Only one 't' in my name. Just saying.

Anyway, the point of sending you that article was: when do you start your diet? In the time it must have taken you to write this, you could have not eaten ... well, a lot.

'T' excised. Double letters are my spelling weakness.

An interesting question is how much of this blame can push onto the gay mafia.

Thanks for doing this post, LB. It summarizes the issue very clearly and eloquently.

"we" can push...

lots of Americans are fat: more (or so I am led to believe) than in other countries, and certainly more than there were in the past.

Those fatties in the UK are catching up.

What I mean (which you all may have guessed) is how much of this is the responsibility of the fashion industry. There was a segment on NPR the other day (good ol' NPR) in which a former model (with a new book, film?) was laying taking them to task for propogating the ridiculously thin image, and taking advantage of young, fairly defenseless 16-yr-olds to do it. And, of course, I assume all fashion designers are gay men.

Actually, as has been discussed recently (I'm pretty sure here), at least some of these problems to admit of an elite-led solution: since "desirable" body shape is determined by the opposite of whatever hoi polloi has, perhaps some reverse-psychology could be had if only the wealthy would become obese. Then the masses would, like a magnet being repulsed, become less massive.

It is a nearly intractable problem that the populace is growing fatter despite social opprobrium. As LB says, clearly more opprobrium isn't the answer, but it's hard to see how talking up obesity would lead to a political climate in which improved walkability, etc. were widely-supported goals.

Eh, I think the influence of literal fashion modelling can easily be overstated. It's fucked up, but Mimi's doctor wasn't giving her crap because of Kate Moss.

I was obviously joking in para 1 of 8, but is it simply the case that, as long as mid-America is symbolized by round people eating McDonalds and shopping the extra-big section at WalMart, elites will continue to react with images of artificial thinness?

I mean, Twiggy was like 40 years ago, and there's been no appreciable pendulum swing back towards normality.

Those fatties in the UK are catching up.

And believe me, I give them shit for it.

As LB says, clearly more opprobrium isn't the answer, but it's hard to see how talking up obesity would lead to a political climate in which improved walkability, etc. were widely-supported goals.

I'm not getting this. No one's talking about making obesity an ideal to be achieved, just that it shouldn't be treated with the exaggerated horror it gets now. How would that interfere with pedestrian-friendly development?

9: I agree that fashion, per se, has minimal influence, but Hollywood, I think, has pretty big influence. It's been a long time since anyone not-svelt has been cast as "sexy." Vince Vaughn to a tiny extent, but a) he's not that big, and b) I didn't even realize that he was bigger-than-most-stars until he'd been a star for 5 years - he doesn't look heavy in headshots.

That said, I really don't want this to be a blame-Hollywood thread.

Personally, I suspect the fashion industry shoulders an unfair proportion of the blame. It's an easy target.

Much easier than tackling issues around working hours, how we organize our cities and towns, food distribution, food marketing, mass production, the difficulty performing regularl exercise and specifically the relative elimination of physical activity from many people's daily lives, etc.

I've looked at a lot of fashion photography from the 50s and 60s and there really isn't a massive difference between how models looked then and how they look now. It's simply not true that these days they are all skinny and unhealthily lean and that in some halcyon golden age they all had 'natural' curves.

I'm sure someone has done real research on changing body shapes in fashion imagery, so I may be talking out my arse.

Ah-hah, weiner-pwned by earlier comments ...

At the risk of being marked down as a stalker, I'll just note that Jodie Foster, if she was trying out today for the role of whoever she was in Hotel New Hampshire, wouldn't get the part. Too fat. But this is an Unfogged recurring meme, isn't it?

12: Sorry, trying too hard to be concise.

My point was that political change generally requires some sense of urgency/crisis. But public discussion of fatness (setting aside "obesity" as a term for actually-approaching-unhealthy, hard to perform ADLs) needs to move to less-judgmental, less-urgent. It's hard to simultaneously argue "American fatness isn't that big a deal, and most specific fat individuals are OK, or maybe a bit heavy;" and "We need to remake American life to facilitate reduced American fatness."

Which is why you said in yr post that it's hard to productively talk about all these issues at once.

Wow, prison rape and body image. It's not by any chance Monday, is it?

(But very good post.)

I wonder if some inherent sorting relative to beauty is inherent to the human condition; i.e. if it wasn't fatness it'd be how pale you were or how tan you were or how muscular you were or how many big words you knew.

I, of course, wish that I were skinnier (various quasi-athletic activities would be much easier if I shed twenty pounds), but lack enough motivation to do anything about it, preferring to comment on unfogged. Does this decrease my ability to get laid? Maybe. Should I care? Hard to say, but I think the answer isn't automatically "no", even though the quasi-athletic activities I do are purely for entertainment purposes.

The view summarized by JRoth as "most specific fat individuals are OK, or maybe a bit heavy;" can be overstated.

I totally buy the idea that attacking fat people [and I say this as someone who's not exactly svelte] is totally counter-productive and that fat == bad is a simplistic equation to make.

It's certainly true that it's perfectly possible to be fat [taken purely as an aesthetic judgement] and be very healthy. But, as a matter of contingent fact, many people who are fat are also unhealthy -- because their fatness is correlated with zero exercise and a diet poor in good quality food. I suppose the key thing is to attack the ill-health itself rather than focus on fatness per se.

My thinking that the sorts of changes in society that would probably reduce the incidence of fatness are good things that can be argued for regardless. Living in a pedestrian friendly area is going to make the population as a whole thinner, but not necessarily any individual. But pretty much everyone will at least come out of it fitter.

The friend of mine who died last fall (cancer, nothing to do with his weight) was a big fat guy: tall, but probably getting close to 300lbs. And a month before he died, he biked 100 miles in a day with his wife -- he was strong as an ox, and in really very good shape, and enjoyed the heck out of everything. That comes from having an active lifestyle, and societal changes that facilitate that are a good thing regardless of whether they actually make anyone slim.

The best criticism I ever heard of American fatness was not couched in gender or sexuality or attractiveness or even health. It was an environmental critique--the amount of energy we expend to carry around weight better kept stored as preserved food. It was one of the first times that I felt like I could have a healthily adversarial relationship with my minor but real excess weight. Another time: going rock climbing for the first time in years, recently. I was suddenly acutely aware of the extra 15% or so weight acquired, very well hidden or well-placed, since the last time I climbed (which was not long after I reached full-grown Ile-size.) My awareness of those extra pounds had nothing to do with gender or self-image or someone else's abstract sniffings about my health, but the sheer mechanics of pulling myself up a bouldering wall.

I think right now we're stuck in a bizarre tug of war. We can either be absurdly self-affirming of sizes and fitness-levels and food-consumption patterns that are unhealthy and deletrious to self and society, or we can wallow in a nasty and pathologically anorexic aesthetic. The two attitudes feed eachother in a see-saw.

I also have to say that when guys do start suffering from chubby-body-image, it really blows for them. Their male friends seem much less ready to provide any kind of emotional support.

I've been reading the biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, and I had this wonderful alternareality yesterday at the airport. I felt totally indifferent to how I looked or how much I weighed. It felt like I stepped out of the matrix, and could stare curiously at all the imprisoned humans.

Totally dissipated by today, and I'm just left with anger that me and everyone else imprison ourselves in this stupid, stupid quest for beauty and thinness.

20: The problem with an emphasis of health is that "health concerns" are already a polite proxy for being bothered by someone's body on an aesthetic level.

There was an Ethicist column a few weeks back in which a student was asking whether she should tip off her obese professor to his weight problem and its risks to his health, as if he could possibly be unaware of his fatness. I'd be willing to bet that same student isn't walking up to, say, smokers on campus and asking them if they know how bad smoking is for their health.

22: I also have to say that when guys do start suffering from chubby-body-image, it really blows for them. Their male friends seem much less ready to provide any kind of emotional support. True enough, but it seems to me that, once you're past your mid-20s, your body type is more or less set, and getting noticeably chubbier is a factor of aging, which all of your friends will share. Not that the chubbiest guy won't get more than his share of ribbing, but (and maybe this is just from a mid-30s, putting on weight for the first time ever) it seems like, once you're pegged as not-fat, weight gain is shrugged off as age/beer, and forgiven.

re: 24

Well, people can use health concerns as a proxy for aesthetics. That doesn't mean health concerns aren't real.

And, as an ex-smoker, I can say for a fact that people were constantly telling me all about how it was bad for me. So that's not really the best example.

Right: the thing about 'attacking the ill-health' is that it's not conventionally something one does for another individual because it's intrusive and annoying: someone else's health is none of your business, unless they've asked you to butt in.

I've looked at a lot of fashion photography from the 50s and 60s and there really isn't a massive difference between how models looked then and how they look now. It's simply not true that these days they are all skinny and unhealthily lean and that in some halcyon golden age they all had 'natural' curves.

This runs very, very, very contrary to my experience. Women in the 50's were picked with tiny waists, yes, but they had thighs and butts and a little belly.

Furthermore, I get more distorted after looking at magazines and watching TV, in terms of assessing my own weight. I get more a grounded perspective after being in the college setting of these generally healthy, normal weight undergraduates.

27 to 24.

14: That's a long list of things to change. Realistically, it's going to take a while. In the interim, there's going to be fatness.

In the shorter term, I think there's a chance that a greater proportion of people will pick up some skills for managing fitness and body weight, so that they at least have some sort of informed choice. Some won't; and if bullying is in the air, then they'll get bullied.

When I was at school in the 1980s there was at least some sort of attempt to teach us the basics of fitness in gym class, and to connect this with what was taught in biology; however, it could have been a lot better. It's an important subject; not something marginal. When eight year olds notice that their lungs are burning after they've been running for a while; they need to know why, what it means, and what they can do about it. I think children are turned off sport at quite a young age, if things don't go right.

re: 28

Well, we'll have to disagree. If you look at, say, Norman Parkinson photos, the women in them look exactly like today's fashion models. They look older [although they in fact were not], but that's it. That may be a UK versus US difference, I suppose.

re: 27

You don't have to attack some specific person's ill-health -- or then you're in danger of the health as proxy for aesthetics thing mentioned by Magpie in 24.

But if we aren't concerned about ill-health, why the hell are we even having this discussion? Ill-health clearly matters, right?

I agree that fashion, per se, has minimal influence

You guys are krazee. A lot of the fashion industry's influence may come via hollywood, but it's definitely there.

In 1965, models weighed an average of 8 percent less than the typical woman in the United States; the average model now weighs 23 percent less than the average woman, according to the National Eating Disorders Association.

and

Forty-seven percent of U.S. females in fifth through 12th grade say they want to lose weight because of magazine pictures and 60 percent say magazines influence their ideas of desirable body types, according to the Philadelphia-based Renfrew Center Foundation.

21: My thinking that the sorts of changes in society that would probably reduce the incidence of fatness are good things that can be argued for regardless. Absolutely. Those changes are, in fact, my main focus in my professional and political life. But it seems odd if one of the arguments for them has to be sotto voce. Maybe they do, so that we can deal with one weight-body-image issue at a time.

Before you described your friend, I was thinking about the dichotomy between weight and actual health/fitness. I think that, true as it is that lots of big people are actually in pretty good shape, the reality is that, as a country, we're in poor shape - including thin people. And it is related to walkability issues as much as food choices. I think that the gym obsession of the last 20 years has been very counter-productive in compartmentalizing physical activity from the rest of one's life.

31: But if we aren't concerned about ill-health, why the hell are we even having this discussion? Ill-health clearly matters, right?

It's the difference between taxing cigarettes heavily and forbidding their sale to minors, (reducing smoking good! cancer bad!), and nagging smokers about how disgusting they, individually, are (annoying assholes bad! also ineffective). Placing the onus for change on the individuals who are already suffering isn't helpful.

True enough, but it seems to me that, once you're past your mid-20s,

Fair enough, but that's right where I've been operating until now anyway. It's exactly the college student or fresh graduate whose weight is swinging around and who's being ribbed about it by his friends that I'm worried about, b/c this when patterns and body types are going to be set. And a woman in that position has the benefit of the fact that at least some of us sisters are really aware of how important it is not to be obnoxious about it.

Amen to 30. That's the kind of practical life knowledge I could have used a hell of a lot more of in school.

The Tyra Banks video linked by Ampersand is very much worth watching.

Weird. I just came from a talk by the guy who did the "obesity and your gut microbes" study that was a big deal a couple months ago, and here's this post.

The best I can do towards making a relevant comment based on that is, uh, well, how fat you are turns out to be one hell of a lot more complicated than your calories in/calories burned, and not only do your gut microbes make a difference, but they're co-evolving with us and susceptible to diet & lifestyle changes, so we could potentially fuck things up in our GI tracts just as thorougly as we've done with the climate.

I know, still not that relevant, but at least now you have something new to worry about.

27's exactly right. The "but fat isn't healthy!" thing is really just an excuse to be an asshole. If someone is unhealthy, then they know it, and they're the one that has to suffer the consquences. You don't tut-tut at cancer patients, now, do you?

Anyway, it simply isn't true that fat people aren't, by virtue of their fatness, necessarily unhealthy. See, for example, this article (which I sent Ogged a week ago, and I notice he hasn't posted on it. Tsk). The focus of the fucking thing is on fatness, but if you read between the lines, the woman the article talks about most, Courtney Paris, is obviously in excellent physical condition--way better than any of us. Across the society as a whole, weight gain is an unhealthy development, but that doesn't mean that any particular individual is necessarily unhealthy because of their size.

Anyway. I vote we all get rid of scales and full-length mirrors, for a start.

17. And to connect this thread with the metric/ imperial thread cost of redoing entire cities to make them "walkable" is not feasible. Systems have piled upon themselves to solve needs as they become available. People for the first time in the history of the world finally have enough to eat and don't have to exert alot of muscle power to get food. No wonder we get fat. This may be a very temporary situation, if Global Warming is all it's cracked up to be.

In 1965, models weighed an average of 8 percent less than the typical woman in the United States; the average model now weighs 23 percent less than the average woman, according to the National Eating Disorders Association.

You may find the statistical difference is largely explained by the change in size of the average woman and that models have changed almost not at all.

32: I said fashion, per se, to mean the skeletal runway models. It seems to me that most "supermodels" tend to be Hollywood-style shapes, rather than skeletal. All I'm saying is that I'm not sure that the relatively narrow world of fashion has that much influence, even indirectly through Hollywood. I think Hollywood has enormous influence. And, from covers at least, most magazines I see seem to feature Hollywood-style shapes, not runway-style.

Probably a distraction, but I want to be clear where I lay a lot of the blame.

re: 34

yeah, agreed.

36 should say in the Ampersand post linked by LB. The link in the post. This very post.

I'll admit that I'd seen that photo of her posted here and there on the internet and thought "wow she looks awful." When actually, as the video makes clear, she looks fantastic.

In 1965, models weighed an average of 8 percent less than the typical woman in the United States; the average model now weighs 23 percent less than the average woman, according to the National Eating Disorders Association.

See, I see a statistic like that and I immediately wonder if maybe the average woman is now 15% overweight. ( I have no idea.) I immediately think that there is no reason at all to aesthetically value average and that actresses should represent an ideal, not an average. (I'm a little baffled by models not being average though, since their job is to sell clothes.) I want to see the weight of actresses pegged against medical ideals, not averages.

27: I don't think this is so. Other people's health is a legitimate concern, since other people's wellbeing is a legitimate concern. Compare: drug addiction, or debt. OK, there's a risk of overdoing it, and being considered rude (or, if an agent of the state, oppressive) but to a very real extent, your success is bound up with my success, and vice versa, and concern is attendant on that.

I'm trying to find old covers of Cosmo or Glamour online, but having trouble.

33: Amen.

if we aren't concerned about ill-health, why the hell are we even having this discussion? Ill-health clearly matters, right?

Because people confuse health and weight, and because the scorn they lay on fat people is obnoxious and rude and evil.

26: My point is that the messages are all tangled up. So while it's true that more often than not fat people aren't particularly healthy, a health message is also a coded message that the size of your ass isn't really acceptable.

A health message that's directed at everyone and not specifically tied to weight would be fine. But even then, we're all still in a society where we don't have enough time to cook healthful meals, fast food is on every corner and, unless you can afford to live smack in the middle of a big city, your environment is designed for driving instead of walking.

Those changes are, in fact, my main focus in my professional and political life.

JRoth -- What do you do?

39: But you don't really have to rebuild whole cities. This country is covered with cities that have emptied out over the last 60 years, and most of those people have gone to unwalkable suburbs/exurbs. It's actually not hard and, relative to expenditures on a lot of things that don't support cities, not expensive to revitalize those cities. It's just not a priority.

I'm very curious to know whether the rise in city living over the last decade will a) be permanent, and b)start to create a constituency for more spending in urban areas.

43- not to imply that how she looks is what matters about the video, or the main reason I was recommending it. That was just a side note.

re: 47

Yeah, fair enough. But that's where the difficulty lies -- as LB's post says -- tackling the health issues without fucking with people in the way that the current dialogue around obesity does.

49: Nothing as grand as I made it sound. But I'm an architect, married to a city planner, and I've done a lot of urban planning, professionally and within my community.

Frowner the Sorta Fat will now weigh in. (A ha ha ha, I kill me.)

See, I was just a slightly chubby child before junior high school. I walked home from school, I played in the park, I rode my bike, I had gym class, and I ate a lunch from home. (You can tell where this is going, right...?)

I went to junior high school far across town, rode the bus both ways, was in gym class with forty other people where we would "play" whiffleball for half an hour three days a week, ate school lunches, and was so goddam miserable and bullied that I rarely ventured outdoors. To no one's surprise, I fattened up.

In late high school, I lost a lot of weight and became very active. I walked, biked and rode the bus everywhere, and was ridiculously fit. Ten years later, I fattened up after taking a terrible job with a lot of stress, a long commute and long, weird hours.

Now I'm fat-but-muscley-and-active, and although I expect I'll thin out a bit, I doubt that I'll ever be really thin again.

And all of this really, really could have been avoided if we had better schools and better public transit, and maybe a national health care system--I took the horrible job because I hadn't had health insurance for years and I was terrified of getting seriously ill.

Honestly, the meanness that fat people experience encourages us not to go out and exercise, because we're afraid of more mean remarks. (And I say this as someone who is, really, not all that fat.) And when you're fat, hearing all the mean comments really does make you think, "Ah, what does it matter? I'd have to lose X amount for people even to leave me alone, and that will probably never happen, so I'll just have the extra [caloric, tasty food item]. " Seriously, that's how it works.

Being nicer to fat people, coupled with sensible public policies, would really help a lot. Of course, it wouldn't help overnight, and that's something people seem to expect--like we'll achieve "the solution" and then everyone will lose a lot of weight in six weeks and no one will ever be fat again.

As far as fashion models of yesteryear go, well, the main difference seems to me to be that normal slim women used to be acceptable, where now the expectation is that models will be super-slim and yet very toned as well.

48: Again, right. The idea of a 'health message' as in more pressure on individuals to get healthy is still pretty obnoxious: to the extent we care about this as a society, the sort of thing that makes sense is changes that make it easier to fall into a healthy lifestyle. I keep on getting stuck on pedestrian-friendly development, but that sort of thing -- not a 'health message', but help with making health convenient.

A lot of the cultural shifts are independent of things like suburbanisation. Changes in the built environment would be great, but they aren't going to be a panacea.

I was born in the 70s and from around age 7 or 8 to age 15 I probably spent between 1 and 3 hours a day playing soccer, and note, I was a bookish kid who wasn't even any good at soccer. Add on the other 'active' things we did -- including walking 2 miles each way to school -- and we probably spent 3 hours a day, as a bare minimum exercising.

My brother (born in the early 90s) probably doesn't spend more than 3 hours a week exercising.

Almost nothing has changed in his physical environment, it's all about cultural shifts.

I'm all in favor of class-action lawsuits against McDonalds. And Kraft Foods. And our public schools, and possibly the FDA.

The status quo will continue until someone forces change. And that will require financial incentives.

I saw this as someone who loves McDonalds. (Although I very rarely eat there.)

Anyway, I ordered my new bicycle today. Current tax scheme in the UK halves the price; this was a decision factor. Haven't owned a bike for ten years.

Not going to ride it to work though; weekends.

57: Assuming that you had mind control over the heads of the relevant organizations (rather than a class-action lawsuit, given how much the result of the anti-smoking lawsuit turns my stomach), what would you have them do?

The friend of mine who died last fall (cancer, nothing to do with his weight) was a big fat guy: tall, but probably getting close to 300lbs. And a month before he died, he biked 100 miles in a day with his wife -- he was strong as an ox, and in really very good shape, and enjoyed the heck out of everything

Was he, ancestrally, from the North West of England (or its diaspora along the northern coast of Wales), at all? Or possibly with substantial Gypsy ancestry?

Because that's basically the body type of all the men in my family; big men with pot bellies and wide shoulders, looking quite chubby, but capable of surprising feats of strength and stamina at short notice - I weigh 15 stone, which is 210 pounds if I have added this up right, and surprised the heck out of some sporty friends last week by keeping up with them on a 10k run, after just popping up out of my armchair having done no exercise at all for six months.

On the other hand, no man in my family has ever, so far as I know, reached anywhere near the age of 70, and the vast majority have pegged out between 55 and 60. It's a body type that simply isn't made to last. The boxer Ricky Hatton has the exact same shape; everyone keeps criticising him for putting on crazy amounts of weight between fights, but he always gets it back down for the big bout and confounds his critics. On the other hand, I strongly suspect that like me, he's destined to be a stalwart net contributor to the life annuity industry.

In related news, "healthy" ain't so healthy. I have a fair few pals in the modern-circus industry who are in incredible shape from the point of view of having amazing fitness and next to no body fat. But they're always coming down with colds and such.

56: The culture of childhood has changed radically, as I'm sure many of us here (at least everyone over 30) can recognize. The level of supervision that is now considered mandatory for "responsible parenting" is so high that it agitates against extensive, unscheduled play, as well as kids who walk to their friends' or ride to the "corner store" (which can be a 7-11 in suburbia; even in suburbia, biking is feasible - right, B?). Furthermore, the overscheduled childhoods that were discussed here months ago also eliminate the casual play that helps keep kids healthy. Not that kids, given the chance, won't watch TV or play video games. But I'm young enough to have grown up with video games, and me and my friends always chose to run around outside as well.

Point being, these things create bad lifetime habits, plus early weight gain that may never go away. And a few pounds can make a big difference in the comfort/enjoyability of exercise - every 5 lb (approx. 1/3 stone) is something like 10% more energy when you're climbing a hill on a bike - and bikes are ultra-efficient.

PS - B, friendly reference, not needling, I swear.

As usual, the Simpson's handled this before, when Marge had Itchy and Scratchy cancelled. Amazingly, the kids all went outside to play (to Beethoven's pastoral, IIRC).

52: See, I don't agree; I think it's quite easy. Just talk about health, as health, and don't talk about weight. Period.

56- Did your parents walk with you those two miles each way?

Because one factor I've wondered about with respect to our fat kids, on top of suburbanization and the emasculation of school recess and everything else, is the fact that many people feel unsafe just letting their kids go run free around the neighborhood anymore, or to the local park, etc. Which is how I spent almost my entire childhood, and how I got almost all my exercise. (Which was a lot of exercise.) If my parents had felt the need to "supervise" all my outdoor activities, I'd most assuredly have been sitting around at home most of the time.

It's ok, folks, the wii is going to fix all this.

Damn, 64 completely owned by 61.

I don't know much about Tyra Banks, but I gather that she likes Vaseline.

re: 60

I weigh almost exactly the same as you [although I think I'm shorter at 5' 10"] and I'm quite fit -- fitter than most of the skinny people I know. However, unlike the men in your family, the men on my mum's side of the family seem to live to immense ages so I'm hoping the fact that I'm not the skinniest won't stop me from living a long long way past 70.

Ditto on the colds thing.

64 and 61 are real problems. Well-off parents deal with it by signing their kids up for exercise classes, but even so, that contributes to the partitioning-off thing that someone mentioned upthread (which is one of the things I hate about gyms). I honestly feel like the only solution, as a parent, is just to make an effort to build that daily exercise into our life via things like walking and (yes, JRoth), biking. And I've taken to letting PK hang out at the playground for about half an hour after school, as well, before we walk home. And we try to do weekend things that aren't "let's go to a movie" but rather stuff like "let's go sail on a tall ship" or "let's go to the beach" or even "let's go to Disneyland" (which involves a lot of walking)--stuff where we get outside.

This is one of the big benefits of living in southern California, I have to admit: I feel like a lazy ass if I don't take advantage of the weather, so we do.

re: 64

No, we walked on our own from about age 5 or 6.

We also, and I'm not kidding about this, used to play in the grounds of the psychiatric hospital -- from around age 7 or 8.

re: 63

Which was why i said:

I suppose the key thing is to attack the ill-health itself rather than focus on fatness per se.

65: I just played the Wii for the first time yesterday, and damn, I am wore out. But I expect that eventually the development of actual game-playing skills will make for less of the frantic jumping and flailing about, and neutralize the fitness enhancing aspects of the game: I've seen my brother play, and it's all just barely perceptible flicks of the wrist. Meanwhile, I nearly beat my television set to death.

Issues to do with the over-supervision of kids are also bound up with class issues, I think.

Here in the UK at least, working class kids are still subject largely to a policy of benign abandonment [a good thing], however, that very freedom that those kids still get is under constant harping attack from a bourgeois press and government obsessed by crime and juvenile delinquency.

60: Are you kidding? You'll be getting your pig-cultured replacement heart just like everyone else in your insurance scheme. Life extension therapies will follow that about ten years later. The main problem's going to be boredom; and / or fending off un-insured proles / migrants.

The culture of parenting thing bugs the shit out of me. Dropped my son and two friends (all age 10) off at the door of the movie theater a week or so ago, went across the street to Borders while they watched something stupid, went back to meet them, and had some dipshit waiting to chew me out for the boys' bad behavior in the theater. After talking with her and with them, it was pretty clear that there was some amount of misbehavior but that it was (a) smaller than she'd indicated, and (b) something she could easily have avoided by moving into the "vast sea of empty seats" (my son's wording) next to her. I concluded that she was more interested in telling me off for being an Irresponsible Parent than anything to do with her own enjoyment of the movie. (I also chewed out the boys and won't turn that particular threesome loose in a theater again for a while.)

Killer app for the wii: aerobic exercise disguised as RPG. Slaying orcs will get Piggy off the couch.

Fucking Wii. Stood in line, paid too much, now kid would rather play with all the Gameboy games he bought with the Gamestop gift cards he didn't get to spend on the Wii because they didn't have any.

72: Yeah--it is a class thing. Although from what I've read, the benign abandonment thing isn't all puppies and roses, even exclusively from the perspective of exercise. For an awful lot of kids, it means being left to play video games all day.

74: Did she say anything to the boys themselves in the theater? One of the things that bugs *me* about the culture of parenting is that (1) people are inhibited about correcting kids' behavior in public; and (2) parents are defensive and hostile when they do. While it depends a lot on how it's done, in principle, the idea that the society at large has an interest in and responsibility for children is one I wish we would (re?)-learn.

Killer app for the wii: aerobic exercise disguised as RPG. Slaying orcs will get Piggy off the couch.

I've been touting this for years. Technological hurdle: platform that lets you run in place in several directions.

About the only video game that would tempt me to buy is dance dance revolution. That said: nope, no goddamn video game in this house, I swear to God. If the little shit wants to play video games, he can at least walk to Gameworks or something.

69: The well-off have outs for a lot of health-related social problems: if they don't have time to fix fresh foods, they can spend $6 on a salad at Whole Foods or give their kids lunch money so they don't have to eat the government cheese at the school caf. If they are worried (even in relatively safe neighborhoods) about their kids running around outside, they can sign them up for classes or the local soccer league.

Poor people will rightly go for food that's convenient and affordable, because they can't spend two hours on a bus to get to a Safeway that doesn't have the raggedy produce. They're not going to live in a neighborhood where they can take a jog around the block, and Wal-Mart doesn't even have health benefits, let alone a gym for their employees. And, of course, good luck in finding attractive, business-appropriate clothes if you're plus-size, or even an "acceptable" but non-standard size.

Besides it being a really shitty thing to do to shame people for their size, it's also becoming more and more of a class issue.

75: I've been on the bf to buy DDR for this very reason.

74: She did. What she said was that they were kicking her seat and didn't stop when asked. After talking to my son, who really is pretty good about behavior in that kind of setting, what I think was happening was that all three boys were laughing too loud and that one or both of the other two were swinging their feet into her seat while they were laughing too hard. Not at all cool, and appropriate to correct, but the reaction was a little over the top, particularly when it would have been easy just to move away from the problem. But all that aside, I'm mostly going on the vibe I got that she was looking for a chance to really unload but didn't because I wasn't the target she was expecting.

82: Ah. Are you *sure* that the boys didn't get irked at her for being a pill and maybe kick her seat *just a little* b/c of it? I know I would have. . . .

I will have much more to say about this later, but 10 hits on a very deep point. To the extent fatness is depised, it is depised mostly because it has become a class marker. To be obese is to be non-elite: the elites value their appearance and buy trendy clothing; buy gym memberships to stay slender; and ensure EmmaJacob has soccer practice. If you are fat, you are certainly not buying into the elite mores.

On the one hand, this is heartening. It's nothing intrinsic to thinness, so a lot of stupid arguments about the veldt and tigers get knocked down. On the other hand, it's profoundly depressing. In any realistic nearby possible world, something -thinness, fatness, a muscular body type- will be classed as elite and desireable. That will be rare, expensive, valued, and correspondingly difficult to obtain. So it's not just going to be as simple as substituting normal-ish body types for skinny ones in the media; for the shape to be desireable, it has to be rare. So I don't see much hope for a widespread "everyone is beautiful" movement; whatever the standard is, some people will fall short.

I'm going to go eat now.

I will chime in in favor of a "negative expectations" cause for increasing obesity. I was a fairly active, fairly not-fat kid until about 8, but then I wound up in a situation (partially due to school, partially due to family) where I was depressed a lot of the time, and where my main outlet was going to the connivance store to buy junk food with whatever money I could scrape together. I became scarily efficient at ferreting out the most calories for the lowest price.

This might have all passed in a couple of years, but by the time things were lightening up a bit at home, I was in 6th grade, and both the pressure to conform and the penalties for failure were intense. Then things got worse at home, but better at school, and I was compelled to go both to psychological counseling which I hated, and fat kids counseling which was both tremendously humiliating and also bizarre, in that I was one of the least fat kids there, and also in that we would invariably stop on the long drive out to the suburban clinic to get fast food for dinner. I would put this all down to the specific neuroses of my family, but the preponderance of fat kids suggests to me that my experience was probably not that unusual.

The stresses of high school -- and being a fat kid in high school -- merely cemented many of the patterns around poor eating and aversion to physical exertion that were already present.

Interestingly, the one time that I lost a serious amount of fat during my adult life, I was eating almost nothing but carbohydrates: cheap spaghetti with margarine, apples, pancakes, Kool-Aid and root beer, because that was all I could afford. I was also unemployed and walking about 20-30 miles a week (in long stints). It sure wasn't a good period for my teeth, but I lost 40 pounds or so and several inches from my waist.

And I should add that I agree generally with the idea that people are way too quick to defend their kids when the kids are out of line.

Re:Twiggy, Edie Sedgwick and 60s models. One widely visited blog linked to a pictorial history of the brassiere this morning, and I noted the "bound chest" 1920s. I also note the slender age of Empire gowns, the Romantic era. I always have roughly a thousand years of paintings shuffling thru as wallpaper (currently Charles Leickart, ca 1875), and so see constant varying fashions in body image.

To a large degree I view body image and fashion as arising as a complex of culture and economics, and consider Veblen more relevant than Versaces.
Rich societies flaunt their wealth at the waistline, but often with a bohemian counterculture of conspicuous non-consumption. Stuff like that.

Oh, those Rubens and Rembrandts.

Haven't read whole thread; link for ttaM.

84: Yes, but. If you look around, there *are* examples of women who are fat and quite unapologetic about it and dress beautifully and use their size to their advantage--and who, if anything, gain status from it. It's certainly true and shitty that doing this kind of thing is difficult and expensive. But I think an awful lot of it is like anything that's related to "attractiveness" and social status: it's amazing what you can get away with if you just broadcast an I-don't-give-a-fuck vibe.

'Course, that can be damn hard to come by.

And 83: That's a possibility for one of the three, I think. In hindsight, I shouldn't have assumed that the other two had been socialized the same way mine has, and yes, I'm probably hypersensitive about the incident precisely because of the whole Bad Parent thing. But there was still something weird and off-putting about the reaction. Or at least it's very different from how I would have reacted, and I'm not particularly shy about asking kids to shape up (or just giving them the evil eye until they do).

"In any realistic nearby possible world, something -thinness, fatness, a muscular body type- will be classed as elite and desireable. That will be rare, expensive, valued, and correspondingly difficult to obtain. So it's not just going to be as simple as substituting normal-ish body types for skinny ones in the media; for the shape to be desireable, it has to be rare. "

Absolutely. But this seems like it may come from the veldt or what have you, and plans to make people not care about how pretty other people are give me the willies in a very serious way.

Surely there are exceptions. On the whole, I think a society where every, or even a majority, of normal body types is held up as ideal is very unlikely.

The trick is to change what people consider attractive from "thin" to "fit"--and that seems doable.

But yeah, someone has to be ugly--might as well make it the lazy people.

That Tyra video really is excellent.

81: DDR is seriously awesome! My wife got it for Christmas, and we're both complete addicts.

Yesterday, she turned to me after acing some particularly difficult song (Butterfly, I think) and said "Exercise is fun!" I questioned whether she had been replaced by a pod person.

93: Also, to change the penalties for not being the ideal type from serious to no big deal. That also seems possible, judging from some non-American cultures.

93. Sure. As I noted, our preferences aren't immutable. But....We could all prefer fat people and women's magazines could have articles on how to bulk up. I don't see that happening; we've tied beauty to rarity and effort, and it's really easy to eat a lot of food. (Unless this possible world also includes widespread famine.)

Whoops. I misread 93 as fat. I agree, then, but you still have the prestige problem, just in a way that doesn't lead to as much social harm.

But yeah, someone has to be ugly--might as well make it the lazy people.

Let the festivities begin.

This post title sure is garden-pathy for me. That body-image thread bitch! Who does she think she is, anyhow.

re: 98

Yeah, and promoted male body ideals are similar in a lot of ways. In the sense that getting a 'fit' body -- by the standard of the guys in adverts -- involves pretty serious work. Rarity and effort, again.

I read some stuff on 'manorexia' a while back: on guys obsessed with getting ripped and cut, and while it might seem slightly comic it had loads of behavioural similarities with the destructive effects wreaked on some women by fucked-up aesthetic ideals for women.

That body-image thread bitch! Who does she think she is, anyhow.

And what was she asking about?

93: No; fitness and health are their own reward. The trick is to just fucking get over the idea that (1) we have any right to publicly criticize people's looks (it's rude, already, jesus); and (2) that being attractive is The Most Important Thing Evah.

Not that that's going to happen in my lifetime, what with our being a media culture and all. But at least we can try to counterbalance it somewhat.

I have enough country boy left in me that the whole gymmed-out look doesn't do much. Physically fit ought to include being able to do actual physical work every now and then.

104: In the interest of combating (2), everyone ought to go out tonight and find a highly unattractive person to have sex with.

Do this regularly and routinely and we'll make some progress. Until then, it's going to be a tough slog.

106: Okay, point taken. But what I meant was that "attractive" is some narrow set of purely physical characteristics. Which it isn't. But we all talk about it as if the lowest common denominator--the features that *everyone* is going to admit are attractive--is the one that counts. Which is nonsense.

That's ridiculous, B, unless you want to damn yourself to a lifetime of fighting an unwinnable battle. Every society prizes beauty, not just media cultures, and so it will be, time everlasting.

105: shivbunny would totally agree. He's strong, but not gym-chiselled. Maybe even a bit tubby. But he laughs at the memories of his cousin's ripped boyfriend attempting to pitch haybales and failing miserably while he pitched them easily.

108: Essentialist, much? Sure, you can prize beauty, but you can also admit (well, maybe not you, but other people) that beauty is a flexible category and one that includes a lot more "types" of people than the hollywood norm.

re: 109

Functional strength is quite different from gym strength. The weights I lift in the gym are pathetically small -- definitely quite a long way towards the low end of the bell-curve for a guy my size -- but if asked to move real-world heavy objects, like furniture, I do just fine.

You might make some headway in moving from 'thin' to 'fit.' I'm thinking of female athletes like that softball player everyone was drooling about. Gorgeous; not a teeny person. Serena Williams. If we were able to think of beauty as what we could do physically, we might be better off.

Unfortunately, it's not like you can judge what someone can do physically just by looking at them (or, why fatness is a bad proxy for fitness.)

107: I've noticed that random people I don't know generally seem less attractive than people I do know, which suggests that there's something more than pure looks at issue.

Not to mention prizing things *other* than beauty once in a while. Like, would it kill you to have a thread about "people I admire" or "people who are funny" or "people who are wicked smart" or whatever once in a while, instead of ass, ass, ass?

(I'm exaggerating, by the way. But ykwim.)

What you say in 110 isn't what you said in 104.

it's not like you can judge what someone can do physically just by looking at them

No? I think you can, more or less.

109: You don't want to be fuckin around with no farmers, Cala. Maybe some of them are good people, but they ain't got no future at all.

112: Or, we could leave beauty alone and *also* try to admire fitness, or performance, or other qualities. Being pretty is a nice thing. It isn't the only thing that matters, not even when it comes to getting laid.

111: Me too. And my dad has been known to chortle about the college football players who would come out to spend the summer working in the woods and be unable to keep up with loggers twice their age.

What you say in 110 isn't what you said in 104.

I think you're inferring something I didn't say or intend. I specifically said "criticize," meaning put people down for their looks, because I agree with you that it's unlikely we're going to stop admiring attractive people.

That's ridiculous, B, unless you want to damn yourself to a lifetime of fighting an unwinnable battle. Every society prizes beauty, not just media cultures, and so it will be, time everlasting.

I think the phrase Ogged is looking for here is, "People are not brains on sticks."

Pitching haybales is damn good exercise.

Eh. I'm less confident; I don't think I'd predict dsquared's story, for example. And thin women are generally taken to be healthy women, even though the evidence for that isn't terribly good.

Is someone with thick legs having-thick-legs because she doesn't work out, or is she having thick legs because she-is-thick-legged? (The Euthyphro for the vain.) That sort of thing.

121: Especially in western Washington, where if you're really lucky the rain will just barely hold off until the last load is in the barn if you really bust your ass.

thin women are generally taken to be healthy women

Well, now they are, sure. And dsquared doesn't surprise me, because I've known some guys like that, and you can get a sense of who those guys are, too.

"People are not brains on sticks."

Fat people aren't, anyway.

Clearly, Mimi should be visiting my old doctor. A couple of years ago when I asked him if I should go on a diet, he surprised me by looking very serious and asking, "Why?" Unlike Mimi, my BMI suggests very strongly that I will be dead tomorrow - I am - gasp! - 1/3 fat, and have been since high school when I was in the best shape of my life and was queen of all sports. But my BP is on the low end, as is my resting heart rate - all this despite my love of all things salty, baconny and alcoholic.

Thank goodness my doc had the sense to look at more than the BMI, like at the fact that I exercise 4 times a week and run regularly. I'm HEALTHY. Best, my doc was charmingly concerned that I was asking a question that was going to send me down an eating disorder-strewn path and he wanted to nip that in the bud.

The BMI may be useful for some, but I fear it would send otherwise healthy folks off the deep end trying to attain a body that's just not in their genes.

Being pretty is a nice thing. It isn't the only thing that matters, not even when it comes to getting laid.

We're specifically talking about norms of fat and beauty, not that it's not the only thing that matters. It doesn't have to be the only thing that matters in order to be pretty dominant. Of course, if you're a charismatic conversationalist or rich or funny or drunk, you can get laid.

But beauty, however it is defined, is something I don't see just dropping out of human society any time soon.

How much do you spend on clothing, bras, and shoes? It's not that important? (Pull the other one, it's got bells on.) Do you see that going away? I don't see even the clothing choices mattering going away, let alone the standards of beauty. I think the best we can hope for is to broaden the standard of beauty, or push it somewhere where it isn't as harmful.

"I think the best we can hope for is to broaden the standard of beauty, or push it somewhere where it isn't as harmful."

Amen.

Great post, LB. I've often struggled with your (3), and I don't know that you're right; I don't know that there is a way to defend not-fat women against charges of fatness without implicitly saying that approbation of fat people, are they actually fat, is ok. But I don't know that that needs to happen—I think it's possible to do both things separately. God knows that there are enough fat people getting shit for their weight and not-fat people getting shit for their weight for us to provide all kinds of defenses all around. It's like an "alternative argument" structure. I find that the thing that helps the most is just not tolerating people's comments. This is a huge cultural problem—even more than in the US, Arabs are really big on weight talk. So, seriously, last time I went home to Cairo, I literally had relatives take one look at me and say "Oh my God, you gained so much weight!" Try dealing with that. My standard response is to give them the death glare and say "huh, I hadn't noticed, I was too busy thinking about how nice it would be to see my family again..." I also have made the move of telling people flat out that comments about my body are not appropriate. It works, but it's a pain in the ass.

The health stuff, seriously, is so fucking overblown. I'm sure a lot of this is because I'm still young, but I'm quite overweight, into the "danger" zone by any metric, and I have perfect cholesterol and blood pressure, I'm stronger than all my female friends, I almost never get sick, I fuck a lot, and I'm happier than almost anyone I know. Would I like to lose some weight? Sure, but mostly because I want to lead a life that involves way more exercise than I'm currently getting, and losing weight would be a consequence of that.

I'm overweight by BMI, and I'd prefer to be about 25 pounds lighter because I'd be easier to haul around that way, but I'd still be borderline in BMI terms at a weight where I'd be very lean.

Funny, but the health vs. fat thing reminds me of a story involving an actress I know, who every time she got down to her desired weight would acknowledge that she had also turned into a raving bitch, half due to the fact that she was so fucking HUNGRY and the other half due to her smugness at being so much thinner that every other woman out there. For the record? When she got to her goal weight, she was alarmingly, unattractively thin. Sadly, she looked pretty good on t.v.

even more than in the US

Yeah, actually, from what I've seen and heard, this is the most fat-friendly culture around. When I put on weight, I'd go home and my family would all puff out their cheeks when they saw me, to imitate my big fat face. A Greek friend told me that when relatives would come over, her parents would say, "Come out here and show them your thighs," so that they could go on about her weight. Wimpy Americans.

Allahu Akbar.

and I'm happier than almost anyone I know.

That just makes me happy.

129: May I say that you rock?

131: I don't diet. If I did, judging how cranky I get when I miss a meal, shivbunny wouldn't want to sleep with me because he'd be afraid I'd bite off his head after.

134.1: Likewise.

And way back to 60: Oddly enough, he was of Welsh ancestry. And a complete sweetheart, not that that's relevant to his weight or fitness level.

I only got down to #64, but I'll pontificate:

A. I think that the general fatness problem and the ideal thinness problem are not unrelated, but two different things.

B. All the general reasons for fatness (exercise, transportation, fast food, etc.) are more or less valid, but I think that the big ones are a.) constant immediate availability of cheap food, and b.) lack of anything else to do. For a lot of people, food is the only gratification they have that is controllable by them alone. If they're depressed, it gets worse.

C. I've been told many times that women dress for other women, and I think that's where the thinness factor comes from. I think that on the average, guys like women heftier than the models, but I think that bulimia etc. come from the mean girls track, not from the "catch a man" track. Subject to correction.

D. Quite a few cultures prefer very hefty women. Ours is perhaps exceptional, and it may have to do with widespread availability of food.

E. We know that Ogged is gay because he likes slender women.

Yeah, but re D - we're exporting our culture, making it less exceptional. See, i.e. polynesian girls now trying to be thin, their genes be damned.

And re C, I know a lot of guys who like very slender women, regardless of their face. I find this fascinating and I've seen them in action, stopping on a dime to chat up a woman with a runner's build (scrawny, says I), who's got a butter face. ("Nice body on the blonde. Too bad she's a butter face." "Butter face?" "Yeah, great bod, but her face...")

Then when one of those guys gets lucky with an all-round beautiful woman he says, "I can't believe it's not butter face."

Blog etiquette calls for you to ban yourself after a comment like that.

Gay, Moira. Those guys are as gay as Ogged.

Re: C, women aren't dressing for other women. Nearly every clothing, makeup, shoe, &c ad could be subtitled with: "this product will make you sexy." It's just that our idea of what men desire is so warped that it doesn't bear any resemblance to what they actually desire.

Except maybe the boobies.

132 and 135.D/136 seem directly contradictory.

I also think the negative consequences of fatness have been overstated. See this fascinating article from Reason http://www.reason.com/news/show/38388.html that breaks it down. I also don't think I buy the "it's expensive to be thin" argument, since everybody agrees that to avoid obesity one must eat less and move more, options pretty much open to everyone. I eat a lot of fattening foods, and I love fast food. But I don't supersize them. I don't always go for the biggest cup of Coke, the giantest burger. Eaten in moderation, these foods don't make one fat. The point is that many people don't eat them in moderation.

We're specifically talking about norms of fat and beauty, not that it's not the only thing that matters. It doesn't have to be the only thing that matters in order to be pretty dominant.

Agreed; I'm saying that by keeping in mind, and emphasizing, the fact that it's not the only thing that matters--including the idea that beauty and slimness are two different things, by the way--we begin to dismantle the idea that it's more important than anything else. E.g. 117 and 106.1.

How much do you spend on clothing, bras, and shoes? It's not that important? (Pull the other one, it's got bells on.) Do you see that going away?

Less that you'd think, probably; I play it up when I talk about it. But in any case, I'm not saying fat isn't *practically* important, in terms of status; I think I agreed with you on that, and if I didn't, I should have. I'm saying it *shouldn't* be *as* important as it is (nor should being fashionable, which I'm often not, since I won't buy or wear shit that doesn't look good on me) and one way to tackle that problem is to focus on and emphasize different things.

women aren't dressing for other women.

Disagreed. If clothing is in large part about status, which I believe it is, we do it for both women and men.

I also don't think I buy the "it's expensive to be thin" argument, since everybody agrees that to avoid obesity one must eat less and move more, options pretty much open to everyone.

Eh..... sorta. High-calorie, nutritionally junk, overly processed food is very, very cheap and convenient. If you're on a limited budget and have limited time, chances are it's going to be hot dogs rather than organic free-range chicken, and if you have a busy day and can't cook, it'll be hamburgers at McDonalds rather than whatever the healthy take-out option is.

(And if we're worried about health, the fact that lower-end juices are sugar water should really incite riots.)

Moving more... this is harder. There's little things probably everyone can do. Take the stairs, etc. But the average adult has a sedentary job and a commute. There goes daylight. So you need a gym membership or something in the home if you're serious about exercising, and if you don't have the money for that, it can be very hard to get moving enough to matter.

My sense is that you can probably get enough regular movement in your life to maintain a weight, but that if you've ballooned 30 pounds, your worklife is lots of lunches at restaurants, and you don't have gym access, you will not be able to take off the weight without changing one of those things.

The people who told me women dress for women were all women. There is a "catch a man" way of dressing, but other women hate women who dress that way.

I am willing to grant that it's a complicated question. I'm convinced, though, that if women were mostly trying to catch guys they'd weigh more.

146: I think the status conferred usually runs through playing up or diminishing sex appeal, which runs through appealing to men, or at least what gay men think men would want to look at.

Cala said: If you're on a limited budget and have limited time, chances are it's going to be hot dogs rather than organic free-range chicken, and if you have a busy day and can't cook, it'll be hamburgers at McDonalds rather than whatever the healthy take-out option is.

Obviously this is true, but a few points are worth making. First, while an organic free range chicken is expensive, an ordinary roast chickin from chirpin chickin (or its ilk) is not. Further, weight is mostly a matter of quantity, not quality. One makes a decision to order the triple wopper and the giant coke. Supersizing is an option, not a mandate. Most people eat too much, and clearly, pestering them about their weight will probably make them eat more, not less, out of depression and anxiety. I think, by the way, that the cultural/class issue works both ways, and that many non-elite don't subscribe to the elite's obsession with thin-ness. That is one of the reasons they aren't. Thin, that is.

if women were mostly trying to catch guys they'd weigh more

Right -- at the lightweight end of the scale it is not feasible to hold 'em once you've caught 'em.

Ot:Amanda Marcotte resigned the Edwards campaign;announcement is at Pandagon. I guess everyone expected this except me;I feel such a fool.

One of the problems is that we're acting as if average weight is generally uniform across America. But there really aren't so many truly fat people in Manhattan. I've only been in the South briefly, but damn, now they have some fat people down there. If I were more lucid, maybe I'd note some implications...

"Are you off the plane yet?"

"I must be. Everyone just got twenty pounds heavier."

I've noticed that, too, ogged. I'm not sure if it's because my travels generally go from university areas to the Midwest, or if it really is that regionally concentrated.

If I were more lucid

Sniffing the solvents again?

150: Still oversimplifying. First, in a lot of neighborhoods, McD's is the *only* restaurant option--so if you're going to eat out (which we all do sometimes), that's where you're going to go. And if you're working two jobs trying to make ends meet, then going home and roasting a chicken is not something you're going to want to do most nights.

Just one kind of example.

Ariella, I think we need to underscore the fact that what we're talking about is the cultural context of weight/fatness/health, not simply the equations that might predict a certain weight or BMI.

Around here, there are a lot of fat poor people. Why are they fat? Of course, we can reduce it to the essential fact that they consume more calories than they expend, but obviously there's a little more to it than that. If you walk into the corner store across the street from my house, you're confronted with a fairly wide variety of foodstuffs, some of which would make for healthy eating, and some which wouldn't. I see most people who go into the store buying fried food from the deli counter, pop, candy, pastries and chips. Not that no one ever buys the Mexican foods or canned fruit, but the real money is definitely in junk. I think a lot of those choices have to do with very real economic insecurity as much as they do with the more ephemeral aspects of class. If you can buy 2,500 tasty calories of Doritos, which are of an assured quality and flavor, for the same price as you can buy 1,000 calories of tortillas from a local, no-name, no-marketing producer, it's hard to justify the healthier choice if you're not sure how long your temp job is going to last, or if you know that the gas bill is past due. Not that this is necessarily a rational calculus -- quite often I think that obesity among the working classes is as much about emotional poverty as it is about cheap fats and carbohydrates. When you look around and see, up close, the violence and malaise of the other side of American prosperity, you just have to get some sweetness out of life, even if you know it's counterproductive in the long run.

Also I just wanted to link to this picture. Definitely not a thin woman (nor especially young) both both pretty and sexy, imho.

154: I still remember the weird feeling of dislocation I had the first time throught Sea-Tac after I'd been living in Hawaii for a while. After a few minutes, I realized that what seemed strange was that everyone around me was larger and whiter than I was used to.

in a lot of neighborhoods, McD's is the *only* restaurant option

Well, if you want to totally ignore Taco Bell I guess.

Indeed, I totally want to ignore Taco Bell.

I just (18 months ago) moved into the small-town Midwest, and I do notice many signs of obesity and depression, and alcoholism. I think that obesity has a lot to do with boredom and depression.

Oddly enough, I am somewhat obese, depressed, and alcoholic, but not terribly so by local standrds.

I think I would be more likely to buy this poverty=fat calculus if the fattest people weren't those middle class exurbanties who troll the aisles of America's megamarkets. You've seen them at Costco and Sams, loading their giant carts with colossal boxes of food as the waddle from the fresh to the frozen. They are not victims of poverty but of prosperity: of inexpensive quantities. I often leave New York City for Long Island, and the farther East you go, the fatter people get. And even if your only dining out option is McDonalds, I still maintain that you wouldn't be obese if you stuck to the small instead of the super. And I don't see this so much as an issue of public health (see my post above).

Beyond just gay-baiting Ogged, I've really been thinking about the idea that fat-phobic guys are sexually not quite right. Maybe it's the obsession with visuals (nice looking partner for photo ops and social appearances). Maybe it's because the really enthusiastically straight guys I've known didn't seem to have the thinness obsession. I think that there's something overriding desire here, and I suspect it has to do with photography.

I would like to be a man, for just one day, so maybe I could understand their sex drive. My sense of it is that they're either horny or hungry. And that the attractiveness of the woman is not nearly as much of the factor as, say, the fact that they're breathing.

Or for the necrophiliacs among us, the reverse.

Obesity by state

163: But that's where the emotional poverty comes in as well. The truly upwardly mobile elements of the middle classes have to internalize the rigorous self-control necessary to climb the class ladder. But they represent a relatively small proportion of their class. Lots of middle-class people know that they're never going to amount to much, that their tawdry dreams are just so much burning tinsel and that they might as well eat it now, 'cause there ain't no pie where they're going.

What I'm trying to say here is that the massive men lead lives of noisy mastication.

Maybe it's the obsession with visuals (nice looking partner for photo ops and social appearances). Maybe it's because the really enthusiastically straight guys I've known didn't seem to have the thinness obsession. I think that there's something overriding desire here, and I suspect it has to do with photography.

I think you've almost got it, John. I don't think it's about photography, but about appearances more generally and their relation to the status that an attractive mate confers. And surely you know the guys who dismiss everything because they know some much better version of the thing--I think those guys can't enjoy a woman if they don't think she's "high quality," with quality being defined as the ideal combination of conventionally attractive physical traits. It really is like having the nicest car, and because we're dealing with basically superficial interactions and motives, looks are paramount, with "sexiness," second (the sexiness tells everyone that the guy is being serviced properly).

167: It's surprising that Nebraska and Alabama were ever that low.

169: Look, let's just come right out and say it: This whole discussion is about Jackie Mackie.

"My sense of it is that they're either horny or hungry."

This is basically the correct sense, except for those times in which we are both horny and hungry. I don't quite understand being any other way.

You like the "high quality" allusion? Paisley, baby.

Stats by state don't tell us much--NY, for instance, has all those fat people upstate.

169: I think there are substantially fewer of those guys than you think once you're out of your twenties.

Your sex drive never idles? Don't y'all get tired?

fatness is definitely regional. when i visit grandparents in north dakota, there is always a switch of planes in minneapolis when one transfers to the plane where all passengers really do intend to end up in north dakota. i am invariably the skinniest person on it, which makes me nervous and assertive of my own space because all those fat people could just SIT ON ME.

in all seriousness it is unnerving to switch regions quickly. and i would guess the fact that nobody walks in north dakota -- i once had an suv stop SIX METERS from me when i was crossing the street because the driver was so shocked to encounter a pedestrian -- is related to the regional sizing.

176: What were you doing measuring things in meters in North Dakota? Don't you know the metric system is socialistic and against the Constitution?

Thinnest states in order: Colo, Ma, Vt, Cn, RI, Hi. Except for Hawaii I think it's class.

Fattest: MS, WV, MI, KY, IND, Ala, LA.

Massachusetts, NY, and NJ are low in divorce.

Divorce by state

Someone could put together a combined divorce / obesity stat proving that Massachusetts is the best state in the union.

another reason i don't fit in so well in north dakota. ack.

fewer of those guys than you think once you're out of your twenties

Yeah, I think that's right.

I have a lot of trouble believing that those numbers from 167 were measuring the same thing. From 91 to 95, about half the states had a 50% increase - and none of those saw such a big increase again. Some additional states saw the jump from 95 to 98. But since 98, almost every state hovers within a few % points.

I'm not saying that I don't buy it, but something seems fishy (although I suppose a single source - like high-fruc corn syrup - could be infiltrating different markets at slightly different times).

um, no, never. Like one of those wind-up flashlights.

Maybe it's more a condition of being easily distracted?

I thought the same thing, JRoth, but did I go and pee on my own science?

No. You did. You hate science, don't you?

I bet you're a Christian too.

172: There have been times when I've felt just incredibly horny - like stare after women walking by horny - and then realized that, in fact, I was famished. It was like my body was so taken by appetite that it couldn't distinguish between sexual and caloric.

I have found that I'm a lot less likely to feel horny at bedtime when I'm well-fed. Is this not true of women?

So are your grandparents Norwegian or Ukrainian then?

172: There have been times when I've felt just incredibly horny - like stare after women walking by horny - and then realized that, in fact, I was famished. It was like my body was so taken by appetite that it couldn't distinguish between sexual and caloric.

I've had that same sort of experience. There are women--and I'm sure it has more to do with me and my body clock or whatever at the time--that I have found so attractive that I actually start salivating. Huh.

183: I bet you're a Christian too. You take that back.

OK, maybe a Hasid.

Shit. Should've written:

That comment baselessly attacks my parents, in fact my whole family tree. Is the Unfogged community just going to let that pass?

Your family tree is a box elder. Ha!

Actually, no Jews (that I know of) anywhere in my family - almost all Catholics, in fact. But when we lives in Miami, we got a lot of solicitations from local synagogues.

Will the calumny never end?

A box elder!

Useless for any purpose except for growing smelly box elder bugs!

181: My bet is that the way obesity was calculated was recalibrated at some point during that period.

184: I can't speak for all women, but my sex drive is muted by the pill, which doesn't mean I'm averse to sex, but just unlikely to seek it out. It isn't a low sex drive, just one that doesn't have its own agenda.

I think women would relax more about being attractive and desirable if they realized you guys are like windup flashlights.

174,180: Out of neccessity/sour grapes?

174: Not true. Not as long as one still has gums.

you guys are like windup flashlights

Not all guys are like this.

194:I think women would relax more about being attractive and desirable if they realized you guys are like windup flashlights.

In my blogular experience, whenever a guy suggests this, his head is promptly removed by women pointing out that it's a myth that it's easier for women to get laid than for men.

I was too much of an idiot in my single days to have any meaningful perspective, but I will say that, within the context of a loving relationship, a wife can probably rest assured that when her spirit is willing, his flesh will not be weak. (or will be, depending on your religion. Fucking box elders.)

What I'm trying to say here is that the massive men lead lives of noisy mastication.

Minneapolitan is so fucking banned. Aren't you people paying attention at all?

198: No, not that it's easier, or that men will sleep with anything, but just he's not noticing that you gained five pounds and repulsed.

197: O, are you talking physically, or mentally? Obv., there are times when there's not a lot of responsiveness, but I've always held that, with a modicum of effort, a woman can get interest from her man just about all the time.

Of course, what do I know of other guys' experiences? It's not like anyone hangs at a poker game bragging about rebuffing his wife (that, to me, was the oddest thing about the show Married with Children - that Al hated his wife's advances. I mean, I get that he doesn't much care for her, but...).

197: I thought you were into perpetuating irrefutable truisms.

194: But don't women generally realize this? It's more something we learn to suppress, because it isn't very romantic to be universally horny.

200: Ok, that's true. Chances are even pretty good that he's just noticing how much of that weight went into the bra and onto the rear. When sex is on offer with someone he knows and cares for, it's not in the guy's interest to get persnickety.

199: Aw shucks, it warn't nawthin'

I can't believe we're getting into the "men will fuck anything that moves" argument.

and by "we" I mean "immature men in our twenties sharing my particular characteristics."

No one said anything about moving, B.

No such thing. Mostly it also has to be human and female.

197: It's true, some are more like Slinky Dogs .

208: Oh, thank god the world is back on its axis.

200: Well, yeah, that gets back to Emerson's (?) comment that women dress for each other. They may not realize that they are, but they are, because (most/many) guys aren't calibrating that finely. For clothes: does the outfit emphasize the womanliness of your body, and is it clean/not-ugly? Good enough. For body: do the attractive attributes outweigh the flaws? Good enough.

I'm NOT trying to say men are undiscerning. I'm just saying that it's more of a pass/fail situation, and most non-assholes (the ones not looking for arm candy) aren't looking for excuses to reject women. And, again in a loving relationship, men would much rather get laid than judge the last 5 lbs (2 kg).

206: Add two "mosts" into that sentence and "at least a couple of times" and it's more or less true.

206: I know, I'm cringing too. I swear.

I blame Cala.

She isn't still here, is she?

5 lbs (2 kg)

Or, for our British readers, 1/3 stone.

(yes, I know pounds are used for the remainder, but shut up)

I can't believe we're getting into the "men will fuck anything that moves" argument.

We're not. I'm just wondering if most men are horny and controlling it all the time, and realizing I really have no idea how to understand a sex drive that doesn't have a cycle, just an on/off switch.

216: I'd say that the actively horny all the time tapers into the 30s, but, at least up to the mid-30s (all I can speak to), it's pretty much on idle.

Example (and it's too late to go Geo. Washington on this): yesterday a.m., we're both feeling sexy in bed, but here comes the toddler. We agree to try for some naptime fun. Naptime begins, she's blogging, I'm reading, mellow Sunday. I accept that it's not going to happen, and feel no urge to initiate - no problem. She shows up at 4:30, says Maybe there's time before toddler awakes. I'm upstairs within a minute. (And toddler's awake within 20 - Arg)

And, you know, she's in sweats, complete wiith extra late-winter weight. But she's my wife, and I'm always happy to... well, you know.

I heard an interview with Norah Vincent when she was making the rounds promoting her book about pretending to be a man, and one of the most interesting parts was hearing her talk about the surprise/wonder/horror she felt as she came to understand the role that sex drive plays in men's lives.

In my blogular experience, whenever a guy suggests this, his head is promptly removed by women pointing out that it's a myth that it's easier for women to get laid than for men.

Is that true, or were you just engaging in a little fun hyperbole?

I rarely (if ever) see any fat people in Paris.

I didn't read the thread, but any comments on European (especially French and Italian) women body issues?

re: 220

There was a popular book published here in the UK recently which revealed the secret of why French women look slim. The answer was ... [fanfare] ... they eat less.

The same applies to the 'French question' in general. Yes, the French eat lots of saturated fat and drink loads of alcohol. No, it's not a mystery why they aren't all fat. They aren't all fat because it turns out they consume less calories in an average day.

Yeah, actually, from what I've seen and heard, this is the most fat-friendly culture around. When I put on weight, I'd go home and my family would all puff out their cheeks when they saw me, to imitate my big fat face. A Greek friend told me that when relatives would come over, her parents would say, "Come out here and show them your thighs," so that they could go on about her weight. Wimpy Americans.

I'll add Koreans to this data set. I spent a few years training in a hapkido studio, and Koreans were the same way. Openly and loudly mocking people for being fat.

We're not. I'm just wondering if most men are horny and controlling it all the time

I'm 30, and that still describes me pretty well.

For clothes: does the outfit emphasize the womanliness of your body, and is it clean/not-ugly? Good enough. For body: do the attractive attributes outweigh the flaws? Good enough.

It's taken me about ten years to realise that body shape is fairly peripheral to my sense of who is and isn't a looker. Clothes make much more of a difference. When women dress stylishly - and there are many ways of doing this - I'm sub-consciously attracted. The inverse also applies: if my squeeze is looking drab when we're out, I get cross. Looked at dispassionately, I'd rather I wasn't this way, but there you go. I can't explain it.

Also, Czechs.

When I visit my in-laws I hear repeatedly about how I'm fat. This despite being less fat than most of them, and exponentially fitter.

In some places maybe telling someone they're fat is telling them that they're doing well.

In Taiwan you seldom saw fat people -- I found that my nickname was "big-belly" (da duzi) and I was only 20-30 lbs. overweight. Genuinely fat people, unless they're old and successfully retired, are really looked down upon and thought to have bad character.

In France and China food is very central (great cuisine) but meals are ritualized. Little absent-minded snacking (in Taiwan, anyway). All special occasions had big feasts, but everyday meals there were frugal (rice, greens, tofu, thin soup).

Chinese also are alert for gluttony. It's much higher and more important on the list of character defects than it is with us.

212: That's exactly right, near as I can tell. I can't ever recall a conversation ending with "Forget it, there's a loose thread hanging from the third button-hole."

As for gaining or losing weight, I don't see any mention of the "There are children starving in India, finish your dinner" syndrome. Perhaps that's a depression + WW2 parent thing. I'll eat what's in front of me, and the portion sizes are now simply ridiculous. I gained 20 lbs upon moving to L.A, when doing my own foraging lose it rather quickly.

We're not. I'm just wondering if most men are horny and controlling it all the time.

55 this spring.

most men are horny and controlling it all the time

Yes, but once you have kids, it's more like horny and too tired to do anything about it.

Then they grow older and you're not. At least I'm not.

Why is continuous sexual interest, common if not universal in men, felt to be oppressive in itself apart from behavior, endless importuning, etc.? Is it the belief, possibly true, that they can't be separated?

227: Plates are bigger, too. A friend inherited his grandmother's china and displayed next to the china he and his bride had picked out, and the older plates were smaller. If you judge how much you're eating by how full your plate is, you'll certainly end up eating more than you should.

230: It's not, really--I think this is a basic misunderstanding. A lot of men either can't or won't limit sexual importuning to appropriate settings; enough men to be annoying use attractiveness as their criteria for doling out non-attractiveness-related things. That's annnoying.

Annoying is when I'm in a meeting and the actual work of the meeting is ignored because some fellow has a crush and is using the opportunity to show off for the girl. Annoying is when I'm in a meeting and because I'm older and not pretty I get ignored, even though I have exactly the information/experience needed for the work of the meeting. Annoying is not when I'm in a bar and prettier women get bought drinks and I don't.

Annoying--to continue--is when I get worse customer services because I'm not sexy.

Terrifying is when I realize that as a pink-collar type woman, my employability will only decline as I get older, since it's essentially considered just fine to hire secretaries for appearance rather than ability.

In fact, what's bad, centrally, is that enough-men-to-make-a-trend feel that they are entitled to young, cute women around them in every capacity, even though this constant harping on appearance when it's irrelevant makes life kind of sucky for both young/pretty and non-young/pretty women.

I mean, I'm not exactly hurting for dates, here, fat and plain as I am. You're free to find anyone attractive that you like.

Yes, but once you have kids, it's more like horny and too tired to do anything about it.

You need to get some sleep.

232: You betcha.

226: There's sort of a problem in this line of reasoning, though, since it suggests that the main cause of fatness is a moral failing--therefore, all those people in the forties and fifties US must just have been better people, right? With more self-control? I mean, it's not like they drank or smoked or anything to excess....

In France and in China there's enough basic-way-of-life stuff to make fat people rare (and also less fat), so the social sanction against gluttony can have a small, corrective effect rather than a big, cruelty-only effect as in the US. I mean, when I lived in Shanghai (and even, later, in Beijing) ordinary life burned a lot of calories. I ate and ate because I was hungry, and I still lost a couple pounds a month. You'd really, really have to work to be a glutton in Shanghai in 1996...I mean, I ate much more than in the US and I was steadily thinning down.

Vis-a-vis the plates: well, this is only sort of true. I have a vast collection of forties through sixties china (acorns are a popular motif, surprisingly), and the dinner plates really aren't much smaller. In the fifties, in particular, they're about the same size. There's always luncheon plates, though, and those are a lot tinier.

231: A lot of health/fitness experts recommend kitchen scales for portioning. Myself, I try to use our smaller (still big by historical standards) plates for single-dish meals, so there's no temptation to fill a 14" plate with all the spaghetti that fits.

But I think that the Clean Plate Club mentality is a bigger factor in American fatness than people realize. It's really hard to leave food on my plate. Like, morally suspect.

Yeah. This is something really weird about child-rearing: people get ridiculously bent out of shape about what their kids are eating (that is, whether they're eating enough). This leads to a bizarre amount of nagging and worry, and an even more bizarre amount of catering to kids' palates, which leaves them on a bland and unhealthy diet of chicken nuggets and American cheese.

If people would just back off and realize that the chance of a child becoming malnourished when there's food available is miniscule, feed them what the grownups are eating, and not worry about how much of it they actually eat, everyone would be much better off. (This crabbing comes from someone who isn't at home for most of her children's meals. They live on chicken nuggets and American cheese.)

Relatedly, "kid's meals" from fast food chains are the work of the devil. They train kids to think a meal is a cheeseburger and fries and soda and dessert. Which ends up being a metric shitload of calories. You can easily push the calories of the adult version of that meal into the 4 digit range.

235: But, with American wealth/food cheapness, it's a lot easier to fill those plates, whatever size, than it was 50 years ago. How many American families make a roast on Sunday night, then stretch it to two more meals. You don't do that with 12 oz. meat portions per adult.

I'm not claiming our ancestors were dainty, but, together with much more calorie-intensive lives (think of the millions of factory workers whose children are now service employees or office drones), they ate similar or smaller amounts. In that context, plate-cleaning made sense. In ours, it's problematic.

237: As for kids, part of the problem is the presence of snacks. It's a pain in the ass when the kid eats half a (small) portion of healthy, balanced dinner, then asks for crackers before bed. You get either a fight over strict rules, or a kid who has traded vegetables and protein for her 18th serving of carbs on the day.

We try not to stress, and we know she won't starve or malnutreat (?), but it's hard.

239: Oh, yes, I completely agree. I just wanted a chance to talk up my carefully-thrifted plate collection.

240: Well then, why not post a link? Surely you've Flickred it?

You get either a fight over strict rules, or a kid who has traded vegetables and protein for her 18th serving of carbs on the day.

If you've got consensus among the adults in the household, you can have the strict rules without the fight. Kids give up pretty fast (as measured in weeks) if you're consistent -- if you're not liking the amount of crackers the kid's substituting for dinner, hand the kid a piece of fruit instead, or nothing. They'll figure out how to eat enough at meals pretty soon. (Not that there's anything particularly wrong with eating crackers in general, of course.)

This breaks down when you don't have consensus among the adults, of course.

My parents did pretty well in this respect. If we didn't want to eat our dinner, they wouldn't force us to sit there or to eat it, but if we hadn't finished it and wanted a snack later, the rest of the dinner would be the snack.

Part of the trouble is her appetite is so variable - since we don't want her to feel food-stress, our minimum dinner demands aren't that great - a few bites. And most nights, she'll eat that and a bit more, and that's enough. Other nights, she won't eat much, but then be hungry. I don't think she's gaming the system at 2.5, so it's a problem. Not a big one, but something that requires regular thought, annoyingly.

She likes whole wheat crackers, so we don't stress about that too much. But her grandmother (who has awful eating habits) will let her eat crackers all morning, eliminating any kind of balanced lunch, which makes dinner feel more high-stakes.

I've heard, from friends with toddlers, that they pretty much live on air. As long as her doctor thinks she's healthy, I wouldn't worry; toddlers seem to be designed to be picky eaters.

Oh, at two and a half, there's nothing wrong with grazing a little -- they do need to eat more often when they're little. All I'm saying is that the adults in the house control the available food, and if what's available to eat is reasonably healthy and balanced, the kids will be eating well without anyone having to give them a hard time about it. For an even slightly older kid "If you're hungry, have an apple" works.

(Definitions from my mother: Lace Curtain Irish = "People who have fruit in the house even when nobody's sick.")

243 is good advice.

I don't think she's gaming the system at 2.5, so it's a problem.

Don't be fooled. They're cunning little bastards already at that age (no disrespect intended toward your box elder). My son was fake-crying before he could walk or talk. "Original sin" -- as a devout Christian you should know about that.

re: 237 and 242 are absolutely right. The consensus among the parents things is key, of course.

On the original topic, maybe it's because I am too old to worry overly much about what most people think of me, I do not see a lot of people hating on fat people, even though I very much am a fat person.

Even more, I think--as others have noted above--that there are a couple of things going on. It does not seem unreasonable for people to look at someone who is as huge as me and think--and if they are close to the person say--dude, it's not healthy for you to be so big, you should do something about it. It is unhealthy and ignoring that fact is not reasonable. Now, just as hectoring smokers has gotten--in my view--way out of hand, it is possible to take things too far, but I do not see this a lot.

The bigger problem, it seems to me, is that there is much idiocy regarding what is unhealthily fat. For people--and particularly women--to be told that they are fat and hence unhealty just because they are not noticably slender is just crazy. And that is obnoxious and damaging for all concerned. But that is not about overemphasizing the health dangers of being fat so much as it is about having a crazy notion of what it means to be unhealthily fat. For example, LizardBreath has mentioned here a couple of times that she feels like she needs to loose weight. Now it is her business and no one else's what she wants to look like, so this is not a criticism of her choices. I have to say, however, that to the extent that such a desire is based on people making her think that she is carrying too much fat it is highly insane (says I, but only in a friendly and respectful way, to my friend Lizardbreath). She could be carrying 40 or 50 more pounds and still be healthy. And it is that kind of worrying about fat that people should stop.

We were out for a meal this weekend with my sister and her kids. My niece is six and the waitress was genuinely surprised when she ordered a proper meal. Not bloody chicken nuggets, or some such crap.

Admittedly, she ate about a third of it and then pigged out on pudding, but still, she was eating what the rest of us were eating.

My brother, when he was little, never seemed to eat at all. He'd take a few tiny bites of stuff and that would be it. My mum didn't stress over it, since he seemed to be growing just fine [he was a big strapping baby, and is a big strapping teenager].

I can get quite angry over the way kids are indulged over food. I say this, of course, as a non-parent who doesn't actually have to argue with kids who want to eat nothing but cheese strings and chocolate.

My sister, at age 18 months, would fake cry when she was put in her crib upstairs to sleep if she could hear us older girls still awake. We knew it was fake crying, because it curiously ceased as soon as someone stepped on the lowest stair.

Another parental rule: everyone (excluding little ones with no teeth) eats the same food. We never had chicken nuggets while my parents had fish. I wish there had been some sort of holistic rationale behind this about food and society, but it was really "if you think I'm cooking six different meals you got another think coming eat the lima beans."

Fruit: I need more tolerance for her half-eaten apples. Food waste issues again. Like, I won't offer her an apple, because she might only take 4 bites, and then what?

Stupid, I know.

but it was really "if you think I'm cooking six different meals you got another think coming eat the lima beans."

Hey, it's a good lesson to learn at an early age. My parents were the same way, and it's worked well on my kids.

Fruit: I need more tolerance for her half-eaten apples. Food waste issues again. Like, I won't offer her an apple, because she might only take 4 bites, and then what?

Oh, I remember this -- yeah, part of it is that a gnawed apple is sort of a gross object, and they're annoying to deal with. Slice off a side of the apple, and throw the rest of it in a baggie. (Then throw it out three days later because you forgot about it -- this isn't about wasting less food, just about having it bother you less.)

Slice off a side of the apple, and throw the rest of it in a baggie. (Then throw it out three days later because you forgot about it -- this isn't about wasting less food, just about having it bother you less.)

On Saturday I had to throw away a half apple that had been sitting in a bowl with peanut butter - black edges all around. I prayed the Rosary to my box elder ancestors for strength and forgiveness.

If fat is unhealthy, and fat people cost society more money, make fat people pay higher taxes, or have them make higher contributions to medical plans. People wil stop being fat if it costs them money.

The notion that there is something BAD about being fat, is just an example of American puritanism, i.e. there is something BAD about being poor, or not believing in God, or voting DEM or GOP, or whatever.

Once there is a consensus about anything in this conformist and unbrave society, puritanism enters the picture and things get called BAD or good -- as if morality has anything to do with anything besides not hurting people. That's all morality is good for, to stop people form hurting others. Otherwise, making moral discriminations about anything is total BS.

"I'm not running a restaurant here!" My youngest brother was a picky eater, and when the apples came out he would quit eating dinner and just rearrange food on his plate or sneak it to the dog. He'd even eat them before they were really ripe.

Actually, I think that Chinese think that there is something bad about being fat more than Americans do. It's usually seen as a sign of self-indulgence and a disorderly life (eating alone or at odd hours.)

i.e., "When there were apples on the trees in the back yard that's all he'd eat, even if they were green."

Probably didn't do him any harm at all.

252: You eat half the apple, she eats the other half. No waste, and you get vitamins. (N.B. This is not good advice with cake.)

Or, you could have another kid and split the apple. It's a long-term strategy, but it means there's less wasted fruit. (N.B. be careful, or you might have more kids than apples.)

Kiddies like small sweet fruits like Clementines.

So do grad students. Clementines are great.

As do adults. Mmm. Clementines.

260: John's very sensitive about his late, lamented brother.

You eat half the apple, she eats the other half.

Well, yes, but I don't always want her apple. More likely, she's eating one because she saw me eating one. 1.5 apples is a lot. Plus, I like my doctor.

Or, you could have another kid and split the apple. It's a long-term strategy, but it means there's less wasted fruit. (N.B. be careful, or you might have more kids than apples.)

I have trouble doing the conversion between apples and kids. Is this easier with metric?

258: Maybe a regional difference, China being so large and all? My feeling was that the definition of "fat" was a bit different than here--ie, you'd see women in their fifties who were stout who would probably be considered strongly, negatively fat here but were just not seen as particularly fat there. They were just stout, active older women. But you didn't see people who were very, very large or people who were inactive--and a person who is heavy-and-active looks rather diffferent from a person who is heavy-and-sedentary.

People routinely used nicknames for each other that seemed kind of cruel by US standards, but since almost everyone had them it didn't seem to matter so much--I mean, sure, I'll be "Fatty" if you're "Lazy" or "Baldie". ( I had a student who went by "Fatty" Chen (who had some separate self-esteem issues...he was from the countryside and most of the kids in the honors writing class were from the city, for one thing, so his English just wasn't as good. But he was fundamentally a good writer) who wasn't actually fat...he had a big face and a slightly bigger frame, but he wasn't really fat. He was...sigh...pretty cute too, back in my long-ago youth.)

Again, I think that a lot of this stemmed from a much more active way of life--you really had to work at it to be more than a little chubby.

Clementines are indeed great. If you can get your hands on them, Seckel pears are also both tiny and delicious.

My grandnephew who often stays with us is a good eater. On his first day at day care, the staff's admiration for his eating abilities was unbounded: "He eats very well" He loves clementines but practically everything else too.

My baby sister developed a taste for dill pickles and lemons around age two.

I have trouble doing the conversion between apples and kids. Is this easier with metric?

No, because we have hundreds of years of history measuring the number of children in apples, and we're not switching to any sissy pommes.

Oh, in terms of not-toddler foods, she does great: pickles, olives, tinned fish, pretty much any cheese (at home, at least, she's never had anything milder than sharp provolone). And her favorite (only) vegetables are broccoli and edamame. But none of those are dinner foods (except the veg, obv., but we're not going to eat just 2 veg for the next 5 years). And she's lukewarm on many dinner foods (although she's finally willing to eat soup - she had some weird block against it; like, That's not food).

Re. kids and food, Cala's right: feed the kid a version of what you're eating. Slice off part of the apple and dip the leftover bit in lemon juice so it doesn't go brown. Get little fruit like kiwis or berries. Beans and rice make a fine snack and keep well. Just don't even bring chicken nuggets and the like into the house--fine, they can eat it off the kids' menu when you go out (and/or you can read them off the appetizer menu--PK likes calimari). Don't fight them over food, but do say that you want them to eat 1-2 bites of everything on the plate (as opposed to 'clean the plate"). If they eat crackers, slice up a little cheese to go with, and maybe a few pieces of that leftover apple.

On another topic, I'm horrified that all the "French people eat less, Koreans eat more vegetables, our depression-era grandparents weren't fat" thing is still focusing on how much and what people eat. Yes, this is a factor. But it doesn't take a genius to realize that another, really big factor, is that all those people also walk a lot more than we do.

266 & 271: I think that a lot of this stemmed from a much more active way of life--you really had to work at it to be more than a little chubby.

It's sure changed in the US from the '40s and 50's and even since my kids in the 70's. Even without crops and animals to tend we had sidewalks and fields in the suburbs and spent most of our free time running or on bicycles. TBH I can't remember seeing the now commonly visible "fat kid" back then. Some were chunky but never flabby.

It's a capitalist plot. The entire system is set up to keep you seated and eating, and then they sell you more crap to take the weight off and the meds to counter the ill-effects of a sedentary life.

I eat chicken nuggets for dinner with some frequency to this day. Perhaps this means I was raised nutritionally-poorly (in fact, I know I was raised nutritionally-poorly, what I mean is that perhaps this is related). They're great. Not the crap from McDonald's, but the frozen ones you buy at the grocery store, made from real chunks of real chicken. With plenty of ketchup -- yum!

What I meant in 273 was: my kid is doomed.

I still like McDonald's fish sandwiches. That's all I would eat when I was a McDonalds' cook back before you kids were born (in Dinkytown in Minneapolis, it was still there 2-3 years ago). The fish sandwich is hard to ruin.

Perhaps it's changed, but when I was a cook the cooking training was a total of 15 minutes. There was more training than than (health code, payroll rules, etc.), but only 15 minutes on cooking. And you can ruin a hamburger.

A McDonald's hamburger starts out pretty ruined. Buck worked in a McDonald's as a kid, and the employees where he worked would try to recombine the available ingredients to make them more appealing. Apparently a McNugget wrapped in a slice of cheese immediately on coming out of the fryer, so the heat of the nugged melts the cheese, isn't bad with barbeque sauce.

I don't mind McDonald's burgers. Big Macs are good. I'm not a very picky eater though.

271: Walking is good, but you have to do a whole hell of a lot of it to make up for any excess food consumed. The thing to do is chuck all this brain work and become a lumberjill.

http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/activities/11.html

Given we're not going back to a farming or heavy manual labor economy voluntarily, cutting back on eating is about the only way to lose weight. Of course, after WW4, things will be different and much healthier.

Attention Brock Landers:

Do you know of what you speak when you say "real chunks of real chicken." Have you ever heard of mechanically separated chicken?

Frankly, that shit is nasty. I beg you to stop eating it.

I still like McDonald's fish sandwiches.

So does Marco Pierre White unless I have misremembered a Sunday supplement interview from ten years ago, which is frankly not like me.

271:

B, we definitely walk more than you Americans, but I would say the primary difference is that French people eat less. It is not uncommon for people to skip meals either. All the caffeine and booze helps control one's appetite. We also eat/drink much more slowly and talk much more. That seems to limit overall calorie consumption.

Walking plays a part too. I'm not sure about the little old aristocratic ladies in the 16th arr. (they seem to be driven around everyone in Rolls Royces and whatnot) but I think your average Parisian woman walks at least 1 km if not 2 a day. A big part is the fact that women go to the grocery store more often (a couple times a week + usually a market on the weekend), and they usually go on foot. Walking home with a a few kilos of groceries will burn a few calories.

I will say that, within the context of a loving relationship, a wife can probably rest assured that when her spirit is willing, his flesh will not be weak.

I found this to not be true until I started doing regular cardio exercise.

279- According to Wikipedia, it's indeed nasty shit that must be labeled as such on the list of ingredients. I'll check my freezer tonight, but I'm pretty sure that's not in my nuggets. They really are real chunks of real chicken.

And there's a giant moral and cultural ideology around food and the proper way to consume it, which children learn by the time they're ten.

284 to 281.

271: A friend's boyfriend, not a cosmopolitan man, complained while on a business trip in Paris that in order to feel full he needed to order two meals.

okay, it's just not true that men have constant sex drives or that they're much bigger than women's.

ime: am interested more often than the vast majority of my boyfriends. have learned that i shouldn't hold my breath for more than 1x a day, though it's nice when it's 2x a day. initiating in the middle of a sunday will probably get me beatific smiles from boyf and a small response but no actual moving on to sex. and this is a boyf who is smitten with me, visibly, so it's a question of drive (and workload). i've chatted about it with female friends, and a good number of them feel the way i do too - we settle for 1x a day.

re: 287

Yes, I've had partners in the past with higher drives than mine. And some with lower, obviously. But it's just not true, as you say, that it's always the male partner who has the highest.

Plates are bigger, too.

I bought a bunch of cheapie Ikea plates for Christmas dinner (because disposables are messy and wasteful and besides, parties are why God gave us dishwashers). When I wanted to get some nicer plates of a similar size, I couldn't find them -- everything was 14" instead of the compact 10ish of my European plates or even the 12" of my 15-year-old Crate and Barrel plates. 14" wouldn't even fit in my kitchen cabinets.

I have found that I'm a lot less likely to feel horny at bedtime when I'm well-fed. Is this not true of women?

IME, no. And I should probably Martha/Eleanor this, but once I started eating meat again, my postcoital burger cravings came back with a vengeance.

281: I've found that walking three or four miles a day five days a week plus being sort of moderate in my eating at least stabilizes my weight and generally slowly reduces it. That is, I walk to and from work almost every day, and walk about a good bit on weekends. Of course, I had to do a number of things to rearrange my life so that I live in a neighborhood I like and also about two miles from work, so this may not be feasible for everyone.

i've chatted about it with female friends, and a good number of them feel the way i do too - we settle for 1x a day.

You're killing me. Women like you and your friends should wear badges or something so we know who to ask out.

My 60 year old neighbor's psycho girlfriend (actually borderline-personality) wants to have sex 3 hrs. every night. He loves it but it's killing him. His work+commute is about 12 hours, and he isn't getting any sleep.

"Talking much more" sounds like an unreiable way to lose weight.

What Willy and JM fits the Chinese pattern: food is very important (there are menus in some of the Confucian holy books), meals are important, meals are social and familial, and there's a lot of principles about the right way to do things.

I eat a lot of food now (3500+ per day) but when i worked in a factory 12hours i would come home and eat pretty much straight through until i fell asleep on the couch. usually 5k+ a day. It was insane. If i went out with friends i'd take jars of peanuts to eat with the beers. Always go to the all-you-can-eat-wings nite, etc. Some walking or taking the stairs to your cubicle in on a different order of magnitude.

"Walking home with a a few kilos of groceries will burn a few calories."

Well plus you're not going to grab as much if you know you're going to have to hoof it back. I've been walking to the grocer's since it turned less muggy out and i've switched to dried milk just to save the 20lbs that milk carriage is.

"IME, no. And I should probably Martha/Eleanor this, but once I started eating meat again, my postcoital burger cravings came back with a vengeance."

This comes back to one of hte more unfathomable bits about female sexuality to me: the importance of being relaxed to be horny.

but when i worked in a factory 12hours i would come home and eat pretty much straight through until i fell asleep on the couch.

Mmm. I've talked about when I used to row crew, and it sounds similar.

Yeah, crew was like that too. I don't think it was quite so bad. But after the early morning crew practice, i'd go to the school cafeteria, and load the tray up a few times. THat was a really great pleasure to feel SO hungry and to get to spend so much time in the state of being-hungry-and-eating. Especially b/c it was breakfast foods: bacon, fried eggs, waffles, berries, toast, etc. which was my favorite foods @ the time.