It’s rather annoying than offensive. Every mention of problems related to obesity reinforces the present unhealthily and unaesthetically thin female cultural weight standard. Therefore I am a bit annoyed when this topic is brought up when not necessary.
Again, the relationship between weight and health needn’t be monotonic, so “obesity is bad” doesn’t imply “emaciation is good”. (And while I agree that the “cultural weight standard” is unhealthily and unaesthetically thin throughout the developed world, the de facto weight standard (i.e. how much the average person actually weighs, regardless of how much they think they should weigh) is unhealthily and unaesthetically large in certain countries (ETA: especially among males). (The average US man weighs 86.6 kg (190.9 lb) and is 1.763 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in) tall, according to Wikipedia… WTF?))
Every mention of problems related to obesity reinforces the present unhealthily and unaesthetically thin female cultural weight standard.
And makes it more difficult for those of us who are actively rejecting that standard (and the health=weight meme, which does seem plausibly based on a correlation-equals-causation fallacy, to me) to participate comfortably here.
(That’s not the primary reason I haven’t been around for the last 6 months or so, but it certainly didn’t help...)
It’s rather annoying than offensive. Every mention of problems related to obesity reinforces the present unhealthily and unaesthetically thin female cultural weight standard. Therefore I am a bit annoyed when this topic is brought up when not necessary.
Again, the relationship between weight and health needn’t be monotonic, so “obesity is bad” doesn’t imply “emaciation is good”. (And while I agree that the “cultural weight standard” is unhealthily and unaesthetically thin throughout the developed world, the de facto weight standard (i.e. how much the average person actually weighs, regardless of how much they think they should weigh) is unhealthily and unaesthetically large in certain countries (ETA: especially among males). (The average US man weighs 86.6 kg (190.9 lb) and is 1.763 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in) tall, according to Wikipedia… WTF?))
And makes it more difficult for those of us who are actively rejecting that standard (and the health=weight meme, which does seem plausibly based on a correlation-equals-causation fallacy, to me) to participate comfortably here.
(That’s not the primary reason I haven’t been around for the last 6 months or so, but it certainly didn’t help...)