Women and weight.

[Darkesteyes]

Ive just had to hide a thread on AIBU about the 5:2 diet. There are people on that thread who are describing size 12 as fat. Saying that todays size 12 was a size 16 in the 70s.

Sorry. Im just having a rant really Ten years ago i went from a size 28 to a size 12. Nice to know that at a size 12 i was still classed as fat.

Apparently we have got so used to seeing obese ppl around that we now see overweight as the ideal Im just having a little rant Sorry.

I hate getting comments about when I have lost weight. My weight goes up and down by a stone or so throughout the year, no reason really, not through dieting although I eat healthier sometimes more then others, and I hate the way friends jump on my weight loss. I don't talk about diets etc and they love it when I lose weight so I can join in. They ask what I weigh and what my measurements are but I don't know, which shocks them.

I am so bloody bored of diet talk, particularly as I was anorexic when a young teen.

i'm 5'2". if i was a size 12, i would be fat - would probably need to be about 3 stone overweight to reach that size

if i was 6 foot tall, i'd probably be very slim at a size 12.

Feminist issues to one side (just for the moment!), the thing I find terribly sad is people who are overweight being judged as having no willpower and that they must be greedy.

Whilst some people do undoubtedly eat a diet that is totally inappropriate, for most people who are overweight this is often despite following a diet that is recommended by the Government/NHS.

I guess most people know that I bore for Britain about low carbing , but it is honestly true that if you follow current advice and base your diet mainly around carbs (seen the food pyramid?) then you will find yourself getting hungry throughout the day - typically at 11.00 am and 3.00 pm - and will therefore start to snack. Indeed, we are often advised these days to eat 'little and often', and snacking is built into our days.

Yet you don't need these snacks. All we are doing if we eat this way is to prompt the body to release more insulin to deal with our blood sugar levels - and insulin is the hormone that also causes the body to lay down fat.

So it's a double whammy. High carb = high insulin = laying down of fat. Plus extra food (and calories) = more insulin = more fat.

Thus putting on weight is nothing to do with lack of willpower and everything to do with eating the wrong kind of food.

Agree with both GoshAnneGorilla and kickassangel. I would argue that part of the thinness ideal is that women shouldn't take up space so if you are larger, then you are violating that rule.

EBear - sorry to hear about your dad. I had a similar experience though (albeit mercifully not due to bereavement, due to illness in my case) - people complimented me on my looks when (in my opinion) I looked haggard and gaunt because I was living on boiled rice (only thing that didn't have catastrophic after effects) and getting mouth ulcers due to vitamin deficiency.

Gosh Anne "I have a horrible feeling that there are many women who would rather be called nasty or stupid then fat. " Absolutely! I despair every time a thread comes up in chat (and they do, about once a year) posing the question "If you could choose, would you rather be beautiful or intelligent?" (false dichotomy, anyone). The number of women who say they'd sacrifice brains for looks given the chance...

Yes sizes have changed slightly. My 24 year old size 12 going away dress won't do up on my size 12 DD1, but it was a tight 12 on me all those years ago.

I have an even older size 10 cardigan that I can fastern round my size 16 self now.

Styles and materials have changed. Lycra didn't exist. Jumpers and tops were baggy. Tight jeans, didn't stretch, but were on your waist, so way, way more comfortable if small than muffin top, cystitis causing low waisted things.

When I was little my DM always wore a girdle so the effects of having two DDs were hidden.

No size 6 didn't exist and my lovely size 6 aunt wore C&As age 14 clothes and did a lot of dress making. Petite ranges are an absolute revolution to her and her equally tiny DD.

Also size 6 is a con to get my DD(12) into paying adult prices for clothes three years early.

See the number of threads on how awful pre/young teen clothes are.

When i was at Slimming World I was asked whether i wanted to go in their mag which would have meant them printing before and after photos I didnt do it.
a. i had a lot going on in my personal life at the time and didnt want any media attention.
b. This "before" photos thing makes my teeth itch i read an interview with Dawn French recently where she says its borderline bullying and i agree with her.

I am more interested in what my body can DO if it was healthier . So i know i need to start excersising. Was thinking about swimming but it wont be easy to find a swimsuit for a 38K bust that doesnt cost ££££.

chicken my mum bought me a size 10 fitted skirt when i was a 12 saying "Why dont you try and lose a bit more" So some ppl are never satisfied. She worshipped Princess Diana when i was growing up and saw her as the ideal.

A friend of mine whose baby is 3 months old is doing the Cambridge Diet She lost 10 pounds the first week and this week shes unhappy that shes only lost 3.

If i lost 3 pounds in a week id be happy and consider that a healthy loss. But seeing her big losses come down my facebook wall is depressing because on WW i cant hope to lose that much that quickly so i am sometimes guilty of having my perspective skewed too.

In my Twitter TL under Mumsnet Bloggers Network .

unfashionista.com/2013/08/05/10-rules-for-red-hot-women/

TBH- It annoys me that weight is a feminist issue. It stops woman from getting to the crux of the issue which is that woman are still unequal to men.

I think we should forget about these superficial issues because if we had better equality all these issues would disappear.

I know my male manager judges my male colleagues who are overweight. He doesn't do it very overtly, because that would be discriminatory, but there are just little comments here and there, and I suspect he's not fully aware he does it just like he's probably not fully aware how often he's told me I'm the emotional one in the team. He's also really enthusiastic about supporting another colleague who's trying to lose weight, and he's very into 5:2 and if anyone were to ask me (which they don't), I'd say he's possibly verging on an eating disorder.

Actually, if he'd just STFU, I'd probably be more likely to go to do more exercise and not eat cake in the afternoon, because I wouldn't feel the need to be defiant. I know I'm the one who suffers most from that, but I don't want to be like him. Work definitely has an effect anyway - I tend to eat much better if I'm on a week off or something, and it's not something I consciously put effort into. I just don't have the need to go and break the boredom of an afternoon at work by getting chocolate.

But anyway, my point was that it's not just women who are judged these days, though I'd agree that we get it far more than men do (whether overweight or underweight.)

This is a really good essay on how obesity is portrayed in the media:
charlottecooper.net/publishing/digital/headless-fatties-01-07/

Kim - Dh and all his work colleagues discuss weight, fitness tips etc, and do things like bring in various healthy lunches if even a small belly appears. Plenty of men are just as into keeping fit and healthy as women.

It is so confusing, is it cognitive dissonance?

So, I know my weight is fine, at 12 stone as am 6ft.

But why do I feel fat? I do, but some days I think I am slim. I can't really see if I am or not.

I also feel that being tall us part of it, I am just so BIG with size 8 feet and man size hands and wide hips.

Why should I feel bad for being the size....of a man?!

Maybe cause my small friends would so clearly hate to be big like me? I have the appetite of a man too, and cannot be doing with tiny portions or diets.

Biwi, as to low carb, if you do an hour sport a day ( like me) that is a bad idea, slow release carbs are key to keeping bloodsugar stable and give energy for biking, swimming etc.

Biscuits and sugar are unnecessary, but do nottouch my porridge or briwn bread! ;)

Granted I've not worked with many men but it's rare to hear a man talking about weight.
There are 6 of us in my immediate work area. One of the guys took up cycling to work (mostly for financial reasons when he wife stopped working), and has lost weight and got fitter, but doesn't really mention it, other than details about types of tyres and gears and so on. The other 3 blokes... Really, calorie counting and diets are no more interesting when it's men talking about it, and boy, can they go on at length. And in the wider department, quite a few of the men do talk about losing weight.

I think things are becoming more equal, in terms of imagery and pressure - they obviously haven't had so many decades of it, and it's still nothing like as ubiquitous as for women, but it's certainly there. It's not the sort of equality we should be aiming for, though, that everyone ends up with intense body image pressure.

Also, I may have to shoot the colleague who sits next to me if he crunches celery so loudly while sat at his desk again.

Great post, kickassangel.

EBear thats outrageous Your manager has no right to go on and on like that. Its got nothing to do with him.

Im ready to be disagreed with BUT I don't know if this is a feminist issue. The men I know do not like super skinny women and prefer women to look healthy - fit and strong and enjoy their food.

I think a lot of pressure stems from amongst women. Weight loss seems an almost obsessional topic of conversation. Christ I find it boring tbh... I have friends who will state they are "disgusting" because they can see fat on their stomachs. The self loathing is horrifying.

That said I do feel that a huge proportion of women are horribly overweight and this has huge implications for health. I haven't seen any evidence to say that slightly overweight people live longer.... Did I miss that?!

I agree with the poster about government advice being wrong. I walked past a grossly obese girl today who was talking about her desperate desire to lose weight and she was eating a frigging sausage roll. How the hell have we got it so so wrong in this country?

I think if the focus moved to it being an issue of "health" rather than "looks" it might be better all round. But I for one am not blaming men for the fucked up attitudes to womens' bodies espoused right now. Not based on my experiences.

Ooh daddy Eleven years ago i was a size 28 I talk about it in the OP.

It was men who abused me in the street for being overweight not women And it happened a couple of times when i was a size 14 as well.

And EBear talks about the judgement from her MALE manager.

I agree with the poster about government advice being wrong. I walked past a grossly obese girl today who was talking about her desperate desire to lose weight and she was eating a frigging sausage roll. How the hell have we got it so so wrong in this country?

Perhaps it was all she could afford. I put most of my weight on in the late 90s when i was on JSA.

And its telling that you used the word "gross" which means disgusting. If you had walked past a woman smoking saying "God i must really give these up" would you have remembered it so vividly do you think?

Darkest - nice try, but nope - "grossly" means to great excess. This lady was not plump but morbidly heart-attack-at 40 obese.

And it's a load of crap to say fast food is cheap. It's not - it's expensive and unhealthy and full of unhealthy fats and sugars and devoid of any nutritional benefit. . With a little bit of planning you can completely avoid it and save cash.

Health reasons aside, I don't think anyone needs to be so overweight they cannot walk properly. Something has gone far wrong in our society when that happens.

Ooh daddy can you please explain to me then where the phrase "cheap as chips" comes from. The price of a bunch of grapes in my local supermarket veers between 3.98 and 4.98.

In your post you talk about women "self loathing"

Then you betray your own judgement of a bigger person by calling them grossly obese.

The only other place ive seen the argument that fast food is not cheap is from Tories on benefit bashing threads who are trying to argue that there is no link between poverty and obesity.

Dont know if you noticed but food banks arent exactly bursting at the seams with fresh fruit.

Ooh Daddy I take it you managed to strike up a conversation with this lady then so you can be 100% sure for the reasons behind her weight gain.

You cannot be 100% sure that she eats sausage rolls every day unless you are by her side 24/7

See i want to go swimming but the fact that there will be people like you sitting in judgement puts me off tbh.