Guys with hang ups on overweight girls.

[livinginsbi]

An interesting convo I had with a co worker who is from India...

 

as India is becoming more wealthy, there has been a sharp increase in diabetes, heart disease and obesity....

 

As people gain in wealth.. they gain in weight... and yes that is a generalized statement. But when people become more financially secure they... go out to eat more, fix meals higher in carbs and fat (because those are quick and easy foods, and if you are gaining in wealth, you're probably working hard to do so) and less in protein and fiber, they lead a more sedentary lifestyle.

 

could this be what is happening to India?

 

Then when people gain so much wealth... then they can afford the personal chefs and private trainers and plastic surgery...etc

[viajera]

We don't all have to be the same, but we should strive to be healthy. I'm no athlete, but I eat right and get exercise and work to maintain a healthy life.

 

Sure, I'll grant you that (you could make an argument that no one has the right to tell others what they 'should' do, but I won't go there here).

 

But my whole point is that some people do "eat right, get exercise, and work to maintain a healthy life", and are still classified by the BMI as overweight or obese.

 

My whole point is that weight alone is not an indicator of health. You can be healthy at 200 lbs or sick at 110.

[servedcold]

yeah, and now the people who have the healthy bodies now look like the 'wealthy ones' because they have the time to work out, eat healthy foods, etc....

 

This brings up another interesting point, as the mass trend has been towards greater obesity, the trend in the top categories has been towards lesser and lesser body fat due to exercise science and technology, medicine etc.

 

We may be in a healthy body gap where the top % is ever harder to attain simultaneously with the explosion of the "large" majority. Are we headed towards a culture of a slowly growing minority of "body beautiful haves" and a more rapidly growing majority of "body beautiful have nots?"

 

Is there a federal program to address this disparity similar to the violent taxing ways the government addresses income disparity? Imagine receiving a letter from the Internal Beauty Council demanding that you gain a certain amount of weight so that you look less better than your neighbor!

 

Seems no matter what we do, history favors a progression towards some type of aristocracy, whether based on wealth, beauty, what have you.

[viajera]

But see my links above. Hereditariness of body size is 77% genetically controlled, therefore 23% or less environmentally. Culture has an effect, but it's small.

 

Furthermore, given the alteration into the BMI standards in 1998, you cannot compare BMI data over time. There is little, if any, solid peer-reviewed data demonstrating that people have gotten "more fat" over time - it's mostly anecdotal. You hear something often enough and you begin to believe it's true.

[viajera]

I agree that genes favor storing some fat, but not that genes favor obesity, else the genetic foundations of attraction would be biased towards fatness more than they are. All the genetic foundations of attraction I can think of are based on healthy bodies, not overly fat ones: facial feature sharpness and symmetry, waist/hip ratio, skin tone, muscular tone, etc.

 

It is true that the cultural foundations of physical attraction have slid up and down in trends, voluptousness used to be more highly regarded, but that was more of a class distinction where the extra weight signalled wealth enough to spend time in a leisurely fashion as opposed to harsh factory work.

 

There are so many problems with Evo-Psych arguments like this (genetic basis of attraction) that I could write a book on it. Suffice it to say it's a field of science that often does not follow the scientific method, e.g., studies are often not repeatable, and usually rely on correlation rather than investigating actual causes.

 

Besides, what does facial symmetry or waist/hip ratio have to do with being overweight or not? Overweight people still maintain the same bone structure (therefore symmetry or lack thereof), and overweight women typically maintain the same waist/hip ratio, just at a slightly larger scale. Why do you think most good belly dancers are overweight? They're maintaining that optimal waist/hip ratio.

[Portage]

I feel like a cheesburger and let's upsize the Vanilla milkshake please...

[diabolik]

Was there really? Demonstrate it! Let's see the data! You're talking a lot of hot air but not giving any facts.

I did provide data on the "huge increase in the proportion of overweight and obese people". Here it is again (click on the link):

The index calculation itself was not changed, just the levels at which overweight and obesity were defined. So charts that track changes in BMI over the years remain valid. link removed The inescapable conclusion, despite your Houdini-like efforts, is that we are getting fatter.

Do you still deny that we have gotten fatter?

 

Genes needn't have evolved recently to "favor obesity". Think about it. Hominids evolved on the plains in Africa as hunters/gatherers. Food was very unpredictable - you might catch a wildebeest one day and have a feast, then spend weeks in hunger before you catch another one. How do bodies deal with unpredictable food supplies? Ding ding ding ding - by adding fat reserves to draw upon during times of hunger!

First, thank you for making my argument for me. Yes, of course our ancestors have evolved to store fat when food is scarce. And today food is no longer scarce nor unobtainable. But when one continues to eat like they caught the proverbial ‘wildebeest’ every day, the results are quite predictable.

 

So what has changed is NOT our genes, but our food supply, among other things, and servedcold mentions some of these in his post. Yet in the absence of genetic changes, we have become much fatter. How do you explain that?

 

Nice selective cut-and-pasting there!

My point was to show that the study you referenced arguing that obesity was 77% genetic was hardly conclusive.

 

What exactly are you not understanding here? Let me spell it out in very simple terms for you:

 

In 1997, a person who stood 5'4" and weighed 150 pounds (BMI=25.7) was considered normal. The same person in 1998 was considered overweight. There were approximately 30 million people like this. Therefore, in 1998 - even if no one in the entire country gained a single ounce - there were 30 million more overweight people than in 1997.

Oh, I understand perfectly. My point is that the BMI calculation itself was not changed in 1998. So data that tracks the BMI over time is still valid. Yet you continue to deny that:

Furthermore, given the alteration into the BMI standards in 1998, you cannot compare BMI data over time.

^^^ This is simply NOT true.

 

And the US merely changed the BMI cutoff for “overweight” to match the rest of the world.

[servedcold]

But see my links above. Hereditariness of body size is 77% genetically controlled, therefore 23% or less environmentally. Culture has an effect, but it's small.

 

Furthermore, given the alteration into the BMI standards in 1998, you cannot compare BMI data over time. There is little, if any, solid peer-reviewed data demonstrating that people have gotten "more fat" over time - it's mostly anecdotal. You hear something often enough and you begin to believe it's true.

 

Medicine, like any other business, has a vested interest in greeding and fearing customers into continuing to purchase its wares, to think otherwise is naive, so no, like you, as previously posted, I question the usefulness of BMI in a large, not small, percentage of the population. Would love to delve into the lobbying behind "research" that scares people into thinking they are fat and dying, but don't have the inclination to do so.

 

However, if genetics is 77% controlling of baseline body size, why has height in both men and women increased much more rapidly than simple genetics could accommodate over the last 200 years? Why has muscle mass in average Asians exposed to more protein laden diets increased significantly during a genetically insignificant timeframe, etc.?

 

Disagree completely with your statement that culture/environment has a relatively small effect on potential size, genetics may govern the peak potential, not the baseline. If what you contend were the case, one could feed one identical twin 3000 calories a day and the other 1500, and assuming the same exercise level, they would be within 23% of the same size after a couple of years, and that's ludicrous. It could turn out that way, but would be an outlier. Or, you could have both twins on identical diets while one twin did significant resistance training three times a week while the other played x-box. After two years, twin A should have no more than 23% more muscle mass than twin B, again, not gonna happen.

 

See the movie Gattaca for an interesting exploration of this very question.

[servedcold]

Suffice it to say it's a field of science that often does not follow the scientific method, e.g., studies are often not repeatable, and usually rely on correlation rather than investigating actual causes.

 

As could be said of any social science, especially in the nascence of a particular field of study such as human attraction. Sure, the methodology is questionable, but the results comport with reality. By and large, people don't select obese partners with anywhere near the same frequency that they select healthy partners, this is a plain fact. Obese people, male and female, are much more likely to be unmarried and not bear offspring.

 

Besides, what does facial symmetry or waist/hip ratio have to do with being overweight or not? Overweight people still maintain the same bone structure (therefore symmetry or lack thereof), and overweight women typically maintain the same waist/hip ratio, just at a slightly larger scale. Why do you think most good belly dancers are overweight? They're maintaining that optimal waist/hip ratio.

 

The answer is obvious, the secondary sexual features/mating cues are hidden under fat. It is more difficult to see them, thus be stimulated by them. I disagree that obese women (or men) generally maintain the same hip/waist ratio, most of the thousands of obese people I see in my suburban hood have a negative hip waist ratio (or whatever the nomenclature is for having waist size that dwarfs the hip size).

 

Bellydancers are a special -cultural- subset, and not a good example to demonstrate your point, as you won't see many belly dancers with no waist at all and a belly that flops down over their skirt, which is the most common look of the seriously overweight.

[JenniferSNJ]

This thread provides such a good healthy debate. I love it.

[jenny_mcs]

For those on the thread that don't trust using BMI (and it isn't perfect, or course), this is another interesting study that shows how we are getting fatter and fatter. This survey is from 2004.

 

link removed

 

It was conducted by clothing and textile industries to track the increase in body size of Americans. It was done by doing a full-body scan on 10,000 people. It's very interesting. Some points I pulled out:

 

 

- Standard clothing size for women is a size 8. A size 8 means the woman has a 35-27-37.5 inch body (bust-waist-hips). For white women in their late 30's, average measurements are now 41-34-43, for a black woman 43-37-46.

 

- The traditional average has always been (for a man) 40-34-40 (chest-waist-hips). Now, the average 36-45 white male has a 44-38-42 figure. The average 36-45 black male is slightly slimmer at 43-37-42.

 

- Men and women have increased their average weight by about 4 pounds since 1994 (last CDC survey).

 

-Men and women have the same height as in 1994 (average)

[servedcold]

Want to add that even if the 77% genetic/23% environment ratio is taken as true (that I don't agree), 23% of an adult human being's body weight is quite a large proportional amount.

[tulipsfav]

lol that is true. I honestly recommend girls in this thread to not worry that much, diabolik or some other guys here might be hung up on girl's body fat percentage but many many guys in real world are not like that and I don't mean just fat guys. I have always been worried about my weight. Now my BMI is in healthy range but close to overweight, no guy has ever had a bad comment on my weight/fat, if anything I had some saying that a little bit extra I have makes me cute or sexy.

 

Reading these comments puts things into perspective, yes i am overweight, and yes i will loose the extra pounds when i am in a better frame of mind. I will do it for myself, but yeah some of these guys do be hung up on fat percentages.

 

A couple of years ago i joined a slimming club, after losing 35lbs i was feeling great. My target for the club was to drop another 28lbs. I would have looked gaunt and extremely ill. There really is too much emphasis on weight, hence so many girls and guys being anoreix. It only takes 1 comment from a guy or girl to start this.

[tulipsfav]

on the original topic of this thread... i don't think its fair to be mad at men who don't like overweight girls. i don't like overweight guys. it's a personal choice. if you meet a guy and he wants your bodyweight at 18% then thats cool if it works for you and if it doesn't, then you won't date him. no big deal or big loss imo.

 

Was not mad at men for not liking overweight girls!! Of course its personal choice who you are attracted to. But for 2 people to get on so well, have so much in common, maybe my friend would not even consider the thought of dating someone over weight, even though there is a connection there.

[annie24]

Reading these comments puts things into perspective, yes i am overweight, and yes i will loose the extra pounds when i a in a better frame of mind. I will do it for myself, but yeah some of these guys do be hung up on fat percentages.

 

A couple of years ago i joined a slimming club, after losing 35lbs i was feeling great. My target for the club was to drop another 28lbs. I would have looked gaunt and extremely ill. There really is too much emphasis on weight, hence so many girls and guys being anoreix. It only takes 1 comment from a guy or girl to start this.

 

just something to think about - why not start right now? i mean, taking care of your body is important. you wouldn't wait to floss or brush your teeth and hair until you were in a better frame of mind, would you? perhaps taking care of your body will help PUT you in a better frame of mind?

[viajera]

Want to add that even if the 77% genetic/23% environment ratio is taken as true (that I don't agree), 23% of an adult human being's body weight is quite a large proportional amount.

 

Servedcold, that's not how hereditary traits work - it's not a simple proportion within a single person. It explains overall hereditariness (i.e., genetic versus environmental influence) on a population level. It's a complicated concept that I won't get into further - if you're interested here's the Wikipedia summary: link removed.

 

As for agreeing or not - it's a scientific study that passed the peer-review process, meaning that other scientists well-versed in genetics and heredity signed off on the methods. If you have a valid critique of the methods, let's hear them. Otherwise you can't really pick and choose which information you like (and therefore agree with) and which you don't, as much as people would like to. That's not the way science works.

[viajera]

Obese people, male and female, are much more likely to be unmarried and not bear offspring.

 

Data? I see plenty of overweight and obese people married with children, and single skinny people. And the plural of anecdote is not data...

 

most of the thousands of obese people I see in my suburban hood have a negative hip waist ratio (or whatever the nomenclature is for having waist size that dwarfs the hip size).

 

Actually, many women tend to carry extra fat on their thighs and hips, whereas the "overhanging belly" is more common in men. Again, there's a LOT of variation out there.

[viajera]

I don't have time to look at and critique the methods of this study right now, but the parts I've bolded above are incongruous. A mere 4 pound weight gain is insufficient to explain the increases in average body size they've stated here.

[servedcold]

Servedcold, that's not how hereditary traits work - it's not a simple proportion within a single person. It explains overall hereditariness (i.e., genetic versus environmental influence) on a population level. It's a complicated concept that I won't get into further - if you're interested here's the Wikipedia summary: link removed.

 

I cited a list of fairly generic and well-known cultural phenomena which have contributed to the very real increased incidence of unhealthy amounts of overweight in our society. I have lived many places and seen these effects with my own eyes over my lifetime. Americans are significantly more fat now than they were in the 60s or before. Anecdotal or not, it's a plain fact observable to anyone with eyes and a memory.

 

You countered with the 77/23 ratio as evidence that cultural factors -don't- have that much impact on the body weight (and I will extend this to general health, also presumably a function of genetic heredity) of any given population of people, an absurd contention that is disproven not by studies alone (which I'm too lazy to look up but are out there), but more telling, by the facts of human history, which in my book, trump any study.

 

Cultural factors have an -immense- impact on the health, wealth and freedom of a human population, including the incidence of overweight. Genetic history has nothing to do with the lowered incidence of child mortality, increased lifespan, the elimination of dread diseases such as smallpox and tuberculosis, increased height, the increase of cancer rates, the increase of heart disease, and the increase of obesity in the population at large. These are all, by and large, cultural developments.

 

Or am I somehow missing the point?

 

As for agreeing or not - it's a scientific study that passed the peer-review process, meaning that other scientists well-versed in genetics and heredity signed off on the methods. If you have a valid critique of the methods, let's hear them. Otherwise you can't really pick and choose which information you like (and therefore agree with) and which you don't, as much as people would like to. That's not the way science works.

 

If you are seriously suggesting that a single study, peer-review process or no, has answered the nature/nurture debate, with all it's nuances, that has been wrestled over by the greatest minds of humanity for literally millennia, and that such study has attributed exact percentages to the effects of nature and nurture, I'm at a loss as to how to continue this conversation.

 

Incidentally, a study concluding that obese men were far less likely to marry or breed offspring appeared right here on the front page of ENA, within the last two weeks. But anyone with eyes in their head and common human experience already knew this. Same goes for obese women.

[velvette]

wow there are people arguing that, essentially, there's nothing they can do about being overweight? it's great that you can accept yourself, but if you're unhappy with the way you are wouldn't it be nicer following the thought that there IS something you can do about it, rather than blame genetics/everything else under the sun, and lie back in defeat, to stay fat the rest of your days??

 

if it's so much genetic, then how come asians who grew up in america are fatter, on average, than asians in china? wow. 99% of the time, it's simple, as someone's already stated: intake > output = weight gain, intake

 

stop blaming everything else. there is always something you can do.

[IphigeniaSaysHi]

*Normally something you can do...

We don't know the human body well enough to say everyone can maintain a healthy weight. There is no arguing that. It is what it is.

 

But most people can. People with normal cases of health have the power to be whichever weight they choose.

[ghost69]

i like how if a guy says he's into brunettes over blondes it's okay, but if he says he likes thin or fit women and not overweight, omg hold the phone, how shallow.

[ghost69]

and yes everyone can control their weight. if you have a genetic problem, eat better and exercise.

 

i have a close friend that always used the metabolism or thyroid excuse. he eats like crap is what it basically comes down.

[rocio]

and yes everyone can control their weight.

 

Not everyone can control their weight. Yes, they can have some control over it through diet and exercise. But there are certain medical conditions and/or medications that genuinely cause excessive weight gain.

[StrawberryYogurt]

Not everyone can control their weight. Yes, they can have some control over it through diet and exercise. But there are certain medical conditions and/or medications that genuinely cause excessive weight gain.

 

Yeah, but that is a very small % of the population. Most people can control their weight to a large extent. Yes, some people will have it easier than others, but the others will just have to work harder.