The fat body (in)visible

I cant get it out of my head that when she says "fat body" I flashback to basic training.
 
Siamese cat said:
The whole idea behind this documentary was not lamenting, but getting attention to some of the issues overweight people have to face everyday. The documentary was not made to promote being overweight as healthy lifestyle choice.
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No, the focus of the documentary was about a subculture (FA, etc) populated by women who choose to embrace their physical appearance rather than be ashamed about it. And my point about the health issue is that it wasn't mentioned at all which, IMO, is to the detriment of the women that this video seeks to encourage. Do you not agree with this?


Siamese cat said:
A lot of the girls who embedded this vid in their blogs are members of several communities that promote positive attitude and healthy lifestyle choices, and some of them are overweight because of medical issues, some of them are just overweight by choice. Those are the people who everyday have to face with this kind of stupidity http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/dating-blog/overweight-couples-on-television
so some of them decided to make a documentary about the way they feel and the problems they face in modern society. I'll go through the vid again, but I didn't really get a sense that any of them had that "conspiracy theory" attitude.
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My initial reply to you was hyperbole; obviously there's no "conspiracy". But the fact of the matter is that it's difficult for plus sized women to find retail clothing stores that offer them choices - a fact which you yourself have attested to. I alleged it was because the market was small and you told me that was absurd. When I asked you to offer you own explanation for the difficulty, you told me about the effects rather than the cause.

I genuinely want to know why you think there are so few clothing stores for plus sized women if there's a large market.
 
Siamese cat said:
No, I don't think it's a conspiracy, but it is a fact that plus sized women have a much harder time finding clothes that suit them, and people saying "Ah, just shut your mouth, stop eating and soon you could fit into normal sized clothes" is insulting. I have a friend who is oversized and she has to order things online, because she can't find things in regular stores. Now, when you order cloths online, you have an opportunity to try them on only when they arrive, which means that you could not be satisfied with what you get and have to return it, and so on. The whole process is tiresom to no end, and a lot more expensive than for those of let's say normal size.
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I agree here.

I am a plus-sized gal, and understand this completely. There are a lot of stores, especially in the mall, that don't carry over a size 10, and the average woman in the U.S wears a 14. To me, these stores are pretentious, and thus I simply don't go into them.

However, I am not so plus sized that I can't find cute clothes to wear in regular stores, but that is not the point
There are stores like Fashion Bug, Lane Bryant, Torrid, Deb that carry up to a size 28W, Even Walmart, Target, Kmart, and stores of the like, carry plus sizes...at reasonable prices.
 
Korg said:
No, the focus of the documentary was about a subculture (FA, etc) populated by women who choose to embrace their physical appearance rather than be ashamed about it. And my point about the health issue is that it wasn't mentioned at all which, IMO, is to the detriment of the women that this video seeks to encourage. Do you not agree with this?


My initial reply to you was hyperbole; obviously there's no "conspiracy". But the fact of the matter is that it's difficult for plus sized women to find retail clothing stores that offer them choices - a fact which you yourself have attested to. I alleged it was because the market was small and you told me that was absurd. When I asked you to offer you own explanation for the difficulty, you told me about the effects rather than the cause.

I genuinely want to know why you think there are so few clothing stores for plus sized women if there's a large market.
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I agree to some extent about the issue of not mentioning health problems associated with obesity.

The reason why I agree only to some extent is that general approach to the problem of treating obesity nowadays is scaring people into dieting by endlessly reciting health problems related to obesity. It may work on some people, but in my opinion it won't work in most cases.

I think that making clothes for obese people is seen as too much of a hustle, it's a lot easier and I'd say a lot less expensive to make smaller clothes.
 
Well, not really entering the fray here but just passing along useless info that clutters my brain. In my business courses it was stated that clothing manufacturers are the least efficient in terms of how they manufacture clothing--doesn't seem that much has changed in the *cough, cough, nevermind* years since I have been in school. You can't expect an inefficient business model to be flexible and accurrate in terms on consumer needs. Carry on.
 
they're both really cute. I usually am most attracted to girls who are on the high end of the healthy range.
 
ok...my feelings are going to sound strange...


yes there is a thing called healthy weight and all these movements seek to make it ok to be an unhealthy weight...

BUT!

If you are completely healthy at a size 18 what does it matter?

I am 30 years old, size 18 with a true hourglass figure, sure its bigger than 36 24 36, but Ive got all the right curves in all the right places.

I have NO weight related diseases, but diseases that have caused the weight gain.

PCOS
Hypothyroidism
polyps
Fibroids
Asthma

I do not have high blood pressure or heart problems, I eat right and excersise daily

I do have blood sugar issues but I have had those since I was 5 and its HYPOglycemia. so I dont eat a lot of sugars. I dont have diabetes...I am fairly heathy.


NOW do I think you should let yourself go as a heavier woman...NEVER. If you are heavier, stay active...being sedentary just proves them all right\.


Now the only think unhealthy about me is my confidence in myself. I look in the mirror and i see a woman bigger than those on the video. I see everything wrong, my swolen face from the thyroid disease, the acne fromt he pcos, the huge arms from the muscle mass I have always had, my large bone structure adding to my size. when i put on my clothes I see flaws in my body i feel huge if my pants are too tight, and worse when they dont stay up. There is a me inside my head that i see, but when I look in the mirror she is not there...its like I am always looking at a stranger.


so some of you want to go on and say there shouldnt be programs out there for heavier women to help them build their confidence, but I will tell you just knowing something like this is out there, makes me want to put on that dress I bought but never had the guts to wear...I feel empowered to not hide behind baggy clothes. Like maybe I do have the right to feel pretty...even just a little bit.
 
Ok. i just saw this song on a friends facebook page this morning, and I think it needs to be shaerd!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSK91mUNLU"]YouTube - MIKA - Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)[/ame]
 
My problem with this documentary is that it lacks better organisation and more effective ways in conveying the message. The person who made it should have found more people (I'd like to see some overweight males talk about their problems), and made a clearer concept of what should this video look like.

Some people got the impression that behind this organizations stood people who want overweight to become an etalon for normal, which is not the impression I got from reading blogs of those people neither from this video. It's about being content in one's skin and body, whatever they may look like and the right to feel that way.

Korg said that in his opinion they didn't emphasize the importance of health risks associated with overweight. If you take a look at tv shows and articles that deal with the subject of excessive weight, you'll see that in most of them this issues is underlined and bolded several times, while when it comes to magazines and media promoting skinny look you rarely see the disclaimer that being that way can have serious consequences.

The reason why this particular video caught my attention was because it addressed the issue of psychological problems associated with being overweight, the stigma that is placed on those people, which in my opinion can undermine their efforts to become healthy again, lose weight if they want to, and lead a normal life.
 
the intent of this video whatever it may be to me seems pointless bc interpretations giong to be different for everyone. some may seem simply inspired, some may critizice lack of health advice, wtv. but its a tough pill for me to swallow that suddenly people are enthusiastically concerned for others health issues but instead using this as more of a means than an end to express their preconceived feelings on the subject. i mean do people go around telling random smokers they're going to get lung cancer if they keep smoking? unlikely bc smokers know the risk they're running, just like those who are overweight to an unhealthy degree know it. so why feel the need to beat a dead horse in informing those overweight of the possible health risks involved in their lifestyle choices? there's gotta be an underying factor bc of the lack of consistency in concerns for others health, and its why i mentioned on broader terms what this can represent within society.

being comfortable within your own skin despite size is in fact a slap in the face of cultural conformity that suggests through media and entertainment that we embody a certain image. im not saying morbidly obsese are healthy or that they shouldn't try to choose a healthy lifestyle, but isn't that their choice to make? i think the word obese is seen as synonymous with unhealthy when it is not always the case and theres a good chance the criticizer knows a hell of a lot less about an obese individuals situation than the individual does, yet feel entitled to inform them or recite these already known health implications.
 
Entyqua said:
BUT!

If you are completely healthy at a size 18 what does it matter?

I am 30 years old, size 18 with a true hourglass figure, sure its bigger than 36 24 36, but Ive got all the right curves in all the right places.

I have NO weight related diseases, but diseases that have caused the weight gain.

PCOS
Hypothyroidism
polyps
Fibroids
Asthma

I do not have high blood pressure or heart problems, I eat right and excersise daily

I do have blood sugar issues but I have had those since I was 5 and its HYPOglycemia. so I dont eat a lot of sugars. I dont have diabetes...I am fairly heathy.
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Y'know if you were part of an epidemiological study, pretty much no effort would be made to tease out the causal relationships between your health problems and your body size, it would just be assumed that your size caused them.

When it comes to obesity/overweight correlations are always assumed to be caused by fatness, that's because it fits nicely into our prejudices. Researchers go out of their way to exclude smokers from their studies because that makes thin people appear more unhealthy than they are but they (almost) never bother to exclude overeaters or sedentary people. Untill these variables are properly controlled for size as an independent factor will remain unclear.
 
I didn't like the nude photos but I support the activity of Jessica. I felt sorry for Keena :o(

I couldn't understand why Jessica said that it is intimidating for people to see fat bodies together. Well, at least for me it is nothing intimidating.

I really hate people who loudly insult overweight people. It is one of the kinds of people I'd put to jail for that. My mother was insulted like that and those were the most hurting and anger raising moments for me as well.
 
As a person who has lost over 60 pounds and went from being nearly a fat person to an athletic body, I have very little sympathy for these people. If you like being fat fine but don't expect society to bend over backwards for you. I can't tell you how differently I was treated when I went from having a big belly to a six pack, especially by women. It was a lot of work to get to where I am, I did it you can do it too, you just have to put in the work.
 
Sali said:
I did it you can do it too, you just have to put in the work.
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How can you really know that? Maybe you're an outlier? A statistical freak? How long have you kept the weight off? If it's more than 5 years what you're saying will be more convincing.
 
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Korg said:
3) The hypocrisy of promoting the aesthetics of obese bodies over good health and then claiming they are "helping fat women". No, you aren't. You are actually damaging them by promoting the idea that being this way is okay. Lowered life expectancy, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure are just a few of the problems that come with having a body type like this. And let's be clear on something. We aren't talking about girls with large frames or girls with extra fat on them. That is one thing. We're talking about girls that are obese or at least significantly overweight which these two women are. I champion their message of self acceptance and not torturing oneself to fit in the status quo but not if it's going to come at the expense of physical health. What does that accomplish? Good self esteem while you're on kidney dialysis or wrestling with diabetes? If they want to help women, get them to lose weight so they are healthy and then teach them to love who they are.
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The fact is stigma and stress are just as damaging to your physical health (and probably worse) than adipose tissue itself. By fighting shame/stigma they are taking steps to improve physical health.

Being gay is also a health risk factor so should people stop promoting self esteem for homosexuals untill they get their health risks down to those of straight people? Redheads have a higher risk of skin cancer, should we tell them to die their hair before letting them promote self esteem amongst themselves?

Anyone can see that shame and stigma make people less likely to engage in exercise or other steps to improve their health, it paralyses people and makes them want to hide and not seek out help or even avoid seeking medical treatment making any health conditions they have far worse.
 
Korg said:
I genuinely want to know why you think there are so few clothing stores for plus sized women if there's a large market.
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Some thoughts:

-Fat women are generally poorer than thin women, so they're probably not going to have the same kind of disposable income as thin women, so the market is less attractive to businesses.

-The fashion world is strongly anti-fat so fat women probably won't be as focused on keeping up with the latest trends so their buying habits will be less prolific.

-Fat represents low social status, there might be the belief that introducing larger sizes into regular store might take away some of the "glamour" and status they currently enjoy.

-Trying to take on any new market is risky.

In saying that I think the situation is improving.
 
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