Every week The media has more to say about the obesity epidemic and fat people are shunned constantly. Honestly, how many overweight women do You see on TV on advertising billboards? Cooking shows seem to be the only acceptable vehicle for this group (remember two fat Ladies?). I do acknowledge that there has arisen a degree of celebrity bashing in terms of overly thin women - but let's face It celebrities get bashed whatever they do - one is too fat another too thin. They just need something to write about.
Wow, Petit, This really has got your goat. I don't know if I have been living in the same country as you, but I see fat bashing everywhere. For this one article about thin being in there are a hundred telling us how to lose weight. Every week the media has more to say about the obesity epidemic and fat people are shunned constantly. Honestly, how many overweight women do you see on TV on advertising billboards? Cooking shows seem to be the only acceptable vehicle for this group (remember two fat ladies?). I do acknowledge that there has arisen a degree of celebrity bashing in terms of overly thin women - but let's face it celebrities get bashed whatever they do - one is too fat another too thin. They just need something to write about.
The ‘skinny backlash” as far as I can see, is a miniscule attempt at redressing the current imbalance in our society. As you say, the images we are blasted with in the media are on the whole 'unrealistically ideal'. As the mother of a teenaged girl, I have seen first hand the effect this has on young girls' body image. Almost all of my daughter's stunningly beautiful (and thin) friends suffer with body-image issues and more than one has an eating disorder.
The incidence of anorexia nervosa (and other eating disorders) has been directly linked to exposure to media images of increasingly thin women. It is (in its present form) a remarkably recent Phenomenon that is gradually spreading across the globe as previously undeveloped countries are exposed to western culture. Interestingly a study into the height weight ratio of playboy centrefolds and miss America contestants found a dramatic decrease in BMI between 1959 and 1989. I suspect it has continued to drop since then. The ideal woman it would seem is shrinking. I recently read the results of a survey which found that only 1% of Australian women considered themselves beautiful and I find this very sad.
What we need here is some balance. There seems to be a growing polarization when it comes to weight. While half the population are eating and couch-potatoing themselves into obesity, the other half are struggling to aspire to some unrealistic emaciated ideal.
I think Dove are leading the way when it comes to this balance. I love Dove and it was probably your Dove rant, Petit, that made me feel I had to respond. As you say, the Dove campaign is a campaign for REAL women. They don’t use professional models, and they donate a portion of their profits to self-esteem programs for young women. In the adverts I have seen, few of the women are fat (certainly not unhealthily so)and Come in a range of shapes and sizes and importantly ages. The point is they are not professional models but 'real' women - the message is we can all be beautiful. The fact that you think all of these women are ‘big’ only goes to underline how warped our perceptions of size have become. I also love the fact that Dove use older women to advertise anti-aging products. I am sick of having 20-somethings preach to me about reducing wrinkles. You are angry at Dove because you feel their ‘real’ women are not representative of you. If you consider all the other advertising out there and the average Australian woman, you will see how ironic this is.
Anyway, that’s my piece said. For the record, I am 165cm tall and weigh 58 kilos, I am in the healthy weight range and consider myself neither fat nor thin. Many of my clothes are a size 8 but range from a 7 pair of Jeans to a 12 dress. I don’t believe a size 8 is thin at all. But don’t get me started on clothes sizing, cos that’s a real bugbear of mine.
Yer me too. But is proves Laura's point to some extent doesn't it!
That said - according to ABC Radio (I'll find the link later) the single highest indicator for a fatal heart attack is stomach fat. The program I heard said you can be fat anywhere else on your body, but if it's around your gut it is more likely to kill you.
They said that's why more men die of premature heart attacks than women - in men it tends to accumulate there.
no 5 chickie does it for me (see pic above) It is the mummy tummy I think.. I love to nestle my.... shit! I must stop!
Where the Hell is Luke I need a fix of flirtatious fun!
Forget the pain of a blood cholesterol. Measuring the ratio of your waist to your hips is just as good a predictor of heart disease as blood cholesterol, and cheaper. The healthy waist is 90% or less of the hip measurement.
The discussion has all been about slim women. I have worked in remote communities and the healthy old skinny Aboriginal men living a more traditional life are downright beautiful (healthy is beautiful) compared to the younger fat diabetic drinkers living on white bread and Coke. Slim is beautiful in the outback! Fat kills.
The
