Fat/Size Acceptance

[GothAnneGeddes]

I'm not sure if we have a thread on this yet, so apologies if we have and I've missed it.

I think of all the toxic, time-wasting shite women have to put up with, Diet Culture aka Be Thin and Win, is one of the most widespread. It is the unholy triumvirate of body policing, self hatred and bad science.

I thought this was a really interesting take on Jamie Oliver's new obesity campaign: shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-fat-hatred-and-eliminationism.html#disqus_thread

Would love to know what you all think

Trillian - it really wasn't intended to be a calorie counting thread, there's enough of that elsewhere.

I wanted to discuss fat and society's attitude towards fat from a feminist perspective. Also to garner people's thoughts on the fat acceptance movement.

Diet drinks = sure
Fat free yoghurts etc = yes
We were on holiday and my usual squash wasn't there - I thought robinsons would be a safe bet. Apparently not. I was literally horrified. I tasted some (it's for the kids) and my god it was rank.

Another difficulty with sweeteners rather than sugar is that they are much sweeter. So if you have them then your pallette becomes desensitised to "sweet" and you have to have much sweeter things to register as sweet in your brain. Some confectionary has got significantly sweeter over the years to compensate for this effect and then you get in a nasty feedback loop with things getting sweeter and sweeter and people getting desensitised etc.

Plus of course some of them (aspartame?) is banned in some countries but still used here.

Anyway.

I am not thick

And still interested to hear where physics comes into this?

Timely reminders about topic of thread :)

I am overweight, unfit and ageing. I'm in the 'worst' shape ever. I am however, more content with my shape than at any time except during my Superfit Decade. I worked out every single day; my feeling wasn't so much contentment with my shape, as a feeling of not falling short. I didn't like my body that much, but found it acceptable. I spent humungous amounts of time and money training my muscles, when what I really needed was to retrain my head!

It does take a lot of work to shake off all the received messages about 'wrong' diets, 'wrong' size, 'wrong' shape, etc, etc. In my opinion, obviously, it's worthwhile. Those messages are all about manipulation: Control yourself! Eat this! Don't eat that! People who get it wrong are disgusting!!! Governments and health bodies are vulnerable to manipulation just like everybody else - they have no superior wisdom.

Food is life, not a moral code.

I just don't think the food and drink industry are to be trusted, basically.

Sorry to have got off the point gothanne.

We need to breed daughters who are independent of thought and not bothered as to what others think. I always thought my ability not to mind much about other people and be my own person is one of the nicest things about being me. Mind you I weigh what I did as a teenager after 5 children which is about 9 stone and don't look too bad.

The bottom line is women and men in the UK are mostly too fat. That's their choice as long as the rest of us don't have to pay for it and I would hope most women are defined by their career, professional reputation, hobbies and private lives as I am. My looks are about 2% of what I am and I hardly ever even look in mirrors.

May be I am helped by not watching television. Perhaps one answer for women is just don't watch television and if a friend starts talking about weight change the subject to interest rates or pensions or something interesting like that. Look with distain on women whose only concerns are domestic stuff and looks. Ask them why they feel this issue is so important. Probe into whether their childhood is the issue and try to get them to change their views.

I read on another MN thread somewhere that we spend a much lower proportion of our incomes on food than in the past. This results in less careful planning and not seeing food as fuel, and therefore companies increasingly marketing food to women (the food purchasers) as treats, indulgences, not as tasty good value fuel.

It's hard to talk about 'fat acceptance' without accepting that in general if you're fat, you are eating unnecessary food, paid for with extra money.

Btw, I think that if somebody's too fat to get their knees together and there's no physical reason for that, they're a bit daft. Being that big does impede a normal, healthy life. But I also think they're suffering from psychological-emotional imbalances. Being told they're disgusting, a drain on the national economy, greedy and lazy makes them feel worse. Feeling worse feeds unhealthy habits. Telling someone who feels like that to CONTROL themselves - their diet - their body - is quite abusive, imo. And yet it happens all the time. Particlaurly to women.

women whose only concerns are domestic stuff and looks. Ask them why they feel this issue is so important - done that, Xenia, and been much hated for it

Before we start talking about everybody being fat these days, can we please remember that a size 16 was considered ideal until about 40 years ago? It was a different-shaped 16 (smaller waist, bigger hips) but a 16 nonetheless. And people were shorter, much shorter.

So the majority of today's plump women would have been thought quite slim. Victorians would probably have assumed a 5'7" size ten had TB

Haven't sizes got bigger due to vanity sizing though gn? So a size 16 then was more equivalent to a 12 now or summat.

I thought clothes sizing had changed a lot garlic? So a size 10 now is the same as a size 14, 50 years ago type thing.

In the 70s people were pretty thin on the whole? That's how I remember it anyway.

I was going to say to gothanne as well that I think the "fat and going on about how great it is" crew aren't such a great thing either. I understand the concept - that it's a response to the popular idea that fat people (especially women) must be miserable and have low self-esteem etc. So to say "Hey I'm big and I love my body" is one in the eye for them. But it's still about women talking about / thinking about being judged on their physical appearance. So still not good. Plus the indisputable fact that if you are very large it is usually not very good for you is kind of a double whammy.

If someone smokes or drinks or takes drugs (bar needle marks), the damage they are doing to themselves is largely invisible (until fatal). Eating too much produces tangible evidence and hence is easy to comment on and point at/out.

What would be better would be women everywhere saying ^hey I'm great and I love my body" irrespective of what shape or size they were. That would be one in the eye for patriarchy. Job done

And then we can all stop thinking in terms of "loving" or "hating" our bodies at all and be in a utopian society where we all just "be" in a content sort of existence.

Marilyn Monroe
Mae West
Sophia Loren

:)

Plus, of course, all those very curvy Renaissance and Victorian nudes ...

agree, SQ!

Finally!

We have harmony.

gn - those pics are so stunning, especially Marilyn! (although didn't she have eating disorders?)

I don't think any of them are a modern 16 though, maybe 12-14. You can't get curves like Mae by eating more/less unfortunately!

Well, they did have specially-engineered underwear! They are stunning, aren't they - reminds what "Womanly" means at its best. At present, we seem to think of the ideal woman's shape as like a teenage boy with tits stuck on

This is from a fan site:
Marilyn's size fluctuated during her lifetime, but her measurements are most commonly given in the range of 36-24-34 to 38-23-36. (bust-waist-hips). Marilyn was 5' 5 and 1/2" tall and weighed 117 pounds when she died, according to the coroner's report.

SQ: don't get used to it

So true! I do look at eg Rosie Huntingdon-Whitely and think she's beautiful, but these 3 ooze proper feminine beauty, mystery and sexiness. They look so confident and comfortable with their bodies, and just look real somehow.

You can't buy looks like that or even diet /surgery into them - or airbrush. No profits to be made there for beauty product companies - you just can't aspire to look like Marilyn, you can only copy her confident sexuality and sexy poses!

5'5 and 117 pounds (8 stone 5) is a BMI of 19. So all this talk of Marilyn Monroe being bigger than the current ideal is bollocks. She was just differently-shaped, not bigger, in fact she was very light.

And no, the Christina Hendricks hourglass shape is no more achievable for most people than the Kate Moss skinniness. Less so in many cases. The idea of a shape being in fashion is ridiculous.

And stand over a hot air drain thingy

And Marilyn had a really great life, eh?

There's something imperfect about their looks which is incredibly sexy and unattainable for most, frustratingly for cosmetics companies.

Yep Marilyn wasn't fat, but she had cellulite which shows in loads of her sexiest pics.

stripey - what was imperfect about each of their looks? Really?

Compared to the flawless, glossy skin, muscle tone and hair of current models and actresses I mean. Maybe they'd be airbrushed nowadays.