder

Men definitely comment on each other's weight. My partner has lunch with friends most days and they always comment on each other's weight.

Freud doesn't pussy-foot around with a couple of kilos!
I think there are two (probably more!) comnpletely different issues here. One to do with perception, discernment, ability to look, understand, appreciate and sensorially experience beauty, and one to do with facts, manners, and minding one's own business! (and I agree with Soapbox. the degree with which someone can discern where the boundaries of manners and minding your business fall has a great deal to do with beauty of spirit!). It doesn't mean that people should be brainwashed into bellieving they are seeing something they are not...and in the case of people with body-image problems, i would think that that is far more to do with more complex psychological processses than the fact that people ae too politically correct to say they are big. In fact i was of the understanding that fat people endure a ceaceless parade of comments from strangers pointing out that they are fat.......

NQC - jeans and a shirt most days, like lots of SAHMs.

Tosh Anna - that does not keep people thin and healthy. France is one of the highest users of weight loss surgery in Europe. People are going through a lot of pain to conform to a hideously distorted idea of what is 'beautiful' in France.

Do men comment on each other's weight, too? Or are they spared the delights of such honesty?

Paris.

Whereabouts do you live Anna?

Well frankly I rate social skills and kindness and consideration for others way above any notion of physical beauty.

I'm not sure I'd like living in Anna's world - it just seems so 'ugly'!

What on earth are you wearing that everyone can see you've gained 3kg?

Seriously, Anna is a parody or something, yes? I hope?

I always comment on people's weight and health and so does everyone I know around here. Totally standard behaviour and keeps us all slim and healthy.

What some of you call "good manners" and "not hurting other people's feelings" is just cultural convention. The big problem with not telling the truth and creating taboos is that ignorance and denial set in place, both of which are far more detrimental to human progress and happiness than the very momentary pang of realising that everyone can see you've gained 3kg.

Anna Rubens models would have been described as morbidly obese had they lived in our times - but that does not necessarily make them ugly.

Anna, you really think it is good manners to say 'you are fat'? Would it be equally good manners to say 'you are stupid' or 'you smell'?

What utter tosh!

I need to be more precise.

When I say "fat" I don't mean a couple of kilos here or there on a healthy body (and we do have quite good - and getting better - information about healthy body weights, look at the WHO website if you want more info).

We all know that there is an epidemic of obesity in the UK. When I talk to doctor friends of mine who deal with obese patients, the issue they have the hardest time dealing with is patients' perception of their obesity. They live in a world where there are so many fat people around them and it is considered "bad manners" to point it out (though I consider it very good manners to comment on people's weight and health, and this is true in many societies) that they have literally no clue about how distorted their bodies have become.

Sorry... was disagreeing with Anna there, obviously. Am totally with Blu on this one.

It's just the opposite, Anna. People in this country (and in the West generally) are obsessed with 'fat' being equated with 'ugly'. I'm all for political correctness if it means that my 5-year-old (who was weighed in school yesterday and was just below the 25th centile for her age, though she is around the 50th centile for height... in other words, she's as skinny as a rake) doesn't go around saying that she's fat . It freaks me out when she says that. Thankfully, she also eats like a horse, so I'm not desperately worried for now. But where has she got this idea that she's fat from? Not from me... I won't have a scales in the house! She's got it from people who think that looks are everything.

Mind you, in general, I think that political correctness (aka not hurting people's feelings unnecessarily) is A Good Thing!

Healthy and ugly are often very very different. As is ppointing out a fact "she is fat") and having any value judgement attached to it.

And in terms of beauty...what about the (cliched, in this context!) Rubens paintings, or Lucien Freud, or Bacon? Fat is considered ugly in none of thier works. And this clearly demonstrates that the perception of fat as beutiful or ugly is not an absolute standard but a shifting one.

Small children also point out people who are a different colour to them, tall, short, in a wheelchair etc.
Children learn that it's not polite to point out any of these things in public.
Being fat, tall, short or in a wheelchair doesn't make the person worthless, or, indeed 'ugly'.

At least, not in my slummy world. Your views may differ.

it's only recently that skinny is thought beautiful..this is an association with wealth and choice in the uk

in countriers where thin is the norm then fat is a reflection of wealth to a greater extent

these ideas have got confused

history of art is interesting in this changing concept of a beautiful body

And to agree with Blu, media, advertising and consumerism are far more persuasive influences on what is perceived to be the 'perfect' body shape that political correctness is.

The relationship between body mass and beauty has altered many times throughout history. There is nothing absolute about it in the slightest.

I personally would say that bad manners in mentioning someone's weight was as far better descriptor of ugliness.

So would you say that the "ideal" body shape promulgated by the fashion industry is a "true" reflection of beauty?

I'll give a very basic example of political correctness that distorts children's perception of beauty.

It is considered bad form in the UK by many adults to point out that being overweight is ugly. So children (who when small naturally point out that people are fat) "learn" that we shouldn't "discriminate" on those grounds. And they grow up with a distorted image of what a normal healthy body looks like because they haven't been allowed to express their natural gut instinct about it.