I'm shocked, shocked to discover sexism in the workplace.
Just the other day I wrote a short, professional (and not completely complimentary) piece on someone (who, inter alia, is a blogger), who replied by gushing over all the "love" I gave him with the lead-in:
"She's cute."
Sigh. That's totally why I went to school for twenty years.
"His work is much better than his sister's."
That's priceless.
I also may need to have our nanny killed. Sally told me last night that Nini was telling her she was fat.
She's fucking six. (And it kills me that I feel the need to say this, but not fat at all. She's a hulking moose of a girl, but a lean and pretty hulking moose.)
I also may need to have our nanny killed.
As your lawyer, I advise against it. But that certainly is annoying.
3: Jeez Louise. I have a 12-year-old niece who is thin as a rail—not unhealthy, but just super-skinny in the way 12-year-olds can be—who is forever going on about how many calories this or that has. I want to grab her by the ears and tell her she could clearly eat Crisco straight from the can without gaining an ounce. Both her parents are quite thin as well without any sort of dieting; the genetics are obvious.
It really disturbs me to see that mindset already taking hold before puberty even kicks in, but even more so on somebody for whom it simply has no relevance whatsoever.
I should send my brother over to kick her ass.
a lean and pretty hulking moose
You may not want to write that in, say, her birthday card. But I'd say calling one of h ercharges fat is grounds for termination with extreme kick-in-the-ass.
hulking moose
You may not want to write that in, say, her birthday card.
Why? Isn't it typical that a daughter would feel good about looking like her mother?
Calabattable offense. Six-year-olds just shouldn't be anywhere near having to worry about that crap.
6: We're not going to fire her over this -- she's been with us since Sally was nine months old, the kids love her, she's generally great. But I'm going to talk to her, or Buck will.
7: It really disturbs me to see that mindset already taking hold before puberty even kicks in, but even more so on somebody for whom it simply has no relevance whatsoever.
You know, it's esthetically displeasing looking at someone worrying about their weight when it has no relationship to reality, but it's really less of a problem for skinny kids. I (insanely, but it's really hard not to) worried about my weight when I was a bony teenager who ate like a horse. It was stupid and crazy that I had any concern at all, but it wasn't a huge deal for me. For a heavier person, it can really be damaging.
You may not want to write that in, say, her birthday card.
The thing is, it's a reasonable description -- next to another kid her own age she looks four years older -- and it wouldn't be insulting if she were a boy. "Big" or "hulking" or even "moose" are only insults if there's a rule saying she has to be a delicate little slip of a thing. I call her my big strong muscly girl all the time.
it's really less of a problem for skinny kids
Right, but in the back of my mind, I can't help but be reminded of the anorexics who decry their heaviness when you can see every rib and vertebra.
You make a good point with "big" (and maybe "hulking," although I can imagine that might be not maximally complimentary even to boys) especially in light of the femininity discussion on the other thread.
I guess I was thinking mostly of "moose." But Lord knows I'm not going to spend anymore time telling you what I think of what you call your own daughter.
Point is: bad nanny. Between the calabat and the Becks-brother, we have quite the enforcement squad here.
Generally good nanny. She's just very, very femme, and it comes out occasionally in craziness like thinking that it's appropriate to worry about a child's weight.
She's just very, very femme,
I don't know why you want to otherize her for being femme.
Do kids at six have a sense that girls are supposed to be petite? I can't remember back that far. I know I hung out with all guys, but I can't really remember why. I think it had something to do with cooties.
Do kids at six have a sense that girls are supposed to be petite?
Yes, or at least the girls have been clearly informed of it by grownups. I'm not sure if boys have gotten the message.
I know I had a sense at eight that girls are supposed to be petite, at least. Can't remember about age six, but I imagine that my impression at age eight had something to do with things that were said to me when I was six.
Of course, it took me until I was seventeen to realize that my father was hyperparanoid about having fat kids, and to tell him to fuck off and never make any comment about my weight again.
and 10: Hrmphf. True -- the resemblance is strong, but still hrmphf.
But what about the cootie problem? Has she been innoculated? Or are girls even susceptible to cooties? And, if not, can Newt still get cooties from his sister?
So much knowledge lost to the vagaries of my memory.
Here's a serious question -- we all agree that we shouldn't be engaged in shaming kids about their weight, fat or skinny -- but what should we do about kids that *are* fat?
It's a hard question.
what should we do about kids that *are* fat?
Feed them to the ones that are too skinny.
As parents, feed them reasonably but without giving them a hard time about it, and arrange their lives so they have a chance to play actively as much as possible, again without giving them a hard time about it. And shut up about it -- moderately fat isn't cancer. Hell, extremely fat isn't cancer.
As society, same thing: decent food in schools, etc. And really shut up about it.
the resemblance is strong, but still hrmphf.
Wait, you said "Big" or "hulking" or even "moose" are only insults if there's a rule saying she has to be a delicate little slip of a thing. So what's the problem? I guess we can see who is instilling the norms of the patriarcy at the LizardBreath household.
Maybe I'm dense, but insofar as parents are the ones responsible for feeding their children, it seems pretty clear to just feed them healthily, and eat the same food and not have crappy food in the house.
The 'feed them decent stuff at home' and give them opportunities for active play thing _is_ pretty obvious, I suppose.
We (collectively I mean) aren't very good at it though, if the number of fat kids is anything to go by.
range their lives so they have a chance to play actively as much as possible, again without giving them a hard time about it. And shut up about it
This seems like the best answer. If they're physically fit, who cares if they're heavier than average? They'll get hammered enough by their friends; they don't need their parents helping out.
There's nothing worse than parents who say "you eat this--you're on a diet" while they eat something else entirely.
And yeah, like LB said, shut up about it. Kids know if they're overweight (as we can see, since even the ones who aren't think they are), they don't need to hear about it from their parents.
14:What a fucking depressing site. I had roughly this conversation with my (quite petite) friend Kim last Friday (this version is highly condensed):
Kim: I'm having trouble with my clerkship, because I decided to lose weight, so I'm running a lot, which is good, but then I keep my calorie intake low, and I have trouble concentrating throughout the day.
Tia: You don't need to lose weight, Kim.
Kim: But everyone around me is an ex model. I want to look like them. I don't know why I do, but I do. It's living in New York.
Tia: It won't make your life any better in any way. It won't get you more male attention.
Kim: It won't?
Tia: No. If anything, I think losing more weight than you have might cost you some male attention.
Kim: It will?
Tia: Maybe. It won't make you happier, it won't really change the way you look. All it's going to do is what it is doing, which is make you worse at your job.
Kim: I really want to lose weight though. Why am I like this?
Tia: I don't totally know how it happens. It happens really early. We're all taught to associate being thin with the possibility of being loved.
Kim: Yeah, that sounds right.
Tia: I know some other people who think that the upper class identification is what people seek with all this beauty stuff.
Kim: It doesn't have to do with class for me.
Tia: For me either, I don't think, but maybe for some people. It could all be under the umbrella of security.
Kim: I don't know what I should do.
Tia: You should eat. Seriously. I don't mean to be bossy, but there's no dilemma here. If you don't you'll get addicted to the feeling of self-control, and that will become its own end. It's a downward spiral.
Kim: Maybe that's why this is happening now. Because I don't have control over anything in my life, but I have control over this.
Tia: Right, but it's a totally illusory feeling of control. It's like saying, I'm stressed out, but I'm not stressed when I'm on heroin. It's an addictive fix that doesn't really address the problem. Besides, you have some control. You have control over your work, certainly. You can't control other people, but you can control how you interact with them. You could decide to date or not date right now. You can decide how you want to interact with your family.
Kim: Why am I this way? How can I be a feminist and be this way? I read all these feminist books, like that one by that New York Times columnist--wait, what's her--
Tia: Maureen Dowd? I'm not surprised reading her book made you feel worse. I'm not sure she's really a feminist, either.
Kim: I know, it just convinced me that I was going to wind up old and lonely. I get so hungry, especially in the last hour of the day. And my work is really hard and intellectually challenging. I could get a lot done in that hour if I weren't so hungry. The other clerks aren't any smarter than me, but I do think they have more mental energy that isn't taken up by this, especially the men.
Tia: And you see, you see how it redounds to their advantage? You're handicapping yourself at your job, a job that will affect your entire legal career. Works out well for the men that smart women are using so much mental space to starve themselves that they can't compete on an equal playing field.
Kim: Yeah. I just really want to be thin, though.
Tia: It's not worth it. When you have it, it will give you nothing.
Kim: Maybe you're right. Maybe...Maybe I should just take in as many calories as I expend.
Tia: Uh, yeah.
Thanks, Tia. That was illuminating.
I do think that the class thing is pretty dead-on. At least, trying to imagine myself as the successful badass litigator I want to be in my current body is something that's very, very hard for me to do. Women associate success with beauty and thinness.
At least, trying to imagine myself as the successful badass litigator I want to be in my current body is something that's very, very hard for me to do.
Screw 'em and do it anyway.
Oh, I forgot the part where I asked her if she was in therapy, and she said yes, and then I asked her if she had discussed this with her therapist, and she said no, because she knew her therapist would disapprove.
re: 31
Yeah, that rings true. Both the class and success thing.
Most of the images of successful business women and lawyers in the media are of super well-groomed, sleek*, lean women.
* straight hair, never curly
26 is correct. But it can be difficult to get kids the amount of exercise they really need--hell, we have a yard the size of a postage stamp and PK doesn't play outside nearly as much as he should. And we live in a safe neighborhood with no street traffic. If you live in an apartment or on a busy street or whatever, the only way to make sure kids get enough exercise is to take them to a park (or some physical activity) for an hour or more every day. Which doesn't sound like a lot, except that it's just one more task to do each day.
Basically, PK doesn't get as much exercise as I think he should with his activvity level. I take him for walks with me when I go downtown for stuff, and like that, but it's surprisingly hard if you're not in an actual city (where you walk everywhere) or else in a suburb with a big yard.
LB's nanny sucks. But one of the things I try to do with PK is notice how often "fat" is used as an insult rather than a descriptor. (It's amazing how often shows for children feature a fat kid as comic butt. Horrible!) And to use "fat" in positive ways: "look at that adorable fat little baby!" "look at that pretty, fat, little bird!" or whatever. And, of course, the lesson that criticizing how people look is mean, blah blah.
I think if I had a daughter whose nanny said something like that, I would have a serious talk with the nanny and forbid her from saying anything like that, ever again--but honestly, I would seriously consider finding a new nanny. Kids are going to get enough messages about the importance of being femme and thin, and a nanny who buys into that stuff, no matter how otherwise fabulous, is going to be a huge influence, even if she doesn't say things that overt.
(And then of course have the talk with the daughter about how fat as a descriptor is *just* a descriptor, and people misuse it all the time to simply mean big or muscular or whatever, and also using it as a pejorative is just really fucking mean, and that she has a healthy body and that's awesome! Blah blah.)
Yeah, I think the class thing is dead-on. Even if you're not thinking "I want to be upper class," slimness = status for women. And who doesn't want status? Especially, maybe, feminist women--part of the feminist impulse is the desire to raise the status of women, isn't it?
It really upsets me that so many women (and men too) have learned not to just listen to their bodies w/r/t eating. Either they don't eat when they're hungry, or they eat past feeling full, or whatever. It's kind of insane, the attitude we have towards food.
(Full disclosure: I don't always eat when I'm hungry, but that's largely b/c I'm lazy and don't always feel like going and fixing myself something.)
shows for children feature a fat kid as comic butt
Oh my god, all the freaking time. It makes me wince the same way seeing Buckwheat does now that I'm an adult.
re: 35
"But it can be difficult to get kids the amount of exercise they really need--hell, we have a yard the size of a postage stamp and PK doesn't play outside nearly as much as he should. And we live in a safe neighborhood with no street traffic. If you live in an apartment or on a busy street or whatever, the only way to make sure kids get enough exercise is to take them to a park ..."
I'm afraid I don't buy this. There's been a cultural shift vis a vis parental expectations about what's safe for their kids and what's not, I think.
When we were kids, all the kids were expected to just be outside doing kid stuff. In the case of the boys where I grew up that meant soccer -- even the bookish kids spent hours (literally) every day playing soccer.
Our presence in the home if it wasn't actually raining was unwelcome and that went for all the neighbourhood kids. No-one took us to the park, play was not supervised by adults, most of the time no-one knew where we were.
Of course it's hard for kids to play outside if there aren't any other kids to play with -- no blame is being apportioned here -- but it's the culture that's changed, not the actual safety of the environment (in terms of traffic, space to play, etc.).
Uh, I think geography might be a bigger factor here...
No, McGrattan's right about the cultural shift. I'm in a city, and there's a park and a store on my block, without crossing any streets. I've never seen an unsupervised kid under about 12 heading for either. There'd be no danger in letting a kid go either place solo, but it's unacceptable now, where it wouldn't have been even when I was a kid.
I'm not sure what the geographic factor could be?
I've noticed exactly the same thing as LB.
A small point, but McGrattan is so right about the straight/curly hair thing. I have naturally curly hair, and I almost never wear it curly, especially to work, because I feel like it doesn't look "professional." What the fuck is that?
I've had countless people tell me that my curly hair is beautiful, but I just can't see it. It makes me feel like I look 12.
38 and 40 accord with my experience. Of course, it does not let us parents off the hook, it just means that it is harder, now, to keep kids active.
38 is right, I think. A big part of the problem is that there aren't many other kids around, although there are a couple of little girls across the street, and the three of them do a pretty good job of playing outside sometimes though god knows where they go.
And I'm glad you mentioned it, Matt, because it reminded me to say, "PK, why don't you go outside and see if the girls want to play?" and he says, "okay."
Silvana,
Not to say that your concerns regarding professional appearance are baseless or that you are reading too much into whatever you have seen or experienced, but only to offer you a little comfort, I can tell you that there are a lot of brilliant, hard charging women litigators who do not fit the mold you see yourself as having to fit into. Indeed, the firm where I started law practice is considered one of the hard charging-ist, and I can only think of one woman partner who fit the stereotype you mention. The only thing they had in common was being good, hard-working lawyers.
Again, this is not to say that your concerns are baseless, but you should take some comfort from the fact that it may not be as bad as you fear. I mean look at LizardBreath. She's a great lawyer and she looks like a moose!
I wonder if there's a class thing at work here as well, too. In poor neighborhoods with real crime problems, obviously it's often not safe for kids to go out and play. In the "nicer" (middle to upper middle class) neighborhood where my parents live, though, parents won't let their kids out to play because of perceived, but nonexistant, threats. (Your child could trip on a crack in the sidewalk and DIE!) Kids' activities are entirely limited to structured sports and playgroups. In the blue-collar neighborhood where I live in Virginia, parents let their kids play unsupervised and seem fine with it. (And it seems safe enough to me.)
We should reinstitute the Presidential Fitness Challenge, and tie passing it to the ability to recieve water at one's domicile.
Not to say...you are reading too much into
Heh.
But thanks, Idealist. I know that no one is expecting these things of me, it's more than I just can't envision my desired future as myself. Certainly, nearly all of the women who work here, except I think two, don't fit into that mold either.
I just meant that Matt's in the UK, so the shift he sees may not be happening over here as well. It apparently is, though, so never mind.
But you've got the whole exotic Egyptian-Mormon thing going for you so, y'know, "Rrrrowwrrr, your honor."
There's an interesting article up on Slate about the causes of obesity, and it mentioned a study that found that environment didn't have much of an effect on the physical activity of kids. Apparently there's an internal baseline level of activity for each person that isn't so easy to change. I didn't read the whole paper, so I'm not really sure why that is; I assume it's something along the lines of greater activity during one part of the day being canceled out by more sedentary behavior at other times, so the overall activity level for the whole day remains constant.
About the kids playing outside without supervision thing.
I never want to wonder about this too terribly loudly, but, well, here goes... I do worry that part of the cultural shift has to do with the phenomenon of both parents working. Houses in the suburbs and apartment stoops tend these days to be more depopulated than they used to be.
When my sisters and I rode our bikes to the courtyard where we could play around, we knew which of the neighbors were home--when I fell and got tangled up in my bike, one of those neighbors called the Fire Department, who arrived before my stay-at-home mom (down the block) did. She might have felt a little bad for not having been exactly on-the-spot, but it really wasn't a problem since someone else was near-enough to the spot. (I think I was about seven?)
There's part of me that doesn't want to admit that this might be a factor in the decrease in spontaneous, unsupervised play (the whole thesis just sounds so 1950s anti-feminist utopian), but it does fit in with the Jane Jacobs notions of organic neighborhoods--which go all to poo when some tipping-point percentage of the residents commute to work somewhere else during the day.
Re: 35
My sister is pregnant now, and one of the things she and her husband are trying to do is to recognize and curtail language that an all-too-impressionable child is going to soak up. It's astonishing how many passing judgments adults utter without thinking of the cumulative effect.
Screwed-up body image problems don't happen overnight and they don't happen from a single influence. But man, parents' voices can sure echo for years.
52: Tsk, tsk. Way to sister-shame, JM.
53: I firmly believe that we're more likely to screw our kids up by trying to prevent them from being exposed to stuff than by letting it out and explaining as needed. That may just be because my wife and I aren't particularly good at self-censorship, and my kid may end up with huge therapy bills 20 years from now, but I don't think so.
I do worry that part of the cultural shift has to do with the phenomenon of both parents working.
And relatedly, I wonder whether the cultural shift has to do with how parents worry that other parents are judging/outdoing them. Where once it might have been considered over-controlling and elitist not to let your kids run around the neighborhood, now it's admirable to do aspirational scheduled activities (ballet, soccer, whatever) rather than allow unstructured time...?
I don't know. I won't defend this very strongly because I haven't spent enough time thinking about it.
53: I firmly believe that we're more likely to screw our kids up by trying to prevent them from being exposed to stuff than by letting it out and explaining as needed.
I think we might be talking at cross-purposes. I'm saying that it's a good thing for people to think about how they use language, so that they aren't saying approvingly "Yeah, she really watches her figure" as the co-worker eats cottage cheese and honey for lunch, and then wondering why their 14-year-old thinks she's "fat" at 130 pounds.
I'm definitely not suggesting that parents should avoid talking about common but not always socially acceptable issues in front of their kids. Several of my childhood friends got their only exposure to healthy adult discussions about sex and drugs from my mother -- not their own parents. And most of those discussions were sparked by some silly news story about a celebrity, or some passing remark about an adult friend in rehab.
I think a big part of it is the 1980's and later hysteria about child abduction/sexual abuse. The rate of strangers snatching children from public places is miniscule and always has been, but people think of it as a real significant worry. (I've been sitting out with the kids in a park and had another mother start murmuring frightenedly about a man sitting innocently on a park bench watching the kids play. Watching children play does not automatically make you a predator.) And enough people do that I expect if I let my almost seven-year-old outdoors alone that she would be aggressively rescued by some busybody, and I'd be in for at best a severe talking-to and at worst a call to CPS.
57: But then isn't the point that the parents just need to work on their own attitudes? If the attitude isn't there, you don't need to worry about what you say, and if it is there, the kids are going to catch on, at which point they're dealing not only with the attitude but with the idea that it's a special adult thing that they're not supposed to have access to.
Yes, I'm afraid that's probably the primary cause, LB.
Oddly, though, the hysteria really correlates well with the bedroom-community, two-parents working, suburbization of America.
(I once asked my dad about whether people were worried about pedophiles in the small Yukon village where he ran amok every summer. He replied that "everyone knew that there was this one priest you shouldn't be alone with." I didn't quite know what to make of that.)
a man sitting innocently on a park bench watching the kids play.
I just noticed something related this weekend: I avoid kids because, somewhere in the back of my head, I worry that the parents will worry about a single guy walking through a park, etc. I just noticed it when I was walking up a street, realized I was trailing behind a couple of kids, and changed sides of the street. Weird.
Where's Labs? Where'd that thread go?
SITTING ON A PARK BENCH
re: 63
It's the clown suit that scares them.
65: I think it's because of the funny looks you get when you're doing anything alone and notice kids. But, to be fair, the attention might be because I have tattooed the word "WAR" on one cheek and "DEATH" on the other.
59, 62, 63: Mobility may a factor, too. The hyperprotective norm owes a lot to the abduction scares, but once it's established as a norm it gets reinforced by people who are anxious to avoid social missteps, and people who are new in an area may be especially careful about doing anything that could create a bad impression among people who have no other basis to judge them.
Ob-Bishop, from "The Moose":
Some of the passengers
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
"Sure are big creatures."
"It's awful plain."
"Look! It's a she!"
Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
sensation of joy?
But, to be fair, the attention might be because I have tattooed the word "WAR" on one cheek and "DEATH" on the other.
Which no one would notice unless your pants were down. Which explains the problem.
I just noticed something related this weekend: I avoid kids because, somewhere in the back of my head, I worry that the parents will worry about a single guy walking through a park, etc. I just noticed it when I was walking up a street, realized I was trailing behind a couple of kids, and changed sides of the street. Weird.
Yeah. This is common, and it's crazy crazy crazy. (Not your worry, but the parental worry yours is based on.) One of the things I really like about my neighborhood is that for some reason there seem to be a bunch of families with men like Buck, who are either work-at-home or have significantly flexible jobs time-wise -- there are visible men doing parenting stuff. The idea that men are, on some weird level, assumed to be a danger to children until proven otherwise is freakish and bizarre and just wrong.
You say "problem," I hear "opportunity," SB.
Nancy's been spoken to -- the upshot of the discussion was that the conversation was in Spanish, and Sally misunderstood 'gordita' (I think. This is third-hand through Buck) as 'fat' when the intent was 'big and strong'. Anyway, she knows we don't want her going there.
(She really is generally great.)
Re: 17: "Otherize"? Ifthat'snot the most loathesome neologism of my lifetime, I don't know what is.
74 should be If that's not, obviously. I've got a seriously sticky keyboard, thanks in part to my kid and my niece and nephews playing video games while eating sweets. Fricking-fracking kids my fricking-fracking keyboard...
re: 63
I take a lot of photographs when I'm out and about, I always have a camera on me.
However, I'm super careful never to take a shot if a kid strays into the frame. The whole paranoia around men (and strange men with cameras) makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and I think it's a great shame.
76: I feel some of that too, about taking pictures. though not really super careful, I've thought about photographing the kids at the neighborhood playground, and decided against it.
Ah. Yeah, "gordita" really is affectionate and not pejorative. Broadly speaking, "gordita" is attractive and valued in Spanish-speaking circles in ways that "flaca" isn't. Actually this is an awseome learning moment for Sally, no? "Guess what, "fat" isn't necessarily bad..."
52 is, I think, right, and I agree. (Also, I realized part of my problem letting PK play outside is really traffic--though we live on a quiet street, there's about two feet between our bottom step and the road.) I don't think it's sister-shaming at all to point out that the structures of the workplace mean that parents have very little time to be in their neighborhoods and with their kids during the day, and that this is messed up.
Re. child sexual abuse hysteria--actually, abuse is down compared to when we were kids, I think: basically awareness of the problem is a good thing. But, like so many other fears, we tend to focus them outward onto strangers rather than recognizing that the real threats are statistically closer--relatives and so forth. It's sad, though, that one effect of that increasing fear is that single people, men especially, are around children less and even afraid to talk to them, because of course that contributes to the culture of feeling like kids aren't parts of the public. I know that one of my parental fears isn't "that man will molest PK" but rather "that man is feeling irritated that PK is here." I'm kind of relieved when people send off vibes that they like kids, actually.
Broadly speaking, "gordita" is attractive and valued in Spanish-speaking circles in ways that "flaca" isn't.
Heh. Nancy's husband is known to all and sundry as 'Flaco'. (He's actually very nice looking, but distinctly skinny.)
The main 'industries' in the village I grew up in were a pair of mental hospitals catering for psychiatric patients and for the mentally handicapped in long term residential care. I worked there, both my parents (at one time or another) worked there.
There were a lot of strange and, in some cases, genuinely quite dangerous people around as a result.
I still don't remember any particular hysteria -- all of the kids knew to be wary of 'patients'.
The current hysteria is so overblown and it's a tragedy for the kids, mostly, who don't get to experience the world with quite the same freedom as they once might have.
Murder of children by strangers, in the UK, has been more or less static for decades. I remember seeing the stats in a newspaper article fairly recently and the annual figure has been in single figures for decades, on an island with a population of 50 million. It's really such an incredibly rare thing.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for abuse by family members.
All this talk of overweight kids and shutting the fuck up has compelled me to link to this, perhaps Unf's greatest contribution to Unfogged, but also irremediably sad.
It really upsets me that so many women (and men too) have learned not to just listen to their bodies w/r/t eating. Either they don't eat when they're hungry, or they eat past feeling full, or whatever. It's kind of insane, the attitude we have towards food.
Part of the problem though IS what our bodies tell us. Humans evolved as hunter gatherers, and the eating patterns of remaining hunter gatherers like Bushmen is very interesting. When they make a kill or happen upon a food source, they gorge. They'll eat for days, because sometimes the search for food means not eating for a couple days. Humans still have a lot of instinct that tells us to exploit food sources in this fashion, and corresponding metabolic pathways that are very good at storing excess calories as fat in preparation for the subsequent "famine" part of the cycle. Couple a state of constant food supply with a drastic reduction in physical activity, and you get exactly what we see in Western societies, a drastic rise in overweightness and obesity.