"I may be fat, but I beat my eating disorder"

[Alex K]

We really shouldn't go down the road of what looks we're personally attracted to here, that's completely harmful and beside the point.

[CapnAwesome]

We really shouldn't go down the road of what looks we're personally attracted to here, that's completely harmful and beside the point.

I note that I didn't bring it up, actually I think the original post brought it up. That fat is fine and attractive and whatever. My point is that no matter how many times someone says this or tries to redefine beauty it's never going to change my or countless other men's opinion on the subject. We are attracted to what we are attracted to. It's one thing to be okay with yourself and an entirely different thing to expect everybody else to be okay with it. Which is what society is increasingly pushing on people. Also I think that many overweight girls are huge hypocrites on the issue of body acceptance. If you take the original post, it's very easy to spin that idea that somehow there is something wrong with skinny girls. It's arguably more societally acceptable for someone to say they are only attracted to fat women. If someone says they are not attracted to fat women or only attracted to in shape women they get called a bigot or told they are being hurtful or some such. It's a total double standard and shouldn't be construed as hurtful anyway. Like I would be upset because not every girl in the world is attracted to me!

Also muscular women face at least an equal social stigma as fat women. People, and often times other women, are comfortable trashing on women for looking too much like a man just because she works out or might have a predisposition to gain muscle easily.

[Alex K]

Ok I get it, you don't like it - but I still don't see how you go from "You can't dictate what physique I'm attracted to" to what we should be "okay with", whatever that means, or society pushing something on you, or even the whole health issue. Probably 99.x percent of women in the world do not align with your standards of attractiveness, and you're really not the arbiter of what's "ok". Your statement sound a bit as if you were afraid that the factory stops making women you find hot, and you'd get ostracised for not adapting, or something, and that doesn't seem to belong here.

[Napoléon]

However, you seem to be saying that she's unhealthy because she's "fat" or "chubby" based on her appearance

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Certainly not the ideal.

but getting upset when people say they like her appearance.

You can like her appearance all you want, what bugs me is the denial of people who say she isn't fat, even in the second photo. What irks me is this notion that she is the image of a healthy person. I'm telling ya mate, you can tell just looking at her appearance, she ain't going much past 7 on the bleep test.

I'll reiterate, she looks far from the unhealthiest. She's certainly not obese at any rate.


Like I said before, my issue isn't even with the damn picture really, it's with the message she's sending out, and we're probably just going around in circles now.

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Ok I get it, you don't like it - but I still don't see how you go from "You can't dictate what physique I'm attracted to" to what we should be "okay with", whatever that means, or society pushing something on you, or even the whole health issue. Probably 99.x percent of women in the world do not align with your standards of attractiveness, and you're really not the arbiter of what's "ok". Your statement sound a bit as if you were afraid that the factory stops making women you find hot, and you'd get ostracised for not adapting, or something, and that doesn't seem to belong here.

The fuck are you going on about dude? How is that in any way what anyone has said?

[Alex K]

The Captn is going on about how he's not ok with how women dare to think they're allowed to look, in a thread about eating disorders, and it pisses me off.

[Exian]

I think what we're witnessing (it's probably obvious, and goes without saying) is some push back towards the use of fit, tan, athletic women to sell products. Now, can you fault businesses for doing what makes them the most money? Is there even a fault? You have a majority of men liking a certain body type- that body type helps sell a product- we end up with a public saturated with the image of a certain female body type. Meanwhile, women who don't have that body type feel bad about their bodies.

So, when they do push back, they aren't arguing that their bodies should be used to sell products; they aren't saying "You should think this is sexy, too."; and they don't seem to be aiming their message towards men at all. The point seems to be to form a support group of like-bodied people, in order to raise their own opinions of their bodies out from the negative end of the pool, and into the positive. In other words, they aren't telling us they're sexy, they're telling theirselves that.

This becomes a moral issue, doesn't it? Should these businesses market their product this way, when one reaction to those ads is an increase in sales, while another simultaneous reaction is a drop in self-esteem for large groups of women?

Again, I understand their health is the thing being brought into question, and that I've largely ignored this, but mental health is just as important. And it seems to be at least a start, right?

[Napoléon]

The Captn is going on about how he's not ok with how women dare to think they're allowed to look, in a thread about eating disorders, and it pisses me off.

How on earth did you get that from what he actually said?

[Tonus]

You can like her appearance all you want, what bugs me is the denial of people who say she isn't fat, even in the second photo.

I think that's more a matter of degrees. I think she's overweight, but to me she'd need to be heavier than that to be categorized as fat. I think at this point her larger concern would be muscle definition, but even that can be misleading. I'm about 40-45 lbs overweight, but I have pretty clear muscle definition in my arms and legs (yay, genetics!). If I cut that by 20-25 lbs I'd be in pretty good health (would require regular cardio and strength training, for example) but still be fat by some standards (and clearly overweight).

I'm more concerned with what appears to be her belief that she can either be near death from overwork and starvation rations or "fat and healthy." Just one cupcake a day, sweetheart... ONE CUPCAKE A GODDAMN DAY.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I understand, although I think it's funny when people think that someone is somehow bigoted for not being attracted to out of shape women. I can't really help whom I find attractive, whether it comes from a social construct or not. For myself I need to date in shape women (my girlfriend is a serious athlete) Not only is everything better when you are in shape, but all my recreational activities involve being physically active. Although skinny is definitely not equal to being in shape.

No one has been called a bigot here, either.

Looks matter to me too, but they're not the most important criterion by a long shot, for me. I don't find obese or even fat women attractive physically, and that is certainly part of romantic love, so in that sense, I'm shallow, and I'll freely admit it.

On the other hand, with a pretty broad range of physiques, mentality, maturity, and emotional outlook are more important. I've met plenty of beautiful women who wouldn't catch a second glance from most men, and I've met plenty of knockouts who turn ugly as soon as they say something. Both anomalies happen to me because attitude is a deep part of sex appeal, to me.

I'm not criticizing anyone here. I'm hoping that a good discussion about social perceptions of attractiveness comes about, because I find that one of the more interesting things about people -- how tastes are shaped by environment and social milieu.

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Like I said before, my issue isn't even with the damn picture really, it's with the message she's sending out, and we're probably just going around in circles now.

Nah, I think we're in agreement about the issue of "my lifestyle is healthier now that I'm not [insert body type here]." I am not so willing to make that judgement based on a picture as you are, apparently, but no big deal.

[CapnAwesome]

Ok I get it, you don't like it - but I still don't see how you go from "You can't dictate what physique I'm attracted to" to what we should be "okay with", whatever that means, or society pushing something on you, or even the whole health issue. Probably 99.x percent of women in the world do not align with your standards of attractiveness, and you're really not the arbiter of what's "ok". Your statement sound a bit as if you were afraid that the factory stops making women you find hot, and you'd get ostracised for not adapting, or something, and that doesn't seem to belong here.

I'm not specifically talking about me, although I can see why it would appear that way, I'm just using myself as an example because I'm whom I'm most familiar with. I'm certainly not some super picky person when it comes to attractiveness (I am when it comes to personality) 99% of women aren't overweight or out of shape. There is a large percentage of the male population who will never be attracted to fat women, no matter how much self affirmation they give themselves or how often they make facebook posts telling the world how beautiful they are. That doesn't change anything at all for men and no amount of it ever will. It's just reality. Reality isn't always comfortable or polite.

Also I would never ostracize a woman for being fat. That's totally unfair. I'm perfectly capable of being friends with women, and I don't take appearances into consideration when it comes to friendship. Honestly it's pretty fucked up when someone just assumes that because I wouldn't want to fuck a fat girl that I wouldn't want to interact with them. That's unfair and I haven't said anything that would lead someone to that conclusion.

The other thing is I don't really understand why it's even an issue. Why do overweight women feel the need to be found attractive or told they are healthy on such a regular basis? It screams insecurity. If they are genuinely comfortable in their own bodies you don't go around telling everyone all the time. You just let it be.

As for the health issue, being fat is unhealthy. It is the number one preventable cause of death in America. No amount of screaming 'I'm healthy' is going to change that. Diet and exercise will change it. I don't think it's particularly insensitive to point out the truth. Whether or not I'm here to point out facts doesn't change that they are facts.

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No one has been called a bigot here, either.

Looks matter to me too, but they're not the most important criterion by a long shot, for me. I don't find obese or even fat women attractive physically, and that is certainly part of romantic love, so in that sense, I'm shallow, and I'll freely admit it.

On the other hand, with a pretty broad range of physiques, mentality, maturity, and emotional outlook are more important. I've met plenty of beautiful women who wouldn't catch a second glance from most men, and I've met plenty of knockouts who turn ugly as soon as they say something. Both anomalies happen to me because attitude is a deep part of sex appeal, to me.

I'm not criticizing anyone here. I'm hoping that a good discussion about social perceptions of attractiveness comes about, because I find that one of the more interesting things about people -- how tastes are shaped by environment and social milieu.

Sorry, trying to carry on two conversations at once is somewhat difficult sometimes. Alex pretty much called me a bigot for not being attracted to fat women. (?) The word bigot wasn't used, but what somehow the conclusion was drawn that I thought fat women should be ostracized from society because I (and many other men) am not attracted to them. Obviously that's not what I think or remotely close to what I said, but people tend towards hyperbole on the internet and I probably got too drawn in.

As for environment shaping attitudes toward attractiveness (I agree the far more interesting of conversations) I think some of it is environmental although not all of it. Evolutionarily it makes sense that we would want fit mates, so that we could make fit children who have a better chance of surviving. 95% of human history we were living in hunter gatherer societies where fitness was key to our survival. We had predators and had to hunt prey. I think this is not to be overlooked when it comes to what men (and women) find attractive in mates. Culture can only change what is in our genes so much.

I also question whether or not society being accepting towards overweight women has that much to do with mental health. I think there are many biological reasons why obese people have higher mental health problem. Not being accepted for some physical thing is an easy scapegoat and way to blame their problems on other people (hardly a unique human condition). While it may be a contributing factor, I think a more major one is that they simply aren't getting enough exercise. Lack of physical activity is a huge contributing factor to depression. We have evolved to be active and the sloth of modern society is a very recent phenomenon. The rest of human existence we were extremely active. Our survival depended on it. Is it a surprise that inactive people are more prone to being depressed? I think not. I would hypothesis that if every man on the planet would somehow start being attracted to overweight women, they would still be more depressed for simple biological reasons. That the cultural elements are overstated (although not irrelevant.)