From the article: Weight Censorship In The Media: Does it Really Hurt Women?
Share your thoughts, feelings, and experience about weight discrimination in the work place and society. Does the media contribute to weight discrimination? Should media show people of all shapes and sizes and color in their ads? Or, is it okay to use only "perfect" people to sell products? Share Your Thoughts
degrading
- I think it is necessary for the media to show all types of people for their ads. Not just women. In some way, I think men are exploited too. The latest Superbowl ad that featured a super hottie is totally degrading.
- —Guest DAVID
Self Esteem
- It's all about self esteem. In life you have to grow a thick skin so whether of not you like to hear you're fat or not -- it depends on your self esteem. I have many friends and they aren't what you would call thin and they don't care about their sizes or the things that people say about them. Women should embrace their curves and ignore the media to live life to the fullest!
- —Guest Jes
Realities
- Treating someone different or worse because of his or her looks is not acceptable behavior but there are some realities. Public transportation, especially airplanes, have weight limits. If they are over weight they can't get off the ground. It is not necessarily cruelty but pragmatism that causes some "discrimination" also in the health sector many health problems are a direct result of being overweight and that needs to be addressed if there is to be a true cure or if the treatment is to work. I know an orthopedic surgeon. She refuses to replace knee joints of the truly obese - not because she hates them but because she knows that in a very short time the replacement joint will go the way of the original, and in fact, if the patient lost weight he or she might not even need the replacement. All that is to say we should be polite to everyone and not put too much stock in media portrayed anorexia but it is in a person's own interests to maintain a healthy weight.
- —Guest anonomous
Get a Grip
- Some jobs do need to have weight restrictions to be able to do the job. The media uses thin people because that is what other people want to see. If you don't like it stop buying their products and write a letter. But otherwise, hush up about it all.
- —Guest Anonymous
Judgmental
- Look, if you are not being judged for weight, it is your sex, your age, your race, etc. People are just too judgmental in general.
- —Guest FatChick
What is Fat?
- Umm, just what is "fat" anyhow? The word is kind of subjective. Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that. I think skinny is gross.
- —Guest Mark Goinings
Get Real - It's About Money
- The entertainment and ad media sells what people respond to. Cold hard facts: it fat people sold more products there would be more fat people in ads. Period.
- —Guest Sig
Not Equal When it Comes to Jobs
- People are equal but I mean that some people simply cannot do a certain job because of weight issues. Imagine a 400 lb person trying to service people on an airplane - it just would not work. That's not discrimination it is common sense.
- —Guest Cindi
Health Care
- Weight gain is often due to some underlying medical problem. Without health care it is hard to get medications, support, and nutritional services from a registered dietitian. There are so any diets that do not work but please, people stop blaming the patient!
- —Guest Anonymous
Attitude is Everything
- I agree completely with Elijah -- attitude is everything! Trouble is, a lot of people with weight issues have been treated badly so that they have developed a bad attitude - not necessarily about themselves but about others. Forgive me, but the "jolly fat man" is a misnomer. I have seen more overweight people be bitter and short tempered than pleasant. I do not care about someone's weight but I do care when they are rude to me for no reason at all (and that holds true no matter what size a person is.)
- —Guest Mark Goinings
Weight Discrimination
- It's an ugly world out there these days.. People get confused about what is beautiful. I feel that the way you represent yourself is what a person really sees. If a plus size person has a plus size attitude,(I'm fat or I'm not built right, etc.) that's the last impression that they leave.. Confidence is EVERYTHING! Instead, get your mind fit and you're fit all over, I am not a plus size person, but when I meet a person, the first thing I see, is their attitude..
- —Guest Barlaine Elijah
Caring About Yourself
- Men can carry a few extra pounds and be "cute" like a teddy bear. Women? Dear me, it is either starve yourself (which is REALLY unhealthy) or be a normal weight (or large) and be accused of not caring about yourself. So laxatives, purging, and starvation to stay ridiculously thin is "caring about yourself?" Hello.....
- —Guest NoTwiggy
Fat Heads
- Weight has nothing to do with work ethics or worthiness. Anyone who thinks it does is fat -- a fat head!
- —Guest Sally K.
Weight Stereotypes
- I do not know of a single overweight person that woke up one day and said "hey, I think I want to be a BBW and have trouble finding nice clothes, be judged by my appearance, told I cannot sit on public transportation, and be treated like a social outcast." I am not overweight but of my famiy and friends that are - they struggle one way or another. I hate that anyone can group all people into categories of worthiness by their weight. It is wrong.
- —Guest SansMom
First Impressions
- If anything, because of how we are seen, larger people work harder to prove themselves. We have to because the first thing people notice about us is our weight - the second thing they notice about us ... is our weight.
- —Guest AnonymousCathy
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