I’m a size 8 and I, too, have been publicly harassed about my weight. Some people are just jackasses who pick on whoever appears to be the easiest target. Being a non-skinny woman in this society makes you a target for fat jokes (and being a skinny woman makes you a target for anorexia jokes, which is also appalling).

Plus, why is the focus on women’s weight? I don’t know ANY women who don’t have a desire to lose weight/maintain a certain weight, and most women I know have serious hangups about their bodies. If fat really did become more socially acceptable, this would be a good thing, and millions of women could reclaim their bodies as their own.

Sarah, the good news is, there are people at work right now on something akin to GLAAD’s media reference guide, which helped establish those style requirements for reporting about gay people. Obviously, not all papers have adopted GLAAD’s recommendations, but it’s created some major changes. Here’s hoping a fat guide could do the same — especially since I believe some of it is done more out of ignorance than malice.

As for your theory about NYC/LA/TV in general, I think it certainly makes sense, though obviously we have no way of knowing how true it is or isn’t. I would say we live in an eating disordered culture in general, and any industry that puts an extra special emphasis on thinness is bound to suffer from it even more.

But yeah, correlation is not causation. I would love to see someone research that, though, along with the question that came up the other day about how many nutritionists and fitness instructors have eating disorders.

Many others want readers to think they’re funny, cute or droll and use very overused and rather offensive phrases such as “tipping the scales,” “spare tires,” “dropping pounds,” “blubber,” “rolls of fat” because they seem more conversational.

But my main thought is this: a LOT of the articles coming out about studies on obesity are written in NYC, LA or by TV reporters. All of those areas (and the TV profession in general) tend to be more culturally obsessed with thinness.

I know correlation doesn’t mean causation, but I when I came to that realization, it made a lot more sense why many of the NYTs articles about weight, health and culture make me want to slit the writer’s/editor’s wrists.

And don’t get me started on ‘critiquing’ TV reports.

Thoughts?

AnnaLee, that’s it exactly. And in fact, I would question why you think you need to lose weight for your health if A) you’re fit, B) you know you have medical problems that affect your weight, and C) when you were at the upper end of a “healthy” weight, people thought you looked too thin.

I’ve said it many times before but am always willing to say it again: eating a healthful variety of foods and exercising are both wonderful things I very much encourage, but there’s no reason to assume that if they don’t cause weight loss, they aren’t causing health benefits. If you’re rock climbing and hiking and getting your veggies, there’s simply no good reason why you should have to lose weight — even factoring in the insulin resistance. (From everything I’ve read, even if fat cells do affect insulin resistance, exercise has a tremendous positive effect on that, regardless of weight.)

Oh, and thanks for the compliment. :)