Yes, clearly, the best option is to shame large kids and teens into conforming. In fact, lets do away with clothes for fat people all together - it just helps them pretend to fit in. That would be hard on the thin folk, though - maybe some burlap bags would do the trick?

Lordy. And also, the rest of the culture is so accepting and encouraging of fatness that the only way overweight people could ever feel less than nurtured and feted is if there aren't any pretty clothes.

Yuh huh.

There was an article in Self* last month by a formerly overweight woman waxing lyrical about how she used to have fabulous self-esteem and thought she looked great, but then she discovered self-loathing, and finally managed to lose weight. She now feels crappy about her self-image, but she's down a jeans size! Yay! It was beyond sickening.

*My gym has copies lying around

Jessica, just... wow.

Fucking ewww.

Be happy. Be healthy. Be both. It is possible.

(on edit: I'm a fucking Cheerio's commercial)

Wow, Jess. That's just...

Repulsive.

I quit buying Self (back in '99) when I realized I was buying it to flog myself for weight gain. (Good days, I'd buy Mode. Bad days, I'd buy Self.)

Fuck it. I'm not letting the Body Image Demons back into my house post-baby. It's been so nice having them gone, I'm going to just tell those fuckers they're evicted.

Yeah, reading it really amped up my determination to bring my own reading material to the gym from now on.

thwump

There was an article in Self*

Yup. Z read that in Walgreen's and promptly ranted for 10 minutes. I used to buy Self until I realized that I didn't need exercise tips anymore - I just want the brain candy pretty and In Style fits that need much better.

Ack! I've been there. Some years back, I got a physical through the office (it was a thing that was done back then). The doctor read me the riot act about my weight.

Over the next 6 weeks, I lost 25 pounds. By the end of it, I was so depressed that I wasn't eating at all. Even suicidal.

Soon after, I broke the cycle. Gained half the weight back over the next 2 months. Felt much better.

So, even if losing the jeans size may have been good for her physical health (and based on what Jessica said, it may have been), I can't say that the declining mental health was a fair price.

Lucky is the only "women's" magazine I read these days. It contains nothing but lists and pictures of items I might like to buy, and the articles, such as they are, are little more than "Ooooh, shoes!!!!" It's fabulous.