thin =/= attractive

[bitterfig]

My much rescheduled appointment with the endocrinologist is tomorrow.  I think I may actually make it this time as the office gave me a courtesy call a few minutes ago to make sure I was coming.  I’m really hoping it’ll help because I continue to feel poorly.  Yesterday I made it through work (always an accomplishment on a Sunday which is our

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[shes_unreal]

Obesity is an age, race, and class thing. So it's kind of... traditional? Institutionalized? That minorities who, by and large, are poorer are also going to be fatter. I mean, I was raised in a single-parent household by a mother with only a high school education and we grew up on hot dogs, potato flakes, Kool Aid and boxed mac and cheese, though to my knowledge she never had to water down our milk like some people do. So I think it's become kind of inundated in their society, that the standard of beauty in that culture is more accepting or even celebrating a heavier woman -- and maybe it also has something to do with being attracted to women on the level of sexuality and not being attracted to have some arm candy to show off. How many guys reject a fat girl because of what their friends might say?

Being able to eat a healthy diet, go to a gym, and go to a tanning bed or have the luxury of spending hours laying out in the sun have become status symbols in our society, so whereas fat + pale used to be indicative of affluence, now thin + tan = wealthy. Oddly enough, many societies (Asian in particular) still view dark-skinned women as less attractive than lighter-skinned women even though the trend in the USA is toward women being dark.

[bitterfig]

Money and class is very definately a factor in this both culturally and for me personally. I spent most of my life in an all-white community in Upstate New York where being overweight was very much associated with being "low class" and uneducated (which unfortunately was seen as synonymous with stupid by my parents and grandparents). Growing up overweight and with a learning disability I developed a horror of being trapped in what I saw as an inferior underclass that I really think contributed to my anorexia, compulsive restricting and over-exercising. Ironically today my disordered eating actually limits my job prospects by sapping my energy and generally undermining my confidence.