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Epiphanies 2021: The Dilemma of Body Positivity

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  • Yes it was.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    I'm not looking for medical advice here, but I do have a puzzle.

    In my late twenties I wasn't overweight, but my diet wasn't great - too many pizzas grabbed after working late at the office. My cholesterol was on the high side - just over 6.

    Then I had had kids and started making more effort with family meals which included lots of veg etc, but I was also snacking. When I was breastfeeding I could eat an enormous amount without gaining weight, but I didn't dial back on the snacks when I stopped. My cholesterol dropped slightly to 5.8 / 5.9 which was still on the high side of healthy. And my doctor started suggesting that I should try to lower my cholesterol by losing weight, even though it had actually reduced as I gained weight. My cholesterol was lower at 15 / 16 stone than it had been at 10 stone.

    I'd like proper advice about my cholesterol, especially as it's coming up to 30 years since I started having it monitored, so it's been raised for at least 30 years. In my twenties I was told I'd probably have to go onto statins once I hit the menopause, and the doctor was suggesting familial hypercholesterolemia (my overweight mother and healthy-weight uncle are both on statins for high cholesterol, and the healthy-weight uncle who wasn't on statins died of a heart attack at 63.)

    However, now that I'm 17 stone it's all about my weight and the fact that the last time it was checked it was less than it had been when I was 28 and 10 stone was irrelevent.
  • Stone is a regional measure. Wikipedia says it's 6.35 kg or 14 lbs. Used only in the UK and Ireland. A unique measure of weight to two countries. Do you weigh things other than people with this? The 'net says you don't.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I've long referred to the post-fifties as 'The Statin Years'. I've been knocking them back for a couple of decades and I assume they're doing what they're paid for. No side effects that I'm aware of.

    Similarly long running, candesartan+bendroflumethiazide for high blood pressure.

    And last few years empagliflozin for diabetes - which has the side effect of weight loss as it happens.

    Obviously that's my individual regime, arrived at over time, with a bit of trial and error. It produces figures that keep my doctor happy, and I do not appear to be dead yet.
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited June 2021
    @NOprophet_NØprofit We used to weigh lots of things in stones, historically, but with metrication starting back in the 1970s with the initial conversion of money to decimals not £sd, we have, theoretically converted to metric measures, so stones are not used for much other than people, but I still think in stones for bodies. Food we buy in kg nowadays.

    I was told what I weighed and my BMI one of the last times I had a face-to-face asthma check in March 2019, and was given the results in lbs and kgs but I struggle to visualise body weights in pounds unless I convert to stones, although kg is a bit better, as I know 50kg is just under 8st, and I can convert from pounds to kg.

    Just because someone will want to know, but so you don't have to look if it's upsetting
    117lbs = 53kg = 8st 5lb - when she weighed me = BMI of 21
    I'd lost 2½ stones = 35lb or 16kg from my heaviest which is a BMI of 28,
    so I had been nearly 11st / 152lbs or 69kg

    @North East Quine do you have high blood pressure as well? I have no idea of my cholesterol levels as my blood pressure is checked regularly and is low, as in used to be prone to fainting low, and I understand that it's the combination of high blood pressure and high cholesterol that is the problem. And that cholesterol levels are affected by diet, weight and exercise levels. So maybe your exercise levels and diet are what are reducing your cholesterol levels?
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    @NpNp I didn't realise that "stones" weren't generally understood. As Curiosity killed says, food is now sold in kg here, but I still ask for e.g. "a pound of mince" at the butchers. I can visualise kgs, but only by converting; 1kg = 2 lbs.

    My blood pressure is normal - I've had issues with low blood pressure in the past, particularly when I was pregnant, but AFAIK it's consistently normal now. I've never had high blood pressure.

  • It is curious with weights and measures isn't it. I buy many food things by kg or per 100g, But liquid things in small amounts are frequently ounces, but if larger amounts, it'll be in litres. 4oz of milk, but one litre of milk.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Kg isn't real to me either - which is why my scales are set to them. Somehow xx kg is less depressing than xx st x lbs.

    I'm fairly metrified as to shopping, because I judge things visually - as in, what you've just weighed out looks Enough. And I've retained a sufficient impression of what the scales were saying at the time to frame requests eg 400g of mince.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Do scales used to weigh people display it in stones in the UK? As a Canadian my scales give me the option of lbs and Kgs although I set it to the former.
  • amyboamybo Shipmate
    I have no idea what a stone is, tbh. I just gloss over those measurements. But I've learned that weight is not a great way to measure bodies, at least if it's the only measurement. I told my OB I quit working out because it made me gain weight. The look he gave me as he reminded me that muscle weighs more than fat was pretty funny (he was a really good doc).
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Yes. Here’s a link to a typical stones/kilograms display.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Digital ones generally let you switch between too, as do kitchen scales.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    NZ went metric eons ago, but I still think of bodyweight in stones.

    (Actually I still use inches too as needlework fabric "count" is in threads per inch. Fortunately my brother is in the US and could send me a cheap transparent plastic ruler as they are difficult to obtain here)
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Huia wrote: »
    NZ went metric eons ago, but I still think of bodyweight in stones.

    The change happened here at about the same time. Our parents would have continued to think of themselves in stones and pounds but not our generation.
  • Stone is a regional measure. Wikipedia says it's 6.35 kg or 14 lbs. Used only in the UK and Ireland. A unique measure of weight to two countries. Do you weigh things other than people with this? The 'net says you don't.

    Stones are a convenient size for weighing people, just like feet are a convenient size for measuring their height. There aren't many other things that are people-sized, so I can't think of anything else I've ever weighed in stone. A large sack of potatoes, maybe?

    We used to buy coal by the hundredweight ( = 8 st / 112 lb), and sand by the ton ( = 20 cwt / 160 st / 2240 lb).
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Am I the only one who finds it unsettling that a thread about body positivity has turned into a thread about weights and measures?
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    Leaf wrote: »
    Am I the only one who finds it unsettling that a thread about body positivity has turned into a thread about weights and measures?

    It does seem to imply that some people aren't taking the topic very seriously, doesn't it?


    People, take the light tangents to Heaven. I've already said that once this thread.
    Gwai,
    Epiphanies Host
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Though measurements have been used to define women's' bodies - remember Miss World competitors being introduced with their 'vital statistics'? And think of the centuries of corsetry designed to produce an ideal shape and dimensions. The numbers on the bathroom scales (however rendered) stand in a long tradition.
  • I apologise for my part in the tangent. So-called "vanity sizing" for clothes is certainly a part of the discussion, but the minutiae of what units things are measured in is not.

    And I'd say that vanity sizing was both a symptom of body negativity, and a contributing cause. It's certainly, in my view, an unhelpful factor: I can't think of any situation that is improved in the long term by lying, but it's mostly a symptom. If someone's self-worth is tied to fitting in to a particular clothing size, clearly the easiest thing to change is the label on the clothing. "Body positivity" aims to break this link between self-worth and size.

    I would have thought that the fact that women's clothing sizes don't refer directly to a dimension makes it easier to have vanity sizing. if you sell a pair of pants as a 38" waist, for example, then it really needs to fit a 38" waist. It may or may not be a good fit for a particular individual with a 38" waist, depending on the size of their arse and the cut of the pants, but I'd be surprised to find a different waistband measurement.

    Thirty seconds with google, however, suggests that this opinion is shockingly naive. It finds me a sizing chart from a women's jeans company, where the "jean size" is a consistent 2.5 inches smaller than the waist measurement. So I suppose that they're not actually saying that a pair of jeans labelled "38" fits a 38-inch waist, they just put the number there, and let the customer assume that it's a waist size, because that's what it looks like.
  • No, size 38 relates to bust or hip size, based on a continental sizing system where the waist and hips relate to the bust by some arbitrary algorithm. Size 38 used to be the equivalent of a 10 or 12 UK dress size, depending on manufacturer. Men's sizing relates to waist sizing, for jeans, women's doesn't.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Standardization is, in almost every way, the enemy of body positivity.

    Institutions and systems absolutely LOVE standardization, because it makes things faster, cheaper, and easier. It's 'easier' to determine the symptoms of heart attack, the manufacture and selling of factory clothing, the development and availability of hair products, and a million other aspects of life IF we pretend that every body is the same. Weights and measures were standardized to make economic systems easier, for those who gained advantage by having those things standardized.

    Body positivity is about questioning and eliminating inappropriate standardization, because (for example) women have borne the brunt of inappropriate standardization.

    At the individual level, it means that the state of my body is a matter for me and my doctor and my tailor. I realize that both of those involve some standardization - the tailor has a measuring tape, the doctor has some standardized idea of human health - but even at that there are individual customizations.

    At the wider systemic level, we should be fucking questioning why we'd rather talk about women's pants than the millions of ways in which standardization is a form of colonialism that should die.
  • No, size 38 relates to bust or hip size, based on a continental sizing system where the waist and hips relate to the bust by some arbitrary algorithm. Size 38 used to be the equivalent of a 10 or 12 UK dress size, depending on manufacturer. Men's sizing relates to waist sizing, for jeans, women's doesn't.

    So the size of a pair of women's jeans is related, via some template of what a "standard" woman looks like, to the size of a part of the body that the jeans don't go anywhere near. Well, that clearly makes sense :wink:
    Leaf wrote: »
    At the wider systemic level, we should be fucking questioning why we'd rather talk about women's pants than the millions of ways in which standardization is a form of colonialism that should die.

    You point out exactly why we have standardization - because it enables mass production. If you patronize a bespoke clothier, your clothes will be made to fit your body, rather than a set of standard shapes. I think it goes without saying that the difference in price between, for example, an off-the-rack suit from Marks & Spencer and a bespoke suit from Savile Row is substantial (like a factor of 10 or more). I can't speak for your budget, but Savile Row certainly isn't in mine.

    As a purchaser of pre-made clothing, I need to know whether a particular garment will fit my body. I know what size my body is (because it's in my house, and I can measure it). The closer you come to providing actual dimensions for your clothing, the closer I come to being able to predict whether a particular garment will fit.

    Outside the realm of clothing, we all benefit from standardization - it means that I can buy an electric plug, and not worry about whether or not it will fit my socket. I can buy nuts and bolts in standard sizes, and know that I can use them interchangeably with other parts meeting the same standard. Standards are, in general, a good thing, and I'm quite prepared to defend standardization in general against your absurd allegation of "colonialism", although we should probably take that to another thread.

    Specifically about body templates (and on topic for this thread), it seems wildly insufficient and inaccurate to blame it on "colonialism". I suspect that you're thinking of the standard anthropometric tables used for things like clothing sizes being based on the average measurements of a set of people of European ancestry, and arguing that the imposition of this European-based standard on a population with a more diverse genetic background is "colonialism". If the sizings actually worked for people with European genetics, you might have a point, but given that they don't even work well for the population from whom the measurements are drawn, I don't think colonialism is nearly its biggest sin. There are plenty of other problems (such as, for example, crash-testing cars with models representing "standard" men, but not women or children, let alone the variety of different shapes that people come in) that demonstrate fundamental flaws in the use of anthropometric tables, but have very little to do with colonialism.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    I said "inappropriate standardization." I said it twice.
    The qualifier "inappropriate" is important. That is where further conversation and research is necessary.

    I think you are viewing the term "colonialism" in too narrow a sense here. I meant it, as I said, in the wider systemic level. Colonialism means one people establishing dominance over another people, putting in place their own standards and stories, removing the standards and stories of the existing people, in order to gain economic and political advantage.

    Every person who thinks that Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man" is the ideal human being, and participates without question in systems that impose that pretense, is engaged in a form of colonialism AFAIC. I do not use the word dominate, as that is only an initial stage of colonizing. It is best for the colonizer if the people they are attempting to subjugate buy into the system being imposed and participate in their own subjugation.

    So it is best, in the example you provided, for clothing manufacturers to get women to participate in their own shaming and subjugation by having what you called "vanity sizing." I think even the name is toxic, as it pretends it's about women's vanity rather than the insane pressure on women to look and act a certain way... and the numbers of sizing are a tool for that pressure.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited June 2021
    Leaf wrote: »
    I said "inappropriate standardization." I said it twice.
    The qualifier "inappropriate" is important. That is where further conversation and research is necessary.
    You did, but your concluding paragraph read as a little more expansive, leading me to think that you had in mind a rather wide reading of the word "inappropriate". (Because to agree that inappropriate things are inappropriate is rather tautological.) But I'm happy to withdraw any suggestion that you were complaining about having replacement parts that fit.
    Leaf wrote: »
    I think you are viewing the term "colonialism" in too narrow a sense here. I meant it, as I said, in the wider systemic level.

    I don't think using "colonialism" to describe patriarchal / misogynistic male views of the female body is terribly helpful.
    Leaf wrote: »
    Every person who thinks that Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man" is the ideal human being, and participates without question in systems that impose that pretense, is engaged in a form of colonialism AFAIC.

    I think that's at best an unusual use of "colonialism", and I'm a bit concerned that widening the use of that word as you propose here dilutes what I would call the ongoing problems caused by actual colonialism.

    Here is a paper comparing the Vitruvian Man to the average US Air Force recruit. If we take US Air Force recruit as a proxy for "physically fit young American man or woman" then the principal differences are that Air Force recruits have rather longer arms than Vitruvian man, and also have taller heads and shorter thighs.

    I've never met anyone who considers "Vitruvian Man" to be an actual model of an ideal human, any more than I've met anyone who thinks there ought to be five other planets in the Solar System to match the Platonic solids. Were you intending to invoke the geometric relationships of Vitruvius, or Leonardo, or were you just intending to invoke the sort of physique that Leonardo drew?
    Leaf wrote: »
    So it is best, in the example you provided, for clothing manufacturers to get women to participate in their own shaming and subjugation by having what you called "vanity sizing." I think even the name is toxic, as it pretends it's about women's vanity rather than the insane pressure on women to look and act a certain way... and the numbers of sizing are a tool for that pressure.

    I think we agree that so-called "vanity sizing" is at best unhelpful (and I won't argue with "toxic"), but I'm confused by the last part of your argument here. I get the social pressure on women to look a certain way, but I'm confused as to how you say "vanity sizing" plays in to that, because nobody else sees the number that's written inside the clothes. People can see what she looks like, whether the cut and fit of the garments flatters her figure, whether the colours suit her, and so on. Nobody sees whether the dress was sold as a 12, or a 14, or a 16.

  • If I may add in another example of truly bizarre pressure to conform, I am led to believe having seen articles on news sites that labial reduction surgery is a thing - with the singularly unpleasant drawback that, owing to poor understanding of how the clitoris is enervated, many women who undergo this procedure find their sexual pleasure irredeemably damaged.

    Where the hell is pressure to have that done coming from? I can't imagine it's from the male of the species - at least, I can't imagine it based on my limited experience of the region in question where (TMI alert, you may wish to stop reading now)

    once you are close enough any thought process turns into "F*****g hell, get in there!" - certainly I've never stopped and thought "Goodness, that looks a little peculiar!" or "Hmm, I do believe the left one is a different size to the right one!".

    Is this another manifestation of Mail Woman syndrome, where every week you are urged to find a new area to be ashamed of?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    My understanding is that it comes from expectations created by porn. There is a whole other debate to be had about the line between being sex positive and being exploited.

    Going back to how sizing invites women to participate in their own subjugation, if you have been conditioned to believe increasing size is a personal failure - then you are perfectly able to castigate yourself without others having needed to see the labels.
  • According to this YouTube video entitled The History of Standardised Sizing and Why they Failed talks about the standardising of sizing in the USA which started from a 1939 measuring a small sample of 10,000 women in 5 states, which was very partial, middle class and white. There was another measuring exercise in the 1950s to try and correct some of the errors. And that those sizes were not meant to be standardised the way they are used now. (It's 30 minutes, plus with starting adverts). She's a clothing historian and it's just a talking head, but she chats about vanity sizing starting earlier than this and the pressures to appear a different size.

    For another view on this, there is this blog, from a professional in the clothing industry (link to Sewcialists blog) also with shorter YouTube videos chatting about the way ready to wear (RTW) clothing sizing has inbuilt problems.

    From the area I know best, when pattern companies try to extend their ranges from the fit model they base the initial range on, they cannot just extrapolate sizing based on the shapes of the sizing they already have, they need to use different fit models, as shapes and proportions change at different sizes, so many of the pattern companies now offer two ranges, a standard and a curve. Cashmerette patterns (link), which sizes for larger bodies, designs their trouser patterns on two body shapes, apple and pear, see the linked blog.

    I've bothered looking it up, size 38 is based on 38" hip size, so the waist will be an arbitrary size around that, in cm, because that's how those sizes come. Looking at the size guides I have here:
    • Ottobre magazine (Finnish) patterns size 38 = 88cm bust (34.5cm), 70cm waist, 96cm hip, height 168cm (these I have as they are the best source of teen patterns),
    • according to Burda magazine (German owned, now international) size 38 is equivalent to a size UK 12 and US 8 which gives a size 38 as 88cm/34.5cm bust, 70cm/27.5cm waist, 94cm/37" hip on a 168cm 5'7" frame
    • (so roughly equivalent to my 1979 Style dressmaking pattern, which lists a size 14 as 92cm/35" bust, 71cm/28" waist, 97cm/38" hip);
    • comparing to Colette patterns, a US independent pattern company, a size 6 is bust 36", waist 28" and hip 38";
    • and again looking at Cotton Traders, UK mail order catalogue, just because it arrived today, a size 10 is bust 34"/86cm, waist 27"/68.5cm, hip 37"/94cm, which is the same as a XS unisex

    That's before the patterns build in varying amounts of ease (so back to vanity sizing) which make the patterns more or less likely to fit. None of which fits me as I'm 5'1" or 5'2", 157cm, with a short back waist length relatively, so nothing sits right on my torso, e.g. scoop and v-necks are usually indecent, without a massive amount of adjustment, and I have a bigger high bust measurement than hip.
  • If I may add in another example of truly bizarre pressure to conform, I am led to believe having seen articles on news sites that labial reduction surgery is a thing - with the singularly unpleasant drawback that, owing to poor understanding of how the clitoris is enervated, many women who undergo this procedure find their sexual pleasure irredeemably damaged.

    Adam Kay in This is Going to Hurt describes dealing with a 19 year old who took scissors to her labia to do it herself in November 2008, so this isn't new. And in that case the girl "just wanted to look normal", as in porn.
  • amyboamybo Shipmate
    Leaf wrote: »
    Standardization is, in almost every way, the enemy of body positivity.

    Institutions and systems absolutely LOVE standardization, because it makes things faster, cheaper, and easier. It's 'easier' to determine the symptoms of heart attack, the manufacture and selling of factory clothing, the development and availability of hair products, and a million other aspects of life IF we pretend that every body is the same. Weights and measures were standardized to make economic systems easier, for those who gained advantage by having those things standardized.

    Body positivity is about questioning and eliminating inappropriate standardization, because (for example) women have borne the brunt of inappropriate standardization.

    At the individual level, it means that the state of my body is a matter for me and my doctor and my tailor. I realize that both of those involve some standardization - the tailor has a measuring tape, the doctor has some standardized idea of human health - but even at that there are individual customizations.

    At the wider systemic level, we should be fucking questioning why we'd rather talk about women's pants than the millions of ways in which standardization is a form of colonialism that should die.

    I love this, thank you! I've got to think about and internalize this.

    Leaf wrote: »
    So it is best, in the example you provided, for clothing manufacturers to get women to participate in their own shaming and subjugation by having what you called "vanity sizing." I think even the name is toxic, as it pretends it's about women's vanity rather than the insane pressure on women to look and act a certain way... and the numbers of sizing are a tool for that pressure.

    I think we agree that so-called "vanity sizing" is at best unhelpful (and I won't argue with "toxic"), but I'm confused by the last part of your argument here. I get the social pressure on women to look a certain way, but I'm confused as to how you say "vanity sizing" plays in to that, because nobody else sees the number that's written inside the clothes. People can see what she looks like, whether the cut and fit of the garments flatters her figure, whether the colours suit her, and so on. Nobody sees whether the dress was sold as a 12, or a 14, or a 16.

    LC, we internalize that shit YOUNG. Add to the fact that stores stop selling at a certain size, and you have to go to a whole new store, or online, to get your danged pants. (And then I have find ones that are LONG enough too, since apparently fat women don't come in "tall".) On that personal note, I've cut out the size on every cardigan I've ever owned in case I take it off and someone can see the size. I think we need to listen to women's voices on this one.

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    amybo wrote: »
    LC, we internalize that shit YOUNG. Add to the fact that stores stop selling at a certain size, and you have to go to a whole new store, or online, to get your danged pants.

    The divisions of where different sizes are sold is crazy. "Straight sizes" vs "plus sizes," the varying cut-offs among clothing lines between these two, the very existence of the "plus size" area of stores ... I have to find the straight sizes that go high or the plus sizes that start low, and I never know where in any given store I should start looking for something that might cover me adequately.
    Leaf wrote: »
    Standardization is, in almost every way, the enemy of body positivity.

    Hear, hear. Mass-produced clothing doesn't actually fit very many people well at all; we accept poor fit because it's all we've ever known, and poor fit is the trade-off we make for inexpensive mass-produced goods. If you really want clothes to fit, they have to be tailored, because bodies don't conform to sizes. (No size accommodates my sloping shoulders or other women's broad, square shoulders -- we look for different styles and cuts, and we try things on till we get lucky.) I don't go to Savile Row for tailoring, @Leorning Cniht -- I sew. My mother taught me when I was 13, and I've always been grateful.

    Sewing isn't an option for most people; it takes time and skill. But there are still tailors and seamstresses around, and a fair number of middle-class people could afford to patronize them if they were willing to invest in quality fabrics and give up clothing fads and trends. It would have the added advantage of reducing the amount of textiles we produce and trash. (I'll plug online classes on flat-pattern drafting for anyone interested in producing their own custom-made clothes without the mass-produced patterns produced for the home sewing market which of course suffer from all the bullshit mass-produced clothing does.)

    I personally find that having clothing that fits, truly fits, is well worth the effort it takes to find it or make it or alter it, and I'm grateful that I have the resources for this -- not everyone does.
    I return to Ruth’s point that we end up discussing how to lose weight. Ruth seems to be saying that’s not ok, and it certainly doesn’t feel ok to be stuck in that endless treadmill. But I don’t get, how can I be positive about my body / health and also decide that I am comfortable with gradually increasing weight that then leaves me decreasing metabolic health in the same proportion. (Which is what happens to me, it creeps up over time - usually to more than it was when I managed to reduce it in the first place.)

    What follows is an answer I'm working toward for myself -- as always, YMMV.

    I question the assumption that weight loss is going to help. The vast majority of overweight and obese people will never achieve a "normal" body weight (source). The few of us who do lose weight and keep it off tend to engage in disordered behaviors (source. The rest of us weight cycle -- I've been doing it for 30 years. Weight cycling is awful for health, with many negative effects that are independent of BMI (see a whole list of sources here).

    A weight-inclusive approach (as opposed to weight-normative) seems to me like a promising way to look at health through a lens other than the "lose weight or else" strictures that have already failed us so many times. From this article:
    As an alternative to the weight-normative paradigm, the weight-inclusive approach rests on the assumption that everybody is capable of achieving health and well-being independent of weight, given access to nonstigmatizing health care. This approach challenges the belief that a particular BMI reflects a particular set of health practices, health status, or moral character. Under this paradigm, weight is not a focal point for medical treatment or intervention. Weight is not viewed as a behavior, but eating nutritious food when hungry, ceasing to eat when full, and engaging in pleasurable (and thus more sustainable) exercise are self-care behaviors that can be made more accessible for people. In these ways, this approach also tries to minimize weight stigma and thus may help patients feel comfortable in the health care setting, more able to discuss their health concerns, and less likely to experience the health care encounter as stigmatizing by health care providers [3]. The weight-inclusive approach adheres to an ethical principle held by health care professions [80–84]: “above all, do no harm.” Accordingly, then, there are no set health-related interventions that prioritize BMI reduction as a goal, given that a predominant focus on BMI reduction is linked to weight stigma and internalized weight stigma, which have detrimental connections to physical health and well-being [90, 91, 100, 105, 109].

    Instead of focusing on weight -- which as they point out, is not a behavior -- we could focus on healthful behaviors.

    Apologies for cramming so much into an over-long post -- I've been thinking about this all week, and processing my own feelings about my size, diet culture, weight stigma, etc etc. And thank you to @Leaf and @amybo -- your posts have been resonating with me a lot.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited July 2021
    When I was young people used to talk about ectomorphs, mesomorphs and endomorphs simply as part of the normal range of human body shapes. I really don’t like the social changes during my lifetime which have fined down folks notions of self-acceptability.

    At my advanced age I have joined the collapsed furniture brigade. My chest has fallen into my drawers. But I suspect my continued survival and well being is very little affected by other people’s opinions of my collapsing state ….

    I suppose it helps that my wife and I are collapsing together which is something we can both smile about ….

    But I have a lot of sympathy for those who get intimidated or irritated by these perfectionist stereotypes.
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