MNetters obsession with weight and dress size

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Why are MN posters so obsessed with weight and dress size?

There have recently been quite a lot of weight related threads.

Depressing to see that women are still very much judged on appearance and body size. I couldn't care less what size you are or how much you weigh. Just be a decent, kind person.

No fat shaming or body shaming from me.

My mother was on pills from the doctor.

@ReneBumsWombats you have been reported for continual troll hunting.

This in itself is troll hunting.

Doesn't make me wrong, mate.

One of my grannies was on sulphate amphetamine that her GP called 'her diet pills'. My mum was on valium. It was absolute pharmaceutical carnage for women in the 1970s-80s.

Not if you read what I have been called over the last 6 hours. It's perpetual bullying.

I wonder what sea lions eat

1000 calories a day. Everyone hates them for being so slim...oh, hang on.

@ReneBumsWombats if you could at least have a civilised discussion then maybe we could speak about each others experiences. All you have done is call me a troll, belittle and bully me. I'm not the unreasonable one here.

I've made fun of your nonsense nutrition/training regime, too.

My training is not nonsense. It's my life at the moment. I'm sorry you had to ridicule that.

Don't be, I've had a very good laugh. It burned a lot of calories.

Sorry guys. I'll stop now.

Thanks SweetCoriander. Good to see most people on that thread see 1,000 cals is not enough long term.

When I was low carbing and tracking carbs, my appetite was reduced and I was sometimes just getting 1,000 calories in, however my weight loss stalled. I had to up my calories to see a loss, as my body slowed my metabolism down to compensate for fewer calories coming in.

@DryIce very well put. Indeed I think we are expected now (even in 50s and early60s) to look like slightly more lined versions of the same we did at 30. Same I feel with sex, whereas it didn't seem to be a big deal 'if ' you were no longer that bothered post menopause , now you are made to feel it's abnormal and you should feel sexual ad infinitum.

@Crikeyalmighty We're not even allowed the bloody lines now! There's all the pressure to go down the botox and fillers route.

Everyone's getting a bit obsessed, a bit defensive and the amount of threads and posts on those threads show that. Summer is coming, maybe that's something to do with it. I remember a thread on here a few year back called something like it's such a time and I forgot to get thin/lose weight/diet/whatever for summer. It's always stuck with me. Maybe that's why I've stuck to my weight loss plan since January this year? Probably not, but for some reason that thread title stuck in my mind, even if I can't remember the exact wording. It resonated because ai always promise myself I'll be some arbitrary weight by my summer birthday and I have never kept that promise to myself and have beaten myself up about it every year. Society holds women up to impossible standards and that kind if intensive now decades-long socialisation is hard to kick so we get obsessed. when we "fail" to meet societal standards we get defensive and turn on other women we see as having succeeded. Weight loss being equal to success is hard-wired in to us. Willpower, discipline, restraint, deprivation are seen as covetable ways to lose weight and are praised. Such self control! Weight loss drugs are viewed with suspicion and thought of as cheating. Not much effort there you see. Society and its expectations pitches us against each other in our common goal to meet expectations. A healthy weight according to medical expertise based on best available current evidence should be the goal of everyone if they want to be as healthy as they can be and everyone should be supported to achieve that if they want to. Health not societal expectation. We all judge ourselves and others and we and they are never quite good enough for whatever reason and that's very sad. We need to support each other more and support ourselves too.

What I wonder about with the 1,000 calorie a day competitive swimmer brigade is don’t you just run out of energy? Don’t you have times when you are faint with hunger? Do you have any body fat left because you must be in a big calorie deficit. I am obese and need to lose weight and am managing it at the moment with a low calorie intake plus a lot of swimming (just distance and not with a coach or nutritionist etc). Some days I have felt weak from hunger despite having fat to burn. So how do the skinny people manage it? Must be more than self-control? Surely they must have no appetite at all and some sort of remarkable metabolism?

I remember too the Ryvita ad “In the inch war, Ryvita helps you win” - with a woman wearing a belt with inches marked on it like a tape measure.

And I've remembered Nimble bread from the 1970s and that woman eating a butty in a hot air balloon, as you do

She flies like a bird in the sky-eye-eye-eye

My granny lived on Nimble - a sort of lighter white bread. One of my earliest memories (1970s) is being introduced to the Weight Watchers diet book and the “forbidden list” in it. Bananas were banned. I hated that list. I’ve been obese my whole life despite fighting it.

Also do you remember “can you pinch more than an inch?” Ad for Bran Flakes, I think.

Yep. My friend was worryingly thin and could 'pinch more than an inch' on her torso when we hit puberty. Anyone can, no matter how skinny. I wonder if that ad would get past the ASA these days.

And while I do agree there are a lot of worrying comments about diet and body size on here, I don't quite get the sense it's all pure bitchiness - I think a lot of women do work very hard to remain thin. And fear is a powerful motivator, I think some use the absolute fear of being seen as overweight and how horrendous and disgusting that would be to motivate themselves. It must be galling to then see other women who are bigger than that hard won ideal size and who have the temerity to not suffer or hate themselves.

@DryIce I think some do fear being seen as greedy or fat as abhorrent and will do anything to avoid it. People will always judge themselves and others but they should keep their thoughts to themselves. No one knows what is happening in the lives of others or their history. Throw away comments can have huge impact. I remember being in my early 20s and about 8 stone. We'd been out to a club and I was really hungry when I came back. Is not eaten all day apart from some toast for breakfast. I made myself two small sandwiches with dairylea and a packet of crisps. I'd been drinking water all night because I didn't drink alcohol. Another woman piped up oh god you really do like to eat don't you! Fuck off lady. She'd consumed more calories in wine that night than I'd eaten all day but there she was judging my early hours meal because I'd had virtually nothing all day and had been dancing for 3 hours solid. Women's bodies have always been up for discussion and comments. Pregnancy is the worst I think. I gained a stone with each of my dc. I lost a stone at the start with dd1 and had comments on how big I was at 12 weeks. I was 9 stone at the time and Dd weighed less than 6lb when she was born. There was no way I was huge at any point. Nice child bearing hips there love but not much to feed them with followed by guffaws from men. People need to shut up. They will judge for anything and everything but should keep it to themselves.

This.

I've said it before on another thread but I have a good friend who is very slim - used to be a model, was anorexic in her teens/20s etc. She's 5'10" and about a size 10 if that.

I think she would literally rather be dead than fat. Her disgust, angst and panic when she gains even 2lbs is disconcerting. I'm big (size 16) and I know she frets about it on my behalf and doesn't understand why I don't stop eating.