On my shared van ride back to the airport, I got into an interesting conversation with a middle-aged woman from New Jersey. I wasn’t in much of a talking mood to begin with (I was trying to enjoy my last moments of vacation) but I politely engaged.
As we were talking, something in my gut told me that the discussion would soon lead to the fact that there were hardly any “overweight” or “obese” people in Paris. One thing I know about American women is that we LOVE talking about anything having to do with weight and body so the topic seemed inevitable. And sure enough, about 15 minutes into our van ride, the woman said that she hadn’t seen any overweight people in Paris. It was a simple and seemingly harmless observation and yet, I knew it would become something more.
So I tried to steer the conversation towards the fact that Parisians seemed to walk A LOT, which I think is wonderful and something I wish we could emulate in the States, but she ignored my comments and instead brought up the oh-so-popular topic of obesity. I then told her that I was unfamiliar with the “problem of obesity” in Los Angeles (the fitness and thin capital of the USA) as most of the women I see on a day-to-day basis could actually stand to gain a few pounds.
She proceeded to talk about the “obese people” in Jersey as if the disdain she had for this group of people would somehow bond us. I could see the judgment in her face and my lack of response to her discussion of obesity led her to finally pick a new topic (little did she know she was talking to the co-creator of a body acceptance blog).
I thought about this conversation a lot on my plane ride back over the Atlantic. I thought about the fact that this stranger assumed that since neither one of us was overweight or obese, I wouldn’t have a problem in engaging in a discriminatory and negative discussion about the “disgusting obese people” back at home. (Kind of like a pre-Jim Crow racist who assumed that if a person shared his/her skin color they automatically shared his/her prejudices).
And thus the title of this post was born. Rather than talk about the food, the wine and the sights, my New Jersey friend became most passionate about the fact that French women aren’t fat like American women. (Sigh)
Wow, I *so* hate when people categorize me as “not really fat” and proceed to vilify fat people infront of me, as if we shared some sort of eternal bond of relative non-fatness and therefore a moral highground. Puke
Outside Paris, there are plenty of fat people in France. As the McDo becomes a ‘family meal’ of choice, it will be worth watching Paris too. Outside the US, France is McD’s most profitable country operation.
So in sum, French people do get fat. So much so that their government had to resort to a huge campaign whose posters may scare any person out of putting another morsel in their mouth.
I prefer girls who aren’t fat, sure, but I don’t hate or dislike fat girls at all. I also dislike people who discriminate based on body weight.
^Because scaring people works to change genetic tendencies, yanno. That’s why diets works, and anybody who goes on a diet loses massive amounts of weight that they can keep off effortlessly (as long as they don’t venture into the dreaded, toxic environment of a Mickey Dees).
I also get the “not really fat” thing, too, and just watch how a fat-hater will go on and on about fat people if he/she doesn’t perceive you as fat. Since fat = unhealthy is “obvious” and fat = unattractive is “obvious” and everybody knows it and shares those same prejudices. Orwell wrote about the dangers of accepting things as obvious on prejudicial faith, and rejecting all evidence to the contrary in order to maintain that prejudice. Sick, and dangerous.
I agree with more walking. It seems that as life has given us the early Christmas present of record high petrol prices, we will soon see people choose to walk if only for financial reasons. Health benefits should soon follow leading people to discover a less stressful and happier life all on their own.
I’m impressed at your forebearance and kindness toward obese people. When I was a nurse there was similar discrimination toward obese people especially among those who had bad backs.
It’s the culture baby, just look at the daily menu of Americans and you’ll realize why obesity is a problem in America. (and yes, walking helps too)
surreal.
Funny you should mention ol’ Jim Crow…*hahaha!*
“I noticed there were hardly any overweight people in Paris.”
what the flying monkey do you say to that??
“Yes. Not too many asians, either.”
“I noticed quite a few, actually. I suppose it’s relative.” (accompany with judgemental stare at her Jersey Fat)
“I think that’s just the title of a book that’s popular now.”
“Parisian Gays seem genuinely happy there! Not as much angst as we have in the states.”
??
It took me a while to figure out that if other people talk to you about Fat People openly like that, it means they generally don’t consider you, the listener, fat. It is still surreal to me. Weird.
I’ve been dysmorphic about my size for quite a while, so that makes it even *weirder!*
Fat is the scourge of every land, huh.
Oh wait, except Somalia maybe.
You don’t see too many fatties in Africa. Or India, either.
What do you love about Paris..there must be a thousand things to notice besides peoples’ relative size…culture, architecture, party life, politics, native flora and fauna…leave it to Jersey Jane to hone in on how small their little french asses are compared to our gargantuan king-size americano ones.
What an astounding and significant observation! pft! *hahahaha!*
Still, there must be a negative attitude towards obesity, or there wouldn’t be any incentive for people to lose weight, would there? That’s always been the way society found to get people to follow good behavior: not killing, not cheating, etc.
Obesity is bad. Why say it’s not? Obese people shouldn’t be obese, and it’s not acceptable to be so. Our standards vary by community. Texans overdo their beef apparently, to judge by the overabundance of big hefty people I’ve seen there, but they don’t think of themselves as obese. They sure are though. There are underlying problems, chief among which is portion size, followed by poor eating habits and lack of adequate exercise. If there is nothing wrong with being fat, then why exercise? why not eat whatever we want and die from heart attacks and other overweight-related problems? Some people overdo dieting, and have a poor self-image, but they have psychological problems that go beyond body image, in my opinion. I don’t thin it’s going to help anyone like that to say that they and other people should be more accepting. I say, lose the extra fat, or get used to being called fat.
I say this from a position of knowing that I’m overfat.
“…Obesity is bad. Why say it’s not? Obese people shouldn’t be obese, and it’s not acceptable to be so. Our standards vary by community. Texans overdo their beef apparently…”
‘Obesity’ is only a clinical, medical term based on: guess what? Your BMI! *hahaha!*
I’m sad for you, O’Maolchathaigh, having been so quite obviously hog-tied by the status quo. You consider yourself overweight, and yet have an inherant belief that being overweight (obese, your say) is “bad”…that must be such a painful judgment on yourself to have to live with!
I’m bad because I’m fat.
The only one happy is your therapist, I’ll bet.
I still believe it isn’t okay to foster an “us-and-them” dynamic when it comes to the size and shape of a person’s body.
Fatties vs. Scrawnies
Tallies vs. Shorties
Right-handers vs. Left-handers
Blondies vs. Brown-heads
Stupid lefties and their special scissors….being left-handed is just….I dunno. BAD. You know they don’t *have* to be that way…there are ways to fix it. And don’t they look dumb when they try to write? All upside-down like. durrr. Whatsa matter leftie, yer thumb in the wrong spot?
Why’s everyone always so worried about FAT in general, and specifically other peoples’ fat as compared to their own??
Furthermore, I believe the “obesity epidemic” is alarmist journalism at its best. If you keep people (women esp.) afraid, they are more easily manipulated.
Not even going into the oodles of bits of misinformation I see here, I’ll just say that from a libertarian perspective, who is anyone to say what I can or can’t eat, where I can or can’t drive, should or shouldn’t walk, how much I exercise, etc?
And how narrow-minded do you have to be to make body weight and morality equivalent? How fat do you have to be to become downright criminal and abusive to your fellow man, I wonder?
Furthermore, equating health with morality is a fallacy. Even if someone is destroying their health willingly, does that make the gym-bunny their moral superior? By what measure? Perhaps the gym-bunny tortures small animals and the health-destroyer runs a small animal hospital and rescue center. Now, who’s morally superior?
The point is, you can’t tell the person by the fat. To do so is no better than telling the person based on some other characteristic of their bodies. Health is no measure of moral superiority, if you want to use that excuse, just as sedentariness is no measure of moral inferiority.
So why is there so much fat hate, then, if we take away the fallacious argument that fatness can be somehow equated with moral inferiority? Leave people alone. Focus on yourself, and your own life, and stop trying to find excuses to feel better than perfect strangers whom you don’t know (and don’t care to know). Grow up.
^By “here” I mean in some of the comments, not in the post itself (which was very thoughtfully written).
But come on, you have to admit, being obese isn’t healthy; it’s not comfortable either. I am constantly pissed off at how the inner thighs of my jeans wear off so quickly to the point of tearing.
I’m all for body image acceptance; I wish I loved my body more than I do. I also wish I was healthier. In the context of my family medical history, my obesity isn’t a good omen.
In the end, it’s not really about fat for me; it’s about health, which is NOT equal to thin (see Nicole Ritchie and most runway models); but obviously, we’re all susceptible to the popular conception of beauty, so all people tend to focus on is whether I’ll be able to wear a bikini or not.
It’s a vicious circle; if a less-than-stick-thin woman wears a bikini, people will stare and gag; so that woman will focus on getting thin so people won’t react that way; so then she’ll be the next one to stare and gag at the next fat woman that wears a bikini; and it goes on and on and on…
The French people, they eat, they sleep and the phuque…The philosophy of froggies.
I don’t think that O’Maolchathaigh was equating obesity to immorality. He was merely saying that obesity is a problem.. not that obese people are.
I agree with many of you that people should be more accepting of overweight people. But we all make judgments, so I don’t see the point in being angry about it. When tiffabee says that she thinks people in LA could stand to gain a few pounds, she is essentially judging them on their weight. We are all guilty.
If we cannot say that people should lose weight, who are we to say that people should gain weight?
Unless we look at eating disorders such as anorexia and bulemia and so we must intervene for the people’s well-being. In which case, we must also say that we must intervene and say something about the eating disorder of eating excess to the point where you are putting your life at stake.
I think regulations on diet and exercise are important if a person cannot stick to one to save their lives (meaning this in the most literal way). That doesn’t mean I think all non-fat people should go out and start forcing overweight people to go on a diet. But some people are in need of regulation from a dietician or some kind of accountability from a friend or family member.
It’d be nice to acknowledge, also, that a lot of the spoken judgments about obese people stem from insecurity about one’s self-image. Perhaps that is the problem– the declining self-image today– and not the “status quo” or a lack of societal acceptance.
“..we’re all susceptible to the popular conception of beauty..”
It takes a little work, MP, but we don’t *have* to be ’succeptible’ to popular concept. In fact, a lot of women are putting in a lot of hard work to change that “popular conception” of so-called beauty…
C’mon…you have to admit being emaciated is neither healthy nor comfortable, yet we don’t “stare and gag” at boney people just for being boney, or automatically assume there’s something wrong with them (cancer? AIDS? omg that person is unhealthy!) because they can’t sustain a normal weight…we put them up on a pedestal! Yes! And give them beautiful clothing!
I don’t “have to admit” being obese is unhealthy. You cannot look at a person and determine their health based on how much they weigh. That’s absolutely ludicrous, and no different from statistically-based assumptions about sex, religion, and class (i.e., not all women like romantic comedies, not all Catholics have big families, not all poor people live at McDonald’s).
Think I’m exaggerating? I’m not. I merely understand the nature of statistics, and I also understand how odds ratios have been used in the calculation of obesity stats in order to make some “risk factors” seem far, far more determinant of health status than they are. Read about that here: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/12/study-sidebar-odds-ratios.html
Besides, carrying the torch of healthism doesn’t give you to the right to impose your beliefs on someone else, regardless. You don’t want to be fat? Fine, don’t be. But don’t start making blanket statements about connections with health that you don’t understand, and using the “but it’s obvious!” non-argument to make your case, and expect anyone to take it seriously. Also, don’t assume that the rest of us ascribe to any so-called “popular” notion of attractiveness. I certainly do not.
“If we cannot say that people should lose weight, who are we to say that people should gain weight?”
Someone can be starving to death and need to gain weight (because it’s been shown, over and over, that without food you do indeed waste away and die, regardless of who you are). But no, nobody on the street can be *sure* of that. In fact, last time I checked, health and medical issues are *private,* and are supposed to be your and your doctor’s business. The point is, no one can tell by looking at someone what their health problems were, and even if they could, then it woulds STILL BE NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS.
The problem with our society (in respect to weight issues) is that people make other people’s weight their business. Family members, friends, teachers, bosses, colleagues, and strangers feel free to comment on your body, what you’re eating, or subject you to long tirades on their own weight issues, eating, dieting, etc. Food has become a symbol of morality and strength amongst more than just fringe circles, with Mickey Dees seen as the lowest of the low and vegan whole-foods local markets seen as the pinnacle of morality. People feel free to sneer at or feel superior to others (especially if they’re fat) if they’re seen eating the “wrong” foods, buying the “wrong” groceries, or feeding their kids the “wrong” foods. Think I’m exaggerating? Ask any fat person who’s grocery-shopped. Ask someone who eats fast food in public if they don’t feel embarrassed if they think they’re eating the “wrong” foods, or if they feel proud if they just have a bottled water and an energy bar.
We’re taught to be “proud” of weight loss, that it’s an “accomplishment.” How can you extract that from morality? Accomplished = good, = better than non-accomplished, i.e., better than people who didn’t lose the weight. Weight loss, for all but the very thin, is generally seen as an accomplishment.
Gaining weight is seen as an accomplishment only in extreme cases, usually when dealing with people who are severely underweight. Even pregnant women are being increasingly coached not to gain “too much weight” during pregnancy, or they’ll risk having a big baby. Of course, this is completely unsupported by *any* evidence at all, at best a misinterpretation of diet.
The fact is, most of the commenters here can’t imagine a society where people *weren’t* morally judged based on their weight. Healthism is just another excuse for passing moral judgment on those you believe are being “willingly” unhealthful. Athletic injuries are quite common; and, you can easily argue, athletes bring them on themselves by being athletes in the first place. Yet there is no vilification of these “unhealthy” people. &etc.
[...] Quick Comment (having to do with Healthism) In summary: tiffabee posted “French Women Don’t Get Fat: Part III.” She was sitting with a woman from New Jersey on her way back to the airport, during her [...]
~ go big lib. ! ~
* ; )
“..The problem with our society (in respect to weight issues) is that people make other people’s weight their business. ..”
word.
why is that, anyway..? I can’t imagine any other physical or internal characteristic that is as up-for-grabs as a social topic as weight/loss/diets/body bashing. Except, maybe, peoples’ pregnancies. ugh.
Look, it’s good to be healthy. Obesity is not healthy; neither is emaciation, nor over-exercising. More people in the US are obese than anywhere else in the world, and we are less healthy, with more weight-related health problems like arteriosclerosis, heart attacks, bad feet, blown knees, etc. More people are overweight in this country than are underweight, or who over exercise. It is a problem, and people should take responsibility for their own lives, not try to justify it all away as lack of acceptance. There are differences in body type, but all three types can still end up morbidly obese. When you have to buy two tickets to fly on a plane, or people can’t fit into the seat next to you or the bus, then you are fat. Period. Denying it doesn’t do any good. We don’t worship skinny in this country; skinny models are usually unhealthy, and are not considered role models. They are clothing racks; that’s all. There is a vast difference between a skinny model and a fat person. Being 10-15 pounds overweight is not what anyone need worry about. Being 50 to 100 pounds overfat certainly is, and should be recognized as a problem, not a difference.
“..More people are overweight in this country than are underweight, or who over exercise. It is a problem..”
The only thing you have any control over in this particular arena is yourself. I don’t know where you’re getting your statistics, but how are overweight people your problem?
“…We don’t worship skinny in this country…”
Oh, excuse me I assumed you were American.
Please fill us in: where is this mystery country where thin-ness is not deified?
“…There is a vast difference between a skinny model and a fat person….”
Gee….ya think so???
You’re paddling up the wrong river, O’Maolchathaigh. Is “obesity” the only physical deformity or perceived weakness you abhor, or are there others?
Either way it’s abundantly clear from your comments that you, personally, have bought into the popular concept of commercial, socially- acceptable appearance lock stock and barrel.
Go ahead and spend another day anguishing over the fat of yourself and others – do what you will, think what you want. It’s your life. If you want to give your time and energy to battling the ‘obesity epidemic’, be my guest…if you want to interact with anyone here in this forum, you may want to do a little research as to what sort of blog this is before your throat gets sore from barking up the wrong tree.
“Obesity is not healthy” — Full stop.
Prove it.
Cuz, you see, the most diligent, well-paid (often through grants who can be traced back to interested parties) researchers with the best educations spending oodles of years doing their research *have not been able to show that obesity in and of itself is more harmful than having another body profile, like being tall, male, or of a certain ethnicity*.
So again –
Prove it.
Using *no* circumstantial evidence. Using studies backed by non-interested (non-Pharma, non-Anti-Obesity org) orgs only. Oh, RWJF is also off-limits – their founder was the founder of Johnson & Johnson.
Go.
Frankly, biglib, accomplishments do not always mean morality. That irks me to no end that you propose that the feats someone accomplishes equates to their goodness. It’s just as bad as if one were to say that being fat means you are not a good person (which, if I may reiterate, no one on this board has said).
hope505, how is making obesity one’s personal problem bad? I see it as seeing as someone taking initiative in this world, not being so self-absorbed that they can be concerned for others.
I think that as far as the research done on obesity, it’s probably very true that being obese doesn’t have any more negative effects that your height or sex or race. However, obesity is also something that can, for the most part, be controlled. For some people obesity springs from things like thyroid problems, but for others it is just a matter of eating too much or not exercising enough. No matter the reason for eating excessively, just liking food or some emotional trigger that leads to binging, it can always be stopped.
I know you said to prove obesity’s negative effects with non-biased research, but let’s think logically about this.
I think if you were to compare the organs of an obese person and an athlete, whether or not they injured themselves because of recklessness or lack of conditioning, you would find that the athlete’s organs are much healthier. Obesity is not healthy. The liver becomes clogged with fat, the heart can be overworked, joints and bones are under constant strain (not just the momentary strain from a 100m dash or a swim). For some the weakness of organ functions is hereditary and not connected with their weight, but you cannot ignore that huge amounts of excess fat is a burden upon every mechanism of the body. If people cannot walk with ease, there is something wrong. I don’t think we should just let that go by and let people ruin their bodies. Then, we will be condemning every slightly obese person to a future of extreme obesity, sitting in wheelchairs because they cannot stand on their own legs (and this I have seen before).
…”hope505, how is making obesity one’s personal problem bad?..”
I meant that if other peoples’ fatness is a problem for you, that’s bad.
Or other peoples’ baldness, shortness, buck teeth, tattoos or piercings, dig? Don’t spend time worrying for a stranger because of their weight, because 1) their fatness has absolutely no effect on you and 2) not your business. really, don’t you have better things to do besides whisper about how this person or that person shouldn’t be eating this or that?
…”I see it as seeing as someone taking initiative in this world, not being so self-absorbed that they can be concerned for others. “
You can hope the best for someone without being “concerned” for them – especially a stranger. *haha!* If you see a fat person, and it bothers you, instead of looking away in ignorance or gazing on them with scorn and judgement, think of a warm place in your heart and let a smile beam forth from your little face, if that’s possible! What kind of fat person are we talking about, anyway…a fellow jogger that you meet in the night, obviously trying her best to smack that fat, or your friend’s mom, lounging comfortably on the couch in the air conditioning, reading a book?
I don’t give a flip about the fatness of either one of them, because I care more for their happiness.
As complete strangers, that is our lowest common denominator, isn’t it? Christ on a cupcake,girl, have you never heard of punk rock? Telling other people how they should be is a no-no!
blah blah blah
…” I don’t think we should just let that go by and let people ruin their bodies. ..”
Unfortunately, you don’t have a say in what other people do with/to/for/their bodies. You just don’t. So I hope for you that you can come to some peace with this, because people will continue to eat too much lasagna, ignore their asthma, drink martinis and shoot up meth as the world turns. The best you can do is be a good example, because you have no control over others.
* : )
the interesting thing to me is that as tiffabees says neither one of them were overweight or obese, so really why was this woman bringing up the subject?
“When you have to buy two tickets to fly on a plane, or people can’t fit into the seat next to you or the bus, then you are fat. Period. Denying it doesn’t do any good. We don’t worship skinny in this country; skinny models are usually unhealthy, and are not considered role models. They are clothing racks; that’s all. There is a vast difference between a skinny model and a fat person. Being 10-15 pounds overweight is not what anyone need worry about.”
This is pretty clearly a straw man argument, and yet you almost have to throw around the straw man arguments when arguing about this.
I live in one of the supposed “fattest” states/cities in America, with extraordinarily low per capita income. Guess what? On an average day, I see FAR more really skinny people than really fat people. Furthermore, and this is important–
There’s nobody left in the middle at all.
I’m one of those middle people, that “supposedly” has a healthy BMI. I’m muscular, work out, supposedly my doctor says I’m healthy.
And yet, unless I stay home, I’m constantly reminded and sometimes outright told how fat, ugly, and disgusting I am because I’m not thin.
It’s really hard not to listen to the student who gets in my face, says I’m fat, and then tells me that she’s prettier and therefore smarter. It was really hard, before I found my job, to not be able to get a job in the company I wanted because I was “clearly unmotivated” (every other person in that office weighed under 120 pounds–I’m not sure why I thought I ever had a chance!)
And generally, when people are asked what they think “looks good” on a woman, why do they gravitate toward “oh, 5′7″ or 8″ and 120 pounds is healthy and good!” when duh, that’s the lowest weight you can be and not be underweight?
Americans are unhealthily obsessed about their weight and the weight of others. I recently visited another city and was utterly SHOCKED that there were women who were neither unhealthily skinny or obese–there was a middle there. I actually felt comfortable and not ashamed to be in public for possibly for the first time in years. I felt like I could shop without recrimination, “oh honey, I’m not sure we have anything here for you” (when they DO carry my size).
So I believe in size acceptance because if I didn’t think that any of the above was crazy–I’d be crazier by now too. I believe that nobody should have to live this way, not the thin, not the middle, and not the fat either.
hope505,
sorry i misinterpreted what you meant by problem. I completely agree with you that no one should be seeing obesity as a problem– as in trouble. I thought you meant problem as like.. an issue. ahaha this probably doesn’t make sense.
anyway..
I don’t agree, however, with the just because we don’t have control over people’s free wills we can’t still work to better an issue we see in the world. For me personally, it would be out of love that I approach someone about an unhealthy eating/exercising lifestyle and, though I could not control what they put into their mouths or expended, I would still talk to them about it because I care for them. I would not act as if everything was okay. I suppose if we were to give up because we can’t make everyone change, then we cannot be proponents of being kind to everyone no matter their weight because some people will always be discriminatory.
I also agree on size acceptance– and acceptance in general. The heart of a person is what matters.