Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeB
That's true, but also perhaps a failing in the fashion industry as well as a potential cause for health issues for those persons naturally predisposed to be a little larger. It isn't neccessarily true that a person is always healthier if they are thinner; a fatter person, as a consequence of the extra energy and insulation is more likely to survive a long winter where there is comparative scarcity of food than a thinner person. Hence the need for body fat on larger aquatic animals existing around the antartic regions; seals, whales and so on. In temperate climates there isn't really any need for this extra fat and in warmer climates the extra insulation is a definite disadvantage.
Where we have an increasingly internationalised fashion scene, it seems somewhat unfair to favour one sort of person when people can look very different according to various social, economic and environmental factors. My sister, for example, is medium sized girl and an actress in the UK, I don't think that any reasonable person would take a look at her and call her fat, but in her earlier years she experienced some bullying, which when combined with the images she found in her fashion magazines, convinced her that firstly she was fat and that second she had to take drastic measures to correct a problem she didn't have. This resulted in her suffering from a serious eating disorder. She isn't alone, I'm sure.
Perhaps it would make better economic as well as health sense if the fashion industry as a whole marketed their products to a larger section of the world's population?
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Not to seem harsh, but your first paragraph really is BS. It's unfortunate that most people do not understand that not everyone is built the same way, but your justification is almost hilarious, and if I were a large person, I would probably feel insulted if my counter-defense for being big is that I can survive bad weather, just like whales.
The "too skinny" argument is also pretty crappy. Being too skinny can cause health complications, but we're talking almost malnourished people, on average. Whereas someone can be as low as 15-25 lbs overweight and already begin to enter dangerous territory.
I like to use the "Money doesn't buy you happiness" analogy. I happen to disagree with that statement. The reason being, for every one filthy rich person you can find that's unhappy, I can find 1,000 impoverished people who are just as unhappy. Just as you can find one person who is skinny to the point of health complications, and I can find you 1,000 people who are pre-diabetics or worse. It's all relative.
As for changing the market to fit bigger people, would this be a positive or a negative? All things equal, most large people are fat, not just "big boned." So would we be encouraging the idea that it is OK to be fat, and that you'll be rewarded with alternative clothing styles no matter how much weight you want to put on? All while isolating the "small" crowd and simple reversing the roles?
It's unfortunate that your sister was bullied though, especially if she wasn't even that big to begin with. People's perception of what qualifies as being big is starting to become skewed.