Anorexia vs morbid obesity? They both, by definition, should not be happy with their bodies?
Edit: Not meaning to shame, neither have to be unhappy.
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Gillette ad features an unapologetic fat woman in a swimsuit; heads explode (See Staff Post)
- Thread starter PixelatedProphet
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Edit: Not meaning to shame, neither have to be unhappy.
I was largely being facetious. I know they wouldn't do it, nor would the response be positive. Part of the response issue being most of our generations and culture has lived through all the modelling scandals with anorexia.
It's Procter and Gamble, a firm with a marketing and PR department with more money than some small countries. They knew what they were doing. Push this ad out, watch the internet burn and media websites/news websites write headlines, see the trolls and shitty comments come out and then those fighting back against that and for the model. Then the latter holds up Gillette as being the wokest of brands and a hero to all obese people.
Next time you go to buy razors, just remember Gillette supports you... Because their marketing department looked at the obesity epidemic in America reach 40% of the country and thought, how can we monetize this?
To put it bluntly, it's the weaponization of culture, timing and outrage in order to push for capitalistic gains.
But I would say though this is veering a little close to the edge of shaming. Tying up happiness with illness just isn't a great idea. It's not effective to tell someone they shouldn't be happy with their body, more just to be honest about them having an illness.
Exactly right.
I'm echoing the comment I quoted that said "an anorexic person who by definition is not happy with their body."
I'll never stop being shocked at how terrible some people here can be to those who are overweight. Astounding lack of empathy and callousness , embarassing really.
There's nothing in the definition of morbid obesity that says they are unhappy. Morbid Obesity is just a measurement.
I agree. I framed my response as an echo of the original quote, which didn't work out well. Medically, there is nothing saying either extreme need to be 'unhappy' -- they are both definitely 'unhealthy' though.
The discussion you're talking about isn't generally about whether underweight people should be allowed to be featured in advertising at all for fear of promoting unhealthy eating habits, it's about whether underweight people should be featured in 90%+ of all health and beauty advertising to exclusion of the bodies most people actually have, and the psychological stress associated with the majority of people thinking they're unattractive because they don't conform to a near universal standard. And in the commentaries that do take aim at the advertisers for pushing unhealthy eating habits, not once have I seen moral judgement or dehumanizing rhetoric levied at the disproportionately thin models, and certainly not to the extent as I've seen with this one morbidly obese person who by no means represents a promotion of obesity as much as the circus of industries that seek to profit off of making people like her fat.
People didn't start to buck the trend of uniformity in modeling because people were afraid seeing a single underweight person would cause the viewer to want to look like him or her. It was the idea that there was such a uniformity in body weight and shape that people felt they NEEDED to conform to their size to be considered attractive or even normal. I think until advertisers get to the point of using obese people as the overwhelming norm in promoting products, you're going to have a difficult time equivocating the rare appearance of an obese model with the overriding modeling culture.
To answer your initial question, then, no. I don't think even a dangerously malnourished person should be subject to public shame and censor for their body, in that I think it's ideal that no one be subjected to that abuse, no matter their physical condition. If that kind of body becomes the overwhelming norm by some social force or another? I think it's appropriate to critique that force and propose meaningful solutions. But I firmly believe that shaming the individual is not and never will be the answer.
With all the freaking out that occurs when a fat person exists in a public, visible space, I always wonder if the same people will come rattling out of the woodwork when the media "glorifies" drug use, which, y'know, happens all the time. And drug use and abuse costs more and has wider reaching impacts.
Of course, both have other issues attached - all sorts of things can cause obesity and drug addiction. But just in talking about "glorifying" here.
Of course, both have other issues attached - all sorts of things can cause obesity and drug addiction. But just in talking about "glorifying" here.
Heart related deaths are and have been the leading cause of death in the US, while the obesity rate is at 32%. Your whataboutism is flawed.
I'll reflect on what others have said in the thread, this issue should be handled humanely but not normalized. Obesity is a literal epidemic and there shouldn't be pushback against it because of idiots who go around calling people landwhales. Appropriate recourse would be promoting a healthy lifestyle, not shaming unhealthy ones. This however is promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.
I maintain using obesity as a primary marker for indication of health especially from people who aren't doctors is about as useful and accurate as being able to identify autism over the internet (i.e., it's an obvious and lazy gimmick for people to identify people they don't like and, if you will, other them).
Does it? Cause based on the trends and rising obesity crisis and the fact that heart disease is the number one killer in the US (which is also caused by smoking and other issues, but the rising weight trends do have a major impact on it's figures, that sounds inherently false.
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It's higher than 32% now
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
I don't know if there are newer figures for 2017~2018, I'll have a look.
That's pretty silly considering being 100+ pounds overweight is very unhealthy no matter who you are. Being obese is a very specific weight threshold to cross and comes with a well known set of health complications and risks
Even if they don't, how does that affect the validity of whether or not ads should help normalize morbid obesity?
What? Ok, how about some statistical evidence then
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
But sure, "internet autism".
Obesity is not simply being overweight. It is on an extreme end of the body diversity scale and has great medical health implications.
Cool, I mean, you have the internet. I expect you can look up the same shit I've looked up. Happy hunting.
Eh if you're actually participating in fairly regular exercise you can still be in pretty good cardiovascular health even if you might be at risk for diabetes or something. For me it's mostly that it's an extremely reductive measurement even if there are things that are stastically associated with being fat (especially due to yet more long-term confounding factors like relative income, which definitely also affects diet and access to quality health care).
https://bmcobes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40608-018-0183-7 is one such study showing that you can exercise, be fat, and be in good shape depending on how broadly you define it. The more accessible-to-public summary of it I found was here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180212144135.htm
I want to point out that the very arguments like this serve as evidence that we need to be more careful about how we frame our discussion about weight and obesity. Yes, heavy people (not so sure about obese individuals) can sometimes be healthy but if we start denying the obvious fact that being overweight is unhealthy, it's not good for any of us.
(That doesn't mean shaming is good, obviously).
This is "can". Yes obese people can be healthy. In almost every case, they're not. That shouldn't be up for debate. We can treat obese people with dignity and respect while also encouraging healthy lifestyles.
What shit u looked up? I didn't see anything at all, just "why aren't people as upset about X and Y if they're upset about this?" It doesn't add anything to the actual conversation and avoids any actual data.
I added the word "extreme" cause some people tend to through the word anorexic around onto anyone who looks "underweight".
Extremely thin or anorexic people suffer from a serious problem, and they too deserve compassion and shouldn't be mocked or ridiculed, BUT we also shouldn't "celebrate" their bodies this way as if it's perfectly normal to be like that. That's why many countries have banned modelling companies from putting anorexic looking models on runways and magazine; because that sends a pretty bad message to the audience.
I don't have a problem with what you and many in here are saying. But let's get some perspective, the woman in the ad in the OP is not just simply "fat" and is obviously morbidly obese, and that's why some take issue with it. Dove, for instance, have done loads of photoshoots that feature "fat" and overweight women and I have no problem with that. And I'm not trying to say Dove are the saints of beauty companies, but Gillette certainly ain't interested in spreading body positivity or whatever, they know what they're doing and they want to get people riled up and create that "buzz".
And you know this...how?
Anyway for the sake of public health I should probably not bother continuing to post in this thread because some of the lazier arguments are obviously elevating my hypertension
The study you posted? 40% of people with mild obesity were physically fit, while 25 and 11 percent of people with moderate to severe obesity respectively were physically fit. Seems like there's a correlation between how obese you are, and how fit you are. And even that fitness is just "cardiorespiratory fitness", which is such a small part of all the issues you can have when you're obese, let alone morbidly obese.
Being a hundred pounds overweight is unhealthy, full stop. I'm not sure why you'd even argue this. Even if you're a "healthy" 25 year with that kind of weight, it'll catch up with you sooner or later. Or do you think smokers can be healthy too just because they don't have emphysema or cancer right at that very moment?
You remind me of a climate change denier or something. So woke that science can go fuck itself.
User Banned (1 Week): Inflammatory Commentary; Account in Junior Phase
How much empathy can you have for a self inflicted affliction like obesity?
As much as you're capable to give, so it's more a reflection of yourself when you think about it.
Thing is, you don't have to say anything mean or demeaning about an obese person.
*obese person in public having fun and not hating themselves for a moment*
half this thread: excuse me sir please cease and desist you are normalizing obesity by visibly enjoying yourself
also half this thread: we are good people we don't body shame
half this thread: excuse me sir please cease and desist you are normalizing obesity by visibly enjoying yourself
also half this thread: we are good people we don't body shame
Does "promoting obesity" have any actual real world effect on any of you? This ad is fine. I like seeing people being happy.
Yep. Don't fall for this shit again... As the Nike ads with Kaepernick have proven, just being a lightning rod is an effective sales tool. Gillette doesn't give a shit about the needs of obese people; they're just trying to sell their product through appearing sympathetic to their plight. They're not- They're just trying to sell shit.
I'm saying that health is an exceptionally broad concept and people can be healthy by some metrics and unhealthy by others because the body isn't one thing (i.e., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle). "Healthy" people are all alike, perhaps, whereas unhealthy people are unhealthy in all manner of different ways, not all of which are immediately identifiable.
I'm not going to advocate someone take up smoking for a lot of reasons but it's not as though even it's a guarantee to get cancer (and certainly plenty of people around my age are smoking stuff, just not necessarily tobacco) and it's not like shaming someone who might actually be trying to quit smoking or be frustrated at themselves for the habit is a particularly fruitful act. Similarly someone who's fat and being active isn't necessarily more unhealthy than someone who's a more normal weight, but most people don't look at someone who's got the build of, say, Dan Olson and think "wow, obviously dude is out of shape" or whatever, at least not on this level. And yet accounts abound of people who are fat getting shamed at gyms, for example.
You could look, at say, some people who do stunt/professional weightlifting. These are people who are for their job doing things most normal people consider exercise, and are obviously stronger than the gen. pop. baseline. By some metric they are "in shape". But, like, those whole things where people are carrying a car put obvious strain on people's joints and ligaments. For that matter, people who are trying to bulk up, and aren't doing it mainly for Terry Crews show-muscles, are going to look more like the lady in the OP than they are your average fashion model.
Back in the 90's, etc before the idea of body positivity, when we only saw skinny people in ads fat people felt even shittier and yet the obesity crisis got worse anyway. Why should we think that the big issue is actually pictures of fat people smiling instead of all the other shit?
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Alright then my dude. You "win". The rate at which children, in the US, are impacted by & retain poverty and obesity are similar.
Considering that in the US the number of people overweight was numbered at 93.3 million in 2016 (probably higher now) and that in 2017, there were 39.7 million people in poverty (also probably higher now), I suppose that means you lot are gonna get fatter before you get poorer.
Right. At the very least imagery of people being fat and active is something that we ought to encourage normalizing if we want to encourage people who are overweight to be active. Seems like a pretty straightforward thing to me -- it's not like people suddenly get not fat.
Hateful speech about fat people is the last vestige of moderate socially tolerated hate, as witnessed herein. The assholes get off on being disgusting garbage people in public without the immediate shunning, disguising it as concern for the overweight person's health.
Given that I know folks who have a medical condition where they literally can't doing ANY sort of activity without severe heart issues (that they were born with), quite a lot actually. Everything isn't black and white.
No shit, but given that showing an obese person in an ad is apparently a revolutionary concept, the question now becomes "should fat people have ads targeted at them like every other demographic does"?
A Twitter post is one thing, but I'd like to see if they have had long term comittment to body diversity with their paid print and video advertising as well. Those are the things that truly inform the public facing view of the company.
Doesn't really matter the intent of it still comes across as obese positivity to the viewers.
They are not obese because they want to. It's a disease, like alcoholism.
Education and respect is paramount though, shaming is never the solution.
Also, there is a difference between something like Dove and their body positive campaign. This example is severe obesity. There nothing positive about it. My 600lb pound life shows the terrible things that happen to your physical health and mental health from severe obesity. Pretending like that doesn't exist is not good.
As a kid I remember hearing all the time about people losing weight and feeling better. But no one ever talked about the I'll effects from being so big initially. It gave me this idea that being fat wasn't so bad because you can always lose it. but no one ever brought up stuff like loose/extra skin. That's a real issue for people who lose weight. If the girl in the Gillette ad eventually loses weight, she will likely have to go through surgery to remove skin. Can't promote that man.
As a kid I remember hearing all the time about people losing weight and feeling better. But no one ever talked about the I'll effects from being so big initially. It gave me this idea that being fat wasn't so bad because you can always lose it. but no one ever brought up stuff like loose/extra skin. That's a real issue for people who lose weight. If the girl in the Gillette ad eventually loses weight, she will likely have to go through surgery to remove skin. Can't promote that man.
I get what you're saying, but bulked up people really look nothing like the picture in the OP. To equate the two even to a minor degree is really dishonest.
No one worth listening to is advocating shaming people suffering from obesity. But not shaming them doesn't mean that they themselves should be alright with where they're at. Again, being obese is bad for you, full stop, and the notion of "this is okay, I'm happy like this" shouldn't be promoted, imo.
At any rate, I feel like you're doing a whole bunch of naval-gazing just to avoid admitting that obesity is bad for you. Do you not realize that it causes somewhere in the neighborhood of 150.000-350.000 preventable deaths per year? That's really all I wanted to say to your claim that "just being obese is a poor metric for determining health". The facts disagree.
I used to think like you, but the truth is most ( if not all) obese people have a de-regularion of their hormones ( insulin, glucagon etc), that makes them hungry all the time and craving sugary food. They learned their eating habits with their parents and after a while their hormones where all screwed up. So an overweight child becomes an obese teenager that turns into a morbid obese adult. How much is his fault?
It works like an addiction, except it's harder to identify the villain since most of the food ( especially in US) has sugar added.
Most of the people I know that lost massive weight usually had both a nutrologyst and a psychiatrist treating them.
Extremely basic science.
It's honestly a little worrying to me that you're trying to imply otherwise. Obesity is serious.
Let facts inform your opinion, not the other way around. This is starting to veer into anti-science.
Edit: In a further response to this, your last post starts breaking health down into a nearly completely abstract idea in order to still fit within your argument. Is there 100% any TRUE way to define "health"? No. But the reason you're resorting to that sort of dissection is because your argument doesn't work unless we completely change our definition of health to something undefinable.
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This is a facade. This company does not care about people's happiness. They found a controversial topic ("should people with 'non-ideal' body types be portrayed positively"), formulated and published a Twitter post that would spark a discussion, then made bets that lots of people would say their name. Then they will continue to charge more for women's razors because companies gotta company.
But some members are rightfully receiving the ban hammer (as an obese person myself, I love to be called grotesque and ugly) so their participation is always appreciated.
This only happens to people who lose weight too quickly, like gastric surgery patients.
But some members are rightfully receiving the ban hammer (as an obese person myself, I love to be called grotesque and ugly) so their participation is always appreciated.
This only happens to people who lose weight too quickly, like gastric surgery patients.
Nah. It doesn't. It happens to nigh-on everyone sufficiently obese, and obese for a sufficiently long period of time. Speaking as someone with a lot of experience, and who frequently reads /r/progresspics and /r/loseit. Losing weight real fast exacerbates the issue though, that's true.
Not quite true. The speed at which you lose weight can certainly be an issue, but the bigger problem is skin losing its elasticity. If you lose your weight when young you have a greater chance of less skin sagging. But even then, it can and will still happen.
The longer you are at a bigger size the less chance of your skin being able to retain its elasticity too.