Originally Posted by 2Femme

No, I have not. About two years ago I was around 140Ibs, my hips were around 38, my waist 30. I think I was a size 8 or 9? But my body didn't have much excess fat. I've always been really curvy - my bra size has been DD+ since I was 14.

I didn't have much excess fat at size 8 (so I thought) but now that I've lost 20lbs or so from that weight I realize I really did have extra fat, it just happened to look fine since it collected in my butt, boobs, and thighs. I was a D cup from about that age too. I only started getting a roll or two around my gut when I started to need a few size 10 pants. But it really shows in my face when I look back at old pictures.

I feel a lot better at my current size though. My boobs have gotten a lot smaller but I'm really happy about that, honestly. Less back pain and I can even get away with bra-less or less supportive built-in-bra shirts, dresses, and camisoles.

The I started feeling super crappy. I was dealing with a chronic illness, mental illness, terrible period pains. So I went on a bunch on new medication at the same time. Most of them had side effects of weight gain - but I gotta say I feel a whole lot better now then I did then.

That sucks. I'm glad you feel better now, but I know a lot of medicines can really do a number on your hormones and appetite. But I don't think that makes it impossible to maintain a healthy weight. But I'm not a doctor so I hope you can talk with your doctor about that if you decide you want to make a lifestyle change.

I generally follow the Canadian food guide? I eat around 1200-1500 calories a day - mostly veggies. I drink milk occasionally, and I do love my cheese but I don't eat it daily.. usually it's a special Streator when I go to the fromagerie (cute little cheese cafe we have here). Lately I've been eating more red meat and Iron rich veggies because of the anemia.

Junk food would be the snack foods. Chips, pop, desserts, etc...

I myself don't cook with a lot of oil or butter - and McDs is a 'When I'm really drunk at 1am' thing. But I can't say which is worse... cause McDs salads have a ton of crazy in their dressings. Hard to say. :P

1,200 calories is really low. o__o It would be really, really hard to gain weight if that's what you're consuming daily. Are you factoring beverages as well? A 330ml serving of cola alone is 139 calories and according to their official site it would take about 20 minutes of vigorous exercise to burn off just that single drink.

I don't count calories, but I know my lunch alone is usually upwards of 800 calories since I get school lunches portioned for growing teenagers (I work at a school). I usually leave half of the rice every day or I feel too full. I used to eat the whole thing and even had extras before I started getting used to Japanese portion sizes.

The I first part just sounds ridiculous, I can't see that ever happening. It would be a body positivity campaign rather then a beimg-fat-is-awesome campaign. :P But yes, you're right that probably wouldn't go over well.

I agree. I mostly put it there for the sake of argument.

To the second, again I disagree - I think the story shouldn't be focused on her weight at all? It should just be part of her character. Having the one bigger princess's story be about losing weight is hella harmful in my opinion. This doesn't mean she's going to be a character who is constantly eating, or catching her breath throughout the movie - just that it's not a big deal that she's not thinner.

Ah, I never said they should focus on her weight. I said *if* her weight is made a focus of her character, I would prefer if it was used in a positive way to encourage kids to work to be healthier. I agree that if they decide to just make it an aspect of her character that is given no focus, then I'd be fine with that.


By the way, just want to say thanks for responding so nicely! I was worried I might be offensive since I know weight is a delicate topic. I've gotten a bit desensitized to it from living in Japan since people will talk about all aspects of health/bodies (weight, physical features, bodily functions) very frankly since it's not a taboo topic. My Japanese fiance sometimes mentions to me casually "be careful or you'll get fat!" since it's not a big deal and simply a matter of health.

Always good to remain civil!

But, I feel like we were getting a tad off topic and I want to refocus it (And hope more people jump in to chat about it!)

Besides the health aspect, and the 'promoting obesity' are there any other arguments against overweight princess?

And are there any thoughts about the positive mental health benefits of representation vs the negative health effects of weight? (Again, not talking 'My 600 pound life', but your 'average' American today - 150Ibs, size 12-14, etc...)

I know in other groups that face oppression - Queer, disabled, racilized, etc.. representation is seen to have very positive effects. :)

Originally Posted by 2Femme

Always good to remain civil!

But, I feel like we were getting a tad off topic and I want to refocus it (And hope more people jump in to chat about it!)

Besides the health aspect, and the 'promoting obesity' are there any other arguments against overweight princess?

And are there any thoughts about the positive mental health benefits of representation vs the negative health effects of weight? (Again, not talking 'My 600 pound life', but your 'average' American today - 150Ibs, size 12-14, etc...)

I know in other groups that face oppression - Queer, disabled, racilized, etc.. representation is seen to have very positive effects. :)

I agree!

As for other arguments, I don't have any I'd like to make. I think health is my main concern, really. Kids who become obese face a lot of unnecessary hardships that could be avoided with proper diet, exercise, and portion control. But it's hard for a lot of parents to manage that in today's society since many households don't cook healthy made-from-scratch meals at home anymore and fewer kids play outside for as long as they used to. But it's really hard to beat habits when you form them at a young age, which is why I think it's important for kids to recognize that even though overweight has become the "new normal", it's not normal or healthy.

Starting off with healthy habits is the easiest way to maintain them your whole life. I know from experience it's hard to break unhealthy habits. I'm doing my best to learn how to cook and fight the temptation to eat cheap and easy meals because I know it's better for my health, and my wallet, if I make most of my meals at home.

As for mental health benefits, diet and exercise, especially, is connected to mental health, too. Studies have shown that regular exercise greatly reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

I think you're right that kids won't suddenly decide "yes, I want to be fat!" if Disney made a very obviously overweight princess. But I don't think we should "move the goal post" so to speak just to reassure overweight kids that obesity is normal and healthy. Helping kids with self-esteem is important, but it shouldn't come at the expense of coddling them so they don't hear the truth: remaining overweight will impact their health and quality of life.

And again, I don't mean that we should motivate kids with shame or taunting. I'd like kids to have more positive role models for making good lifestyle choices. It doesn't have to be in the form of a Disney Princess, but something that made health, rather than "skinny" a priority would be nice. Like a character obsessed with cooking who makes awesome meals that happen to be healthy (in a non-preachy in-your-face way). Or how about a Disney princess who actually has some muscle? That would be cool! A girl who could save herself and be a role-model as living an active lifestyle.

Sorry, I think I'm off tangent a bit. But I think you get what I mean.

Originally Posted by Ferra

I agree!

As for other arguments, I don't have any I'd like to make. I think health is my main concern, really. Kids who become obese face a lot of unnecessary hardships that could be avoided with proper diet, exercise, and portion control. But it's hard for a lot of parents to manage that in today's society since many households don't cook healthy made-from-scratch meals at home anymore and fewer kids play outside for as long as they used to. But it's really hard to beat habits when you form them at a young age, which is why I think it's important for kids to recognize that even though overweight has become the "new normal", it's not normal or healthy.

Starting off with healthy habits is the easiest way to maintain them your whole life. I know from experience it's hard to break unhealthy habits. I'm doing my best to learn how to cook and fight the temptation to eat cheap and easy meals because I know it's better for my health, and my wallet, if I make most of my meals at home.

As for mental health benefits, diet and exercise, especially, is connected to mental health, too. Studies have shown that regular exercise greatly reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

I think you're right that kids won't suddenly decide "yes, I want to be fat!" if Disney made a very obviously overweight princess. But I don't think we should "move the goal post" so to speak just to reassure overweight kids that obesity is normal and healthy. Helping kids with self-esteem is important, but it shouldn't come at the expensive of coddling them so they don't hear the truth: remaining overweight will impact their health and quality of life.

And again, I don't mean that we should motivate kids with shame or taunting. I'd like kids to have more positive role models for making good lifestyle choices. It doesn't have to be in the form of a Disney Princess, but something that made health, rather than "skinny" a priority would be nice. Like a character obsessed with cooking who makes awesome meals that happen to be healthy (in a non-preachy in-your-face way). Or how about a Disney princess who actually has some muscle? That would be cool! A girl who could save herself and be a role-model as living an active lifestyle.

Sorry, I think I'm off tangent a bit. But I think you get what I mean.

Lol, and then the mountain fell into the thawed freezer.

Originally Posted by KittyCat18

Lol, and then the mountain fell into the thawed freezer.

Hmm, I'm afraid I don't get that reference. What do you mean?

Originally Posted by Ferra

Hmm, I'm afraid I don't get that reference. What do you mean?

It means the keyboard under Kristoff's jacket has butter in it. And if we're not careful it might melt!

I can't see that happening.

Being overweight is unhealthy, as is being underweight. Society does (and should) value physical health over beauty.

The problem is, the art work used in Disney films does make the heroines look thinner, but it never depicts them as underweight. They all have breasts and hips and curves, suggesting they are in good health, and the proportions are simply used to exaggerate features to make characters prettier, and thus more appealing to young girls.

Furthermore, there are underweight girls who are bullied and put down for their bodies just as much... but I notice no one rushes to their aid, like they do for fat girls. The value that 'too skinny' is somehow better then 'too fat' is both hypocritical and harmful to both sides. It teaches society that fat girls are sensitive and unable to be strong, and always need protecting because they cannot stand up for themselves; while it teaches us that it's okay to bully the underweight, as they are automatically going to be less sensitive.

People need to stop worrying about protecting and sheltering the sensitive, and instead, teach the sensitive to be strong. If we continue to say 'oh you poor thing' to any bullied fat/skinny girl, instead of telling her to think for herself, we'll have a generation of spineless princesses, without a single leader among them.

I would dare so go to a bit bigger, but there is a line between an unhealthy bigger girl and a healthy bigger girl. Hell, half the disney princesses looking unhealthy with how skinny they are. Promoting a healthy sized girl would not be an issue.

Originally Posted by 2Femme

Always good to remain civil!

But, I feel like we were getting a tad off topic and I want to refocus it (And hope more people jump in to chat about it!)

Besides the health aspect, and the 'promoting obesity' are there any other arguments against overweight princess?

And are there any thoughts about the positive mental health benefits of representation vs the negative health effects of weight? (Again, not talking 'My 600 pound life', but your 'average' American today - 150Ibs, size 12-14, etc...)

I know in other groups that face oppression - Queer, disabled, racilized, etc.. representation is seen to have very positive effects. :)

Promoting a unhealthy lifestyle is the primary if only concern I would have. The issue could be deeply scrutinized, parsed out, and thoroughly analyzed, but I think all of the issues revolve around advocating a scientifically and unquestionably unhealthy lifestyle choice.

If you approach the issue from a purely utilitarian standpoint I think you'll arrive at the same conclusion: promoting obesity isn't proper. Positive mental health benefits might include a boost in self-confident and being more comfortable with their bodies. I'll address it more so later on but I think people can still be confident in themselves even if they're told that they should alter their lifestyle. Anyways, any positive mental health benefits of promoting obesity/overweight as acceptable would be far outweighed by the negative consequences of such. Promoting obesity as acceptable is ignoring a problem in favor of facing the truth. It's a scapegoat.

Working towards a healthier lifestyle is difficult and there's absolutely no doubt about it. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't advocate individuals to work towards it. Advocating obesity as acceptable sets the harmful precedence that we should accept ourselves as we are instead of motivating ourselves and each other to improve ourselves. We're never finished projects. There's always something we can change to make ourselves better people and better for society. We should never fall into lethargy.

I agree, it is difficult to confront others who are making poor choices and advise them of a alternative path. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't. If we as a society truly care about the well-being of others we should stand up and promote healthy lifestyles and not shrug out shoulders and say, "meh. It's easier if we pretend it is all fine." If society ignores the ills of condoning unhealthy behavior it will certainly reap the price of those poor decisions later down the road. Society does not change by passively standing idly by and accepting the current state of affairs.

Returning to the utilitarian viewpoint the side-effects of obesity are monstrous such as high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, sleep apnea, hypertension, osteoarthritis, gallstones, cognitive dysfunction, depression, cancer, and asthma. As the obesity epidemic grows the spending on these health conditions will also increase alongside other negative consequences. Furthermore, children of obese parents are more likely to obese themselves thus continuing and increasing the problem. I could ramble on for hours about the negative effects of obesity (alongside a bunch of other stuff) for consecutive weekends. I'll stick with a few. Obesity imposes burdens on the work place, healthcare systems, disability payments, and our ability to live full lives.

As for your statement about Americans, average doesn't equal optimal. Every parent at one point or another seems to use a saying that I think is appropriate here, "if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?" Just because it's common doesn't mean it is right. The status quo is hardly a measure by which to measure what should be and what shouldn't. Browsing through a history book of the 20th century will bring forth a ton of examples. Two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight and one-third of Americans are obese. This just means that two-thirds of Americans need to lose some weight and one-third needs to loose more. So basically, a majority of Americans need to alter their behavior.

Comparing those aforementioned groups to obesity is logically fallacious. If you dislike someone based on race alone that is simply unwarranted. You are basing your opinion not on evidence but on personal preference. On the other hand comparing racism to discouraging obesity is bonkers. Obesity has been scientifically proven to be detrimental people's health and it is unquestionably harmful to society as a whole. Plus, figuring out whether someone is obese/overweight or not isn't some voodoo science. It is easily and objectively analyzed. Go to a doctor (or go online for a rough estimate) and they can tell you whether or not you are underweight, overweight, where you need to be, or what have you. If you really want to know you they'll use calipers to figure it out.

Disagreeing with people's behavior and choices is natural and can be constructive, warranted, and ethical. For example, I find parents who let their kids run rogue in stores and cause chaos to be rather lousy parents. I don't feel bad at all for having that opinion, you know why? Because they aren't being responsible parents and are being inconsiderate to other shoppers, employees, and store owners by allowing such nonsense continue. Nobody would say, "well... I know he's a pedophile but you know what, it's his/her choice." Why? Because that behavior has a negative impact on other people along with themselves. The same goes for smoking, alcoholism, and a slew of other behaviors. If it's a problem we should confront it. Saying that we shouldn't disagree with others is nothing but a cop-out.

I do want to stipulate that I think people have a right to choose how to conduct their own personal affairs as long as they do not impact the ability of others to do so. It's like Voltaire said, "I don't agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." I don't think smoking is a good behavior but I support a individual's right to choose for themselves whether or not they want to partake in that behavior. I think P.J. O'Rourke said it best, "there is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." That is to say we shouldn't resort to coercion to stop behavior we dislike. We should utilize the social marketplace of ideas. If a friend is a smoker talk to them about whether or not they'd like to try vaping instead as it's a much healthier alternative. If a friend's a alcoholic try to sit down and talk to them about their addiction. If someone is overweight kindly ask them whether they'd like out and about whether it's just for a walk through a park or going Geocaching. That is to say, you can tell someone that they should change their lifestyle without making them feel awful. Be supportive, be helpful, and show that you care. You don't have to peel away their confidence in themselves. Let them know that they should be confident that they can change their lifestyle and that you believe that they can.

I think it is reprehensible to forgo friendships based on behavior that does not impede on the ability to be friends. We should respect other people's choices but that does not mean we have to agree with those said choices. Also, when we see someone who is partaking in unhealthy behavior we shouldn't stigmatize them. That is something I whole heartily agree with. As the old proverb goes, don't judge a book by its cover. Instead we should promote healthy behavior and all of that. You can disagree with someone's decisions without contaminating your relationship. You can still care for others and disagree with their life decisions. If we are a society that truly cares about the well-being of others we are obligated to help others, even if it's tough.

Basically, you can simultaneously believe that obesity is a bad idea without persecuting people who are obese. It's nothing but a straw man if someone believes that you can't disagree with someone's lifestyle without persecuting them. That's just bonkers.

Overall, I agree with what Admonished said. (I mostly just didn't want to type it out myself, lol) I agree wholeheartedly that we should not fat shame in the sense that we make overweight and obese people feel bad about themselves, but it is extremely important to continue promoting healthier lifestyles.

Being overweight has atrocious health consequences in the long run and if we just deny those consequences in the name of not hurting anyone's feelings the obesity problem will just continue to get worse. The film Wall E, while a child's film and highly hyperbolic, is actually a good reminder of what could happen if we don't fix our problems now.

Originally Posted by ElysiumFate

Overall, I agree with what Admonished said. (I mostly just didn't want to type it out myself, lol) I agree wholeheartedly that we should not fat shame in the sense that we make overweight and obese people feel bad about themselves, but it is extremely important to continue promoting healthier lifestyles.

Being overweight has atrocious health consequences in the long run and if we just deny those consequences in the name of not hurting anyone's feelings the obesity problem will just continue to get worse. The film Wall E, while a child's film and highly hyperbolic, is actually a good reminder of what could happen if we don't fix our problems now.

I feel the same way. And unfortunately childhood obesity has even greater consequences than obesity later in life, plus it's really hard to undo bad health habits if you grow up with them. So I think it's very important that children are motivated to stay active and eat healthy so they will hopefully carry those good habits into adulthood and for the rest of their lives. (That goes for all kids, but especially those who may not be learning healthy habits at home.)

I agree. As a child I was a picky eater and my family didn't cook super healthy food to begin with (my dad is German and my mom loves sweets and pasta). I was never really forced to eat healthy foods and over the last couple of years I've been trying to eat a better diet overall and it has been so difficult. It's been especially difficult to kick processed foods and soda. I doubt I'd have this much trouble with it if I'd been taught to take better care of myself from the getgo. I've never been obese (I was a tad overweight right before puberty) but now that my metabolism is slowing down it's either eat healthy or gain weight, and eating healthy is difficult. Despite not being taught to eat healthy as a kiddo, it's difficult because bad food is everywhere in the U.S. You can't escape it. Even healthy food options at most restaurants are awful.

Originally Posted by ElysiumFate

I agree. As a child I was a picky eater and my family didn't cook super healthy food to begin with (my dad is German and my mom loves sweets and pasta). I was never really forced to eat healthy foods and over the last couple of years I've been trying to eat a better diet overall and it has been so difficult. It's been especially difficult to kick processed foods and soda. I doubt I'd have this much trouble with it if I'd been taught to take better care of myself from the getgo. I've never been obese (I was a tad overweight right before puberty) but now that my metabolism is slowing down it's either eat healthy or gain weight, and eating healthy is difficult. Despite not being taught to eat healthy as a kiddo, it's difficult because bad food is everywhere in the U.S. You can't escape it. Even healthy food options at most restaurants are awful.

I agree, so much! Basically you need to learn how to cook healthy meals at home or else you're stuck with unhealthy foods at portion sizes that are way too big for one person.

I've moved out of the US to Japan where it's a lot easier to make healthier choices since veggies are a big part of the diet, but even still I've realized that the only way to avoid heavily processed foods is to start cooking on my own. It's hard since I was never taught how to cook growing up besides a little bit of baking and how to make recipes from a box, but I think it will be worth it. I'm determined to make sure my own kids grow up learning how to cook so they won't have the same struggle when they live on their own.

Cooking is one of my hobbies so I've been a pretty good cook for awhile, but I realized when I started eating healthier foods that I knew how to cook almost nothing healthy. It's been a trip for me trying to learn how to cook veggies and such so that they have flavor without being covered in butter or something worse.

I've learned with me that I have to keep soda, chips, candy, and all other boxed or processed foods out of the house so that I eat well. Otherwise I just revert. Keeping the stuff out period makes me eat something better for me. I mean, I can sit there and drink three or more sodas in a day if I let that stuff in the house, so I just don't anymore. When I eat out on the weekends I try to not eat more than half of the meal.

Fat doesn't automatically =unhealthy. Skinny doesn;'t automatically =healthy. It's actually kind of intrusive to tell some fat person to go lose weight and then pretend it is because you care about their health. For one, is the asker a doctor? with this particular fat person's health chart right at their fingers? Usually, no. What it comes down to is society has told us fat=ugly. If you are bothering some poor random to let them know you find them ugly, call a spade a spade and do that, and just be the bully you are. It is wicked rude to impose a view on others.

Reference, if anyone cares: You Can Be Fat and Fit

Originally Posted by Explodey

Fat doesn't automatically =unhealthy. Skinny doesn;'t automatically =healthy. It's actually kind of intrusive to tell some fat person to go lose weight and then pretend it is because you care about their health. For one, is the asker a doctor? with this particular fat person's health chart right at their fingers? Usually, no. What it comes down to is society has told us fat=ugly. If you are bothering some poor random to let them know you find them ugly, call a spade a spade and do that, and just be the bully you are. It is wicked rude to impose a view on others.

Reference, if anyone cares: You Can Be Fat and Fit

Fat doesn't automatically = healthy.

Don’t assume someone else’s sincerity without accompanying evidence. Such an insinuation is uncalled for and it does not contribute to the discussion at hand. Sincerity does not make your position correct but even if you are wrong that does not make you any less sincere. What should be the focus of the discussion is not ones sincerity but whether or not someone’s position is correct or not. I do not consider myself “pretending” to care for others when I make the statement that I believe that obesity is unhealthy.

Secondly, how is offering constructive criticism bullying? Bullying by definition is the act of intimidating someone, typically through coercion to force him or her to do what the perpetrator wants. Should we not scrutinize racism, bigotry, and proliferation of unhealthy or unjust ideas? The well-being of others is not something we should be passive about.

What I suggest is nothing of the sort (in reference to bullying.) It involves looking at empirical evidence and incorporating what we can garner from those results into our lifestyle. In this case this means making healthier life choices that include eating healthy, exercising, and if applicable losing weight. I never advocated walking up to strangers and screaming at them to lose weight on the street. There’s a massive difference between advocating healthier lifestyles and belittling someone and calling them names. As a society we should promote healthier lifestyles; to be active, to eat healthy, and exercise regularly. I cannot fathom how that can be interpreted as bullying. I would like to know what definition of bullying you are using. We should support healthier lifestyles through leading as examples, inviting our friends, our families, and our communities to be more active, and educating people about the benefits of losing weight, eating healthy, and exercising. If this is considered bullying then maybe we should complain about Alcohol Anonymous meetings for a while. They do tell people they should stop their bad habits after all.

Yes, it is “wicked rude” to force other people to conform to your views in regards to what they should and should not do to their own bodies. Once again, that is far departed from offering advice. It is similar (as I’ve stated before) to disapproving with someone’s abuse of alcohol, smoking habit, or other unhealthy lifestyle choice. I repeat as I did in my previous post: if we are a society that truly cares about its members we should promote healthy lifestyles and not condone choices that are empirically unhealthy (in this instance obesity.)

I would like to stipulate that I do not condone the use of coercion to get people to be healthier. The ends do not justify the means. I believe everyone has a right to choose for themselves what they put inside of their own bodies. Confusing my views on helping others as bullying or insincere is uncalled for. That’s just ad hominem.

My sincerity isn't any less than yours. Don't question mine.

You are also getting off topic by emotionalizing the issue by muddling what should be a question about health as one that is dictated by emotion and society’s views. Societies have consistently spouted and supported all sorts of hogwash throughout history from the flat earth, bloodletting, and female circumcision. I honestly could care less what society as a whole thinks about obesity because no matter how much people feel something should be that doesn’t change the reality. I would like to know what doctors, medical professionals, and scientists think. Would you ask someone who no computer experiences how to reformat your hard drive? Of course not, in the same way I want to hear what people with knowledge and experience have to say on the subject. That’s why we refer them and not to whatever society thinks on some subject. Your unfounded assumptions about “what it comes down to is society” play no role in rational discourse. So don’t try to use logical fallacies like straw man arguments or appeal to emotion. It doesn’t help support your argument and portrays your stance as flawed; just some food for thought.

I would suggest reading the article more thoroughly while simultaneously reviewing other data. I will begin with some comments about the article (and study) you provided. The caveat here is whether or not the individual was metabolically fit. The research does not appear in any way shape or form to condone obesity in general. . Dr. Timothy Church, the co-author makes an important point, "Obviously the more overweight and the more obese you are, the more likely you are to have a metabolic abnormality.” Other studies and peer-reviewed literature stand beside this statement. Like cigarette smoking for example obesity is risky behavior and negative consequences are not guaranteed. Yet we still say that smoking is bad behavior, why? It is risky behavior and the increased risk makes changing altering behavior worthwhile. Obesity is the same.

Something I wish they would have taken account for (I have yet to find whether they did or not) is whether or not of those who were considered overweight but metabolically fit had been exercising and/or changing their diets. This is very important for several reasons. First, exercising and healthy food choices are more important than weight itself. The health benefits of a healthy diet and regular exercise accumulate very quickly, far before the individual’s BMI goes from high to normal. Church’s comments even point to this when he states that the biggest consumer of sugar in the human body is muscle. A applied example is that if you are exercising regularly… well, as Church says, “So it makes sense that someone who is fit is metabolically going to be far better off than someone who is unfit.” Church further comments that the importance of a healthy diet. So it leads us to simple equations: if you burn more calories than you take in (which is part of a healthy diet) you will lose weight. So someone who exercises on a regular basis and eats healthy (eating healthily improves the balance of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that can help prevent heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, helps you lose weight, and so on) are not going to stay obese which leads me back to the important question of whether those who were found metabolically fit were exercising, eating healthy, and losing weight.

I don’t want to make it seem like I believe weight isn’t a problem in of itself. Obesity constricts blood vessels, overworks your cardiovascular system, your heart pumps more; it is bad for your digestive and endocrine system, it wreaks havoc on your skeletal system as it attempts to accommodate the increased weight, and all the way down the line.

Next, it is very important to understand the different between exclusions to the rule and how common those exclusions are. This is one of the reasons I believe the “fit but fat” concept is a dangerous oversimplification that inadvertently condones harmful behavior. A study (the "fit but fat" concept revisited: population-based estimates using NHANES) found that only a small percentage of adults are both in shape and overweight. This supports the view that while some individuals may be healthy and obese they are hardly the majority. The study also shows that obesity is independently associated with reduced cardiovascular fitness. In essence, motivating individuals who are obese to exercise and make healthier choices to the extent that it will affect their weight will help reduce the health burden they would otherwise have on themselves and society. There’s also a vast difference between being ten pounds overweight and thirty or even fifty pounds overweight (and above.) If you are ten pounds overweight the risks aren’t as high as if you were far more overweight.

The vast majority of medical literature and healthcare professionals believe and has found that obesity and being overweight is detrimental to your health. Exercising and eating healthy (burning more calories than you consumes) and as consequence losing weight is one of the most beneficial choices anyone can make who is obese, and even if you aren’t. When the overwhelming majority of evidence illustrates the health hazards of obesity I am inclined to believe it. It would take a significant wealth of contradictory evidence to overturn the accepted viewpoint that obesity is overwhelmingly a sign of poor health.

John Ioannidis is a professor of Health Research and Policy at Stanford School of Medicine. In 2005 he released a paper titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are false." He has claimed that "90% of medical research is false." Even if his number is too high it does give us some food for thought. In research there's publication bias, poor methodology, conflicts of interest, confusion of causation verses correlation, and other factors that can skew the results. Another example is comes from Amgen Pharmaceuticals in which they repeated 53 important papers and was only able to confirm 6. Ionnidis did a re-analysis and said, “41% of the most influential studies in medicine have been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated.”

I point to the inaccuracy of studies because I believe being somewhat skeptic is warranted. When new information comes along that seems to contradict what is accepted it should be thoroughly analyzed. Hypothetically the vast majority of studies related to obesity and health concerns could be false. However, I find this highly unlikely due to the circumstances. The data we have collected, the real life experimentation, and what has been physically evaluated support the theory that obesity leads to numerous negative health consequences. We can monitor how obesity affects the sleeping habits of individuals. We can evaluate the effects of obesity on young children. The same can be said for the quality of life, medical costs, and increased risk of cancer, diabetes, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, osteoarthritis, gallstones, depression, and asthma. These side-effects weren’t pulled from a magician’s hat and aren’t based on some sort of voodoo science. This is based on empirical evidence that health professionals utilize every day and unlike a something as blatantly silly like bloodletting it actually works. The chances of overturning the dangers of obesity aren’t even there. I’m putting it as likely as dinosaurs coming back and setting up an embassy in New York. There is very much a causational link between obesity and increased risk of health related issues in a reduction in the quality of life. Obesity is a problem, it is not healthy, and it is not desirable and while such truths can be denied and excused that doesn’t change reality.

There’s also a lot of conflicting research in the scientific community. For example, in 2012 the Time's released the article you linked that began with, "Turns out, being obese isn't necessarily a bad thing." Then in 2013 the Time's released another article entitled "You Can't Be Fit and Fat" that started with the following: "It's okay to be heavy, as long as you don't have diabetes or hypertension-right? Not so fast, says the latest research." Well, it appears that the Times have released two completely contradicting articles in the span of a year.

[url]http://healthland.time.com/2013/12/02/you-cant-be-fit-and-fat/?iid=hl-main-lead]You can't Be Fit and Fat]/url]

The study was carried out by researchers from the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. The study was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The study is the culmination of twelve studies conducted since the 1950s on the effects of different weight and metabolic health risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. This is where a massive contradiction to your link article commences: they found that people who were obese yet metabolically healthy still had an increased risk of premature death compared to metabolically healthy people who had recommended weight. The study also concluded that you could be a little fat and still remain fit. However, this returns to my previous statement that there’s a massive difference between a few pounds and a lot of pounds. The more excess weight you gain, the higher the risk and the greater the effects on quality of life. It also reiterated the need to be metabolically healthy as well, regardless of weight.

It is also important to consider where the fat is stored as that will play a role in determining one’s health. I would like to address your insinuation that unless if you have a medical chart and you are a license healthcare professional you cannot make accurate assumptions about other people’s health based on physical appearance. I would retort with… well, that’s absolutely bonkers. Let’s pull together some previously listed facts. First, according to your provided study the more obese you are the more likely you are to have metabolic abnormality (which, according to the study is the problem.) Secondly, according to the “fit but fat revisited” showed that only a minority of people who were overweight were also healthy. So, from a rational person’s point of view even the layman can be credible assumptions about people’s health based on their weight. If someone is obese the statistical chance that they are less healthy than their appropriated weighted counterparts is fairly damn high. Exercise and healthy diets are undeniably healthy for you, and being obese is the result of the absence of those. With that all in mind I think it is perfectly rational to say that individuals who are obese are partaking in an unhealthy lifestyle; similar to smokers, speeders, alcohol abusers, and a slew of other unhealthy behaviors.

I would like to take a moment to address your comment, “society has told us fat=ugly.” I’m going to be blunt as I’m having trouble coming up with any other way to put all of this. The concept of attraction first and foremost really complex in my opinion. So I'd suggest reading through to the end before interpreting what I'm saying. There's a lot of caveats and little notes. I might even need to edit them more. I want to replace ugly with the word unattractive because ugly infers the concept that they are repulsive. I would also like to stipulate that I mean unattractive by the definition of not being sexually alluring, which I'll be frank isn't really something I give a damn about when making friends. I'm not that shallow. I base my friendships on shared similarities and interests. It's relatively simple, physical appearance is unimportant when I look for friends and thus doesn't dictate who I who choose to be friends with. So let's not confuse with not finding someone attractive with being a shallow bigot. For 99.99% of the population how I view you on a physical attraction will have no weight in any of our interactions. So I guess I don't get why it matters so much that I have a different opinion than someone else on what I find attractive. What makes up a platonic relationship and a romantic relationship are in completely different orbits. So what does it mean when I'm really not physically attracted to someone who is overweight, does that make me a bigot, shallow, or repulsive? Or maybe my opinion isn't unsubstantiated and even more maybe my opinion doesn't matter one bit because we put way to much stock in appearance anyways.

So why don't I find obesity/overweight attractive? Personal preference of course, but I can come up with some guess on why I have that personal preference. Obesity is a unhealthy behavior and I tend to find other unhealthy behaviors unattractive as well. It could be smoking, alcohol, abuse, and a charade of other unhealthy lifestyle decisions. Whether it is society, evolution, or a combination of both there's something that influences what I'm attractive. I find a person's lack of ambition to recognize that they have a problem and take action against it unattractive. The human body, our organs, and our skeletal structure were not meant to facilitate copious amounts of fat. Our bodies are designed to be active, to work, and for manual labor. As a result it really doesn't surprise me that I find overweight individuals unattractive. In the brutish explanation possible it just doesn't look right. In the same way that blood oozing from you neck doesn't look right. I'll also admit that yes, people make mistakes. I think it is a really unfair move to go around shaming people for their weight. As I've stating before we need to be kind, understanding, and helpful. There's no excuse for hating someone based on their appearance but that's wildly different than not wanting to date them. In regards to friendships if I would stop being friends with someone for doing anything I disagreed with then I wouldn't be friends with anyone. My friends partake in activities and have viewpoints that I staunchly disagree with but I don't let that get in the way of my friendships. Unless if they think murder is alright or something then yeah, I won't be friends with them. I think being hurtful, snide, and acting superior is uncalled for. If we look at ourselves we can all find things we need to work towards changing. None of us are perfect.

However, society alone doesn't dictate that. I don't like makeup, nail polish, and I'm honestly not a massive fan of skirts. Perfume is revolting because honestly it stings my nose in a painful way and that's never enjoyable. I just have this inkling feeling that society didn't dictate me to not really care for those things. I do agree that a lot of people have some really shallow concepts on beauty. I've known people to be very harsh and cruel with their opinions and I do not condone that behavior. So yeah, society could use a good bash in the head to wake up from whatever delusional dream its having in respect to having a obsession with "bimbos." I honestly couldn't think of a better word to use. My vocabulary just took a nose dive. I think its important not to mix those people with someone who goes, "nah. I'm really not interested in dating someone who is obese/overweight." I don't see the appeal in wanting someone who looks like a plastic doll myself. I know there's harmful side-effects to peoples obsession with beauty but I think it is a logical misstep to mix not being attracted to overweight individuals to say only being attracted to bimbos. Or to say that a differing opinion on beauty or thinking beauty is important in a romantic relationship is a bad thing. Even still, using society as a scapegoat for people's views misplaces the focus. Maybe there is some validity to someone's personal preferences. I know that not everyone finds me attractive and I'm absolutely understanding about that. Everyone has a different opinion and that's alright. As long as we're not awful about it and throw pies at each others faces I think society is going to be alright.

I also want to mention that your argument could be turned around in the opposite direction. If society at large found obese individuals to be attractive then you could say that people only think so because people are no more than sheep. So really, either way the same argument can be used to invalidate it. Or it could, if it wasn't bad logic. Maybe your the one who has been fooled by society or maybe its me. Who knows. That's why we need a deeper discussion that involves more evidence.

None of this is to say you can't be overweight and still have attractive attributes (referring to physical by the way.) Whether that be some really good looking hair, a great sense in fashion, a genuine pretty smile, or some dazzling eyes. There's a lot more that goes into beauty than just someones weight. Can weight be a deal breaker? Sure. I also think that what we find attractive is influenced by a lot of different factors. That could contribute to why what I find attractive is vastly different than what someone else finds attractive. Also, your personality is more important than your looks. If your rotten on the inside than it doesn't matter how attractive you are. That's not to say physical attraction isn't important in a romantic relationship. I don't care about washboard abs or someone who is 2% body fat. That's not my personal preference. What I'm attracted to is someone who has a mildly healthy mindset that influences the way they behave. A few extra pounds isn't something that I find unattractive but as I've said before there's a massive difference between ten pounds and thirty pounds or more. Physical attraction isn't more important than personality but that doesn't make physical attraction any less important in a romantic relationship. Not all of our preferences are the same and we shouldn't be looked at negatively for having different tastes than someone else. What I'm attracted to is hardly what most people are attracted to and you know what? That's convenient. If we were all attracted to the same people evenly it would really complicate everything. People have varying opinions on what they find attractive whether it be personality or physical appearance and I think that's something that will never change. I know I'm hardly everyone's top choice and that's fine. There's a difference between accepting someone and being compelled to think their attractive. We shouldn't choose who we choose to associate based solely on physical appearance when it comes to friends but I think we have a right to be a little more picky when it comes to our partners. As long as we are respectful and understanding I think its totally fine to have our own opinions on what we find attractive. As with everything else, don't be a bastard about it and its all going to be alright.

In summery I guess I don't see the problem with thinking that someone who is overweight isn't your type. Despite the flack that I may get for this statement I think accepting obesity as attractive is more harmful than finding it unattractive. It shows that you are accepting a problem as normal fair. I could go on longer but I hope I've summarized my viewpoint on the entire "society=ugly" thing.

In conclusion, the majority of the time obesity/overweight is a sign of poor health and with it come significant determent to health and quality of life. As a result being overweight should not be shown to be a healthy lifestyle by Disney or any form of media. Disney has a right to make such a movie, but I would certainly not support it based on empirical evidence that shows that obesity is a sign of poor metabolic fitness, sedentary lifestyle, and poor dietary habits. Obesity and being overweight in itself is also very poor for your health and as I stated is a detrimental to ones health. As a result we should support the ideals of eating healthy and regular exercise for everyone. Furthermore as a society we should motivate individuals who are overweight to lose weight for the betterment of their health. No matter how you cut it obesity/overweight is bad. It's a sign of being unhealthy and it should be discouraged in a respectful, supportive, and caring manner.

I think a normal weight Princess would be best.
Yes, a lot of children are obese and yes, they can't really help it. Most children don't choose their lifestyle or food, their parents do. So making an overweight Princess wouldn't encourage small children to be larger however it may teach them that it is perfectly healthy which will cause them to grow up thinking there is nothing wrong.
I am not saying being overweight is a bad thing, aesthetically. People are beautiful no matter what size they are. What is not okay about being overweight is that many people (from personal experience growing up in North America,) aren't fully aware of the dangers behind it. And a lot don't make any effort to be healthy. Screw being skinny, you can be larger and healthy and unfortunately that's not the case in many scenarios. I don't see Disney going out of there way to fully explain the difference either.

Normal sized though, that I'm 100% down for.

Originally Posted by admonished nonsense

Fat doesn't automatically = healthy.

Don’t assume someone else’s sincerity without accompanying evidence. Such an insinuation is uncalled for and it does not contribute to the discussion at hand. Sincerity does not make your position correct but even if you are wrong that does not make you any less sincere. What should be the focus of the discussion is not ones sincerity but whether or not someone’s position is correct or not. I do not consider myself “pretending” to care for others when I make the statement that I believe that obesity is unhealthy.

Secondly, how is offering constructive criticism bullying? Bullying by definition is the act of intimidating someone, typically through coercion to force him or her to do what the perpetrator wants. Should we not scrutinize racism, bigotry, and proliferation of unhealthy or unjust ideas? The well-being of others is not something we should be passive about.

What I suggest is nothing of the sort (in reference to bullying.) It involves looking at empirical evidence and incorporating what we can garner from those results into our lifestyle. In this case this means making healthier life choices that include eating healthy, exercising, and if applicable losing weight. I never advocated walking up to strangers and screaming at them to lose weight on the street. There’s a massive difference between advocating healthier lifestyles and belittling someone and calling them names. As a society we should promote healthier lifestyles; to be active, to eat healthy, and exercise regularly. I cannot fathom how that can be interpreted as bullying. I would like to know what definition of bullying you are using. We should support healthier lifestyles through leading as examples, inviting our friends, our families, and our communities to be more active, and educating people about the benefits of losing weight, eating healthy, and exercising. If this is considered bullying then maybe we should complain about Alcohol Anonymous meetings for a while. They do tell people they should stop their bad habits after all.

Yes, it is “wicked rude” to force other people to conform to your views in regards to what they should and should not do to their own bodies. Once again, that is far departed from offering advice. It is similar (as I’ve stated before) to disapproving with someone’s abuse of alcohol, smoking habit, or other unhealthy lifestyle choice. I repeat as I did in my previous post: if we are a society that truly cares about its members we should promote healthy lifestyles and not condone choices that are empirically unhealthy (in this instance obesity.)

I would like to stipulate that I do not condone the use of coercion to get people to be healthier. The ends do not justify the means. I believe everyone has a right to choose for themselves what they put inside of their own bodies. Confusing my views on helping others as bullying or insincere is uncalled for. That’s just ad hominem.

My sincerity isn't any less than yours. Don't question mine.

You are also getting off topic by emotionalizing the issue by muddling what should be a question about health as one that is dictated by emotion and society’s views. Societies have consistently spouted and supported all sorts of hogwash throughout history from the flat earth, bloodletting, and female circumcision. I honestly could care less what society as a whole thinks about obesity because no matter how much people feel something should be that doesn’t change the reality. I would like to know what doctors, medical professionals, and scientists think. Would you ask someone who no computer experiences how to reformat your hard drive? Of course not, in the same way I want to hear what people with knowledge and experience have to say on the subject. That’s why we refer them and not to whatever society thinks on some subject. Your unfounded assumptions about “what it comes down to is society” play no role in rational discourse. So don’t try to use logical fallacies like straw man arguments or appeal to emotion. It doesn’t help support your argument and portrays your stance as flawed; just some food for thought.

I would suggest reading the article more thoroughly while simultaneously reviewing other data. I will begin with some comments about the article (and study) you provided. The caveat here is whether or not the individual was metabolically fit. The research does not appear in any way shape or form to condone obesity in general. . Dr. Timothy Church, the co-author makes an important point, "Obviously the more overweight and the more obese you are, the more likely you are to have a metabolic abnormality.” Other studies and peer-reviewed literature stand beside this statement. Like cigarette smoking for example obesity is risky behavior and negative consequences are not guaranteed. Yet we still say that smoking is bad behavior, why? It is risky behavior and the increased risk makes changing altering behavior worthwhile. Obesity is the same.

Something I wish they would have taken account for (I have yet to find whether they did or not) is whether or not of those who were considered overweight but metabolically fit had been exercising and/or changing their diets. This is very important for several reasons. First, exercising and healthy food choices are more important than weight itself. The health benefits of a healthy diet and regular exercise accumulate very quickly, far before the individual’s BMI goes from high to normal. Church’s comments even point to this when he states that the biggest consumer of sugar in the human body is muscle. A applied example is that if you are exercising regularly… well, as Church says, “So it makes sense that someone who is fit is metabolically going to be far better off than someone who is unfit.” Church further comments that the importance of a healthy diet. So it leads us to simple equations: if you burn more calories than you take in (which is part of a healthy diet) you will lose weight. So someone who exercises on a regular basis and eats healthy (eating healthily improves the balance of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that can help prevent heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, helps you lose weight, and so on) are not going to stay obese which leads me back to the important question of whether those who were found metabolically fit were exercising, eating healthy, and losing weight.

I don’t want to make it seem like I believe weight isn’t a problem in of itself. Obesity constricts blood vessels, overworks your cardiovascular system, your heart pumps more; it is bad for your digestive and endocrine system, it wreaks havoc on your skeletal system as it attempts to accommodate the increased weight, and all the way down the line.

Next, it is very important to understand the different between exclusions to the rule and how common those exclusions are. This is one of the reasons I believe the “fit but fat” concept is a dangerous oversimplification that inadvertently condones harmful behavior. A study (the "fit but fat" concept revisited: population-based estimates using NHANES) found that only a small percentage of adults are both in shape and overweight. This supports the view that while some individuals may be healthy and obese they are hardly the majority. The study also shows that obesity is independently associated with reduced cardiovascular fitness. In essence, motivating individuals who are obese to exercise and make healthier choices to the extent that it will affect their weight will help reduce the health burden they would otherwise have on themselves and society. There’s also a vast difference between being ten pounds overweight and thirty or even fifty pounds overweight (and above.) If you are ten pounds overweight the risks aren’t as high as if you were far more overweight.

The vast majority of medical literature and healthcare professionals believe and has found that obesity and being overweight is detrimental to your health. Exercising and eating healthy (burning more calories than you consumes) and as consequence losing weight is one of the most beneficial choices anyone can make who is obese, and even if you aren’t. When the overwhelming majority of evidence illustrates the health hazards of obesity I am inclined to believe it. It would take a significant wealth of contradictory evidence to overturn the accepted viewpoint that obesity is overwhelmingly a sign of poor health.

John Ioannidis is a professor of Health Research and Policy at Stanford School of Medicine. In 2005 he released a paper titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are false." He has claimed that "90% of medical research is false." Even if his number is too high it does give us some food for thought. In research there's publication bias, poor methodology, conflicts of interest, confusion of causation verses correlation, and other factors that can skew the results. Another example is comes from Amgen Pharmaceuticals in which they repeated 53 important papers and was only able to confirm 6. Ionnidis did a re-analysis and said, “41% of the most influential studies in medicine have been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated.”

I point to the inaccuracy of studies because I believe being somewhat skeptic is warranted. When new information comes along that seems to contradict what is accepted it should be thoroughly analyzed. Hypothetically the vast majority of studies related to obesity and health concerns could be false. However, I find this highly unlikely due to the circumstances. The data we have collected, the real life experimentation, and what has been physically evaluated support the theory that obesity leads to numerous negative health consequences. We can monitor how obesity affects the sleeping habits of individuals. We can evaluate the effects of obesity on young children. The same can be said for the quality of life, medical costs, and increased risk of cancer, diabetes, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, osteoarthritis, gallstones, depression, and asthma. These side-effects weren’t pulled from a magician’s hat and aren’t based on some sort of voodoo science. This is based on empirical evidence that health professionals utilize every day and unlike a something as blatantly silly like bloodletting it actually works. The chances of overturning the dangers of obesity aren’t even there. I’m putting it as likely as dinosaurs coming back and setting up an embassy in New York. There is very much a causational link between obesity and increased risk of health related issues in a reduction in the quality of life. Obesity is a problem, it is not healthy, and it is not desirable and while such truths can be denied and excused that doesn’t change reality.

There’s also a lot of conflicting research in the scientific community. For example, in 2012 the Time's released the article you linked that began with, "Turns out, being obese isn't necessarily a bad thing." Then in 2013 the Time's released another article entitled "You Can't Be Fit and Fat" that started with the following: "It's okay to be heavy, as long as you don't have diabetes or hypertension-right? Not so fast, says the latest research." Well, it appears that the Times have released two completely contradicting articles in the span of a year.

[url]http://healthland.time.com/2013/12/02/you-cant-be-fit-and-fat/?iid=hl-main-lead]You can't Be Fit and Fat]/url]

The study was carried out by researchers from the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. The study was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The study is the culmination of twelve studies conducted since the 1950s on the effects of different weight and metabolic health risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. This is where a massive contradiction to your link article commences: they found that people who were obese yet metabolically healthy still had an increased risk of premature death compared to metabolically healthy people who had recommended weight. The study also concluded that you could be a little fat and still remain fit. However, this returns to my previous statement that there’s a massive difference between a few pounds and a lot of pounds. The more excess weight you gain, the higher the risk and the greater the effects on quality of life. It also reiterated the need to be metabolically healthy as well, regardless of weight.

It is also important to consider where the fat is stored as that will play a role in determining one’s health. I would like to address your insinuation that unless if you have a medical chart and you are a license healthcare professional you cannot make accurate assumptions about other people’s health based on physical appearance. I would retort with… well, that’s absolutely bonkers. Let’s pull together some previously listed facts. First, according to your provided study the more obese you are the more likely you are to have metabolic abnormality (which, according to the study is the problem.) Secondly, according to the “fit but fat revisited” showed that only a minority of people who were overweight were also healthy. So, from a rational person’s point of view even the layman can be credible assumptions about people’s health based on their weight. If someone is obese the statistical chance that they are less healthy than their appropriated weighted counterparts is fairly damn high. Exercise and healthy diets are undeniably healthy for you, and being obese is the result of the absence of those. With that all in mind I think it is perfectly rational to say that individuals who are obese are partaking in an unhealthy lifestyle; similar to smokers, speeders, alcohol abusers, and a slew of other unhealthy behaviors.

I would like to take a moment to address your comment, “society has told us fat=ugly.” I’m going to be blunt as I’m having trouble coming up with any other way to put all of this. The concept of attraction first and foremost really complex in my opinion. So I'd suggest reading through to the end before interpreting what I'm saying. There's a lot of caveats and little notes. I might even need to edit them more. I want to replace ugly with the word unattractive because ugly infers the concept that they are repulsive. I would also like to stipulate that I mean unattractive by the definition of not being sexually alluring, which I'll be frank isn't really something I give a damn about when making friends. I'm not that shallow. I base my friendships on shared similarities and interests. It's relatively simple, physical appearance is unimportant when I look for friends and thus doesn't dictate who I who choose to be friends with. So let's not confuse with not finding someone attractive with being a shallow bigot. For 99.99% of the population how I view you on a physical attraction will have no weight in any of our interactions. So I guess I don't get why it matters so much that I have a different opinion than someone else on what I find attractive. What makes up a platonic relationship and a romantic relationship are in completely different orbits. So what does it mean when I'm really not physically attracted to someone who is overweight, does that make me a bigot, shallow, or repulsive? Or maybe my opinion isn't unsubstantiated and even more maybe my opinion doesn't matter one bit because we put way to much stock in appearance anyways.

So why don't I find obesity/overweight attractive? Personal preference of course, but I can come up with some guess on why I have that personal preference. Obesity is a unhealthy behavior and I tend to find other unhealthy behaviors unattractive as well. It could be smoking, alcohol, abuse, and a charade of other unhealthy lifestyle decisions. Whether it is society, evolution, or a combination of both there's something that influences what I'm attractive. I find a person's lack of ambition to recognize that they have a problem and take action against it unattractive. The human body, our organs, and our skeletal structure were not meant to facilitate copious amounts of fat. Our bodies are designed to be active, to work, and for manual labor. As a result it really doesn't surprise me that I find overweight individuals unattractive. In the brutish explanation possible it just doesn't look right. In the same way that blood oozing from you neck doesn't look right. I'll also admit that yes, people make mistakes. I think it is a really unfair move to go around shaming people for their weight. As I've stating before we need to be kind, understanding, and helpful. There's no excuse for hating someone based on their appearance but that's wildly different than not wanting to date them. In regards to friendships if I would stop being friends with someone for doing anything I disagreed with then I wouldn't be friends with anyone. My friends partake in activities and have viewpoints that I staunchly disagree with but I don't let that get in the way of my friendships. Unless if they think murder is alright or something then yeah, I won't be friends with them. I think being hurtful, snide, and acting superior is uncalled for. If we look at ourselves we can all find things we need to work towards changing. None of us are perfect.

However, society alone doesn't dictate that. I don't like makeup, nail polish, and I'm honestly not a massive fan of skirts. Perfume is revolting because honestly it stings my nose in a painful way and that's never enjoyable. I just have this inkling feeling that society didn't dictate me to not really care for those things. I do agree that a lot of people have some really shallow concepts on beauty. I've known people to be very harsh and cruel with their opinions and I do not condone that behavior. So yeah, society could use a good bash in the head to wake up from whatever delusional dream its having in respect to having a obsession with "bimbos." I honestly couldn't think of a better word to use. My vocabulary just took a nose dive. I think its important not to mix those people with someone who goes, "nah. I'm really not interested in dating someone who is obese/overweight." I don't see the appeal in wanting someone who looks like a plastic doll myself. I know there's harmful side-effects to peoples obsession with beauty but I think it is a logical misstep to mix not being attracted to overweight individuals to say only being attracted to bimbos. Or to say that a differing opinion on beauty or thinking beauty is important in a romantic relationship is a bad thing. Even still, using society as a scapegoat for people's views misplaces the focus. Maybe there is some validity to someone's personal preferences. I know that not everyone finds me attractive and I'm absolutely understanding about that. Everyone has a different opinion and that's alright. As long as we're not awful about it and throw pies at each others faces I think society is going to be alright.

I also want to mention that your argument could be turned around in the opposite direction. If society at large found obese individuals to be attractive then you could say that people only think so because people are no more than sheep. So really, either way the same argument can be used to invalidate it. Or it could, if it wasn't bad logic. Maybe your the one who has been fooled by society or maybe its me. Who knows. That's why we need a deeper discussion that involves more evidence.

None of this is to say you can't be overweight and still have attractive attributes (referring to physical by the way.) Whether that be some really good looking hair, a great sense in fashion, a genuine pretty smile, or some dazzling eyes. There's a lot more that goes into beauty than just someones weight. Can weight be a deal breaker? Sure. I also think that what we find attractive is influenced by a lot of different factors. That could contribute to why what I find attractive is vastly different than what someone else finds attractive. Also, your personality is more important than your looks. If your rotten on the inside than it doesn't matter how attractive you are. That's not to say physical attraction isn't important in a romantic relationship. I don't care about washboard abs or someone who is 2% body fat. That's not my personal preference. What I'm attracted to is someone who has a mildly healthy mindset that influences the way they behave. A few extra pounds isn't something that I find unattractive but as I've said before there's a massive difference between ten pounds and thirty pounds or more. Physical attraction isn't more important than personality but that doesn't make physical attraction any less important in a romantic relationship. Not all of our preferences are the same and we shouldn't be looked at negatively for having different tastes than someone else. What I'm attracted to is hardly what most people are attracted to and you know what? That's convenient. If we were all attracted to the same people evenly it would really complicate everything. People have varying opinions on what they find attractive whether it be personality or physical appearance and I think that's something that will never change. I know I'm hardly everyone's top choice and that's fine. There's a difference between accepting someone and being compelled to think their attractive. We shouldn't choose who we choose to associate based solely on physical appearance when it comes to friends but I think we have a right to be a little more picky when it comes to our partners. As long as we are respectful and understanding I think its totally fine to have our own opinions on what we find attractive. As with everything else, don't be a bastard about it and its all going to be alright.

In summery I guess I don't see the problem with thinking that someone who is overweight isn't your type. Despite the flack that I may get for this statement I think accepting obesity as attractive is more harmful than finding it unattractive. It shows that you are accepting a problem as normal fair. I could go on longer but I hope I've summarized my viewpoint on the entire "society=ugly" thing.

In conclusion, the majority of the time obesity/overweight is a sign of poor health and with it come significant determent to health and quality of life. As a result being overweight should not be shown to be a healthy lifestyle by Disney or any form of media. Disney has a right to make such a movie, but I would certainly not support it based on empirical evidence that shows that obesity is a sign of poor metabolic fitness, sedentary lifestyle, and poor dietary habits. Obesity and being overweight in itself is also very poor for your health and as I stated is a detrimental to ones health. As a result we should support the ideals of eating healthy and regular exercise for everyone. Furthermore as a society we should motivate individuals who are overweight to lose weight for the betterment of their health. No matter how you cut it obesity/overweight is bad. It's a sign of being unhealthy and it should be discouraged in a respectful, supportive, and caring manner.

Medically, being overweight is different to being obese. Health care professionals use a tool called the body mass index scale to workout roughly what range a person's ideal weight should lie. zThese ranges are divided into, underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese and morbidly obese. Health problems are more prevalent at the extremes of the scales, while those that lie in the middle are more healthy- hence why the good doctor in the previous contributor's source emphasised that people can be 'fat' and healthy. I use inverted commas around fat because I feel it is important to highlight that the term fat itself is highly subjective. What you and I consider to be fat, could be two very different things. I may label someone who is slightly overweight as fat, while you might only apply the term to someone who is morbidly obese. Consequently we, or anybody else in this thread could be arguing over two very different definitions of the asethtic fat.
So while I will happily accept that a morbidly obese princess with diabetes and a heart condition may not be the greatest role model, I can not find any valid argument against having a clinically overweight princess. Furthermore considering that the skinny ideal plugged relentlessly by the media only applies to 3%* of the female population, an overweight princess would add some sorely needed body diversity to the media. (*see tri delta youtube source in my previous post for stats and their studies)
Being overweight isn't a health travesty, nor is being obese media related. If you are to look at research, you will find a strong correlation between obesity and poverty. Furthermore in the UK you find that in disadvantage areas there is often a lack of healthy food options, with stores opting to stock cheap convieance processed fatty foods, opposed to expensive healthly food. There also tends to be higher number of fast food restaurants in poorer areas. There is lots of research into this because it is kinda of counter intuititive, cos you would assume poor people would be skinny.... Any way it is called the hunger paradox if you want to do further research into it, and there are plenty of sources and articles to peruse because it is nothing new. However it is also important to note that a person can have a poor diet and register in the healthly range of the BMI, and equally a healthly person like a body builder could register in the morbidly obese category....so again BMI is used as an indicator of health rather than a predictor because it is technically flawed. For all we know, Princess Aurora could be a raging bulimic but because she looks skinny, we assume she is healthly.
This ultimightly is the flaw with our own understanding when it comes to other people's weight. It is too tied up with aesthetically ideals of beauty opposed to health. And when healthly people start being labelled as being unhealthily then we got a serious problem on our hands.

Okay I read all three pages waiting for someone to bring this up and since no on has so I guess I guess I will. Disney is a business focusing on the entertainment of children. There end goal is not make money not raise your children. Not saying there is anything wrong with that. Im so far past mid twenties its a nice little memory but I still watch all of the old Disney movies. But they are not made for my age range.
The issues we care about ,their target age range doesnt, And thank God! Both sides of the debate come off acting superior and neither one will see the flaws in their own argument.

What littke kids want is fun songs to dance and sing, and characters to pretend to be with their friends. And maybe some talking animals because I've yet to see a chikd not giggle at the fact that "animals can't rally talk"- a qoute from my neice when I had her watch Lion King. Thats it. The older generation are the ones who care about what the princesses look like wheither its their weight or race or how pretty they are. They are pretty so a CHILD knows oh that the good guy.
When they broke away from this wwithuth Hans in frozen my neice lost her shit. Becuase he was handed to us as the prince and then he turned into the bad guy. For me I enjoyed it but she started crying becuase the prince was going to let Anna die. Thats all she saw and the movie was marketed for her age range, she is seven. Does that change the fact that she knows all the words and has almost every frozen doll and outfit out there? No.

Let me get back to my point. Disney doesn't care if it teaches your kids anything. That's your job not theirs. Theirs is to make a movie that will shut them up for an hour and a half. You are suppose to be the one teaching your kids how to treat people.

So doni think they will make a overweight princesses maybe. Will they make more ethnically diverse princess most likely. Is it their job to be you kids role models no. We are the ones who idolized them growing up and now that we are older and see little kids doing the same we want them to cater to our new changing veiws. But its not about what we like. Its about what makes them money.

I agree with Ever After.

Disney's focus isn't to teach your child the ways of society. Rather, Disney's movies change with society.

I don't agree with having an overweight princess. I think normalizing and glorifying obesity isn't a good thing. Obesity is never healthy and while, yes, there are obese people out there, I don't think we need to glorify it. Yes, everyone is beautiful no matter their size, yes. But we shouldn't put obesity on a pedestal and claim it as the new beauty standard because most of the time it is NOT healthy.

Healthy should be the new beauty standard, not obesity.

It seems like a few people in this thread think that overweight means just that... overweight. I assumed that the OP wasn't talking about someone being heavy in muscle, but instead heavy in fat. Which, brings me to my point. Fat =/= Healthy. Like. Ever.

Obviously, people can be overweight but be in good shape. That's not what the OP was saying, though. I believe they were talking about people who are fat. Not muscle-density. FAT. So... The whole, "But there are athletes who are overweight" argument is invalid when talking about the context of the OP.

So, I say Disney should probably strive to make a healthy weighted Disney princess. Not an overweight, obese one... Not an anorexic, stick-skinny one...

But one that is healthy in weight. Has muscle, has enough body fat to live, and has a good, healthy lifestyle.

I want to see a Disney movie where the blond-haired, blue-eyed, light-complected princess turns out to be the long-lost, roly-poly, third Wayans brother in disguise, and when the secret comes out everyone loves him anyway in spite of it all, because he saved the psychically-gifted hunchback with Down's syndrome and the oppressed narcoleptic chickens from the evil sociopath who looks like an ordinary nice person and covers up all of his/her evil deeds behind a smokescreen of charity and environmental activism.

That'd be jammin!

Did I seriously never reply to this?

If disney features an overweight princess I see a number of problems.
First: A disney film needs to have a positive message. If the image is bad people aren't going to want their kids watching it.
Second: An overweight princess is unhealthy. The only self improvement goal I see as worth making them obese for is a story about a girl trying to lose weight or something. Otherwise it is more reasonable to give them a healthy weight.
The exception to this being in some cultures and timelines, where obesity is considered beauty.

Some people talk about how oh X person is skinny and Y person is skinny. But lets see:

Elsa - As royalty there is a high chance she wore a corset from a young age. That causes deformations of the body causing the hourglass shape to be more prominent in some people. She is also a princess, which are used for diplomacy through marriages.

Ariel - Swims CONSTANTLY. She is going to be in very good shape.

Snow White - She cleaned up after 7 dwarves and was constantly caring for animals. Additionally living in the forest not eating the wildlife leaves very little option when it comes to calorie count.

Mulan - She looked a very healthy body weight.

Cinderella - I believe this was African mythology. She's not going to be obese.

Belle - From the show, she was very agile and a hard worker. Calories in calories out.

Jasmine - Her father isn't exactly going to let his daughter become unable to be married. Many places would use their children as contracts for treaties.

Pocahontas - Native Americans were well known for their migration techniques. It's hard to be obese with that much travel. Getting out of shape would slow the tribe down.

Tinkerbell - Apparently she was a princess at one point. She is a fairy... what do people expect?

Rapunzel - Constantly lugging all that hair around there is no way she's going to get fat. Hair gets heavy.

Merida - She was an active archer. Gaining too much weight would impair her ability to use a bow.

Anna - Again, a princess. They're expected to be slim.

Moana - The next one rumored. Given the vague details the official site gives, and given the details I think she lives a very active life.

All of these have valid reasons behind them. What people want isn't a fat princess. What they want is an American princess.

An "overweight" princess would actually be far more realistic for the time frame most Disney movies are set in.

Most of the princesses are from a couple hundred years ago - well before the Industrial Revolution, well before food was readily available to much of the world. Back then, the lower classes were scrambling to make ends meet and not starve -

And in the upper classes? They were usually rather chubby. It was considered beautiful, because it was a visible sign that you had the resources to provide for yourself and your family.

Just go look up classical artwork; it speaks for itself.

That said, I have a lot of issues with the argument of "glorifying obesity". What it mainly boils down to, though, is that it's saying that happiness SHOULD be withheld from fat people as a reward for losing weight. We can't show fat people already being happy; that might tell people they too can be happy while still fat! Their lives should be a cycle of self-loathing and failure until they are an "acceptable" size. Because it's good for them.

Do we see the problem here?

Eating disorders are a lot less healthy than being overweight, and yet, the idea of "healthy has a set body size" sure promotes THAT. Photoshopping magazine covers sure promotes anorexia. Obesity isnt the only epidemic we have regarding body composition - eating disorders are also huge. They've been on the rise since the 1950s, and we do little to stop it besides tell their sufferers "...well, like, uh, maybe, don't do that?" (Sources: [1] [2] [3]

Frankly, it's rather unnerving how people are so quick to shame people for being fat "because it's unhealthy". The shamer does not have to live in that body. The owner of the body should be the only person who gets to decide where their priorities for that body lie. If someone chooses another slice of cake over improved health and conventional attractiveness, it is their right to do so.

Furthermore, the fact is, being slim is not realistic or healthy for a lot of people, due to genetics (lots of people are endomorphic - meaning they naturally build more body fat than other body types and this is healthy for them), chronic illness (which is something that tends to Just Happen and therefore showing someone being happy despite it is much needed for those of us who suffer from it), financial reasons (if you're working long hours at minimum wage, sometimes a McDonald's Value Meal is the only thing that's particularly accessible), location reasons (there are, sadly, a lot of food deserts in the US), combinations of the above, or any other number of personal circumstances.

Especially when you consider the particular level of chubbiness a realistic princess would have. Most of us are not asking for someone who weighs 200 kg; we're asking for someone who looks like a typical woman today - or, a classical painting.

I would love to see a more realistic Disney princess.

Originally Posted by Quantum Angel

An "overweight" princess would actually be far more realistic for the time frame most Disney movies are set in.

Most of the princesses are from a couple hundred years ago - well before the Industrial Revolution, well before food was readily available to much of the world. Back then, the lower classes were scrambling to make ends meet and not starve -

And in the upper classes? They were usually rather chubby. It was considered beautiful, because it was a visible sign that you had the resources to provide for yourself and your family.

Just go look up classical artwork; it speaks for itself.

That said, I have a lot of issues with the argument of "glorifying obesity". What it mainly boils down to, though, is that it's saying that happiness SHOULD be withheld from fat people as a reward for losing weight. We can't show fat people already being happy; that might tell people they to can be happy while still fat! Their lives should be a cycle of self-loathing and failure until they are an "acceptable" size. Because it's good for them.

Do we see the problem here?

Eating disorders are a lot less healthy than being overweight, and yet, the idea of "healthy has a set body size" sure promotes THAT. Photoshopping magazine covers sure promotes anorexia. Obesity isnt the only epidemic we have regarding body composition - eating disorders are also huge. They've been on the rise since the 1950s, and we do little to stop it besides tell their sufferers "...well, like, uh, maybe, don't do that?" (Sources: [1] [2] [3]

Frankly, it's rather unnerving how people are so quick to shame people for being fat "because it's unhealthy". The shamer does not have to live in that body. The owner of the body should be the only person who gets to decide where their priorities for that body lie. If someone chooses another slice of cake over improved health and conventional attractiveness, it is their right to do so.

Furthermore, the fact is, being slim is not realistic or healthy for a lot of people, due to genetics (lots of people are endomorphic - meaning they naturally build more body fat than other body types and this is healthy for them), chronic illness (which is something that tends to Just Happen and therefore showing someone being happy despite it is much needed for those of us who suffer from it), financial reasons (if you're working long hours at minimum wage, sometimes a McDonald's Value Meal is the only thing that's particularly accessible), location reasons (there are, sadly, a lot of food deserts in the US), combinations of the above, or any other number of personal circumstances.

Especially when you consider the particular level of chubbiness a realistic princess would have. Most of us are not asking for someone who weighs 200 kg; we're asking for someone who looks like a typical woman today - or, a classical painting.

I would love to see a more realistic Disney princess.

Yep, it could redefine beauty &the beast😊😀😁😂

Thing about beauty and the beast though, was that she wasn't royalty. She was a commoner.