Tad
Dimensions' loiterer
Does anyone else find that how fat they consider someone to be has almost as much to do with context as it does with actual physical size?
For example, I was at a beach this past weekend, and as usual I was noting the other plump or chubby people on the beach (see my thread on fat fascination, on the weight board, for why this does not mean that Im a filthy old man). One lad in his early to mid teens came down to the water, and my immediate reaction was wow, hes pretty fat. While gathering stones from underwater to reinforce the sand castles under construction I periodically noticed him, that he had definite man boobs, that his belly jiggled a bit when he jogged out of the water, etc. Some time later, while walking down the beach to investigate a rocky point, it suddenly hit me: he was roughly the same size that I was. But I would not normally think of myself as being of the wow, hes pretty fat size. My first thought was that perhaps I was delusional, not recognizing how fat I actually am. Then I realized that, while me being delusional is a possibility, probably a larger factor is that Im closer to 40, this lad closer to 14. There are quite a few obese 40 year olds around, but not as many obese 14 year olds. So against his age group, he was fatter, as in he might be in the fattest 5% of his age range, while I might be in the fattest 10% of my age range, or some numbers like that.
Another example. The same day on the beach, when we arrived I noticed quite a few plump women, both teens and adults, wearing bikinis or other types of two piece suits that show midriff. Now Ive long campaigned to get my wife to wear such a suit, which she insists would not be appropriate. It happens that our son had worn his suit in the car on the drive to the beach, so my wife had watched him as he headed to the water while Id changed into my swimsuit. It was lunch time and she was not in a big rush to get wet, so we had lunch before she got changed. I was slowly working up my nerve to point out the number of well curved women in two piece suits, but had not done so yet when she went to get changed.
I happened to be looking towards the change room when she was coming back. She was clearly bigger than the chubby women Id been noticing in the two piece suits. How could I have thought that she was similar in size to them?
As BBW go she really is not all that big, in fact for tops she is pretty much too small to shop in plus sizes stores anymore (she is a size or two larger in the hip than in the upper body). She is also down a size or two from her largest, so for the most part I think of her as being fairly small. That is, small for a BBW.
On the other hand, when I see someone in a bikini, I guess my conditioning still leads me to expect someone who is about size 4. So if they are a size 10, it is noticeable that they have some softness, and if they are a size 14 then the fact that they have a belly bulging out between top and bottom, full posterior revealed below the bottoms, and so on, really stands out. In other words, Ill see these women as being fat. That is, fat for a thin women.
But in comparing fat for a thin woman and thin for a BBW, obviously I dont have well calibrated eyeballs. So clearly I have different standards for thinking a person is fat, depending on age, what they are doing, what they are wearing, and who knows what else.
Which kind of shocks me. I mean, Ive been against size discrimination pretty much my whole life. I remember back in first grade really being mad at one girl in my classI dont remember why anymore, but I really wanted to get back at her. I remember walking home from school, and I came up with a rhyme tying her name to being fat, and yes she was slightly chubby and probably the biggest girl in the class. And ever so clearly I can remember thinking No, no making fun of people for being fat. (and after that I decided not to do anything mean to her, but that is a philosophical journey for a different post and board I suppose). Im pretty sure Ive always held to this position. And yet, I find all these years later that I stil. make judgments about how fat a person should be, and see some people as maybe fatter than they are or thinner than they are because of it. It makes me wonder about the depth of cultural programming, and how much chance there really is of overcoming size biases.
-Ed
For example, I was at a beach this past weekend, and as usual I was noting the other plump or chubby people on the beach (see my thread on fat fascination, on the weight board, for why this does not mean that Im a filthy old man). One lad in his early to mid teens came down to the water, and my immediate reaction was wow, hes pretty fat. While gathering stones from underwater to reinforce the sand castles under construction I periodically noticed him, that he had definite man boobs, that his belly jiggled a bit when he jogged out of the water, etc. Some time later, while walking down the beach to investigate a rocky point, it suddenly hit me: he was roughly the same size that I was. But I would not normally think of myself as being of the wow, hes pretty fat size. My first thought was that perhaps I was delusional, not recognizing how fat I actually am. Then I realized that, while me being delusional is a possibility, probably a larger factor is that Im closer to 40, this lad closer to 14. There are quite a few obese 40 year olds around, but not as many obese 14 year olds. So against his age group, he was fatter, as in he might be in the fattest 5% of his age range, while I might be in the fattest 10% of my age range, or some numbers like that.
Another example. The same day on the beach, when we arrived I noticed quite a few plump women, both teens and adults, wearing bikinis or other types of two piece suits that show midriff. Now Ive long campaigned to get my wife to wear such a suit, which she insists would not be appropriate. It happens that our son had worn his suit in the car on the drive to the beach, so my wife had watched him as he headed to the water while Id changed into my swimsuit. It was lunch time and she was not in a big rush to get wet, so we had lunch before she got changed. I was slowly working up my nerve to point out the number of well curved women in two piece suits, but had not done so yet when she went to get changed.
I happened to be looking towards the change room when she was coming back. She was clearly bigger than the chubby women Id been noticing in the two piece suits. How could I have thought that she was similar in size to them?
As BBW go she really is not all that big, in fact for tops she is pretty much too small to shop in plus sizes stores anymore (she is a size or two larger in the hip than in the upper body). She is also down a size or two from her largest, so for the most part I think of her as being fairly small. That is, small for a BBW.
On the other hand, when I see someone in a bikini, I guess my conditioning still leads me to expect someone who is about size 4. So if they are a size 10, it is noticeable that they have some softness, and if they are a size 14 then the fact that they have a belly bulging out between top and bottom, full posterior revealed below the bottoms, and so on, really stands out. In other words, Ill see these women as being fat. That is, fat for a thin women.
But in comparing fat for a thin woman and thin for a BBW, obviously I dont have well calibrated eyeballs. So clearly I have different standards for thinking a person is fat, depending on age, what they are doing, what they are wearing, and who knows what else.
Which kind of shocks me. I mean, Ive been against size discrimination pretty much my whole life. I remember back in first grade really being mad at one girl in my classI dont remember why anymore, but I really wanted to get back at her. I remember walking home from school, and I came up with a rhyme tying her name to being fat, and yes she was slightly chubby and probably the biggest girl in the class. And ever so clearly I can remember thinking No, no making fun of people for being fat. (and after that I decided not to do anything mean to her, but that is a philosophical journey for a different post and board I suppose). Im pretty sure Ive always held to this position. And yet, I find all these years later that I stil. make judgments about how fat a person should be, and see some people as maybe fatter than they are or thinner than they are because of it. It makes me wonder about the depth of cultural programming, and how much chance there really is of overcoming size biases.
-Ed
