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Originally Posted by slipperyelm  I don't know if pressure to be slim has some kind of rebound effect, making people get fatter. But I will say that as an obese person, a fat person all my life, I have never felt more "at home" and comfortable in the world than I do now. I feel so much less judgment or lack of acceptance than I did when I was a child or in my 20's or even 30's. (I am now almost 50.) There are so many more obese people around that I am just one of the crowd now. And even people who seem to be considered normal weight by everyday standards are much chubbier than they used to be.
When I was a teen, I had trouble finding clothing big enough for me. I wore a "junior" 15 --or 17 on the rare occasions it could be found. Now there are extended sizes available at every store, and even whole departments of their own for extended sizes. It is easy to find large size clothing because it has because those sizes are now common. And I see teens shopping in the same areas as me, many of them getting sizes larger than me, who has only gotten bigger over the decades. Where can they go from here? What is in their future?
I look at teenage girls who are probably50-80 pounds heavier than I was at that age and they may be walking with their boyfriend. My body size pretty much precluded me having a boyfriend when I was a teen. I look at my teen photos and think that if I were growing up now, I would barely even be considered a little heavy. But at 5'2" and 145 pounds I was then definitely one of the fat girls.
So on the whole, I think that Americans have shifted their perceptions. They may know, academically, that a girl at 5'2" and 145# is not likely to be her healthiest, but they probably no longer think of her as "that fat girl." I really don't think there is any real stigma anymore to that height/weight. It is okay, comfortable.
So I also look at the many teens who are as fat or fatter than I was at their age and think, oh my gosh, we might soon be a society of diabetics. How can this be? What has happened? I was diagnosed at about 35; when will so many of these young people be diagnosed?
My diagnosis age used to be considered young for T2. I don't think it is unusual any longer.
I am sad about the idea of more and more people having this T2 problem. |
You and I seem to have had very similar experiences. I too, am almost 50, and when I was a child and teenager, I was "chubby", then "overweight".
As a teenager, I also remember not being able to find clothing to fit me unless my parents were willing to take me to Lane Bryant, which they weren't willing to do because it was much more expensive than Sears or Penneys. So I had one or two pairs of jeans and had to settle for "grandma" pants to wear since nothing else fit me! How embarrassing this was for a 14 year old! Boyfriends? I didn't have any either - until I started college and lost weight.
I have one memory in particular that still haunts me to this day; I was 14 years old, in junior high. The school was having a contest to find the girl with the "best posture" - it was tied into a screening they were doing to check all the kids for scoliosis, weight problems, etc.
Well, as you can imagine, I, at 5 foot 7 and weighing 160 pounds at the time,(which by today's standards is probably considered "average") was one of the few (if not ONLY) overweight kids. The screening was done during PE class in which we all had to get on scales, and then have our backs checked for spinal abnormalities. I step on the scale, the stupid PE teacher announces the weight, then tells me that I am a "weak" person. She asks me how I could care about keeping my nails painted but not care about my weight!
Can you say "mortified"???
When I look at it now, most of the kids today are indeed heavier than I was back in those days. Do they ridicule these kids to try to get them to lose weight? I doubt it very much.
The other thing that I have to say is that when I was in junior high and high school, we had a good old fashioned cafeteria to purchase our lunches in if we didn't want to brown bag it. I was astounded to find out when my own two daughters were in high school that many of the popular fast food outlets had a presence RIGHT ON THE SCHOOL CAMPUSES! Well, no wonder these kids are fat!!! Which would you pick as a teenager - the cafeteria salisbury steak with green beans or the Big Mac with a large order of fries and a coke??????
I definitely agree that I am much more part of the "majority" today than I was as a kid and teenager.
