AIBU to find these ads with anorexic looking young women offensive?

[ShinyHappySummers]

They keep popping up on MN today. Hardly chosen the best demographic here IMO either.

As the mother of a recovering anorexic I find the use of anorexic as an adjective just as offensive as those unrealistic and unattainable photos. As someone upthread said anorexia is a mental illness not a description of a body shape.

Incidentally, when my DC was at her worst she didn't look anything like those photos. Her muscles were completely wasted and her stomach was a concave sack of skin hanging between her ribs and pelvis.

The ads you see are based on what you've been looking at online. No one from MN HQ is sitting there choosing which ads to show you.

I agree that we’ve lost sight of what a normal, healthy slim body should look like but at the same time those images look distorted to me. Like they’ve been airbrushed within an inch of their lives.

'To be fair re morbidly obese, I’m 22 stone - I find if I see someone my weight who looks happy and is treated kindly I feel slightly better about myself. Which means I don’t comfort eat as much and do more exercise . So lose a bit of weight.

That sounds ridiculous but it is how I feel, if I feel happy and good and confident in myself I start losing - if I’m constantly reminded how fat and ugly and obese I am I gain even more.

So body positivity and plus size modelling can have benefits of sorts . I wouldn’t see a woman my size and think, oooh, I want to be that fat - but I would think, maybe I’m not totally worthless and disgusting. Which translates into better self care which eventually filters into weight loss.

I don’t know if that makes sense, it probably sounds stupid tbh !!'

I totally understand this. I have seen adverts with plus sized models and thought wow they look amazing. This is refreshing and I love that my daughter has more normal and healthy bodies to look at and see they are beautiful. Plus sized people are people, they are valued and they are worthy.

However, 'plus sized' in the fashion industry can mean anything from a size 12 to a size 100. I just don't like the idea that someone who is not fit and/or healthy is perceived as being so.

This is true on both ends of the spectrum - teeny tiny anorexic models are just as irresponsible for the company to use if they are unhealthy.

Just a bit of reality to some if the plus size pics which look amazing. There is a lot of photoshopping going on as with the skinny ones. Also chin lipos.

@ShinyHappySummers thanks for the heads up - we'll take a look at this now.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

Just a bit of reality to some if the plus size pics which look amazing. There is a lot of photoshopping going on as with the skinny ones. Also chin lipos.

You seriously don’t think they photoshop the plus size women too? Of course they do!

They smooth out their skin, get rid of their stretch marks and cellulite, tuck their excess fat in in areas to make them look more appealing etc. etc.

They’re not genuine photographs; no overweight woman looks like that in real life.

@pinkcircustop yeah I know. I said there is a lot of photoshopping going on.

It's awful photoshopping. It makes me wonder if the poster who stormed on to say it was a perfectly normal body sized even looked at the photo.

Those kind of ads aren’t to be taken seriously anyway, it’s just cheap mass made dropshipping sites that steal people’s social media photos to promote knock off items

I know it’s not a good thing @trancepants. It’s a lot healthier than high blood pressure though. And what can we do? It’s untreatable.

Fit and healthy are not the same thing though

I think you’ll find they are.

I think you’ll find they are.

I am healthy, I am certainly not fit. There are fit people with cancer, chronic diseases, etc.
Fit and healthy are not the same thing

[quote SchrodingersImmigrant]@pinkcircustop yeah I know. I said there is a lot of photoshopping going on.[/quote]
Yes, but you said they show reality. They don’t. They just glamourise being overweight and we absolutely should not be sending out that message; it’s unhealthy and damaging.

@MistyGreenAndBlue

On every thread like this there are always a few people who, when faced with an extremely thin woman (whether photoshopped or not) who declare that we've all got so fat that we have lost sight of a healthy weight and that the woman in the picture ( even if she looks positively skeletal) looks perfectly healthy to them. Every time. It's horseshit. We can still tell if someone is overweight or obese. And we can see clearly when someone looks far too thin. Dress sizes may have been changed for some reason but that was decades ago now. They've been the same for most of my adult life. And in any case, I can assure you I know I'm too fat and would know it whether my dress size was labelled a 10 or a 20.

Agree

There has been a lot of media coverage about undisclosed photoshopping leading to unrealistic images of women and the damage that causes, whether it’s Instagram influencers in bikinis or makeup advertisers blurring out normal skin texture or adding extra eyelashes. It’s naive to say that because a small minority of people have a body type that is naturally and healthily that slender, that it isn’t affecting the collective consciousness of what is attractive/aspirational and ultimately unhealthy/unachievable for the majority. It just sounds like the fashion industry apologists from the days when some catwalk models lived on Diet Coke and the occasional jelly baby. Photoshopped images should always carry a disclaimer IMO.

No I didn't say they show reality. That's my english😂 it meant " here is a bit of reality. It's as photoshopped as the skinny ones and they are also having chin lipos"
Sorry

@pinkcircustop

See we have such a problem in this country with weight than when there’s slim women about people think it’s anorexic.

What’s actually unhealthy is having plus size women advertising clothes because we shouldn’t be normalising being overweight.

There's slim and there's looking like you don't eat. Those images are like two twigs, they are horrible.

They just look strange like an avatar or in a video game, distorted.

Yes, but you said they show reality

Your reading comprehension is really bad

@pinkcircustop

See we have such a problem in this country with weight than when there’s slim women about people think it’s anorexic.

What’s actually unhealthy is having plus size women advertising clothes because we shouldn’t be normalising being overweight.

You're right on both counts of course.

However those pictures do not show normal slim bodies by any standards. They look emaciated - especially the one on the right.

Those photos do look edited, imo. The one on the right is too tiny in the waist to look healthy, and the other one has bizarrely shaped abs.

Not sure I'd say they are offensive, but this isn't a case of people no longer knowing what a normally thin person's body looks like because we're all too fat to have eyes that work, imo.

Fit and healthy are not the same thing though

True, remember Christian Erikssen a couple of months ago?

@Blossomtoes

I know it’s not a good thing *@trancepants*. It’s a lot healthier than high blood pressure though. And what can we do? It’s untreatable.

Fit and healthy are not the same thing though

I think you’ll find they are.

It's better than high blood pressure in the same way that losing a foot is better than losing a leg. Low blood pressure is not a sign of health. It's a serious disorder with potentially fatal consequences. And it's not proof that being fat is healthy. In fact a lack of exercise and poor muscle to fat ratio are two causes of low blood pressure. (Along with genetic factors.)

And it's absolutely not untreatable. I stated in my post how I treated it. Low blood pressure is improved by cardiovascular exercise. I do a mix of high intensity and steady state endurance. Increasing muscle mass also helps your body regulate blood pressure. If you want to actually treat your illness, instead of pretending it's a good thing, get fit by doing cardio and strength exercises. You'll feel amazing for it. I still have to be careful and pay attention to how I feel in terms of blood pressure. But I've gone from someone who has repeatedly needed emergency care in my 30s to someone who can do 20 cartwheels in a row without getting dizzy in my 40s.

@Blossomtoes

I know it’s not a good thing *@trancepants*. It’s a lot healthier than high blood pressure though. And what can we do? It’s untreatable.

Fit and healthy are not the same thing though

I think you’ll find they are.

Gcse bbc bitesize explains it at a very fundamental level:

Health is defined as a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being; not merely the absence of illness or infirmity. Fitness is the ability to meet the demands of the environment.

They are different. As someone stated before Christian Eriksen (sp sorry) was fit but not healthy. A top athlete with the measles would be fit, not healthy.

A morbidly obese person with highly blood pressure would be fit, but not healthy. A morbidly obese person with diabetes, CHD, osteoarthritis or kidney failure could again be fit but certainly not healthy.

A morbidly obese person could be fit and healthy but the chances of that are slim.

If you disagree with the above I have no more to say to you than I would to an anti vaxer

A morbidly obese person could be fit and healthy but the chances of that are slim.

Imho it's really possible, but it is a temporary state. I was morbidly obese and healthy, not really fit. But it just hits you one day ghat that healthy part won't last and "but I am ok health wise so... Meh" is not ok.

@anon12345678901

They look very lean to me, their obliques are showing, mine do too and I'm not anorexic 🤷🏻‍♀️

But obliques are muscles and yes, if you are leaner AND have developed obliques they will show. But (although you may have a very slim waist) there is no way it could be THAT slim because the well developed, muscles, would themselves be adding bulk (that is totally the wrong word to use in the context, of course strong stomach muscles dont' look "bulky" but I hope you know what I mean). So to have prominent obliques and waists as tiny as in the image you would either have to have 0 body fat and hardly any organs (because theres no space for them) or, more likely, be photoshopped to the point it looks very strange...