Reply #44: Some thoughts.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

:-There are many more people in America who would be healthier if they were fatter than there are who would be healthier if they were thinner.

:-The average American is fatter than the average member of most other cultures.

:-The average American's lifestyle involves, in general, eating more (and more unhealthy) food and exercising less than most other cultures (on a personal note, when I visited my American relatives I was struck by the fact that they often used their cars for trips where most British people would have walked).

:-The modern American ideal of female beauty is not much fatter than thinner than is unhealthy, or in some cases unhealthily thin.

:-Whether the media have created this situation, or whether they've simply giving people what they want to see, if debateable.

:-Being fat is met not merely with concern, but often with contempt and ridicule.

:-Most fat characters portrayed on film or television are 2-dimensional comic steryotypes; mostly fairly contemptible ones. I know of no example of a serious film with a fat romantic lead.

:-The behaviours most people associate with being fat - eating a lot and not getting much exercise - are ones that most people disapprove of, rightly or wrongly.

:-The amount of food one can eat and the amount of exercise one needs not to become unhealthily overweight varies a lot from person to person, depending on metabolism. My mother remains thin (bordering on problematically so if she wants to do things like swim in cold water), more or less no matter how much she eats.

:-If shown two people, it is by no means possible to assume that the fatter one lives the less healthy lifestyle. There will be a correlation, but by no means a perfect one.

:-There are very few unhealthily overweight people for whom doing more and eating less would not pay dividends.

:-Most fat people have, understandably, a vested interest in their problem not being a result of doing too little and/or eating too much, but rather being some medical condition beyond their control. As such, suggesting changing this as a remedy is likely to cause offence.

:-Likewise, overweight people will, on average, attribute their weight to metabolism rather than lifestyle more than is actually the case, although of course this will not be the case for all individuals.

:-Nevertheless, for most, although not all, overweight people, it is probably the best approach.