Do you have stigmas about fat people?

[Anonymous]

If so, why? Where do your assumptions come from?

If not, why not?

Consider this:

I eat healthier than most of my friends and I exercise an hour a day. My blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, etc. are all perfect. I'm confident, active, intelligent, and ambitious. And I'm fat.

Some fat people are healthy, just like some skinny people are unhealthy. For the most part, it's not the number on the scale in itself, it's your lifestyle.

Are we just brainwashed by this obsessive diet culture? It seems to be taking away common sense about bodies. People are constantly putting their health on the backburner by yo-yo dieting and taking diet pills and overexerting themselves, why? Because American culture is so fat-phobic?

[Distant]

"American culture is so fat-phobic?"? It's not that there are necessarily stigmas or stereotypes of fat people. It's that, by many people, obesity is viewed as unattractive. They're not afraid of fat people, they just don't desire them. There's a difference between physical appearance and being healthy. I say this without the slightest hint of being for or against being overweight but simply pointing out the proper mindset rather than your biased mindset. There are just as many people who prefer larger men and women as there are who prefer smaller.

[Asker]

By that I meant people are so afraid of being fat. I recently read that 23% of young American women would rather lose their ability to read than lose their figure (from the book Think by Lisa Bloom).

[Distant]

That's because society focuses on physical appearance rather than the ability to read. If you're beautiful and desired by men, you can live for free without ridicule or insecurities focused on by the media. If you're fat, ugly or anything undesirable and CAN read, the results aren't the same. That being said, I'll repeat the fact that large women are just as beautiful as thin girls to a certain type of guy.

[Asker]

Very true. I guess being attractive (according to the American beauty ideal, not acknowledging that beauty is subjective) takes priority over everything else.

[Distant]

It appears that way :P