Political correctness regarding weight issues

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Not sure which is the most appropriate category to post this into, but anyway:

I hate it when a person is underweight / anorexic. It is unhealthy and looks awful.

There, I can say that and no-one or almost no-one is offended by it. But what happens when I say the other half of my opinon?

I also hate it when a person is overweight (except if only a little bit). It is unhealthy and looks awful.

Now suddenly people are offended. Why is it OK to criticise underweightness but not overweightness? In both cases it is a serious health issue, and it looks awful.

I refuse to date people who are underweight or overweight (except if only a little bit). Mainly because health is an important issue for me, and these people are sabotaging their health, and that REALLY irks me. Also because it makes them look awful.

I also think that people who are under/overweight probably do not respect themselves, and therefore why should I? How can you expect me to respect you if you do not even respect yourself?

It is not only under/overweight people, it is also smokers. I would have great difficulty bringing myself to date a smoker. Same reason: These people are sabotaging their health, and that REALLY irks me. And it smells terrible.

But for some weird reason, it seems to be politically incorrect to say these sorts of things. I do not see why people should get so annoyed about me disliking poor health practises.

Well, I think the idea is that being overweight is common and is mostly unintentional. There are people that diet to the point of being underweight but nobody really wants to be overweight at all in America and to bring attention to that fact is rather embarassing/insulting to the overweight person. Weight differences among people are often due to metabolism so many of the average weight people that you know are really probably being as healthy as some of the overweight people that you know. I mean, I have eaten entire pizzas and 2000 calories of food at one sitting and I am no athlete and do not do much exercise yet I am extremely skinny yet I know people who watch their food intake more than I do and are fatter.

So in short, too skinny is seen largely as a choice and is really not seen negatively by society while being too fat is not seen as something that is as much of a choice and is seen more as a flaw just like stupidity or something. Weight control is probably not as easy as you try to make it out to be, it is really easy to be overweight in a modern industrial nation due to the wide varieties of good foods available and bad diet practices picked up at youth more than conscious choices(I am going to eat 1 pound of lard because I hate myself), also the thin thing is something that you might want to look at carefully, a person with a very high metabolism could eat like a pig and be as skinny as a rail, I have known some very skinny girls that are not really concerned about dieting and just eat whatever they want.

In other words, don't be a bastard and give most people the benefit of the doubt. Your dislike of smokers is sort of socially acceptable because more and more people dislike smoking, I would not date a smoker myself. However, when you criticize people because of their bodies you are treading a thin line. The people you criticize could easily not be making conscious choices to be fat or thin and really could be at their build due to genetics. The average fat person likely does not eat 3 big macs a day or anything like that. Giving the benefit of the doubt is an important social skill.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 19 Apr 2006, 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It is okay to critisize underweight because if someone is underweight, it is socially acceptable to assume they have a bad self image and are starving themselves intentionally(so theyre either being foolish or making bad decisions, which is okay to critisize) if someone is overweight, it has become so that they cant be blamed for it because they can't help themselves. Unfortunate metabolism.

That may be the logic of it. But forget all that. People will get offended if you critisize them about anything. Like me critisizing you about being too critical. It is your right to critisize whoever you want, but it is also their right to treat their body however they want. It is also your right to be pissed off about them chosing it excersize their right, but it seems rather selfish and foolish to me. I can understand you not wanting to date someone who doesn't fit your physical standards, but big f*****g woop for them. In general, the vast majority of people don't care what you think, especially when it comes to altering themselves to your preferences. And not everyone is interested in getting into your knickers.

Also, what the f**k is it with the concept, "If they don't respect their bodies how can I?" I mean it sounds witty and s**t, but I think it is actually meaningless. I mean you COULD. If you wanted to. You could respect their body when they don't. And you could decline to respect it even if they DID respect theirs.

And the reason is, is because we don't like the suggestion that you have any business deciding how we should live. It is your right to say you want to impose your preference on us, and it is our right to be pissed that you could be so selfish and judgemental. And vice versa.

I guess the problem is that there's no real standard of what constitutes over and underweight. My sister is a good example; she's a dancer, so she's about as in-shape and muscular as you can get, but the charts of people's so-called ideal weight say that she's twenty or thirty pounds overweight for her height.

There's also the "fault" factor, as well as the fact that being overweight and underweight have serious, albeit usually incorrect, social connotations in a lot of societies. In the West, being overweight no longer indicates being prosperous; it's begun to stand for laziness, slovenliness, dishonesty, and other negative characteristics that really have nothing to do with weight. Being underweight has come to represent having positive willpower, which is why victims of eating disorders are often complimented on how great they look and how great their self-control is right up until they end up in a hospital bed.

I have friends who eat 1000 more calories a day than I do and exercise less, but are a size zero, while I still manage to gain weight on a balanced diet while exercising daily. In my family, this is common and can be attributed at least partially to prevalent autoimmune disorders that screw around with the body's metabolic functions. So in some ways, my being criticised for my weight (I could certainly stand to lose twenty or thirty pounds) seems extremely unfair...why should my being seen as a person be dependent on my exerting ten times as much effort as someone else, especially since if I were male, people wouldn't look down on me so much for being overweight? Why can't my weight, as maintained by appropriate exercise and eating, be okay for me? Why should I have to starve myself or overexercise to reach someone else's ideal weight just to escape someone else's incorrect negative assumptions about what my weight indicates about my character?

Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to say that the world is fair, or that I couldn't try harder, or whatever, but I am trying to explain why women in particular might find such things so incredibly offensive even when they're not intended that way. What most people, especially men, consider to be overweight is really arbitrary. We're tired of being jerked around, of planning our lives around whether we fit the weight trend of the moment.

To put it more simply, it's not the intimation that I'm overweight that offends me; it's the (usually) unspoken implication that this automatically means I'm just not trying, that I can't possibly be healthy, that I'm probably lazy, and that I don't care about my body. None of these things are true, and someone assuming that they are because of how I look is offensive to me.

i'd dare to say that the reason why people are more offended by saying overweight vs underweight is because underweight is basically socially accepted and by criticizing it, you're either discouraging eating disorders or just saying that buying into that everyone shouhld be skinny is wrong. however, if you criticize fat people, they'll either come at you that they're genetically predisposed to be fat or that it's an eating disorder or is somehow not their fault.

the truth is both results are both eating disorders or not their fault....or even *gasp* their fault and is discourable. fat people get picked on a lot more when younger, though so it's a particuarly sore spot for the fatties than it is for the twigs.

not to mention that you're more incapacitated from doing stuff than a skinny person is a lot of times with regards to fitting in seats, doing anything athletic, and generally fitting into society.


so the fatties get the short end of the straw in that sense and so they get offended much more easily when the topic comes up.


/i'm a fattie
//i know is probably my own damned fault

Not true. There is a medical standard. It is called the Body Mass Index. More information here:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/index.htm

Note that is a USA government website. It is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Why is the BMI on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website? Because being overweight is a DISEASE according to the USA government. People should stop deluding themselves into thinking it is some kind of legitimate lifestyle choice. It is a disease people, a disease, and do not get angry at me for saying it because I am not the one saying it: Government medical researchers are saying it.


The info that accompanies the BMI states that special compensation must be made for people who are muscular because muscle is heavy. Therefore, according to the rules of the BMI, she is NOT overweight.


Laziness IS related to weight. People who are lazy (fail to do regular exercise) are more at risk of the disease of being overweight, as well as being more at risk of the disease of diabetes.

As for slovenliness and dishonesty, I agree that these have nothing to do with weight, but I have never heard of them being associated with weight. Whoever suggested that overweight people are dishonest? I never heard of that.


I oppose underweight as much as overweight. They are both diseases with serious health consequences.


So? How is that of any relevance?


If you are gaining weight, then you are eating more calories than you need. That is an indisputable medical fact. To stop gaining weight, reduce your calorie intact to only what your body needs.


In your case, considering you have these autoimmune disorders, perhaps you have a legitimate reason to be exempted from criticism about weight. Some people who are overweight do have legitimate medical reasons, I acknowledge that, however they are only a tiny % population, so the vast majority of people cannot use this excuse.


If you are overweight, then you have not been exercising and eating appropriately. But as I said, you might be exempted from this because of your medical condition.


It is not "someone else's ideal weight". It is what government medical research has established is healthy.


When I say underweight or overweight, I mean according to the BMI. According to the government standard. NOT according to my own personal opinion.



If a person is underweight or overweight but trying to fix it, they I give them my full support and no criticism.


If you are significantly underweight or overweight according to the BMI, you likely are unhealthy. This is a medical fact.


Most people who are overweight ARE lazy.


Being under/overweight is a disease according to the USA gov. It is a serious health problem. Therefore, if you fail to make a reasonable effort to fix it, then it is reasonable to assume that you do not really care about your body.

We are not talking about some lifestyle choice here people. For crying out loud, we are talking about a DISEASE!! And far FAR too many people who have weight problems have an appalling attitude about it.

Being under/overweight, not only is it disrespecting your own body, it is also disrespecting your loving partner who really would like you to live as long as possible in as much health as possible. How is your partner going to feel if you get diabetes because you were too selfish to fix your weight? Your partner will be upset for you because he/she loves you and hates to see you suffering health problems. I consider that if I truly love my partner, then I have an *obligation* to make a reasonable effort to maintain good health.

The BMI is really a bad standard for weight and you can't make everyone stand on a scale to see their weight, which is a requirement for a BMI. Really, the problems with the BMI lead us to try to find new measurements for weight and the like.

Really, you probably have a good metabolism due to youth and gender and don't really have to care about your weight one bit. All you are doing is imposing your self-righteous beliefs on other people because you think that you are better than them. That is all you are really doing and looking like a jerk is the end result.

The average American does not gain 20 pounds a year and I am pretty sure that most weight gained was done so somewhat slowly or during somebody's youth. Most people find a weight and stick to it(due to the workings of the body).

Weight is not the massive issue that you are making of it. It is not cancer and I would not even call it a disease unless the person is grossly obese or greatly underweight. Your assumption that it is the problem that you make it out to be is assuming way way too much as recent studies have even scaled back our views on the dangers of weight. A big part of the matter is that you are assuming that it is easy to lose weight, it is not easy at all. In fact, most people that go on diets to lose weight end up gaining all the pounds back and then some, it happens all the time and it is a big reason why some people don't really want to go on diets because they don't want to gain more weight.

Yes, that is right, you as a partner do have to care about your mate. You have to make sure that reasonable efforts are made to maintain health. You are likely making weight to be a greater issue than it is. It is possible to be overweight and healthier than a person who is within the BMI range.

Where is your evidence of this? I should believe the BMI is a really bad standard... just because you say so?? I have the choice between believing you who makes this claim with no evidence whatsoever to support it, hell not even 1 reason to support it, OR I can believe what the government department with medical researchers says. Which is the most logical choice?



They are NOT my beliefs. They are medically accepted facts as reported by a government department with medical researchers!



Are you a doctor? Do you have any medical qualifications? Why should I believe you over the qualified professionals at the CDC ?



You just fabricated that claim! There are no such studies. I challenge you to produce them.



That is so ridiculous that I do not even need to explain why it is ridiculous.

Basically your whole message amounts to "You're wrong because I think you are". Whereas my claim is... hell I do not even have a claim... I am just repeating what the government medical researchers are telling us.

Something that really annoys me about some overweight people is that you try to help them, you want the best for them, you truly wish for the best for them, you want them to be healthy and happy and live a long life...

and what is the thanks you get in return?

They stab you in the back. They would prefer to be with someone who cares less about them. So basically you learn to not bother trying to help someone who is overweight.

There's one thing I hate. Really hate. More than seeing fat people, people who smoke, people who drink too much. Know what that is? Health fascists.

I bet you look absolutely perfect too. Just because you preserve yourself doesn't mean you live forever, you know. No-one comes up to you and tells you what a good job you're doing.

We all have choices we have to make in life - eating, drinking, smoking, picking your nose and then eating it. And so on. It's part of freedom, about not having some little Nazi telling you what to do.

All of us have imperfections. Now, I'm very overweight but I'm doing something about it. I'm eating about the same that I ate before I started dieting but I'm eating much healthier food. And I'm losing weight. And I feel better for it. Some people don't wish to do that, and that's fine (as long as they're not grossly, grossly overweight or extremely underweight).

My point is this: leave people alone. Let them make their own choices.

Oh shucks, thank you. Literally the best compliment I have had all day. I do make an effort to be healthy and be fit and I am proud of the result. So further on you say you are doing something about your weight: You too will be proud when you reach your goal.


Obviously. It is not about living forever, it is about improving the quality of my life. Being healthy improves the quality of my life. It makes me feel much better, both mentally and physically. It also reduces my probability of serious diseases that are a consequence of being overweight, such as diabetes.


You are correct. The women just tell me with glances of their eyes and turned heads.


Yes, exactly, being overweight is a CHOICE (except in rare cases). Most people who are overweight are choosing to be unhealthy. They are CHOOSING to lower the quality of their life.


I am not telling you what to do. I am merely doing the same thing you are doing: Expressing my opinion.



That is great. Therefore I have no criticism of you. I do not criticise people who are overweight but have the right attitude about it. My criticism is directed at people who are overweight but have the wrong attitude about it or are not even trying to be healthy.


Translation: Do not bother caring about people. Show no interest in their quality of life. See this is exactly what I am talking about. Some overweight people prefer to be in the company of people who care less about them. As soon as you CARE about them and show an interest... BOOM! They are offended. My response to such people is, "I am sorry I cared about your quality of life! I won't bother caring about you in future since you obviously don't like it!"

Some overweight people whine about how they cannot get a date because everyone is so superficial and only interested in appearances. BS. The real reason why they cannot get a date is because they will not let anyone care about them, and they fail to properly respect their body, their quality of life, the people they wish to date, and their loved ones.

Emp, I think part of the difference between what I think and you think is that I know weight is at least as much of a social issue as a medical one, and also that I believe effort isn't entirely irrelevant. It's simply much more difficult for a low-income person to afford healthy food (or to have the time to exercise, given that many people now have to work multiple jobs to survive at a baseline level), for a person with bad arthritis to find a healthy exercise regime, or for women who live in dangerous neighborhoods to be able to exercise as much as they should.

These may not be excuses, but factors like these aren't irrelevant. You are young, you clearly have free time, and exercise seems to be a huge priority in your life. That's great, but sometimes life gets in the way of someone focusing with Aspie intensity on his or her weight. I don't care what you think; being overweight is not just due to being lazy. It's not just a choice. And fat people aren't just pathetic couch potatoes who don't care at all about their health or about their partners. My dress size does not tell you what kind of person I am, what kind of food I actually eat, or even how much I exercise, because people acquire and lose extra weight very differently.

Seriously, what are you going to do, walk down the street doing medical interviews of the overweight and hand out little certificates based on whether or not you think their reason for being overweight is acceptable? You want to help people that much? Do something useful. Offer your services as a nutritionist, free of charge. Buy healthy food for a poor family. Organize activities to get neighborhood kids off their butts. Fight for local funding for community centers so those of us who can't afford a gym membership have a couple of exercise options, like swimming. If you're not just full of hot air and you really want to help people, do something besides b***h at them.

Whether or not you're factually correct when you tell someone that they're overweight and you find this offensive, I'm willing to bet they're primarily upset because you do come across sounding like an incredibly self-righteous jerk. I'm sure this isn't your intent, but it is how you come across on the issue, so that's how people are going to react. Now, I'm sure you're going to tear apart every individual sentence of my post to rebut everything I say, because that's obviously how you communicate with people, and it seems like your only purpose in posting this particular thread was to either get congratulatory back patting on how right you are and how pathetic all those fat or too thin people are or to be able to gleefully shoot people down. I wasn't under the initial impression that we were having a point-by-point debate, but I guess I was wrong.

Quoted for truth.

emp: You come across as though you're hectoring people instead of trying to help them. I suspect that people would be a lot more receptive to your ideas if you changed your attitude towards people in general. My father behaved exactly like you do in this thread - hectoring away at me. If anything, it made me more determined to ignore him. I'm now under a healthier lifestyle, and I can see as clear as day that all the rubbish he was spouting was simply that; he takes no interest in my losing weight or actually advising me what to do when I feel hungry. None whatsoever. He'd rather be off down the pub.

It's good that you live healthily, but I consider your behaviour in this thread to be egotistical and pompous. Work on fixing that, eh?

This topic that I created here was addressed to NO-ONE, and there was NOTHING forcing or requiring you to read it. Everyone who responded here did not have to read or respond. They CHOSE to be involved in my discussion of the topic. Hectoring would be if I emailed all this to a person in particular or forced them to read or listen to it, but I am doing no such thing. I am not your daddy berating you, I am merely someone who created a topic of discussion that no-one was required or obligated to participate in. If this is your definition of hectoring, then I could just as well say that you people are hectoring me.


On this point, I agree with you. If you are saying that I could be much more convincing by having a nicer demeanor, then yes, you are correct. However that requires a bunch of patience and I am unmotivated to do it because I do not know any of you, nor are you members of my family. If you were people that I actually KNEW and were friends with, or family members, then I would be motivated to be more patient and spend more time tackling the issue in an effective manner.

We've really got to end our obsession with weight and throw out that whole weight as an indicator of health paradigm. Weight is just one factor among many factors in one's overall health, and health should be the important thing. If a person eats a balanced, healthy diet (and gives themselves treats once in awhile to avoid binging), exercises regularily (and according to experts, this doesn't necessarily have to be running and sports; things like walking, climbing stairs, and dancing count too), watches their cholesterol (this is one of those things that doesn't always have much to do with weight; a thin person can have a cholesterol level that's off the charts due to diet and/or heredity, while an overweight person can have a normal cholesterol level), watches their blood pressure, doesn't smoke, and avoids harmful chemicals when they can, and watches their weight (though this doesn't necessarily mean the person will be thin) they will often be quite healthy. And, as others have very aptly pointed out, while we tend to think of these as lifestyle choices that people can freely choose, this isn't always the case; healthy food is expensive just for my husband and I, so I can't imagine how much it would cost for a family of four or more. If you're poor, you don't have much of a choice as far as what to eat. People who live in dangerous neighborhoods and can't afford pricey gym memberships can't exercise as regularily or as often. People with medical conditions that restrict their mobility, as well as conditions like depression, can't exercise as much either, and people with depression tend not to eat healty because they just don't have the motivation or the energy (and this is not their fault). Also, most of the companies that make food put quite a bit of filler and other crud in them like sugar and trans fats and try to convince us they're good for us by also adding vitamins and minerals or some whole grains, which we aren't getting enough of, and knowingly make them so that they leave us feeling less full and wanting to eat more; also, beef and chicken are a lot more fattening than they used to be because the animals are no longer free-range and don't get any exercise. These are usually the least expensive foods, too, and the most common, so the extent to which a person can choose those foods over better foods is limited at best unless you are well off and living in an urban area.

Isolating weight from these health factors is actually counterproductive and unhealthy. It's because of this isolation that we tend to focus on dieting (restricting calories) rather than eating a healthy diet (making sure the most of the calories you get are beneficial and healty, which can be a hard thing to do, by the way). Not only does dieting prevent people from getting adequate nutrition, it actually causes a person to gain more weight in the long run because the body mistakes it as famine and becomes more efficient at storing fat. It also causes us to overlook or ignore other important factors. The kinds of attitudes you have on weight are actually quite counterproductive in the long run and are not helping anyone. If a person who is overweight is made to feel guilty about it, it's going to trigger an unhealthy cycle of dieting, which is actually unhealthy and very difficult and something few people should have to do, being tempted for some treats (who wouldn't?) and giving in, feeling guilty, dieting, etc. It also leads to eating disorders. It also led to the obsession in the 90's with low-fat foods, which actually were almost as bad because they substituted the fat for lots of sugar. We'd all be a lot better off if we focused on health instead and encouraged everyone to be healty, and recognized weight as one of many factors rather than the main factor or the only factor and took a non-judgmental approach that did not make people feel guilty.

Throughout most of human history, being overweight was advantageous in that protects people from famine because their bodies are more efficient at storing fat which can be used as energy by the body when food is scarce; because of this, in some cultures where the threat of famine was ever-present (and even in some cultures where it wasn't), and also where extra bulk was needed to keep warm, being overweight was probably seen as a positive thing. That's why we still love fatty foods and why they are so tempting to us, because fat was once an integral part of our diet; it's not because we're lazy. Weight involves many complex factors, some of which have nothing at all to do with lifestyle and everything to do with metabolism. The extent to which we can control it varies from person to person and in many people is probably limited; all anyone can do is do the best they can with what they've been given. The whole focus on weight is outdated at best and harmful at worst, and ultimately self-perpetuating (i.e, overweight and even thin people being made to feel guilty and self-conscious, dieting, eating treats, feeling guilty, dieting, etc.).