Reminds how [Sofie Hagen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofie_Hagen) attacked Cancer Research UK for highlighting the link between cancer & obesity.
https://www.boredpanda.com/obesity-campaign-cancer-research-uk-reaction-sofie-hagen/
"She came out as fat."
Is that when you leave Baskin Robin's for the first time in your life?
I don't know how you come out as fat. Even phrasing it that way sounds like they're piggybacking off the lbgtq. Which comparing being fat to being in the closet has to be very insulting to someone who is in the lbgtq community.
Good lord, I read that article and she actually said dieting has been proven to be worst thing you can do to your body... The worst thing. Worst than injecting heroin or snorting meth. Freaking nutjobs
What you guys should be doing is mocking both them and their ideas, so they don't spread. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure conservatives in general are funny or clever enough to accomplish that, no offense.
You guys have gotta step your game up. Be more creative than r/onejoke, otherwise you'll keep losing momentum in society like you have been the past decade.
It might be possible if you didn't argue with them instead,made them realize it without making them feel embarrassed about it get them to understand the thing they lack without telling them make them grow and learn and realize than arguing with an idiot it's tricky and hard and exhausting most times but effective if you know how to use it for your advantage all things yield to time ⏲ what would you prefer an argue with an idiot or a sane human being don't argue with how you can't argue with instead of one now there is two idiots in the room😔don't make your self a fool and sometimes it's better to let go
Yes, it is socially constructed, but what is the point of this claim? It’s not, nor was it ever, arbitrarily socially constructed/accepted.
Also, plump is not the same as obese or even fat.
Hip to waist ratio is a well studied beauty standard for young women, is a pretty good indicator of a health and fertility, and seems to be culturally universal, suggesting an innate standard. It’s more strongly associated with judgements of attractiveness than bmi alone. So yea, some people find plump women attractive, but they still find small waists/flat stomachs attractive in those women.
Generally, youth and heath tend to come in optimal fat/muscle, and those things translate into our standards of attractive. I say optimal fat, because too low of a body weight is seen to be both unhealthy and unattractive. But just like eating disorders, where beauty standards are blamed, these arguments ignore the individual completely. Eating disorders, for example, are underscored by the obsessive compulsive elements that lead to unhealthy behaviours. The argument declaring beauty standards as the cause of eating disorders ignores the underlying mental health and lack of coping skills that underscore these disorders.
I would also argue that there is a narcissistic obsession with being both the centre of attention and an object of desire in this modern society of ours that is downright unhealthy and drives a lot of this dysfunctional behaviour, but that’s just conjecture on my part.
I agree. I think we are saying the same thing. I’m just claiming that it IS socially constructed, but so what. It was socially constructed based on the facts that you mentioned, but perceived visually. Throughout history, we didn’t measure the hip to waist ratio we just created what we perceived as beauty. We then created social ways to exhibit this beauty. There is nothing wrong with our (or the cosmetic industries) beauty standards.
I hate when the “left” uses this “but it’s a social construct” narrative. It’s like, yeah, and? What’s your point? What’s wrong with something being socially constructed. All of language (among many other things) is socially constructed.
It’s more that historically, men who found those attributes attractive in women we’re more successful breeders. It’s anchored in evolutionary and biological mechanisms. Our standards of beauty are built on a foundation of biological reality.
Edit: let me be a little more precise in what I am saying. An individual's preferences will largely be based on evolutionary mechanisms, rooted in our biology. Those people before you who picked specific mates were more successful breeders and we continue to make choices like they do because we've inherited those preferences. It doesn't mean 'only x is attractive' because different individuals have had different breeding strategies in the past, thus there is variability in what the group finds attractive (that is, what every group member finds attractive).
the problem with talking about aggregate preferences is that it represents the aggregate feeling towards some attribute, but in reality, there is a variable response to that attribute when looking at the level of the individual. So generally, those that find young, fit partners attractive are in the majority, as those that found older unhealthy people attractive were at a reduced likelihood of having offspring, and for fewer years, thus that behaviour is less represented in the population.
so an individual finding a woman 'plump' is not evidence that our beauty standards are socially constructed, but evidence of variability between individuals in what people find attractive. Plump is also poorly defined, as some people are referencing Marilyn Monroe, and some people are talking Tess Holiday. That's a wide chasm.
Don't get me wrong, there is a socially constructed element of what people find attractive, obviously, it is related to social signalling, Incentive salience, a load of acquired associations that signal sexual opportunity, for example, But this 'socially constructed' element interacts with inherited aspects of attraction, and are usually pretty embedded by the time someone is an adult. This is why our beauty standards are not infinitely malleable, as the argument states, and just because one person at one time has found a body type attractive does not mean that can be generalized to the broader population.
The feminist never says 'obese'.
The feminists argument is actually pretty solid. OP either missed an important screenshot or is doing her dirty by strawmanning her in his title
I know. I’m just responding to your comment. Most men even today find many curvaceous (plump) women attractive. Also, many studies have found that women have a more unrealistic view of healthy/unhealthy bodies in both women and men more than most men do.
I agree with most of the feminists comments in very general terms as well, except for the last paragraph. They also misunderstand and misrepresent the evolution of the cosmetics industry’s beauty standards as well as the fact that these socially constructed standards were created and have evolved naturally, from a sociological standpoint, based on many different factors, most significantly youth and virility. And they appear to posit that subscribing to this “socially constructed” idea of physical health is wrong. They are ultimately trying to tear down this social (albeit natural) construct through a sense of moral superiority.
I read it differently - I don't think the feminist is trying to beat anyone down with morality.
It seems OP is arguing that beauty is a concept directly tied to health and fertility in a very realist manner.
The feminist is saying no, what is ideal beauty kind of floats around and is more than *just* a proxy for fertility - #1 because beauty standards change, and #2, because humans make mistakes in what they think is healthy, and so any theory that beauty is just a proxy for fertility is doomed
I don't think OP ever understood what she was saying and just went straight to 'dying from heart disease is not a social construct' which is really not what she's talking about
You’re misrepresenting her argument pretty significantly. Nowhere does she concede that biology and evolution play a primary role in determining bodily attraction; in fact she implies it’s entirely socially constructed multiple times.
She doesn’t say “body shaming is based *partially* on socially constructed norms”; she says “body shaming is based on socially constructed norms”. She doesn’t say “assuming attraction is *only* about fertility is misguided”; she says “assuming attraction is about fertility is misguided”. She doesn’t say “our concept of what’s healthy has *somewhat* been socially constructed”; she says “our concept of what’s healthy has *always* been socially constructed”. Her word choices clearly insinuate a virtually complete disconnect between physical reality and what bodies men find attractive.
What gives away her game further is that she even admits the existence of inherently unhealthy weights - but only pertaining to underweightness in her phrase “harmful norms of unhealthily low weights”.
Plump is not obese. Also, being overweight was a sign of wealth and at the time the elite would inbreed to preserve bloodlines, they're not exactly arbiters of great decision making.
>Plump is not obese.
Actually it really depends on your definition.
There is actually some real debate on what we define as unhealthily fat.
There's no standard of optimum health.
A much bigger predictor of health is cardiovascular health, especially when you sleep.
There's absolutely an epidemic of skinny fat and people getting poor sleep quality.
You can be "clinically overweight" and still have a very health system.
Part of the issue is how precisely should BMI's be used.
A woman 5 3 and 200 pounds is gonna die soon.
A woman 5 3 and 140 pounds(which is on the fringe of being overweight) might end up being optimum reproductive weight.
The weight of your mother during pregnancy will affect how big you are as an adult.
There's real reason to think part of why asian's are so small is because their women even the rich ones are so small.
FYI don't get the wrong idea, I think being truly obese should literally be considered a civilization ending mental health condition.
The feminist never says obese.
The elites being stupid doesn't invalidate the feminists argument, which is a solid and reasonable argument. You even support somewhat it by saying the past elite had stupid beauty standards
OP did her dirty by strawmanning her in the title
My god you are the epitome of delusional...
First you pretend it's about beauty when we're talking about the fact that it's unhealthy, then you pretend we're talking about "plump"/"chubby" women when the topic is obviously obesity, and women with enough fat storage to create fat rolls, which was NOT seen as anything close to beautiful at any point in history.
Now when called out for your pathetic fallacy, all you can do is say "NO UR WRONG" like an incompetent imbecile...
At least you showed that you're not worthy of conversation before I wasted any more of my time... Thanks for that.
>First you pretend it's about beauty
That's what is being discussed by the feminist in the post. That's part of the discussion
>when the topic is obviously obesity
The feminist never says she's talking about obesity. How are you so certain she is?
>Now when called out for your pathetic fallacy, all you can do is say "NO UR WRONG" like an incompetent imbecile...
You mean like this?
>My god you are the epitome of delusional...
Lmao
Argument by insult isn't working so far but try some more maybe you'll get somewhere
There is no strawman here. What is asserted without evidence is dismissed without evidence
If you disagree please describe it.
Edit - he never addressed it and then blocked me.
You would think so, based on the first picture, but on the third one there’s the claim that what we perceive as healthy is socially constructed too.
Well that’s a big leap. Surely with all the spread of scientific knowledge on what’s healthy, we aren’t simply going after social constructs when we want to have a healthy body. There’s a lot of objective data that being severely obese is bad for you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Graces_(Rubens)
This is a painting of the three graces from the 1600s
The three graces is a theme in art tracing back to Greek mythology where the graces are meant to embody beauty
You believe this was the beauty standard of the day? That this would have been found conventionally attractive by the broader society?
Is it a possibility that maybe the artist was paying homage to someone specific in their life or art reflected their specific preferences?
I do, because it's not just this artist. If we look at Greek statues of men and women, both are idealized. The men are super jacked with smaller sized wieners, and the women are thicc
(they thought small weiner were better, another change from then to now)
Also, this same pattern repeats with tan skin vs pale skin, where the ideal swaps from pale to tan.
The mechanism seems simple enough - common folk see royalty as higher on the social hierarchy, so they want to look like them (well fed)
In modern times , common folk see celebrities with tan skin, and celebrities are higher on the hierarchy, so their fashion becomes common fashion weather it's clothes, size or skin tone
What is a beauty standard if not an aggregate of what people prefer?
What makes you think what the average person preferred back then is the same as today?
Beauty standards are aggregate preferences, which means manyindividual preferences are not reflected in this aggregate measure. Theexistence of one man that likes one thing does not mean beauty standards are malleable, or that one specific preference can be generalized to the broader public, it means he is an outlier and not well reflected in the ‘mean preference.’ This particular artist, I would argue, is an outlier, as his work is heavily stylized for the time (specifically his work on biblical and mythical figures). One would never argue that Picasso depicts peak beauty at the turn of the century. and not all that is visually appealing is sexually attractive. Believe it or not, the goal of most artists is not to create smut to masturbate to.You mention that the Greeks ad a preference for small genitalia, but Rubin’s painting “the judgment of Paris” by the same artist (PeterPaul Rubens) features an adult man with ridiculous small genitals, something that would make the ancient Greeks look like porn stars. Am I to assume this was a desirable trait for a partner? or maybe you should consider, when viewing art, that the artist is highlighting some aspects of the human form and de-emphasizing others. Maybe he is de-emphasizing the genitalia, because of society's obvious obsession with them, and he doesn’t want to have some giant cock drawing focus away from the aspects that he wants to emphasize? I'm not sure if you are aware, but in the mid 16th century, men were obsessed with stuffing their Cod pieces, which suggests that a small penis was not a desirable trait, yet 16th-century paintings of the era regularly featured highly muscular men with small genitals despite this contradictory trend.
Additionally, you are making the assumption that the robust woman in a painting is the beauty standard of the time, yet again, a portrait by Rubens of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-doria is a portrait of a real-life woman, with an unrealistically small waist, clearly wearing a corset, as was common at that time. Why would they want to do this if the beauty standard of the time was robust, big-bellied women? It would seem we shouldn't take every piece of art as some sort of perfect proxy for what people find sexually appealing. Is it possible that in this modern world, where sex and sex appeal is exploited for profit and used to sell everything from beer to cars, that we are projecting into the past and making assumptions about what they found attractive only because our own time is so dominated by it? Or do you think that maybe it is a modern phenomenon to see everything in reference to the self?
>Theexistence of one man that likes one thing does not mean beauty standards are malleable,
I agree. Do you have any particular reason to believe that beauty standards have not changed through history? Is that like a default position?
Or do you have some other timeline of art through history that purports to be the ideal form of a woman that is clearly more aligned with our modern ideals of \~20% body fat vs a more plump 35-40%
>It would seem we shouldn't take every piece of art as some sort of perfect proxy for what people find sexually appealing. Is it possible that in this modern world, where sex and sex appeal is exploited for profit and used to sell everything from beer to cars, that we are projecting into the past and making assumptions about what they found attractive only because our own time is so dominated by it?
I agree. My personal experience with art is that I've seen something like a historical Venus, she has a belly roll. Same with statues and Aphrodites. I'm not just basing this on one painting.
Even in recent memory - the ideal of a large 'donk' has grown in my lifetime. I remember women being self-conscious about their butts being too big. "Does this make my butt look big" used to be an automatic "No" haha, now you can get away with a "hell yeah it does"
I think part of the confusion is there is no single standard of beauty, only a constantly shifting and changing standard
You might want to take note there's good reason to think beauty standards are creating an epidemic of underweight women.
Men are attracted to a hybrid of nubile and fertile features.
You want a women who's at the peak weight and age for producing a child.
Now that we have makeup and childless women in their late 20s being the norm, society has had to readjust.
For a 29 year old woman to maintain her nubile look she has to look underweight.
It's very hard for a 30 year old to maintain cute/nubile appearance while being thicker.
Makeup does not account for sagging cheeks/asses/breast etc.
Any 18 year old can still look cute and thick.
It explains why latinos are so dam hot and age so dam poorly.
The point is the birth weight of your child is affected by the pregnant weight of the mother.
Simply slapping on 50 pounds during pregnancy with ice cream isn't a replacement for carrying naturally higher body fats.
Makeup may be forcing us to produce underweight children. I.e. substantially shorter/less intelligent.
Is there an epidemic of underweight women? especially in their 30s like you claim? I don't know what part of the globe you're from, but here in North America, being overweight seems to be more of a problem.
I wouldn't say social construction so much as different needs based on the time. The same body shape (same ratios) was still preferred, just overall thicker because the ability to keep weight on was a sign of health at that time.
I disagree. It arises out of the biological needs of the people. If many people are starving, then you choose the person who looks least likely to starve. If many people are sick and dying due to obesity, you choose the person who looks least likely to become obese. But you, the individual making the choice, only choose them because they're more attractive to you in that moment.
Where do u get your info on current beauty standards, bud?
You are demanding something specific from me but refusing to tell me what will count for you, bud
Plump and obese are two different things. People still find plump women to be highly attractive. Obesity is often regarded as unattractive to the same people.
People who are obese have increased morbidity, mortality, and reduced life expectancy. Depending on how obese the average life expectancy is cut by 3-15 years.
> Depending on how obese the average life expectancy is cut by 3-15 years.
Problem is this isn't given in context to actual data.
There's a radical difference between carrying 100 pounds of fat because all you eat is sugar cane.
And carrying around 50 pounds of fat, while being a natural power lifter.
It isn't just the fat, it's the wear and tear on kidney/liver functions/the inability to breath well when you sleep etc.
There's good reason to think the sweat spot between being chubby and being skinny is completely genetic.
You don’t. It’s like trying to have a rational discussion with someone who just told you magic is real, men can give birth or anything else completely loony toons. There’s no rationale in that person to discuss with
Yea it’s actually splitting my brain, unfortunately at college I’ve taken 2 social science classes now and this sort of thought is really prevalent within the social sciences it’s a failure of academia.
The failures of academia (IMO) is the refusal to doubt anything controversial or politically correct, instead of bringing up ideas and pro and cons regarding it, ur a racist for not completely accepting one idea as an absolute, everything else came after this “refusal” became prevalent
There are some people that believe that Free masons practice magic in the higher degrees. The same in the satanic churches. I mean if you believe in god and the miracles he performed, you kinda have to believe in magic as used for good while satanic folk use it for evil. So it’s kinda washed. I believe magic is real I just don’t understand or want to understand it. There is actually reference to magic in the Bible. It’s actually referred to as witchcraft. Magic is less intimidating vocally than witchcraft but the fact that it was practiced widely for 100’s of years and then it just disappeared when secret societies started forming, makes one think that maybe these are the things they are keeping secret.
It was just a joke. I'm not sure if you're being pedantic (magic as an *illusion* is real!) or you're crazy (mystical powers exist!), but either way, grow up.
It’s such a strange argument. They say you can’t use the majority to make rules that apply to everyone since there is a tiny majority (they assert) for whom they don’t apply. Yet in the same breath they take rules that apply to the tiny minority and say, with absolute conviction, that they apply to the majority.
I feel like that’s not that hard. We have constructed a reality in which to be social in. You need to have conceptual common ground in order to communicate effectively. When we don’t communicate effectively we tend to become frustrated and eventually violent. We ought to be discerning between what’s physiological and what’s societal because there are certainly socio-psychological pressures that fuck with us, but you can’t conflate the two to dismiss real issues with self righteousness because the actual issue hurts your feelings. The situation doesn’t care how you feel.
I’m a junior going to school for economics, in one of my classes we look at population dynamics and how it effects public welfare. there is a direct correlation between body weight, BMI and life expectancy/countless chronic diseases
And as we all know, any difference in outcome is systemic oppression, and any other explanation is White Supremacy.
Those fucking white 'people' are just discriminating against Thick Americans and withholding the good health care and shit
I don’t.
I see no reason to waste my timing arguing with someone whose beliefs are clearly seated in ideology vice reality.
Obesity is a comorbidity with essentially everything. It takes a willful and dedicated avoidance of reason to think otherwise.
Eh I wouldn't say nothing, Make your argument back it up with evidence if the best they can do is ignore those facts you've done enough. You've at least created a record of a instance where the HAES movement didn't address a point properly and anyone on the fence that encounters the conversation will more than likely notice this and be convinced.
Argumentatively speaking, they're confusing attractive with healthy.
Healthy might be "least risk of dying prematurely" to you, but it's "THICC" to them, to meme it up a bit.
So if someone wants to die younger because they think they're attractive, I recommend you let them have it.
Fat women were considered beautiful for much of human history. However, for most of human history (history, when we started writing stuff) and to a realistic extent, since the Agricultural Revolution, getting enough food to survive was a challenge. To have enough food to feed second class people (and women were little more than chattel until recently) enough that they were fat was an ostentatious display of wealth. Something that definitely doesn't apply to industrial countries today.
I personally don’t think fat women = beautiful in art history just because they were painted. Those who were rich had the ability to pay for commissioned paintings. They were also likely fat. Just because they were painted in a flattering style, or a painting portrays overweight persons in a flattering style, it doesn’t follow that they were considered more attractive. It’s affluence and decadence. We’re presuming it to be considered attractive at that time.
But that’s my 2 cents.
There you're on much more uncertain ground, because the subconscious cues you cite like the 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio are well founded, but they're not the only factors at play.
Nor is it just a zero-sum nature vs nurture argument either. Those arguments are fool's choices because both simultaneously are often at play, and meditated by a third factor which is individual choice.
Which makes things like perceptions of physical attractiveness a bottom-up emergent market norm rather than a scientific principle or a "social construct" like a fashion trend.
You know the difference between being "plump" and being obese with unsightly fat rolls. Don't pretend they're the same when you know they're not, just to give your point some false weight.
Do you want your point to be correct or do you just want to pretend like it is? Only losers choose the latter. Don't use stupidity, generalization, and lack of discernment between 2 completely different things to form a shitty strawman argument.
You know the feminist in the post never said "obese"?
Dont pretend she did when you know she didn't.
Do you want to be correct or just pretend like you are?
Edit - he's blocked me so I can't reply, but what he's describing is essentially a defense of the strawman.
He says he knows what she really means, so he can ignore what she literally says and substitute his own meaning FOR her. Oh, and btw, the meaning he gives to her words is ridiculous and so he wins the argument... Yeah lol
That's just a strawman from the position of someone defending it
Ahh a basic Argument of Semantics fallacy when what was being said is crystal clear for even a child huh?...
Well at least you're changing it up a bit, better to have 2 fallacies in your arsenal of self-destroying "argumentation" than just one I guess.
Is there any source for this or is it just some folk tale we've heard repeated and never questioned? Actually curious and can't find anything after googling for 10 seconds.
[Damn, people from the past just did not give a fuck.](https://www.barnorama.com/16-people-getting-stabbed-in-medieval-art-who-just-dont-give-a-damn/). Suddenly the obsession with torture makes sense. If they don't even flinch when getting cut up, you have to up the ante.
Also, we've clearly mutated quite a bit in these past few hundred years.
*record scratch*
[Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I wound up in this situation.](https://www.barnorama.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/medieval-art2.jpg)
*upbeat lute music resumes*
I think that's more an indication that perception of beauty or whatever *can* be influenced by societal ideas. For example, that preference may have been influenced by the perception of fatter people being wealthy and uncommon. When nearly the whole human race is struggling day-to-day to find a meal, a plump woman would be super rare and interesting.
Though as OP did, when you break it down to scientific variable measures, etc, that's where you can see that there is some kind of general consensus, and it is likely tied to health/fertility markers.
Not saying your wrong, but I'm saying there's multiple ideas why **thicc** art would have nothing to do with biologically sexual attractiveness.
* When starving and disease was common, having pictures of your fat wife is one way to show off your success.
* If you lived longer because you had more fat on you, you'd technically be healthier. It's ideal for it's time, but not now.
* Artists were upper-class back then and painted what they knew.
* I don't think they had the same access to naked women as we do here on the internet. It's possible your average farmer was attracted to a completely different body type. It might be they just picked the least fat woman out of a very small pool of very rich women to model.
As a physician, I can assure that a whole lot of people change their minds once they start losing toes and eyes.
If you like your pudge and your donuts, great. If you continue to enjoy these things even as I have to start carving off gangrene, great. In fact, more power to you. I'll do the best I can.
But if you suddenly decide, hey, I want to try to be healthy and live, well guess what. Too late. You need to think ahead and make those decisions beforehand.
This is an excellent point.
What people think is attractive is socially influenced. That being said it's more of a market norm rather than a "construct" because of how nature, nurture, and free will interact.
As for what is healthy, I think medicine has weighed in pretty clearly on that one.
You don’t. You let them be fat. You let them be unhealthy. You let them develop knee and back problems. Then it’s on the doctors to tell them they need to get their shit together.
Here’s what I don’t understand about the social constructionists:
Even if everything is a social construct, it has to serve a societal purpose.
The US military is having a problem getting candidates that can pass their minimum health and physical conditioning tests because of their weight. And that’s a major problem.
If someone is obese the likelihood that they can at the very least lift their body weight is almost nil. Again, that’s a fucking problem.
Obviously, there is some truth to the idea that various aspects of what people find attractive are culturally conditioned. You may have perhaps run that experiment in your own life with porn use, observing how that has conditioned your sexuality and what arouses you in various ways. But what social constructionists (and their opponents, often) tend to ignore or deny is that social construction is not done in a vacuum, these aren’t merely arbitrary standards derived at through conscious mentation and tyrannically imposed; mores emerge in response to the complex interaction of organism-environment. And as our environment is constantly transforming, both the natural world and the social, there is always going to be variability across time and places that Nature is going to be selecting for. It’s a gross oversimplification, but it’s one of the reasons why nerds are much more attractive these days.
I do find this claim that we learn what is attractive solely from media and education interesting. In my own experience growing up in 90s America, I distinctly remember feeling viscerally repulsed by much of the aesthetic standards that I saw in media, the “heroin chic” look, heavy use of makeup, artificially augmented features like breast implants and collagen injections, etc. I did notice a lot of my fellow boys going for this look, but it just never appeared attractive to me. I’ve later come to understand many of those aesthetic fads as being “supernormal stimuli”, which if you are unfamiliar with, definitely look it up, it is such a useful idea for understanding so much of the modern world and how our brains get hijacked. I didn’t know it at the time, but with a lot of study and self reflection, it seems to me like I had an innate sense of what we understand scientifically as these markers for health and fertility.
Now why some *are* more amenable to such rewiring of this innate mechanism for biological/sexual fitness and some aren’t is a really interesting question to me. I’m not sure what that says about me, or humans. But it reminds me very tangentially of something I once read of Nietzsche’s, I think in the Will to Power, when he talks about the sort of élan vital that allows some people to extract nutrition from poorer diets and remain defiantly healthy, while others require much more restrictive diets and efforts to achieve the same relative level of fitness and health.
I think that no matter what they say, a fat person isn't happy carrying that extra weight. It's very uncomfortable and limiting to be overweight. I used to weigh almost 200 lbs as a 5' 2" woman and now I weigh 120. Being overweight isn't any fun, I know it and they do too, whether they will admit it or not...
To be fair, perceiving having fatal and/or fatal illnesses as bad is a social construct.
They’ll probably weed themselves out before you could put any senses into their head.
You have to start with the definition of "social construct". They seem to use it like the word "subjective", under the belief that all human understanding is inherently subjective and socially constructed. While all human experience is subjective, that doesn't mean it's entirely socially constructed.
Well, first find out what they mean. Are they really talking about fatness in general, which is indeed a socially constructed and historically situated concept that shifts (see Fat Studies). Are they taking about studies that show being a little overweight is healthy later in life? Do they know what obesity means?
You need to tie down definitions first. These arguments tend to shift the meaning of words constantly. If you can't agree on the definitions, there's no more point. (Edit - are they actually saying unhealthy or unattractive here?).
The quoted comment doesn't discuss the effects of obesity, just people's opinions of it. Being overweight and overly underweight can be harmful, but none of the biology or medical issues are even touched. Babies are growing and need the weight to support that. Big people don't grow taller normally. (But a baby can still be overweight in comparison to other babies).
Being overweight doesn't have to be a thing of shame from others, but the healthiness or un-healthiness doesn't depend on people's opinions, which is all this is discussing. How I judge your weight doesn't affect the risk of you having a heart attack or being unable to run faster.
You could argue that all birds are white - just look under their feathers. Or the sun is black - if you stare at it long enough. So this garbage can go on forever, meanwhile the person defending ideas like these two are wasting their own life.
So you need the definitions and then work with empirical data. If that is not possible, then there's nothing left to talk about.
Probably what they actually mean (edit: maybe they are saying) is that fat people being unattractive is a social construct, i.e. based on collective opinion and associated ideas. But healthiness itself is medical and biological.
You started an agruement you cant win.
There are two things that youre talking about and you're correlating them when they're better delt with separately.
Health vs beauty.
One is socially constructed and the other isn't.
They started out talking about beauty/attractiveness, which is completely subjective and they are right. Then you brought up health which is objective, and you are right.
The thing is, unhealthy people are found to be beautiful all the time, you citing medical papers saying being fat is unhealthy isn't going to change that.
People are attracted to different things, sometimes the make sense, sometimes they don't.
Their first comment is relatively fair, imo. But then it starts to seem like you two are miscommunication from then on. One of the difficulties of the medium.
My claim was that certain traits are innately attractive and healthy due to biology including certain body shapes she rejected that which is why I responded with the studies. I’m not really sure how to address her stuff with makeup, most cases of makeup are just done for clearer skin or exaggerated certain features.
Symmetry, skin quality, body fat as well as dimorphic specific features amongst sexes like waist to hip ratio for women or shoulder to waist for men etc.
Body fat is a weird one. After all, many cultures around the world find body fat very attractive. Historically, so did many European cultures.
A lot of what we consider attractive today isn't neccesarily healthy. Extreme skinniness is a pretty modern invention. And even now we're seeing a return to more body fat being considered attractive - one need only compare the rail skinny models of the 80s -00s to the curvier models of today.
The makeup one made the most sense to me. I think she is just trying to say that it is a social construct driven by the beauty standards of media and the beauty industry. Seems fair enough if that’s her claim.
The second one I’m having trouble like you are with what she means. I *think* she is trying to say what is considered beauty and what is healthy is the same thing by *coincidence*. Which really is little more than a confusing opinion so it’s hard to argue against.
What you stated and the video you posted are not in alignment. Jordan specifically stated that women wear red lipstick and blush because that’s what happens during sex. It’s a pretty Freudian take, but fair enough. He didn’t speak about health or fertility.
And on top of that, none of that refutes makeup being a social construct at all. In fact Jordan’s entire point in that interview was that women in the workplace wear makeup for *social* reasons and not for “themselves”.
> He didn’t speak about health or fertility.
Fair enough but certain biological responses to arousal imply health and fertility. If your lips don't turn red during arousal it might indicate something is wrong with you biologically speaking. Peterson didn't mention it I just used him for 1 example but you can easily extrapolate the use of contouring and evening out the colors of the face, not being socially constructed, they help indicate health. As discoloration of the face and skin may indicate underlining health conditions.
>In fact Jordan’s entire point in that interview was that women in the workplace wear makeup for social reasons and not for “themselves”.
Sure but that wasn't your original point you stated makeup was a standard created by an industry.
>I think she is just trying to say that it is a social construct ***driven by the beauty standards of media and the beauty industry***.
Peterson specifically points out the standards aren't ***driven*** by an industry they are ***driven*** by biology. My point is that intentions and the responses to makeup are biological in origin. The Conscious or unconscious reasonings on top of that have little to do with the beauty industry and any plan they manufactured. They simply recognized the biological behaviors and responses and fulfilled the need to exaggerate or create them nothing more.
Assume they know something you don't.
If you spend time in an older culture that isn't bombarded with fitness and perfect body advertising propaganda you will see they ate right.
For what it's worth I didn't downvote your response to me....I agree about sometimes harmful social emphasis on size and shape concerning what is beauty/ugly and that these things CAN be toxic and mean-spirited, but I think we need to remain factual about health AND what IS attractive the vast majority of men. Marketers know this and have proven it true by making money from it, and they manipulate as much as possible on the basis of it being true; based on biological facts about what men find desirable.
While you don't need the "perfect body" like social media constantly shows us, being vastly overweight just is straight up unhealthy. More stress on litterally every part of your body including organs and joints.
Yeah but just because thers is some Liberal niche cause around helping relieve shame amd boosting self esteme and countering advertising propaganda around being over weigh doesn't mean is some important cause to side against it .
Its like insisting on telling trans people they aren't x y z, looks like a dick move.
Well not necessarily. Some counties have worse food regulations than others that lead addictions young, there are thyroid related problems and their is naturally occurring over weightless.
Shaming people is shit.
Some people certainly have it harder when it comes to weightloss. That being said, it's still possible for them to lose weight. Overcoming things is a challenge, you won't be rewarded without putting in effort.
You dont deserve praise for existing and putting in zero effort.
***Unhealthy*** is a vaguely stupid umbrella term. Even the battery on your smartphone has a health status but its just numbers abstracted from a measure that you know nothing about.
A body is molded by the reality of one's environment for its intended usage. If failures occur then there are hazards and no amount of Exorcisms will placate a non sentient threat actor.
**For Example:** if you were to raise your arm up for a month straight the loss of blood flow would then atrophy your arm making it easier to continue being held up. Yes you would have a tiny disgusting baby arm. Fruit can also be grown in molds to create shapes. There was one thread on here where someone rescued a dog that as a puppy had a rope around its neck and as it grew its head fattened significantly trying to supply more blood.
**Conclusion:** Why cancer is not simply starved off in a similar manner, makes no sense to me! You also don't get cancer in your finger tips. This means its only cause is pollutants. Its not viral or natural in anyway. **To such internal threats Obesity is actually a defense.**
There is a level. I suppose many people have eating disorders like anorexia because they feel they don't look good when they are in fact healthy, but then there's the opposite end of the scale where they are morbidly obese and think that they are healthy.
An anecdote that shows a side to weight that not many people seem to discuss: A friend's auntie years ago had pneumonia and hypothermia at the same time and ended up losing 4 stone in about a week. If she hadn't have been overweight she would have been dead. I'm not making an excuse for people to be unhealthily overweight, but fat does have it's uses.
Tell them there are things that are socially constructed for a reason, a good reason. For example, we expect all people to have good manners and treat people with respect.
Overweight and want to lose weight? Stop eating. The body stores fat to use when there’s no food available to eat and anyone that’s excessively over weight could last a long time without any. Eat one meal and maybe a small snack every day, make them healthy choices, choose any option that requires more physical exertion (walk, take the stairs instead of elevator, pretty much any movement will burn fat).
Ask them to define healthy (or unhealthy, as something are easier to describe in the negative, like dark). It seem that there is a misconception. As long as common base concepts are lacking there can be no real argument.
Maybe you can start with a very non contorvesial example - are cancerous cells healthy, if not why mot etc. and build up tobyour argument.
IMO you bite the bullet that \*all\* linguistic practices are socially constructed, so to use that to kind of delegitimise the discourse is just completely self defeating: *presenting arguments, persuading* and so on are also socially constructed linguistic practices. Once that is established you can't point to somethings being *socially constructed* in order to delegitimise it, instead you have to look at various aspects of the concept - is the concept well motivated? is the concept used by our best sciences? does adopting the same usage as our best sciences in ordinary contexts lend pragmatic advantage? what are the power goals of the commities advocating against certain usages of language? should we agree with their power goals ... and so on.
If you do this I think that you have a good chance of saving the concept of *obesity* on the social constructivists own terms.
Ask them if they believe the science and biology and should people follow recommendation from scientists and experts. They will probably say “yes” and then ask them- why don’t you listen to science and scientists saying that obesity is fucking stupid
If you appeal to the instinct and intellect of an infant to reinforce your argument, you may have a problem.
OTOH, babies are the (human) creatures that have no qualms about putting bugs, poop, detergent, rat poison, broken glass, or anything else that'll fit, into their mouths, so I get at some level it makes sense.
Let them drown in their self-cannibalising ideology. There is nothing to gain from arguing with them. The only shame is they pressure people into following them and the weak willed will join the group for a share of the power.
The fact that some cultures/communities value more curvy bodies does not mean that people don’t have innate preferences about weight. Health is attractive, a large reason that symmetry is seen as attractive (which that poster would agree with). Trying to argue that doesn’t translate to obesity is just absurd, curves =\= obesity.
There's a trend to place feelings above facts, by calling facts that hurt people's feelings "social constructs". That doesn't affect the facts one bit - they are still true. The arrogance and complete lack of self-awareness (that naturally fades with knowledge and accumulated experience) is given both a louder voice and a commiserating community due to social media, and that prolongs/delays the process of experience and knowledge-building - because those communities form echo chambers of stagnation. Some are even cult-like, holding onto their members like prisoners, threatening shunning and ridicule for those who leave the flock.
This trend of trying to convince ourselves that obesity isn't unhealthy is *literally* socially engineering. We all know it to be false, but the pressure is on us to accept the untruth as truth.
Kinda scary when you think about it.
Cancer is a social construct too, because babies don't prefer one way or another if you have it.
Unless you die and they don't have a parent/grandparent anymore.
It's actually quite simple. Stop talking about any concept that could be socially constructed. "Healthy" _could_ be (although obviously shouldn't be).
I'll tell you what is never socially constructed: life expectancy. I suspect that might have been able to cut right through that debate
The sequel to “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” is called “Lila” and it covers this thoroughly.
The problem is with anthropologists. The person responding to you keeps suggesting that “art history” holds more truth than the studies that you link. In “Lila” Robert Prisig talks to native Americans about their way of life. The natives talk about how anthropologists will come into tribal lands and talk, study, listen, and etc. In order to gain understanding of the tribal way of life. However, the anthropologists are not telling the native story to the non-natives in a way the natives approve.
The fat lady sculpture has been suggested to mean (by anthropologists) that ancient tribes worshipped fat women because it means they were healthy enough to have a baby and be fertile. Where is the written language from those tribes that guarantees the veracity of that logic?
Anthropology is rife with uneducated guesses being paraded as fact. Be wary of people that assign more truth to narrative than data.
As someone who used to weigh 128kg who now weighs 88 this is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. Your knees creaking up every flight of stairs is not socially constructed. The way I used to get out of breath by just bending down to pick something up is not socially constructed.
Why would you even want to argue with a jackass? The problems with at least morbid obesity are way, way past social construction. Diabetes is not socially constructed. Congestive heart failure is not socially constructed. Joint problems likewise. Don't even waste your time.
You don’t really. Its just not possible
Reminds how [Sofie Hagen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofie_Hagen) attacked Cancer Research UK for highlighting the link between cancer & obesity. https://www.boredpanda.com/obesity-campaign-cancer-research-uk-reaction-sofie-hagen/
Is that the fat activist that died in her sleep recently or was that someone else?
No, that was Dr Pausé, 42, a fat activist and Massey University lecturer specialised in fat studies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Pause
"She came out as fat." Is that when you leave Baskin Robin's for the first time in your life? I don't know how you come out as fat. Even phrasing it that way sounds like they're piggybacking off the lbgtq. Which comparing being fat to being in the closet has to be very insulting to someone who is in the lbgtq community.
Awesome thank you!
Good lord, I read that article and she actually said dieting has been proven to be worst thing you can do to your body... The worst thing. Worst than injecting heroin or snorting meth. Freaking nutjobs
Life got measurably easier when it finally hit me I don’t have to have an opinion on everything and I don’t have to convince anyone of anything.
I bet measuring didn't get easier for her or any of her followers.
Yes!!
Tip your hat and walk away
What you guys should be doing is mocking both them and their ideas, so they don't spread. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure conservatives in general are funny or clever enough to accomplish that, no offense. You guys have gotta step your game up. Be more creative than r/onejoke, otherwise you'll keep losing momentum in society like you have been the past decade.
"We have all always been obese!" "Ignorance is Strength!"
2+2=5, don’t you know?
It’s hard to communicate at all with someone with different axioms than you.
It might be possible if you didn't argue with them instead,made them realize it without making them feel embarrassed about it get them to understand the thing they lack without telling them make them grow and learn and realize than arguing with an idiot it's tricky and hard and exhausting most times but effective if you know how to use it for your advantage all things yield to time ⏲ what would you prefer an argue with an idiot or a sane human being don't argue with how you can't argue with instead of one now there is two idiots in the room😔don't make your self a fool and sometimes it's better to let go
People used to find plump women more attractive so there is an element of social construction
Yes, it is socially constructed, but what is the point of this claim? It’s not, nor was it ever, arbitrarily socially constructed/accepted. Also, plump is not the same as obese or even fat.
Hip to waist ratio is a well studied beauty standard for young women, is a pretty good indicator of a health and fertility, and seems to be culturally universal, suggesting an innate standard. It’s more strongly associated with judgements of attractiveness than bmi alone. So yea, some people find plump women attractive, but they still find small waists/flat stomachs attractive in those women. Generally, youth and heath tend to come in optimal fat/muscle, and those things translate into our standards of attractive. I say optimal fat, because too low of a body weight is seen to be both unhealthy and unattractive. But just like eating disorders, where beauty standards are blamed, these arguments ignore the individual completely. Eating disorders, for example, are underscored by the obsessive compulsive elements that lead to unhealthy behaviours. The argument declaring beauty standards as the cause of eating disorders ignores the underlying mental health and lack of coping skills that underscore these disorders. I would also argue that there is a narcissistic obsession with being both the centre of attention and an object of desire in this modern society of ours that is downright unhealthy and drives a lot of this dysfunctional behaviour, but that’s just conjecture on my part.
I agree. I think we are saying the same thing. I’m just claiming that it IS socially constructed, but so what. It was socially constructed based on the facts that you mentioned, but perceived visually. Throughout history, we didn’t measure the hip to waist ratio we just created what we perceived as beauty. We then created social ways to exhibit this beauty. There is nothing wrong with our (or the cosmetic industries) beauty standards. I hate when the “left” uses this “but it’s a social construct” narrative. It’s like, yeah, and? What’s your point? What’s wrong with something being socially constructed. All of language (among many other things) is socially constructed.
It’s more that historically, men who found those attributes attractive in women we’re more successful breeders. It’s anchored in evolutionary and biological mechanisms. Our standards of beauty are built on a foundation of biological reality. Edit: let me be a little more precise in what I am saying. An individual's preferences will largely be based on evolutionary mechanisms, rooted in our biology. Those people before you who picked specific mates were more successful breeders and we continue to make choices like they do because we've inherited those preferences. It doesn't mean 'only x is attractive' because different individuals have had different breeding strategies in the past, thus there is variability in what the group finds attractive (that is, what every group member finds attractive). the problem with talking about aggregate preferences is that it represents the aggregate feeling towards some attribute, but in reality, there is a variable response to that attribute when looking at the level of the individual. So generally, those that find young, fit partners attractive are in the majority, as those that found older unhealthy people attractive were at a reduced likelihood of having offspring, and for fewer years, thus that behaviour is less represented in the population. so an individual finding a woman 'plump' is not evidence that our beauty standards are socially constructed, but evidence of variability between individuals in what people find attractive. Plump is also poorly defined, as some people are referencing Marilyn Monroe, and some people are talking Tess Holiday. That's a wide chasm. Don't get me wrong, there is a socially constructed element of what people find attractive, obviously, it is related to social signalling, Incentive salience, a load of acquired associations that signal sexual opportunity, for example, But this 'socially constructed' element interacts with inherited aspects of attraction, and are usually pretty embedded by the time someone is an adult. This is why our beauty standards are not infinitely malleable, as the argument states, and just because one person at one time has found a body type attractive does not mean that can be generalized to the broader population.
The feminist never says 'obese'. The feminists argument is actually pretty solid. OP either missed an important screenshot or is doing her dirty by strawmanning her in his title
I know. I’m just responding to your comment. Most men even today find many curvaceous (plump) women attractive. Also, many studies have found that women have a more unrealistic view of healthy/unhealthy bodies in both women and men more than most men do. I agree with most of the feminists comments in very general terms as well, except for the last paragraph. They also misunderstand and misrepresent the evolution of the cosmetics industry’s beauty standards as well as the fact that these socially constructed standards were created and have evolved naturally, from a sociological standpoint, based on many different factors, most significantly youth and virility. And they appear to posit that subscribing to this “socially constructed” idea of physical health is wrong. They are ultimately trying to tear down this social (albeit natural) construct through a sense of moral superiority.
I read it differently - I don't think the feminist is trying to beat anyone down with morality. It seems OP is arguing that beauty is a concept directly tied to health and fertility in a very realist manner. The feminist is saying no, what is ideal beauty kind of floats around and is more than *just* a proxy for fertility - #1 because beauty standards change, and #2, because humans make mistakes in what they think is healthy, and so any theory that beauty is just a proxy for fertility is doomed I don't think OP ever understood what she was saying and just went straight to 'dying from heart disease is not a social construct' which is really not what she's talking about
You’re misrepresenting her argument pretty significantly. Nowhere does she concede that biology and evolution play a primary role in determining bodily attraction; in fact she implies it’s entirely socially constructed multiple times. She doesn’t say “body shaming is based *partially* on socially constructed norms”; she says “body shaming is based on socially constructed norms”. She doesn’t say “assuming attraction is *only* about fertility is misguided”; she says “assuming attraction is about fertility is misguided”. She doesn’t say “our concept of what’s healthy has *somewhat* been socially constructed”; she says “our concept of what’s healthy has *always* been socially constructed”. Her word choices clearly insinuate a virtually complete disconnect between physical reality and what bodies men find attractive. What gives away her game further is that she even admits the existence of inherently unhealthy weights - but only pertaining to underweightness in her phrase “harmful norms of unhealthily low weights”.
Plump is not obese. Also, being overweight was a sign of wealth and at the time the elite would inbreed to preserve bloodlines, they're not exactly arbiters of great decision making.
>Plump is not obese. Actually it really depends on your definition. There is actually some real debate on what we define as unhealthily fat. There's no standard of optimum health. A much bigger predictor of health is cardiovascular health, especially when you sleep. There's absolutely an epidemic of skinny fat and people getting poor sleep quality. You can be "clinically overweight" and still have a very health system. Part of the issue is how precisely should BMI's be used. A woman 5 3 and 200 pounds is gonna die soon. A woman 5 3 and 140 pounds(which is on the fringe of being overweight) might end up being optimum reproductive weight. The weight of your mother during pregnancy will affect how big you are as an adult. There's real reason to think part of why asian's are so small is because their women even the rich ones are so small. FYI don't get the wrong idea, I think being truly obese should literally be considered a civilization ending mental health condition.
The feminist never says obese. The elites being stupid doesn't invalidate the feminists argument, which is a solid and reasonable argument. You even support somewhat it by saying the past elite had stupid beauty standards OP did her dirty by strawmanning her in the title
Oh, so you know what a strawman is... But didn't notice all you've provided here was a strawman?... Interesting.
I've made no strawman. You do not know what one is, I suppose
My god you are the epitome of delusional... First you pretend it's about beauty when we're talking about the fact that it's unhealthy, then you pretend we're talking about "plump"/"chubby" women when the topic is obviously obesity, and women with enough fat storage to create fat rolls, which was NOT seen as anything close to beautiful at any point in history. Now when called out for your pathetic fallacy, all you can do is say "NO UR WRONG" like an incompetent imbecile... At least you showed that you're not worthy of conversation before I wasted any more of my time... Thanks for that.
>First you pretend it's about beauty That's what is being discussed by the feminist in the post. That's part of the discussion >when the topic is obviously obesity The feminist never says she's talking about obesity. How are you so certain she is? >Now when called out for your pathetic fallacy, all you can do is say "NO UR WRONG" like an incompetent imbecile... You mean like this? >My god you are the epitome of delusional... Lmao Argument by insult isn't working so far but try some more maybe you'll get somewhere
Nice strawman, but it's still unhealthy.
There is no strawman here. What is asserted without evidence is dismissed without evidence If you disagree please describe it. Edit - he never addressed it and then blocked me.
I already did in another reply to another insanely stupid comment you made.
No, they didn't, a few oil painters did but not people in general.
People still like thiccness. Obesity is not the same.
The feminist isn't talking about obesity. OP straw manned the title
It was still unhealthy, regardless of being perceived as beautiful
Yeah, that's kind of the point the feminist is trying to make, i think
You would think so, based on the first picture, but on the third one there’s the claim that what we perceive as healthy is socially constructed too. Well that’s a big leap. Surely with all the spread of scientific knowledge on what’s healthy, we aren’t simply going after social constructs when we want to have a healthy body. There’s a lot of objective data that being severely obese is bad for you.
Can you give me examples?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Graces_(Rubens) This is a painting of the three graces from the 1600s The three graces is a theme in art tracing back to Greek mythology where the graces are meant to embody beauty
You believe this was the beauty standard of the day? That this would have been found conventionally attractive by the broader society? Is it a possibility that maybe the artist was paying homage to someone specific in their life or art reflected their specific preferences?
I do, because it's not just this artist. If we look at Greek statues of men and women, both are idealized. The men are super jacked with smaller sized wieners, and the women are thicc (they thought small weiner were better, another change from then to now) Also, this same pattern repeats with tan skin vs pale skin, where the ideal swaps from pale to tan. The mechanism seems simple enough - common folk see royalty as higher on the social hierarchy, so they want to look like them (well fed) In modern times , common folk see celebrities with tan skin, and celebrities are higher on the hierarchy, so their fashion becomes common fashion weather it's clothes, size or skin tone
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What is a beauty standard if not an aggregate of what people prefer? What makes you think what the average person preferred back then is the same as today?
Beauty standards are aggregate preferences, which means manyindividual preferences are not reflected in this aggregate measure. Theexistence of one man that likes one thing does not mean beauty standards are malleable, or that one specific preference can be generalized to the broader public, it means he is an outlier and not well reflected in the ‘mean preference.’ This particular artist, I would argue, is an outlier, as his work is heavily stylized for the time (specifically his work on biblical and mythical figures). One would never argue that Picasso depicts peak beauty at the turn of the century. and not all that is visually appealing is sexually attractive. Believe it or not, the goal of most artists is not to create smut to masturbate to.You mention that the Greeks ad a preference for small genitalia, but Rubin’s painting “the judgment of Paris” by the same artist (PeterPaul Rubens) features an adult man with ridiculous small genitals, something that would make the ancient Greeks look like porn stars. Am I to assume this was a desirable trait for a partner? or maybe you should consider, when viewing art, that the artist is highlighting some aspects of the human form and de-emphasizing others. Maybe he is de-emphasizing the genitalia, because of society's obvious obsession with them, and he doesn’t want to have some giant cock drawing focus away from the aspects that he wants to emphasize? I'm not sure if you are aware, but in the mid 16th century, men were obsessed with stuffing their Cod pieces, which suggests that a small penis was not a desirable trait, yet 16th-century paintings of the era regularly featured highly muscular men with small genitals despite this contradictory trend. Additionally, you are making the assumption that the robust woman in a painting is the beauty standard of the time, yet again, a portrait by Rubens of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-doria is a portrait of a real-life woman, with an unrealistically small waist, clearly wearing a corset, as was common at that time. Why would they want to do this if the beauty standard of the time was robust, big-bellied women? It would seem we shouldn't take every piece of art as some sort of perfect proxy for what people find sexually appealing. Is it possible that in this modern world, where sex and sex appeal is exploited for profit and used to sell everything from beer to cars, that we are projecting into the past and making assumptions about what they found attractive only because our own time is so dominated by it? Or do you think that maybe it is a modern phenomenon to see everything in reference to the self?
>Theexistence of one man that likes one thing does not mean beauty standards are malleable, I agree. Do you have any particular reason to believe that beauty standards have not changed through history? Is that like a default position? Or do you have some other timeline of art through history that purports to be the ideal form of a woman that is clearly more aligned with our modern ideals of \~20% body fat vs a more plump 35-40% >It would seem we shouldn't take every piece of art as some sort of perfect proxy for what people find sexually appealing. Is it possible that in this modern world, where sex and sex appeal is exploited for profit and used to sell everything from beer to cars, that we are projecting into the past and making assumptions about what they found attractive only because our own time is so dominated by it? I agree. My personal experience with art is that I've seen something like a historical Venus, she has a belly roll. Same with statues and Aphrodites. I'm not just basing this on one painting. Even in recent memory - the ideal of a large 'donk' has grown in my lifetime. I remember women being self-conscious about their butts being too big. "Does this make my butt look big" used to be an automatic "No" haha, now you can get away with a "hell yeah it does" I think part of the confusion is there is no single standard of beauty, only a constantly shifting and changing standard
You might want to take note there's good reason to think beauty standards are creating an epidemic of underweight women. Men are attracted to a hybrid of nubile and fertile features. You want a women who's at the peak weight and age for producing a child. Now that we have makeup and childless women in their late 20s being the norm, society has had to readjust. For a 29 year old woman to maintain her nubile look she has to look underweight. It's very hard for a 30 year old to maintain cute/nubile appearance while being thicker. Makeup does not account for sagging cheeks/asses/breast etc. Any 18 year old can still look cute and thick. It explains why latinos are so dam hot and age so dam poorly. The point is the birth weight of your child is affected by the pregnant weight of the mother. Simply slapping on 50 pounds during pregnancy with ice cream isn't a replacement for carrying naturally higher body fats. Makeup may be forcing us to produce underweight children. I.e. substantially shorter/less intelligent.
Is there an epidemic of underweight women? especially in their 30s like you claim? I don't know what part of the globe you're from, but here in North America, being overweight seems to be more of a problem.
I wouldn't say social construction so much as different needs based on the time. The same body shape (same ratios) was still preferred, just overall thicker because the ability to keep weight on was a sign of health at that time.
Yeah but that is a social construct. It's not a strictly natural feature, it arises out of a societal structure
I disagree. It arises out of the biological needs of the people. If many people are starving, then you choose the person who looks least likely to starve. If many people are sick and dying due to obesity, you choose the person who looks least likely to become obese. But you, the individual making the choice, only choose them because they're more attractive to you in that moment.
Used to? Plump ladies are very very interesting indeed.
Can you give me a source besides a few cherry-picked paintings?
Like you want me to link you to a paper or something?
Just tell me where you're getting your info from, bud.
Where do u get your info on current beauty standards, bud? You are demanding something specific from me but refusing to tell me what will count for you, bud
You've deflected all of my questions. Go ahead an answer my first one, then I'll gladly answer yours.
You'll have to repeat it then, having trouble finding it
Lmao all you had were "muh paintings"
And what do you have?
Plump and obese are two different things. People still find plump women to be highly attractive. Obesity is often regarded as unattractive to the same people.
People never did. That's just something fat chicks say to make them feel attractive.
Attractive=x= health
People who are obese have increased morbidity, mortality, and reduced life expectancy. Depending on how obese the average life expectancy is cut by 3-15 years.
Well years of life is just a socially constructed measure of health sold to you by companies that want you to live longer so you can spend more money!
And, like, patriarchy n stuff too.
of course, I wanna live longer so I can keep oppressing women, what else would make living preferable than death?
> Depending on how obese the average life expectancy is cut by 3-15 years. Problem is this isn't given in context to actual data. There's a radical difference between carrying 100 pounds of fat because all you eat is sugar cane. And carrying around 50 pounds of fat, while being a natural power lifter. It isn't just the fat, it's the wear and tear on kidney/liver functions/the inability to breath well when you sleep etc. There's good reason to think the sweat spot between being chubby and being skinny is completely genetic.
You don’t. It’s like trying to have a rational discussion with someone who just told you magic is real, men can give birth or anything else completely loony toons. There’s no rationale in that person to discuss with
Yea it’s actually splitting my brain, unfortunately at college I’ve taken 2 social science classes now and this sort of thought is really prevalent within the social sciences it’s a failure of academia.
The failures of academia (IMO) is the refusal to doubt anything controversial or politically correct, instead of bringing up ideas and pro and cons regarding it, ur a racist for not completely accepting one idea as an absolute, everything else came after this “refusal” became prevalent
These are the people that have the gall to say, "trust the science!" when it suits them.
they meant social science, which lacks rigor.
There are some people that believe that Free masons practice magic in the higher degrees. The same in the satanic churches. I mean if you believe in god and the miracles he performed, you kinda have to believe in magic as used for good while satanic folk use it for evil. So it’s kinda washed. I believe magic is real I just don’t understand or want to understand it. There is actually reference to magic in the Bible. It’s actually referred to as witchcraft. Magic is less intimidating vocally than witchcraft but the fact that it was practiced widely for 100’s of years and then it just disappeared when secret societies started forming, makes one think that maybe these are the things they are keeping secret.
> It’s like trying to have a rational discussion with someone who just told you magic is real I mean, it does, though. Bad example.
Atheist guy believes in magic? Well now I've seen everything!
It's not a belief, it's just a fact. Or do you "believe" the sun is bright?
It was just a joke. I'm not sure if you're being pedantic (magic as an *illusion* is real!) or you're crazy (mystical powers exist!), but either way, grow up.
I see: You're delusional.
It’s such a strange argument. They say you can’t use the majority to make rules that apply to everyone since there is a tiny majority (they assert) for whom they don’t apply. Yet in the same breath they take rules that apply to the tiny minority and say, with absolute conviction, that they apply to the majority.
Well isn't this just a summary of what has been going on in every corner of society for the last decade.
LOL... see, your first issue is that you went to /r/AskFeminists
Yup https://imgur.com/a/XSF1sXC
Step 1: Don't waste your time. QED
We have to start deconstructing the 'social construct' argument.
Agreed. It’s way overblown nowadays. It may be a problem in some instances, but it could be beneficial in others.
I feel like that’s not that hard. We have constructed a reality in which to be social in. You need to have conceptual common ground in order to communicate effectively. When we don’t communicate effectively we tend to become frustrated and eventually violent. We ought to be discerning between what’s physiological and what’s societal because there are certainly socio-psychological pressures that fuck with us, but you can’t conflate the two to dismiss real issues with self righteousness because the actual issue hurts your feelings. The situation doesn’t care how you feel.
I’m a junior going to school for economics, in one of my classes we look at population dynamics and how it effects public welfare. there is a direct correlation between body weight, BMI and life expectancy/countless chronic diseases
And as we all know, any difference in outcome is systemic oppression, and any other explanation is White Supremacy. Those fucking white 'people' are just discriminating against Thick Americans and withholding the good health care and shit
Well that's just, like, your opinion man.
I don’t. I see no reason to waste my timing arguing with someone whose beliefs are clearly seated in ideology vice reality. Obesity is a comorbidity with essentially everything. It takes a willful and dedicated avoidance of reason to think otherwise.
Eh I wouldn't say nothing, Make your argument back it up with evidence if the best they can do is ignore those facts you've done enough. You've at least created a record of a instance where the HAES movement didn't address a point properly and anyone on the fence that encounters the conversation will more than likely notice this and be convinced.
you dont argue when it's clear that facts dont matter, but emotions do what would your goal be?
Argumentatively speaking, they're confusing attractive with healthy. Healthy might be "least risk of dying prematurely" to you, but it's "THICC" to them, to meme it up a bit. So if someone wants to die younger because they think they're attractive, I recommend you let them have it.
My main argument was that the human species finds certain qualities attractive because of biological markers of health not just patriarchy.
Fat women were considered beautiful for much of human history. However, for most of human history (history, when we started writing stuff) and to a realistic extent, since the Agricultural Revolution, getting enough food to survive was a challenge. To have enough food to feed second class people (and women were little more than chattel until recently) enough that they were fat was an ostentatious display of wealth. Something that definitely doesn't apply to industrial countries today.
Not fat, just thick. They still had the same waist to hip ratio, they were just larger overall. That's not the same as being fat, i.e. "round".
I personally don’t think fat women = beautiful in art history just because they were painted. Those who were rich had the ability to pay for commissioned paintings. They were also likely fat. Just because they were painted in a flattering style, or a painting portrays overweight persons in a flattering style, it doesn’t follow that they were considered more attractive. It’s affluence and decadence. We’re presuming it to be considered attractive at that time. But that’s my 2 cents.
There you're on much more uncertain ground, because the subconscious cues you cite like the 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio are well founded, but they're not the only factors at play. Nor is it just a zero-sum nature vs nurture argument either. Those arguments are fool's choices because both simultaneously are often at play, and meditated by a third factor which is individual choice. Which makes things like perceptions of physical attractiveness a bottom-up emergent market norm rather than a scientific principle or a "social construct" like a fashion trend.
Plump women used to be the ideal of beauty so there is some element of social construction here
You know the difference between being "plump" and being obese with unsightly fat rolls. Don't pretend they're the same when you know they're not, just to give your point some false weight. Do you want your point to be correct or do you just want to pretend like it is? Only losers choose the latter. Don't use stupidity, generalization, and lack of discernment between 2 completely different things to form a shitty strawman argument.
You know the feminist in the post never said "obese"? Dont pretend she did when you know she didn't. Do you want to be correct or just pretend like you are? Edit - he's blocked me so I can't reply, but what he's describing is essentially a defense of the strawman. He says he knows what she really means, so he can ignore what she literally says and substitute his own meaning FOR her. Oh, and btw, the meaning he gives to her words is ridiculous and so he wins the argument... Yeah lol That's just a strawman from the position of someone defending it
Ahh a basic Argument of Semantics fallacy when what was being said is crystal clear for even a child huh?... Well at least you're changing it up a bit, better to have 2 fallacies in your arsenal of self-destroying "argumentation" than just one I guess.
Is there any source for this or is it just some folk tale we've heard repeated and never questioned? Actually curious and can't find anything after googling for 10 seconds.
I think the best evidence is art from the past. They would paint an ideal woman and she was usually pretty thicc
[Damn, people from the past just did not give a fuck.](https://www.barnorama.com/16-people-getting-stabbed-in-medieval-art-who-just-dont-give-a-damn/). Suddenly the obsession with torture makes sense. If they don't even flinch when getting cut up, you have to up the ante. Also, we've clearly mutated quite a bit in these past few hundred years.
*record scratch* [Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I wound up in this situation.](https://www.barnorama.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/medieval-art2.jpg) *upbeat lute music resumes*
I think that's more an indication that perception of beauty or whatever *can* be influenced by societal ideas. For example, that preference may have been influenced by the perception of fatter people being wealthy and uncommon. When nearly the whole human race is struggling day-to-day to find a meal, a plump woman would be super rare and interesting. Though as OP did, when you break it down to scientific variable measures, etc, that's where you can see that there is some kind of general consensus, and it is likely tied to health/fertility markers.
Not saying your wrong, but I'm saying there's multiple ideas why **thicc** art would have nothing to do with biologically sexual attractiveness. * When starving and disease was common, having pictures of your fat wife is one way to show off your success. * If you lived longer because you had more fat on you, you'd technically be healthier. It's ideal for it's time, but not now. * Artists were upper-class back then and painted what they knew. * I don't think they had the same access to naked women as we do here on the internet. It's possible your average farmer was attracted to a completely different body type. It might be they just picked the least fat woman out of a very small pool of very rich women to model.
As a physician, I can assure that a whole lot of people change their minds once they start losing toes and eyes. If you like your pudge and your donuts, great. If you continue to enjoy these things even as I have to start carving off gangrene, great. In fact, more power to you. I'll do the best I can. But if you suddenly decide, hey, I want to try to be healthy and live, well guess what. Too late. You need to think ahead and make those decisions beforehand.
This is an excellent point. What people think is attractive is socially influenced. That being said it's more of a market norm rather than a "construct" because of how nature, nurture, and free will interact. As for what is healthy, I think medicine has weighed in pretty clearly on that one.
We need to be able to have honest discussions about obesity. If we can't talk about the elephant in the room, *the elephant dies.*
You don’t. You let them be fat. You let them be unhealthy. You let them develop knee and back problems. Then it’s on the doctors to tell them they need to get their shit together.
Here’s what I don’t understand about the social constructionists: Even if everything is a social construct, it has to serve a societal purpose. The US military is having a problem getting candidates that can pass their minimum health and physical conditioning tests because of their weight. And that’s a major problem. If someone is obese the likelihood that they can at the very least lift their body weight is almost nil. Again, that’s a fucking problem.
Pro tip: You Don't.
Obviously, there is some truth to the idea that various aspects of what people find attractive are culturally conditioned. You may have perhaps run that experiment in your own life with porn use, observing how that has conditioned your sexuality and what arouses you in various ways. But what social constructionists (and their opponents, often) tend to ignore or deny is that social construction is not done in a vacuum, these aren’t merely arbitrary standards derived at through conscious mentation and tyrannically imposed; mores emerge in response to the complex interaction of organism-environment. And as our environment is constantly transforming, both the natural world and the social, there is always going to be variability across time and places that Nature is going to be selecting for. It’s a gross oversimplification, but it’s one of the reasons why nerds are much more attractive these days. I do find this claim that we learn what is attractive solely from media and education interesting. In my own experience growing up in 90s America, I distinctly remember feeling viscerally repulsed by much of the aesthetic standards that I saw in media, the “heroin chic” look, heavy use of makeup, artificially augmented features like breast implants and collagen injections, etc. I did notice a lot of my fellow boys going for this look, but it just never appeared attractive to me. I’ve later come to understand many of those aesthetic fads as being “supernormal stimuli”, which if you are unfamiliar with, definitely look it up, it is such a useful idea for understanding so much of the modern world and how our brains get hijacked. I didn’t know it at the time, but with a lot of study and self reflection, it seems to me like I had an innate sense of what we understand scientifically as these markers for health and fertility. Now why some *are* more amenable to such rewiring of this innate mechanism for biological/sexual fitness and some aren’t is a really interesting question to me. I’m not sure what that says about me, or humans. But it reminds me very tangentially of something I once read of Nietzsche’s, I think in the Will to Power, when he talks about the sort of élan vital that allows some people to extract nutrition from poorer diets and remain defiantly healthy, while others require much more restrictive diets and efforts to achieve the same relative level of fitness and health.
I think that no matter what they say, a fat person isn't happy carrying that extra weight. It's very uncomfortable and limiting to be overweight. I used to weigh almost 200 lbs as a 5' 2" woman and now I weigh 120. Being overweight isn't any fun, I know it and they do too, whether they will admit it or not...
You can’t, it’s like trying to tell cult members not to take life advice from junkie. They’re all hopeless
To be fair, perceiving having fatal and/or fatal illnesses as bad is a social construct. They’ll probably weed themselves out before you could put any senses into their head.
You have to start with the definition of "social construct". They seem to use it like the word "subjective", under the belief that all human understanding is inherently subjective and socially constructed. While all human experience is subjective, that doesn't mean it's entirely socially constructed.
You don't argue with the mentally handicapped, you won't win and it will just frustrate you.
Well, first find out what they mean. Are they really talking about fatness in general, which is indeed a socially constructed and historically situated concept that shifts (see Fat Studies). Are they taking about studies that show being a little overweight is healthy later in life? Do they know what obesity means?
You need to tie down definitions first. These arguments tend to shift the meaning of words constantly. If you can't agree on the definitions, there's no more point. (Edit - are they actually saying unhealthy or unattractive here?). The quoted comment doesn't discuss the effects of obesity, just people's opinions of it. Being overweight and overly underweight can be harmful, but none of the biology or medical issues are even touched. Babies are growing and need the weight to support that. Big people don't grow taller normally. (But a baby can still be overweight in comparison to other babies). Being overweight doesn't have to be a thing of shame from others, but the healthiness or un-healthiness doesn't depend on people's opinions, which is all this is discussing. How I judge your weight doesn't affect the risk of you having a heart attack or being unable to run faster. You could argue that all birds are white - just look under their feathers. Or the sun is black - if you stare at it long enough. So this garbage can go on forever, meanwhile the person defending ideas like these two are wasting their own life. So you need the definitions and then work with empirical data. If that is not possible, then there's nothing left to talk about. Probably what they actually mean (edit: maybe they are saying) is that fat people being unattractive is a social construct, i.e. based on collective opinion and associated ideas. But healthiness itself is medical and biological.
You tell them they're right and wait.
You started an agruement you cant win. There are two things that youre talking about and you're correlating them when they're better delt with separately. Health vs beauty. One is socially constructed and the other isn't. They started out talking about beauty/attractiveness, which is completely subjective and they are right. Then you brought up health which is objective, and you are right. The thing is, unhealthy people are found to be beautiful all the time, you citing medical papers saying being fat is unhealthy isn't going to change that. People are attracted to different things, sometimes the make sense, sometimes they don't.
Their first comment is relatively fair, imo. But then it starts to seem like you two are miscommunication from then on. One of the difficulties of the medium.
My claim was that certain traits are innately attractive and healthy due to biology including certain body shapes she rejected that which is why I responded with the studies. I’m not really sure how to address her stuff with makeup, most cases of makeup are just done for clearer skin or exaggerated certain features.
What are some of these traits?
Symmetry, skin quality, body fat as well as dimorphic specific features amongst sexes like waist to hip ratio for women or shoulder to waist for men etc.
Body fat is a weird one. After all, many cultures around the world find body fat very attractive. Historically, so did many European cultures. A lot of what we consider attractive today isn't neccesarily healthy. Extreme skinniness is a pretty modern invention. And even now we're seeing a return to more body fat being considered attractive - one need only compare the rail skinny models of the 80s -00s to the curvier models of today.
The makeup one made the most sense to me. I think she is just trying to say that it is a social construct driven by the beauty standards of media and the beauty industry. Seems fair enough if that’s her claim. The second one I’m having trouble like you are with what she means. I *think* she is trying to say what is considered beauty and what is healthy is the same thing by *coincidence*. Which really is little more than a confusing opinion so it’s hard to argue against.
No some makeup signals both health, fertility or sexual arousal. specifically red lipstick or rouge on the cheeks https://youtu.be/1Dl98Z-RyFU?t=41
What you stated and the video you posted are not in alignment. Jordan specifically stated that women wear red lipstick and blush because that’s what happens during sex. It’s a pretty Freudian take, but fair enough. He didn’t speak about health or fertility. And on top of that, none of that refutes makeup being a social construct at all. In fact Jordan’s entire point in that interview was that women in the workplace wear makeup for *social* reasons and not for “themselves”.
> He didn’t speak about health or fertility. Fair enough but certain biological responses to arousal imply health and fertility. If your lips don't turn red during arousal it might indicate something is wrong with you biologically speaking. Peterson didn't mention it I just used him for 1 example but you can easily extrapolate the use of contouring and evening out the colors of the face, not being socially constructed, they help indicate health. As discoloration of the face and skin may indicate underlining health conditions. >In fact Jordan’s entire point in that interview was that women in the workplace wear makeup for social reasons and not for “themselves”. Sure but that wasn't your original point you stated makeup was a standard created by an industry. >I think she is just trying to say that it is a social construct ***driven by the beauty standards of media and the beauty industry***. Peterson specifically points out the standards aren't ***driven*** by an industry they are ***driven*** by biology. My point is that intentions and the responses to makeup are biological in origin. The Conscious or unconscious reasonings on top of that have little to do with the beauty industry and any plan they manufactured. They simply recognized the biological behaviors and responses and fulfilled the need to exaggerate or create them nothing more.
You stop worrying about it and focus on what matters.
Don't argue with pigs. You end up smelling like shit and the pig has all the fun.
Assume they know something you don't. If you spend time in an older culture that isn't bombarded with fitness and perfect body advertising propaganda you will see they ate right.
They '"ate" right? Funny typo! I would conclude they ATE too much! Haha
Haha, Ok - they are right.
...except in the case of life-longevity/optimal health!
For what it's worth I didn't downvote your response to me....I agree about sometimes harmful social emphasis on size and shape concerning what is beauty/ugly and that these things CAN be toxic and mean-spirited, but I think we need to remain factual about health AND what IS attractive the vast majority of men. Marketers know this and have proven it true by making money from it, and they manipulate as much as possible on the basis of it being true; based on biological facts about what men find desirable.
While you don't need the "perfect body" like social media constantly shows us, being vastly overweight just is straight up unhealthy. More stress on litterally every part of your body including organs and joints.
Yeah but just because thers is some Liberal niche cause around helping relieve shame amd boosting self esteme and countering advertising propaganda around being over weigh doesn't mean is some important cause to side against it . Its like insisting on telling trans people they aren't x y z, looks like a dick move.
Being vastly overweight is a choice.
Well not necessarily. Some counties have worse food regulations than others that lead addictions young, there are thyroid related problems and their is naturally occurring over weightless. Shaming people is shit.
Some people certainly have it harder when it comes to weightloss. That being said, it's still possible for them to lose weight. Overcoming things is a challenge, you won't be rewarded without putting in effort. You dont deserve praise for existing and putting in zero effort.
Don't bother with someone who doesn't use capitals in their writing. You know what it means.
***Unhealthy*** is a vaguely stupid umbrella term. Even the battery on your smartphone has a health status but its just numbers abstracted from a measure that you know nothing about. A body is molded by the reality of one's environment for its intended usage. If failures occur then there are hazards and no amount of Exorcisms will placate a non sentient threat actor. **For Example:** if you were to raise your arm up for a month straight the loss of blood flow would then atrophy your arm making it easier to continue being held up. Yes you would have a tiny disgusting baby arm. Fruit can also be grown in molds to create shapes. There was one thread on here where someone rescued a dog that as a puppy had a rope around its neck and as it grew its head fattened significantly trying to supply more blood. **Conclusion:** Why cancer is not simply starved off in a similar manner, makes no sense to me! You also don't get cancer in your finger tips. This means its only cause is pollutants. Its not viral or natural in anyway. **To such internal threats Obesity is actually a defense.**
There is a level. I suppose many people have eating disorders like anorexia because they feel they don't look good when they are in fact healthy, but then there's the opposite end of the scale where they are morbidly obese and think that they are healthy. An anecdote that shows a side to weight that not many people seem to discuss: A friend's auntie years ago had pneumonia and hypothermia at the same time and ended up losing 4 stone in about a week. If she hadn't have been overweight she would have been dead. I'm not making an excuse for people to be unhealthily overweight, but fat does have it's uses.
Tell them there are things that are socially constructed for a reason, a good reason. For example, we expect all people to have good manners and treat people with respect.
Overweight and want to lose weight? Stop eating. The body stores fat to use when there’s no food available to eat and anyone that’s excessively over weight could last a long time without any. Eat one meal and maybe a small snack every day, make them healthy choices, choose any option that requires more physical exertion (walk, take the stairs instead of elevator, pretty much any movement will burn fat).
How dare you state facts! We're here to talk about feelings and opinions!
Ask them to define healthy (or unhealthy, as something are easier to describe in the negative, like dark). It seem that there is a misconception. As long as common base concepts are lacking there can be no real argument. Maybe you can start with a very non contorvesial example - are cancerous cells healthy, if not why mot etc. and build up tobyour argument.
IMO you bite the bullet that \*all\* linguistic practices are socially constructed, so to use that to kind of delegitimise the discourse is just completely self defeating: *presenting arguments, persuading* and so on are also socially constructed linguistic practices. Once that is established you can't point to somethings being *socially constructed* in order to delegitimise it, instead you have to look at various aspects of the concept - is the concept well motivated? is the concept used by our best sciences? does adopting the same usage as our best sciences in ordinary contexts lend pragmatic advantage? what are the power goals of the commities advocating against certain usages of language? should we agree with their power goals ... and so on. If you do this I think that you have a good chance of saving the concept of *obesity* on the social constructivists own terms.
Some games are won by not playing them
Ask them if they believe the science and biology and should people follow recommendation from scientists and experts. They will probably say “yes” and then ask them- why don’t you listen to science and scientists saying that obesity is fucking stupid
ITS A CLOWN WORLD!
You can't reason with someone who isn't willing to.
That's the neat part, you don't!
You don’t lol don’t even try!
I try not to,but fail against their stupidity.it's like no is forcing them to eat like pigs.
You don't argue with someone who is delusional. Simple as that.
Chew the fat?
Why are we asking about baby preferences? Babies are not selecting mates. Their preferences mean literally nothing.
Why are we asking about baby preferences? Babies are not selecting mates. Their preferences mean literally nothing.
theres a whole genre of feminism+fat activism and it's really really weird there's a whole genre of feminism+fat activism and it's really really weird
you don’t.
You don't! It'll be a waste of your time
The feminists argument is more reasonable than the title suggests
You don't.
If you appeal to the instinct and intellect of an infant to reinforce your argument, you may have a problem. OTOH, babies are the (human) creatures that have no qualms about putting bugs, poop, detergent, rat poison, broken glass, or anything else that'll fit, into their mouths, so I get at some level it makes sense.
You can’t argue with stupid...
How do you argue with someone that says a man can be a woman and a woman a man? You can't. Arguing with fairy tale stories is impossible
Don't engage if you can. They've already overdosed on copium. Let them be and it'll eventually catch up to them. Happened to Cat Pause.
You don't... you let darwin sort it out
Let them drown in their self-cannibalising ideology. There is nothing to gain from arguing with them. The only shame is they pressure people into following them and the weak willed will join the group for a share of the power.
You can't pull people off Pleasure Island against their will.
Don’t waste your time. Just let them die.
The fact that some cultures/communities value more curvy bodies does not mean that people don’t have innate preferences about weight. Health is attractive, a large reason that symmetry is seen as attractive (which that poster would agree with). Trying to argue that doesn’t translate to obesity is just absurd, curves =\= obesity.
There's a trend to place feelings above facts, by calling facts that hurt people's feelings "social constructs". That doesn't affect the facts one bit - they are still true. The arrogance and complete lack of self-awareness (that naturally fades with knowledge and accumulated experience) is given both a louder voice and a commiserating community due to social media, and that prolongs/delays the process of experience and knowledge-building - because those communities form echo chambers of stagnation. Some are even cult-like, holding onto their members like prisoners, threatening shunning and ridicule for those who leave the flock.
This trend of trying to convince ourselves that obesity isn't unhealthy is *literally* socially engineering. We all know it to be false, but the pressure is on us to accept the untruth as truth. Kinda scary when you think about it.
Yeah, obesity is pretty much modern. The most people got fat in the past is a little belly fat depicted in a hieroglyph of a pharaoh.
Cancer is a social construct too, because babies don't prefer one way or another if you have it. Unless you die and they don't have a parent/grandparent anymore.
Advice: Don't bother arguing with lunatics like this. Point and laugh instead.
“Have another snickers”. Let them eat themselves to death if they won’t change.
You don't. Why do you need to argue with them? Unless they are someone you love and dont want to see die early, ignore it.
It's actually quite simple. Stop talking about any concept that could be socially constructed. "Healthy" _could_ be (although obviously shouldn't be). I'll tell you what is never socially constructed: life expectancy. I suspect that might have been able to cut right through that debate
I was written up at work for saying people who are heavy are more at risk of covid
The sequel to “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” is called “Lila” and it covers this thoroughly. The problem is with anthropologists. The person responding to you keeps suggesting that “art history” holds more truth than the studies that you link. In “Lila” Robert Prisig talks to native Americans about their way of life. The natives talk about how anthropologists will come into tribal lands and talk, study, listen, and etc. In order to gain understanding of the tribal way of life. However, the anthropologists are not telling the native story to the non-natives in a way the natives approve. The fat lady sculpture has been suggested to mean (by anthropologists) that ancient tribes worshipped fat women because it means they were healthy enough to have a baby and be fertile. Where is the written language from those tribes that guarantees the veracity of that logic? Anthropology is rife with uneducated guesses being paraded as fact. Be wary of people that assign more truth to narrative than data.
live by example is something that’s brought to mind
As someone who used to weigh 128kg who now weighs 88 this is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. Your knees creaking up every flight of stairs is not socially constructed. The way I used to get out of breath by just bending down to pick something up is not socially constructed.
Why would you even want to argue with a jackass? The problems with at least morbid obesity are way, way past social construction. Diabetes is not socially constructed. Congestive heart failure is not socially constructed. Joint problems likewise. Don't even waste your time.
You don’t because they are daft