This is in no way a scientific observation. We went to Costco today. We also tried to go to a movie this evening, but missed it. We ended up at Red Robin--a burger 'joint' that started out in Montlake over-looking the ship canal and that has expanded.

Most of the women I saw today were, I'm sorry to say, fat!

Sometimes, older women do gain weight because of the hormonal changes they go through--but these were young women accompanied by young fat men. They were usually dressed in bermuda shorts and tank tops or tees--often form-fitting. (It's been hot recently.)

The form jiggled as they walked. The shorts were stretched to the limits, squeezing out fat rolls over their knees. The tees, stretched across their jiggly stomachs, outlined their exaggerated belly buttons. Remember, these are young women.

How did this happen? Is it greasy junk food? Is it an attitude? It can't be poverty, or they wouldn't have been able to afford $10 for a 'gourmet burger' or the space to store Costco-sized food packages.

Young women, have you no pride in yourselves?

You are attributing ugliness to fat because it looks unappealing to you.

Body shapes and types and the attractiveness thereof are subjective at best. Standards of beauty change. See Reubens.

More important is the fact that overweight people MAY, I stress may, be subject to more diseases such as diabetes and be more succeptible to other ailments earlier than thinner folks.

I am for people being at the weight that makes them comfortable. If that's 20 or 30 pounds over my particular taste, that's their business and not mine.

Morbid obesity, on the other hand, is a mental as well as physical condition which should be treated.

I take it the men's shape appealed to you?

There are many factors that contribute to one being overweight. If there could be one aspect of the American diet we could all change and benefit, it would be to treat "grains"...all of them like a condiment. The human diet was never meant to consume so many grains. In fact grains should be at the top of the food pyramid followed second by fat! That's right, the body needs a certain amount of fat to keep off excessive weight.

An ideal diet would include meat, fish, poultry, or veg protein (soy)....followed by vegetables for carbs (limiting starchy ones like corn, and sugary ones like carrots) some fruit a *tiny* bit of brown rice..or sprouted bread, like manna bread for a side dish or even desert. Oats are ok as well...

The problem is when you eat out, on the run, most menus contain a grain. I stayed at a La Quinta Inn recently, and the free breakfast was 100 things you can do with bread!

On the other hand, wheat bran truly helps lower cholesterol by essentially "sweeping" it out of your system. There aren't many, if any, other foods that can do that.

The best predicator of heart disease is insulin, not cholestrol or even high blood pressure. If you take a blood test and find your triglycerides high (more that 150) and your HDL cholesterol low (below 35)...this means you are producing too much insulin.

By all means if you have high cholesterol, lower it... if you have to by eating wheat bran (ok in small portions) and oats... Sprouted grains is the best way to go.

In a way, you're right, Dax. But I was more turned off by the way they were dressed. It looked as if they were wearing the same clothes they'd worn in high school.

I work with some morbidly obese people. Actually, I don't know if they've been diagnosed as such but one woman is about 4'10' tall and looks as if she weighs around 200 lbs. and one is 5"4' and looks as if she weighs over 200 lbs. The shortest one is a very pretty woman who always dresses beautifully; the second is older, also an attractive woman, who also dresses well. The third is close to 6" tall and at least 300 lbs and doesn't seem to care how she looks.

And it's all over--local malls, movie theaters, resteraunts. I really don't care how heavy someone is but I can be turned off by the way people often dress. I know, I know! I probably have more unrecognized prejudices. But I recognize this one and am working on it.

Phooey! I am a product of my culture and its standards of sexual attractiveness and make no excuses for mentally evaluating the opposite sex based on that standard. When the "norm" shifts dramatically toward what our culture says is morbidly obese, without the standards of attractiveness shifting along with it, an increasing proportion of our populace appears sexually disgusting. Don't give me that "Reubens" excuse. We aren't talking about some baby fat and 4-months-pregnant tummies. We talking about people so fat that they huff and puff to climb an escalator! People that should be required to buy three seats on an airplane (or two on the aisle, but then the food cart couldn't get by them). Their numbers are definitely on the increase.

If you know that your body is ugly, why dress to show it off? I can understand not being able to control your weight, but dressing in short shorts smacks of just saying "up yours".

If this is a prejudice, I recognize it. But I'm not going to work on it.

Very well said!

By all means. Let's all show our disgust for fat people.

Who's first? Oh, someone already was.

Okay, who's second?

Whatever goes around, comes around... sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but never fails.

Ooo, ooo, ooo, can I chime in?

Those morbidly obese people, the ones that take up three or four airplane or theater seats? The ones who could house a family of six in their pants? The ones who become bed-bound from obesity, yet still cry out feebly from their sweaty, crusty, mounds of lard for more doughnuts?

Well, yeah, they're pretty gross-looking to me too, but they are also ill. They are addicted to food in the same way that junkies are addicted to heroin and alcoholics are addicted to booze. For the ultra-obese, eating releases endorphins and natural opiates with an addicting character that cause a desire to keep eating long after hunger is relieved, just to keep those inner chemicals flowing for a natural "high". It's a natural addiction, partially physical and partially mental, and as anyone can see, the result can be devastating. The craving for food can be so overpowering that it causes gross deformations of the body and truly morbid obesity.

Those gross, disgusting, rolypoly, porky fat people we all agree are yucky-looking are truly unhappy people. They know how they look. Some of them try to compensate with "Fat Pride" and "Big Mama" attitudes, or jovial Santa Claus personas, but inside, they know how they're perceived and they're desperately unhappy.

It's possible to curb the eating that comes from this physical/mental addiction to food, just as it is possible for addicts to stop using cocaine or heroin, or drunks to stop drinking, but it's enormously difficult, and relapses ofter great weight loss are common.

The unhappiness and lack of control fat people feel has led to a huge jump in voluntary weight loss surgery. People who are 100 pounds or more overweight can opt for surgery that either places a band around their stomach to limit its volume, or more drastically to cut away most of their stomachs leaving a tiny capacity and hooking it up directly to the intestines. This surgery is known to lead to dramatic weight loss, even though it can have unappealing side effects -- malnutrition from non-absorption of nutrients, constant nausea and vomiting because stomach volume is too small, and finally... after weight loss, huge flaps of skin that hang down because it has lost its elasticity, which usually demands full-body plastic surgery to remove, more dangerous than the original gastric surgery.

Even after gastric surgery, an obese person who becomes slender can have such a strong physical and mental craving and addiction for food that he or she can, over time, stretch out their new tiny stomachs through repeated gorging until it is large again, and gain back significant weight, and become morbidly obese once more.

Morbidly obese people can't find attractive clothese or shoes easily, get terrible arthritis at a young age because their weight wears out their joints, obviously are at a huge risk for arterial and heart disease, stroke, diabetes-relates illness leading to limb loss and perhaps blindness, and even respiratory disease because they can't inhale and exhale efficiently because of all the fat. They are subject to fungal and yeast infections in their body creases, they suffer from heavy depression, they know people whisper and laugh about them, their work and leisure activities are limited, it's difficult if not impossible to find love, and food is their only friend, which makes things worse.



I'll parse this as a true statement. However, it shows a certain blindness about the phenomenon itself -- the truly dangerous, self-destructive, addictive behavior that leads to this disgusting physical appearance. People who take meth get sores on their faces and bad teeth -- they look disgusting too, but you'd be quick to acknowledge they have a serious addiction problem.

Anorexic people look sexually disgusting to me too. They don't number as many as obese people, but their eating behavior (based on brain chemistry and mental illness also) is just as self-destructive, and damages their appearance just as much, and has terrible health consequences as well. We all acknowledge that anorexics are sick people, but we don't make jokes about them like we do about "fatties". Why?

There's no question that feeling sexual attraction for healthy bodies is a good thing for the species. Feeling revulsion for sick bodies is certainly okay too, but as far as the free and easy expression of that revulsion towards people who are plainly unhappy and unable to help themselves?

Gotta think about that.

In the meantime, while thinking about that... what is the deal with people who have MOLES on their faces? My GOD, what freaks, huh? Why don't they lock those people UP? Puke-a-rama!!!

Actually those experiencing poverty or have a real low budget for food, have poorer nutritional choices when purchasing food. They can't afford expensive fresh veggies and fruits...fine cuts of low fat meats and fresh salmon. They are stuck with bread, everything bread... They eat this stuff, their insulin rises and they have little chance of breaking this cycle. They become fat and later diabetic!

Have you eaten at an affordable place such as Denny's? Other than a iceberg lettuce salad drowned in preservatives, you will not have another fresh veg option..except for a baked potato offered after 5:00!

She was so thin when she turned sideways she disappeared

She was so thin, she passed a skeleton and yelled "Hey fatso!"

She was so thin, her dress size was minus 12.

She was so thin, when she forgot her key, she slid herself under the door.

She was so thin, she played her ribs with mallots and won a marimba contest.

She was so thin, when she stepped on a pay scale her coin came back.


I could go on, but I am merciful.

She was so thin when she turned sideways and stuck out her tongue she looked like a zipper.

She was so thin she had to jump around in the shower to get wet.

She was so thin she could look through a keyhole with both eyes.

Oh, yeah, right, sure. But you don't have any jokes about moles, do you?

I doubt it!!

How about anorexics with moles? You don't have the stuff.

I think the thrust of the original post in this thread was fat people choosing to show off their bodies. As I said in my earlier, rather blunt post": "If you know that your body is ugly, why dress to show it off? I can understand not being able to control your weight, but dressing in short shorts smacks of just saying "up yours"."

Having had--and still having--a tendency to be fat, I sympathize with fat people's difficulty in controlling their weight. Yes, there are chemical and psychological addictions involved. It is interesting that anorexia and morbid obesity, while they existed when I was first noticing females, were then very uncommon. I would even say extremely rare. Why the change? Are there more people today that can only afford unhealthy food? I doubt it. Are there more people with mental problems that result in compulsive eating? I doubt it, but if so, why? Etc. There must have been some change that caused this shift.

I accept the presence of fat people as having a disorder. We tend to call everything "sick" today. Are the causes of Fat Sicknesses somehow contagious or caused by something we've done to our environment or a widespread free-floating anxiety reaction to our politics?

Maybe it is television and 'sex-sells' advertising. When an already fat person is constantly bombarded with perfect bodies, and they know their body could never even come close to the ideal, do they just say, "To Hell with it, I give up. Pass the doughnuts."? (I know, correlation does not mean causation, but the explosion of TV viewing hours and exclusion of even pleasingly plump actors seems to parallel the rise in obesity.)

Whatever the causes of this plague, how do we stop it without treading on the rights of the afflicted?

So. Back to the thrust of the original post. Why do morbidly obese people often dress the way they do rather than take the Phantom of the Opera approach and dress so as to not offend?

Why is anyone else's business how they dress? They are free just like you are. If they are confident enough to wear whatever it is they are wearing then let them, you don't have to look.

You are right it is a sickness where food is their drug of choice so to speak. But just like smoking, meth, acid all were free enough to take that first hit (bite) and it is a problem, so they have to deal with the consequences of that addiction.

There are a lot of people who think 'fat' isn't ugly, and I believe they have some 'mental' problem going on there to, when they don't realize that health is one of the largest problems America's facing.

Maybe I'm getting off point but my question is why is it of anyones concern how someone else fat or not is dressing?

Kelly makes a very valid point. How that heck is it our business to declare those outfits unfit for fat people? Who the heck are WE?

Aside from obese bodies in scanty clothing there are many, many, MANY other physical traits that we find unappealing, aren't there...?

Why do young men wear mullets? Why do mostly-bald men wear comb-overs? Why do older women dye their hair that strange yellow color that isn't blonde but actually yellow? Why do Goths wear white face makeup? Why do people with acne dare to leave the house? Why are pregnant women allowed to show their pregnant bellies on the street? How come people with missing or crooked teeth have the nerve to smile or open their mouths in a public setting? Why do people with scratchy voices have to talk in public? Why do people with disabilities leave the house and "show off" their handicaps as though they weren't ashamed of not being able to walk, or of missing an arm, or being blind, or having burn scars all over their faces, or not being able to hear, or speak like the rest of us? What about those people with great big feet who wear sandals...? Yuck-o! Cauliflower ears. Banana noses. Sloping foreheads. Receding chins. Buck teeth. Gold teeth. Dentures. And what about impetigo? Albinism? Jaundice? Strawberry birthmarks forever!

And, of course, the quintessential hairy moles.

...and a million more things that are, in general, widely considered to be sexually unattractive, and yet people don't feel entitled (much) to post diatribes about how those ugly imbeciles have so much nerve to walk around showing themselves off right in front of us and expect us all not to puke our guts out.

A whole lotta people are ugly. Fugg-ugly. Why do we feel smug enough to bitch and moan about fat people making us uncomfortable in their skimpy shorts and tight shirts when the field is so overcrowded with Uggos? There are far more Ugly People than Beautiful People in the world, and the chance are very very good that if you aren't currently employed as a super-model already (are you?) you might fall into the former category rather than the latter.



I don't know. Maybe they have a hard time finding casual clothes in the proper size. Or maybe they just want to be happy and left alone.... much like yourself. If they are walking in couples I suppose they've found some appreciation for who they are, and someone who doesn't back away hastily in revulsion, crossing themselves and gagging. Imagine that.

I gave you a long list of potentially sexually unappetizing examples earlier in this post. Which of those would you feel comfortable chiding about appearing as they do publicly, besides fat people? The zit-faces? The comb-overs? The big feet in sandals? Which ones are you comfortable criticizing for revealing their "deformity" or imperfection without shame in public? Any? If none, why so eager to point a finger of shame at under-dressed fatties?

This thread is not only about fat people who dress too scantily.... it's about the people who don't have a problem saying so.... when there's so much else in the world that's unappetizing that they wouldn't feel "right" about publicly complaining about.

Not that it's a *bad* thing. Just revelatory. What you are willing to say about others in public says something about you.

Now then, back to the fatsos.... There are other cultures besides white-bread Anglo-Americans living here, and a number of them value fleshiness rather than shiver at it. There are some cultures in which insulting jokes are made about thin people... that thin males are weak and impotent, that thin females are ugly, sexless, and likely to be barren. These would be Southern European, Asian, Hispanic, and some Middle Eastern cultures. Lots of these cultures cultivate a norm in which appearance of being a fleshy 30 or more pounds "overweight" is extremely "pretty" and "desirable" for a young lady a-courting, and if her wide hips jiggle when she walks, a roll of fat drapes her waist, and (what was that thing about the navel...?) if her tummy is pouchy and "exaggerates" her navel, she will have men following her like a parade down the street and she will have a broad confident smile as she revels in her appreciated sexuality. The United States has loads of immigrants from such areas, particularly Hispanic, and the culture invasion and the intermingling and intermarriages of cultures has, perhaps, relaxed some of those cultural standards of "beauty" in some areas.

Just because the ad companies are pushing the same old tired anorexic standard doesn't mean there isn't a street culture. Heroin chic isn't the standard of beauty *everywhere*.

I spent some time talking about "morbid obesity" in my earlier post. I probably was off the mark. In the opening post, the type of fat being talked about is not morbid.... it's just the very look of rotundness that the poster found revolting, and the very idea that the roly-poly people weren't ashamed of their bodies, but actually wore shorts and clingy shirts in public instead of hiding in closets at home weeping. One can be 20, 30, or 40 pounds overweight and still remain healthy... to a point. 40 is pushing it, but it isn't impossible to be healthy at 40 pounds overweight.

The relative attraction or revulsion one feels to a healthy body that is 25 pounds over the "norm" is entirely one's own business.... but it's another thing to go out of one's way to make people of that size in good health try to feel ashamed of themselves simply because that isn't our cup of tea.

Just because I like chocolate doesn't mean I spend a lot of time bad-mouthing vanilla, if you catch my drift.

BB, the thrust of the original post was NOT about the morbidly obese, but about regular everyday women and men Liz recognized as "fat" and doesn't approve of their haberdashery!

Liz wrote:

AND:



MOST people in any sample of the American population are NOT morbidly fat. So the gist of this thread is Liz's dislike for looking at overweight people in clothing that reveals too much skin.

Isn't this relative? I can claim with a great deal of confidence that I am in better looking shape than you, since you wrote:



So how do you look in a bathing suit? Maybe I only want to look at fitness models when I visit the beach...OR what type of profile do you strike in jeans and a polo shirt? Gut hanging out just a little? Turns me off!

I was hoping this thread would address how the average overweight, fat person can address their health issues and problems associated with being overweight. Since this topic is limited to only discussing fat people and how pitiful they look in certain clothing, then I am not interested in further discourse with those that want to just throwout examples of fat people!

The writer Fran Liebowitz said that when one is in public, it means just that. In public. You agree, when you appear in public, to put up with a great many things that annoy you. Screaming children not your own; cigar smoke; raucus voices; unwashed panhandlers buttonholing you for money; the woman in front of you in the supermarket line who didn't know she was going grocery shopping that day, and so waits to start making out her check until her entire order had been totalled and bagged, unhelpful teens behind counters, one-handed cell phone drivers, Arby's, etc.

It's stuff we run into on a daily basis. It's public.

I wish I had some haberdashery. I always thought it would be so classy.

I don't see how poor people have to eat poorly. Being poor means not having the money for $5+ fast food meals and $20+ pizza deliveries or oceans of soft drinks. Being poor means a lot of canned veggies for less than a dollar each and hamburger meat. Lean is affordable even if your budget is too. It doesn't cost more to strain out the fat either. Chicken is the cheap meat and a good choice low in bad fat. Tap water, less than a 2 liter of Jolt.

Listening to a rather large woman talk to her shopping partner about which ice cream she was going to get at the grocery store tonight got me thinking about this a bit more.


If this was completely true, then a very large portion of this country are suffering from this "affliction". This country is a fat country, there's no doubt about it. It's pounded into us in the media and we're reminded of it every time we step out the front door but I don't think it really has that much to do with the fact that we're addicted to food. I think it more revolves around us being a rather lazy and inactive nation that eats what's convenient instead of what's healthy.

I moved up to NH about three years ago going from painting houses to sitting in front of a computer all day. I put on about 15 pounds in the last three years and I blame it on not being nearly active enough along with a higher than average beer intake. I'd definitely like to be more active but my motivation has been rather lacking. I also try and shop relatively healthy but there's always those impulse buy's that don't play nice with the waste line. All in all, I'm pretty sure if I stopped drinking beer for a month I'd lose 20 pounds.

I also blame much of our laziness on the Internet. We didn't have the epidemic proportion of large people in this country until the Internet went mainstream. Think about it.

OK. I'll bow to the majority opinion and keep my beak shut.

By the way, not that it matters, I was talking about the morbidly obese. Not the 50 lbs overweight, but the 350 pound 5'5 ers.

I've admitted my prejudice and I have thought about it since I wrote the OP. I think I know why I have that prejudice, but I'm not sure.

I've been small most of my life. I'm not quite 5'4" and now weight 122 lbs. When I was in high school, I weighed 98 lbs. When I was married, I weighed 102 lbs. I have small bones and for years wore a 5-5 1/2 shoe. I now wear a size 6.

I got a lot of perks being small. I was able to join the Senior Marching Band in high school when I was a freshman because it only had one other drummer--and I could fit into the only available uniform. I took over the lead in Once Upon a Mattress because I could fit into the existing costumes. I could be a teen-ager in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Laura in The Glass Menagerie. I was chosen to study ballet for an audition with the ABT because of my size.

So I was centered on size from an early age.

My Mother was short--4'11"--with small bones. But, within my memory, she was always heavy. Not only was she embarrassed by it; but my Father was, also. And I could feel the embarrassment in both of them.

When I first went on my tremor medication, I also started to eat correctly--I mean really correctly--not a diet--and to exercize regularly. I started to lose weight and went back down to 102 lbs. within a year.

Believe me, 102 lbs. on an older woman is ugly--to me. You look like a stick person.

Appearance was stressed in our family--the Colonel's family. My Mother was always after me to get my hair done and wear make-up while I only did that (and still do) for 'special occasions.'

Perhaps these are all reasons for my prejudice. I'm not sure, but I think they make up the bulk of my reasons.

I'm not 'revolted' or 'disgusted' by seeing over-weight young people in too-tight clothing, but I am concerned. We do live in a heavy society when we don't have to. I'm concerned when I see over-weight children, but then, my daughter was always at the upper range for height and the lower range for weight. Now she's at the median for both.

It must be my age and background.

And the ABC Nightly News just confirmed my theory on how lazy we are. A study of one thousand random kidse showed that kids 5 years ago were averaging 3 hours of activity a day. Today, they average 49 minutes.

A lazy bunch we are.

So, what are you doing right now?

Me? Well, I, uh, I'm internetting and it's like really important cause teh internets needs me.