Re: Foofie
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Foofie, you are correct about "heightism." I've known a number of men who felt they were unattractive because they were short.
BBB
Tall men, maybe...
I worked with a number of corporate middle executive males who I would describe as having a Napoleon Syndrome. Bullies are a more apt description. I also worked with a number of female middle executives. Many of them were trying to out-man the men, regardless of height. I would agree that tall men tend to have more positions of executive washroom keys than anyone else.
Must be something in my subconscious at work: No woman that I ever seriously dated could be described as "underweight." I recall one young lady, out in California, telling me she once dated a man from a foreign country, who was fond of telling her how beautiful and fat she was. I never really set out looking for the large size; it just seemed to happen that way.
Couldn't edit my last post to add...
Interjecting the personal, as I tend to do, Diane took me to UNM today for the mishuga eye examo, with drops, and then we went to lunch at the Model Cafe. I, facing the kitchen instead of the bright day, had the homemade pot pie special, she had our usual ham and sweet red pepper and brie on french baguette.... but on the way there, with my superduper dark plastic glasses, I couldn't tell where we were going, not completely unintelligible, but enough of a wash for me not to pay attention.. buncha buildings.
Is that analogous to what a newborn baby sees right away, without the word 'buildings', formative or not? Interesting past this immediate discussion. The usual baby's view may be clearer than mine today but less understood..
There are so many studies that are hogwash, as is their reporting. Cyphercat gave the link to a Pyychology Today artical that is typical hogwash. The magazine's name should be Pop Psychology Today. It is cotton candy with no depth and no scientific conclusions, just entertaining "What ifs," or, "They said."
It also can be a mistake for an individual to speak from personal experience unless the individual has extensive experience in studying the effects--and perceived effects--of beauty on society. A few personal experiences are no more valid than those flawed studies.
There are questions that come to mind regarding the age of the people taking part in the study and their experience in the workplace. I know that my opinion of beauty today is far different than it was in my 20's. I have a special interest in faces, whether in art or in real life. I love faces that are worn, full of character, full of pain or full of life. Most of them would not be considered beautiful, yet I find them to be exceptionally beautiful. Age, maturity, life history and many other factors, all have an important part to play in our perception of beauty.
I remember reading a 'study' years ago that was done about women who had just given birth. It's conclusion was that new mothers could identify their new babies by smell more easily than they could identify the smell of their husbands. Fascinating, but I've not read anything further during the following decades.
Who really knows for sure about beauty or its perception. Most people in the world appreciate a beautiful sunset or a range of mountains, flowers, tree leaves gracefully moving in the wind or the cuteness of babies with their big heads, human or animal. These are realities whether innate or not.
An aspect of the interet I very much appreciate is that you get to know a person through his or her writing long before you know what that person looks like, which brings up another question: My cousin's daughter is terribly overweight, but she is bright, very witty and funny, smart and full of life. Her voice is beautiful. One of her customers asked her out on a date without knowing what she looked like. She didn't tell him about her weight. When she opened the door, he took one look and started to stammer and mutter and she said, "If you don't want to go out, that's alright with me. BTW, she is very beautiful, but his first, (innate?) reaction was shock and rejection. Some of her relatives, upon hearing the story, said that it was unfair of her to not let the man know that she was tremendously overweight. Why? Why should she have to menion her size? I was furious when I heard about their reaction.
I don't have any answers, only the knowledge that a reaction to perceived beauty often overpowers one's more rational self, for something that is vapid and fleeting.
Hi Osso, it was a good lunch. Glad you trust my driving...
JPB, aside from this thread and with no implications to any posts on this thread or many others on a2k, it could be helpful to many of us if you would describe your criteria for study looking, roughly.
I'm not totally unfamiliar, I've been thanked as help on some papers and have been one of the authors on a few, but never primary, by far not. I was just a helper, however talkative. Can't explain what you could about how to look at studies (we pulled in statisticians, but I never met them, never took a course.) I have an ambient sense of smell re studies, nah, show me data.. but then, I don't know how to look at data with your eye.
I know analysis is a subject of years' study itself and don't want to make you write a tome.
What, I'm suggesting a separate thread on this sometime. Just a clue or two to some of us, not our most versed posters, but the rest of us.
Oh, wait, that's a serious imposition. Let's say I wonder if you have some off the cuff comments.
Miss Chloe Marshall, Miss Surrey and a finalist for Miss England, 2008:
Image courtesy of The Independent (UK); copyright, Hello Magazine.
She's a size 16--and she's now being attacked in the UK press for being an example of a self-inflicted victim of an eating disorder.
1) Diane is a good driver, or if not good, fast.
2) My drops-eyes are all better, a quick recovery, usually takes 'til the next morning - but thus I can focus on...
3) on our prize winner, people's opinions will vary. I think her head is small for her body, but don't know. But given that's her body and her bikini, she should enjoy herself. On whatever contest, I wonder re the whole thing. Did this woman beat out the usual?
same girl with a more normal looking head
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=554870&in_page_id=1879
A role model for ordinary women? No, Miss England finalist is fat, lazy and a poster girl for ill health
By MONICA GRENFELL
http://www.hellomagazine.ca/celebrities/2008/04/02/miss-england-size-16/
Miss England hopeful Chloe tells HELLO! why she loves her curves
Ill health?
Yeh, yeh, I can check the article and do understand the import of high-ish bmi if one is not muscled up.
Still.
All my favorite girls got back...
RH
Without having read the entire thread before replying, I'd have to say that the reason is that unless you have a thyroid problem, you have the ability to control your weight; unlike the color of your skin,hair,eyes,etc.
Kratos wrote:Without having read the entire thread before replying, I'd have to say that the reason is that unless you have a thyroid problem, you have the ability to control your weight; unlike the color of your skin,hair,eyes,etc.
Without having read the entire thread before replying, I'd have to say that the reason is that unless you have a thyroid problem, you have
some ability to control your weight; unlike the color of your skin,hair,eyes,etc.
A lot of the controlling factors of metabolism are coded in genetics. There is a good argument that our weight problem has to do mostly with eating the wrong things for our body because the foods don't match what our bodies over time have been designed to operate on. A genetics and our current diet don't match. Diet is a cultural issue for the most part, not an individual issue. We eat what we learn to eat, what everybody else is eating, eating the wrong things in this environment is not a personal failure.
My point is that weight is a much more complicated issue than most people, even many doctors, realize.
I once read an article - it might have been utter bulldust - but it went along the following lines:
The natural instinct of all species is the survival of its own type, thus the weak, infirm or deformed are left to die out so that any hereditary faults will not be passed on to succeeding generations. Only the strongest, fittest and most attractive males get to mate with the females and only the strongest and fittest females will survive the birthing and rearing of the young. All species, that is, except civilised humans. We protect our weaker members of society and allow, yes even encourage them to mate and produce children. We do everything possible to save women in childbirth, to save and nurture children born with genetic defects and to assist males with things like low sperm count, erectile problems, etc, etc.
(I am not saying this is a bad thing, nor that I disagree with it, just that this is what we do.)
So, in fact, we actively reverse the precepts of natural selection.
Whereas once males who were less than "the best" in any given group would have found themselves ejected from the herd and left to find the companionship of others like themselves, they now remain in society and greatly outnumber the others.
The article suggested that one of the attributes of the "best" or "prime" stock would be a large penis, easily identified (and resented) by other males whenever they may visit a public convenience.
Instinctively, a really thin female would be of little use to a "prime" male - certainly he would attain pleasure and satisfaction from having sex with her, but as a progenitor, he would be guided away from her likely inability to survive childbirth, produce healthy offspring or to survive a bad winter or famine. His instincts would lead him to be more attracted to a female with the ability to store fat in case of a time of need, etc.
Conversely, men with small penises carry their instinctive resentment of prime males on towards such females, who they see as some kind of threat to their place in society. Also, on a physical plane, they feel they could never satisfy a large woman with a small penis and thus seek out thin women, the thinner the better.
As there are so many more men like this, our culture has evolved into one where fatter women are shunned and thin women are glorified.
Like I said, it might all be rubbish, but I wonder.......
Please note: Words such as "best" and "prime" are my own and used for emphasis only. I do not mean to imply that a well hung man is better than a less well endowed one. (It's not what ya got, it's what ya do with it, right?)
lezzles wrote:
Conversely, men with small penises carry their instinctive resentment of prime males on towards such females, who they see as some kind of threat to their place in society. Also, on a physical plane, they feel they could never satisfy a large woman with a small penis and thus seek out thin women, the thinner the better.
As there are so many more men like this, our culture has evolved into one where fatter women are shunned and thin women are glorified.
Like I said, it might all be rubbish, but I wonder.......
Interesting stuff. Certainly technical society explains a lot, it has allowed women who otherwise could not produce healthy offspring to do so, not only by use of the science of medicine during child birth but also because the children face much less stress now thus even the weaker children survive.
Still, why do so many men enjoy sleeping with women who are sharp and hard to the point of being starved? The fashion industry explains some of this, but not all. Your explanation is as good as any other I've heard.
Kratos wrote:Without having read the entire thread before replying, I'd have to say that the reason is that unless you have a thyroid problem, you have the ability to control your weight; unlike the color of your skin,hair,eyes,etc.
Not always true. Age, physical injuries and other diseases often interfere with the effort to control weight through exercise, metabolism and diet. Health care access and the ability to pay for it also contributes to the ability to fight back against the interference of age, physical injuries and other diseases that make it harder to control weight.
It becomes a viscious circle.
Weight is a complicated issue. My own weight is presently fine, in my own opinion, though just over border into overweight re bmi, but for now, it's dandy. I've been up there. I follow out of interest a lot of med sites, weight only being one interest, and I can only laugh shortly at a lot of comments about people's weight.
People who knock fatties have, to me, flaccid brains. Arrogance reigns, or seems to.
Adding, one of the reasons I am for slow, even very slow weight loss, probably slower than weight watchers.. aside from metabolic reasons, is that people need to equilibrate with new body presence. Not a short time thing. I'm all for people losing slowly over years, maybe even years and years.
I just want to add my agreement to everyone who has pointed out that weight control is not the easy-peasy thing people often think it is...I just finished a class on the physiological mechanisms behind it all--appetite, fat storage, the many hormones that you might overproduce, or underproduce, that fiddle with all of it--and how it all conspires to make it very,
very difficult to weigh anything other than what your body is set on weighing.
Personally, I had
no idea how many factors there are at play. I would be very hesitant to place much blame on anyone for being overweight, now that I know more about it. (I will still happily place blame on people feeding their two-year-olds sodas and McDonald's french fries, but that's different!
)
