Tyra Banks "fat" issue

EDIT
BEFORE COMPLAINING THIS IS TOO LONG, SKIP TO THE LAST PARAGRAPH AND READ THAT AS A SUMMARY

Before people say "wtf is a thread like this doing here" let me elaborate. In case you don't know, tabloids released a bunch of stuff calling Tyra Banks fat based on some unflattering pictures of her in a bathing suit taken by the paparazzi. Tyra Banks is an ex-supermodel, now talk show host. Now this thread isn't just about this issue, that would be dumb; it is about image problems in America in general. This is just something that ticked me off.

Basically, yeah the pictures taken of Tyra were unflattering, but while she may have looked like she had gained some weight, she was not what I would call obese. On top of that, she released pictures later, where she looked curvy, but not fat.

Anyway it all boils down to this.

First of all, I am tired of images of what is "beautiful" being injected into our minds. First of all, when it comes to supermodels, most of these images are unrealistic, and second of all most of them aren't that "beautiful" either, we are just told they are and believe it. Super skinny anorexic looking women are ugly in my opinion, but unfortunately, guys are told that is what they should be attracted to and young girls are told that that is what they have to look like, leading to a lot of health issues.

The next thing is that in the supermodel world, and thus reflected into our culture, anything that isn't superskinny is deemed "fat". Fat should be reserved for actual obesity, where body shape actually begins to become less defined and health problems are imminent. Thick does not equal fat and curvy does not equal fat. There is a huge divide between anorexic and obese, and frankly I think women who are in the natural middle of that divide are much better than either one of the extremes (whereas society as a whole seems to lean more towards the super-skinny side).

My next problem is that I don't like the fact that what is beautiful is chewed up and spit out for us to digest easier. Some people high up in an ivory tower tell us what is attractive. And the thing is, I used to prefer the whole fake, super skinny look as a kid because that is what I was told I should like. Then I came to terms with the fact that I preferred real looking women, even though I had denied it before assuming that most women were fat. True story. And no, before someone says "you're justifying you're perverted views on fatties," I am not talking about fat women. I am talking about real women. Here's a cliche link to Dove's real beauty campaign. Granted, those particular women are a couple generations older than me so I don't find them specifically as attractive, but they represent a real body type (well at least to some degree, I mean they still are posing for a Dove ad, real or not). This brings me to my next point.

I am tired of fashion companies and Women's companies coming out talking about "real" women as if it's a taboo subject. Most women are real women, yet they say "real" as though they are saying "fat." They shouldn't have to have special ad campaigns for real women, they should be targeting them all the time. Which they are actually, but usually by making claims that their product will make them better than real or whatever they want to call supermodels.

I am tired of plastic surgery. Women who look like plastic are ugly. Constant Botox injections are ugly. Silicone boobs are ugly. Plastic surgery, in my opinion, is only worthwhile if you had a serious accident in which part of your body needs resculpting; it shouldn't be a willy-nilly process for people who want to look different. I mean, I think people should have the right to it (I'm not suggesting a law or anything) but I, along with a lot of other people, find it to be ugly. Especially fake boobs.

SUMMMARY (If you don't want to read the whole thing)
Anyway, basically, I just get sick and tired of hearing about all this crap that goes on about "fat" and "obese". NSFW This is fat/obese. Real women, who are curvy or thick, are not fat, they are just natural. And real women who are skinny, they are natural as well, because their kind of skinny isn't the kind of unnatural touched up skinny that supermodels get in a computer or with an airbrush. Basically, natural real women with a healthy body mass index are a million times better than supermodels in my opinion, because I find a lot of supermodels to be ugly anyway and the ones that aren't are generally half digital and half old-fashioned makeup. I get sick when I hear regular (skinny or curvy/thick) women call themselves fat, when they look beautiful as they are. I get sick when I hear about yet another 12 year old who becomes anorexic because she wants to look like Paris Hilton (possibly one of the ugliest women on Earth). And I hear this stuff all the time, but women just don't listen. They have a warped definition of "fat" and they have a warped definition of what men want; in fact I read more men prefer real looking women then supermodels, so why do women want to look like supermodels?

Who here agrees?

Well said, heh.

I don't understand how people can find a malnourised silicon injected skeleton smothered in crisco attractive.

Dr. Zin said:

I don't understand how people can find a malnourised silicon injected skeleton smothered in crisco attractive.

Lol well spoken

Co-cain!

Frankly I'm fucking sick of hearing the "BEAUTY DOES NOT MEAN BEING A WALKING SKELETON" speeches everywhere I go.

Jesus fuck, people find attractive what they find attractive. It's purely a natural response, and an ad campaign isn't going to change that. So I personally don't give a fuck what the tabloids are saying and how many lines the supermodels are snorting and which actresses are down to 85 lbs, and I don't want to have to hear about it from everyone who thinks their opinion is actually meaningful.

tl;dr

Holy fucking shit wacky, tl;dr. Learn to summarize.

EDIT: BS beat me to the punch heh.

I don't know what tl;dr means but I'm pretty sure I agree with it.

Kid Airbag said:

I don't know what tl;dr means but I'm pretty sure I agree with it.

Too Long; Didn't Read.

There are still sane people in America? News to me.

Kid Airbag said:

Frankly I'm fucking sick of hearing the "BEAUTY DOES NOT MEAN BEING A WALKING SKELETON" speeches everywhere I go.

Jesus fuck, people find attractive what they find attractive. It's purely a natural response, and an ad campaign isn't going to change that. So I personally don't give a fuck what the tabloids are saying and how many lines the supermodels are snorting and which actresses are down to 85 lbs, and I don't want to have to hear about it from everyone who thinks their opinion is actually meaningful.

See, the problem I have with it is the rates of anorexia in this country. It's easy to dismiss the image that's out there, but it has serious effects on people's lives. It's ridiculous that there's a disease that makes you not want to eat. WTF!? Only in America...

geekmarine: that's a very contrived view. Nowadays, there are people suffering from anorexia nervosa all around the world and it's a serious issue: people die because of the induced malnutrition. Predisposition to it might have genetic factors involved, just like depression does. It's not less than any other eating disorder nor than any other mental illness.

Of course, the issue of Western influence is important for this matter because social factors will always have a strong role in people's mindsets, but this impacts all aspects of their lives and not just their self-images.

insertwackynamehere said:

Paris Hilton

Picture of Paris "before" and "after"

Really shocking that it's the same person!

I like athletic women. I'm somewhat athletic myself (I'm not buff by any means, but I exercise).

And guess what? If you've ever seen an athletic woman, chances are she's been skinny. Sure there are 'curvy' athletic women out there, but probably only because they haven't targeted their thighs yet. News flash: "athletic" is closer to skinny than it is curvy. There are also those muscle-bound weirdos... not my style. So anyway, I'm more inclined toward women who take care of their bodies. Not just with exercise, but with eating healthy food.

It has nothing to do with imagery or definition of beauty-- somehow "starving" replaced "exercise and nutritional balance" as the ideal way to lose weight. Diabetes is a rampant disease. But it's only genetic by proxy, as eating habits are passed down. What do you expect from people who can't control their sugar intake or body fat percentage? The fact that women think they should starve themselves ironically feeds into this obesity problem. Women think it's OK to get fat because the alternative is turning into an 85-pound cokehead. It's a crutch.

So it's not the image that's the problem, it's what people (aren't willing to) do to get there.

*weird laugh*

HELP FEED THE STARVING ACTRESS

Still, I can't believe no one is forcely feeding the anorexics. A stupid new law? They seem easy prey, for obvious reasons. They act like loser brats, as laughable as they are.

Act superior to anyone who buys tabloid magazines. If enough people do this, the problem will go away.

I don't understand why anyone can care enough about a celebrity's weight for this to be a newsworthy issue.

The weak minded fools called the general public who suck up all this celeb gossip bullshit are the ones to blame. Without that, banal celeb obsessions, the fat issue and all the other bollocks that go with them would cease to be an issue.

david_a said:

Picture of Paris "before" and "after"

Really shocking that it's the same person!

You mean she once hot? Shit, what did I miss?

Anyways: too long, read some. I agree with you.

spank said:

geekmarine: that's a very contrived view. Nowadays, there are people suffering from anorexia nervosa all around the world and it's a serious issue: people die because of the induced malnutrition. Predisposition to it might have genetic factors involved, just like depression does. It's not less than any other eating disorder nor than any other mental illness.

Of course, the issue of Western influence is important for this matter because social factors will always have a strong role in people's mindsets, but this impacts all aspects of their lives and not just their self-images.

I know, I know... I oversimplified the issue. I just get fed up with how the media seems so insistent on fueling the body image insecurities that lead to anorexia in some people. And yeah, I know it's not only in America, but we do seem to be where it all got started.

Enjay said:

I don't understand why anyone can care enough about a celebrity's weight for this to be a newsworthy issue.

The weak minded fools called the general public who suck up all this celeb gossip bullshit are the ones to blame. Without that, banal celeb obsessions, the fat issue and all the other bollocks that go with them would cease to be an issue.

It might help the problem, but not cure it completely. People are still too insecure about their physical appearance. It's part of a wider issue that includes fashion, designer clothing labels, social subcultures, being trendy and generally doing whatever general concensus deems popular. People are too afraid to be an individual and deviate from the expectations of those around them.

Until people realise that all that crap is utterly superfluous and meaningless, they'll continue to be vain, materialistic, shallow and ashamed of their bodies.

Still, I think that people should have SOME shame. When living with my younger brother, he made "feminine" grunting/moaning noises that could be heard from two rooms away.

david_a said:

Picture of Paris "before" and "after"

Really shocking that it's the same person!

That has to be fake. The doctors made her look like a fucking downs sufferer.

I edited my first post to point people who don't like reading to the last paragraph which sums everything up.

I only needed to read up to the line:

I am tired of images of what is "beautiful" being injected into our minds.

to get the general idea. Heh.

I still don't buy into the fact that people are really so impressionable that they need the media to tell them what is "beautiful."

Maybe I'm just different, but when I see a girl, I judge her beauty based on my own personal definition of attractiveness, and it's always been that way. I rarely make judgements based solely on body type; I've been with a petite, skinny girl, an athletic, "buff" girl (she was a rower), and a curvy/"thick" girl. Obviously there are limitations. I think a walking skeleton, i.e. Paris Hilton is disgusting and likewise there is a point where a girl starts to get a little too thick for me to find attractive.

But in general my feelings about how attractive a woman is have always come purely from my own gut, and not about something someone else has said or told me, and I feel like it would be the same way for most people. Maybe I'm just severely overrating the human race, though.

Kid Airbag said:

I still don't buy into the fact that people are really so impressionable that they need the media to tell them what is "beautiful."

What is judged "attractive" has changed through time. For example, large breasts were considered unattractive for quite a while, as they supposedly denoted a female of lower breeding. It was thought that poor women had large breasts so they could nurse the huge families the lower class had.

Another example is under-arm hair. If was not until the early twentieth century that under-arm hair was considered unattractive on women. This actually was the result of the razor companies. They realized that they could double their sales if they could reach the female market, and thus began producing a series of advertisements on how unfeminine under-arm hair was.

Do a little research and you will find that what is "attractive" is really arbitrary.

Kid Airbag said:

I still don't buy into the fact that people are really so impressionable that they need the media to tell them what is "beautiful."

Maybe I'm just different, but when I see a girl, I judge her beauty based on my own personal definition of attractiveness, and it's always been that way. I rarely make judgements based solely on body type; I've been with a petite, skinny girl, an athletic, "buff" girl (she was a rower), and a curvy/"thick" girl. Obviously there are limitations. I think a walking skeleton, i.e. Paris Hilton is disgusting and likewise there is a point where a girl starts to get a little too thick for me to find attractive.

But in general my feelings about how attractive a woman is have always come purely from my own gut, and not about something someone else has said or told me, and I feel like it would be the same way for most people. Maybe I'm just severely overrating the human race, though.

You are lucky, and I am not being sarcastic when I say that. There are two reasons: You define your own version of attractiveness and are not influenced by the media and peers (this isn't especially common, but it isn't especially uncommon either). The other reason is that you are not a woman, who actually is influenced by the media. If you want to continue seeing women who look natural and of different real body types, than that is a good enough to reason to dislike the way women are portrayed in the media. It is a fact that young girls are becoming depressed and anorexic or bulimic due to a negative self-image cultivated by what they see on TV and in print. More and more girls are following women like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears and the whole little Hollywood slut gang who can't even afford panties or shirts that stay on. I do not consider myself puritanical and my reasons for not wanting girls to be influenced by these types of people are because I would not want to live in a world filled with airheaded, ugly (yet paparazzi-attractive) women.

The same goes for young girls who look through Cosmo and ask why they don't look like that. For starters, no one looks like "that" because half of the picture is digital makeup. Secondly, they are still young and don't have a womanly body type because these girls aren't even on the verge of hitting puberty, some of them. And then when they do hit puberty, they still don't look like they think they should (because no one can) and suddenly, you have another self-hating girl with low self-esteem and bad role models.

So, while I personally am attracted to real looking women (who, as I said before, are of a healthy Body Mass Index..not obese nor deathly skinny), there is more than just the personal taste of most men out there. There is the self-image of generations of young women who grow up hating themselves due to unrealistic perceptions. That is even more important than my irrational fear that the only women left will look like ugly mannequins thanks to fashion designers and celebrities and tabloids.

I come with a hat full of tricks, a trunk full of Faygo and car full of fat chicks.

Honestly, though, I agree with you, the media and public obsession with celebrities and the bullshit idea of what it fat and what isn't sucks. I know what I like, and fucked the media telling me what is attractive. Personally, I don't mind a bigger chick. Most of them can suck a dick like there's no tomorrow.

Kid Airbag said:

Maybe I'm just different, but when I see a girl, I judge her beauty based on my own personal definition of attractiveness, and it's always been that way. I rarely make judgements based solely on body type; I've been with a petite, skinny girl, an athletic, "buff" girl (she was a rower), and a curvy/"thick" girl. Obviously there are limitations. I think a walking skeleton, i.e. Paris Hilton is disgusting and likewise there is a point where a girl starts to get a little too thick for me to find attractive.

Same here. It's not only about how "hot" she/he is (though if you get this with these next two first, you have the real deal. Too bad they're impossible to find all together.), but other factors, like is she caring, or intelligent. Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.