Size 12 too fat?

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Jen Hunter looks good - The other one looks like a refugee!! Wasn't Marilyn Monroe a size 14? And she was REALLY hot!

Size 0 is just not very realistic...Or attractive!

 

It's so called "high fashion." Like modern art, it does not really reflect what people want to see and is more about inside circles.

 

I don't think size 12 is fat. Heck, if that's the criteria we're using, then my wife is fat, as she wears a size 12. Well, at least she did before she was pregnant - I have no idea what size would fit her properly now. I also agree with Rally that height shouldn't make much of a difference in terms of sizing. A 12 is a 12. The only difference is the length of the clothing. My wife is 5 feet nothing, so she wears size 12 petite. (And for you guys out there who don't know - I certainly didn't for a long time - petite in women's clothing means you're short, not that you're skinny.)

I will place this caveat on height though - if you are taller you can probably wear a bigger size and still look better than a shorter woman of the same size. The reason for this is proportions. I think common sense dictates that someone like Rally who is about 10 inches taller than my wife would also be larger around than my wife. (Note: I'm not calling Rally fat.) Just like guys that are 6'4" tall can have a 38 inch waist and look fine, but a guy who is 5'4" tall who has a 38 inch waist looks fat.

I also got a chuckle about Rally's "bitches" comment, because my wife says the same thing about women who complain about their size even though they weight much less than her. However, my wife usually says "skinny bitches".

[ February 09, 2007, 14:26: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

I'll edit my last post and make this more serious.

I find it difficut to see the attraction of a size 0 model, in a society where, frankly, it's boobs and backsides that are thrown around like toys at Christmas.

[ February 07, 2007, 19:32: Message edited by: Daie d'Malkin ]

 

Of course she is not fat. Maybe she can be a little thinner, but she is fine. I like women with meat on their bones. There must be difference between a woman and a skeleton. By the way, that skinny model is disgusting.

 

Rally, you're right about tall not really relating to size - I was silly to say that. And it is indeed a pain to find clothes long enough in any size range - I'll have to remember your question to the petite department.

I wonder how much of this has to do with the oft-mentioned enlarging effect of the camera - or if that is actually true anyway? I've heard it said that both still and video/motion picture photography adds 10-20 pounds to your appearance. Why this is, or even if it's true, I don't know. But if it is true it might be part of the reason models are underweight - they have to weigh less than they look.

Finally, on the issue of anorexia and bulemia, I used to make foolish jokes about wishing I were anorexic so I could lose weight. Then I did a student intern rotation in graduate school working on an inpatient unit for young women with eating disorders. After that I didn't joke about it, ever again. I remember most vividly a young woman dissolving into tears as a dietician patiently explained to her that she needed some fat in her diet and so should select 1 or 2 % milk on her meal plan - she kept repeating, "I can't eat any fat, any fat, any fat."

Anorexia is a horrifying disease. And if current fashion "standards" are pushing even some young women toward that illness, it is an appalling thing.

 

If you hit the second one with a blunt weapon you get a damage bonus.

 

There was a girl who had been the early bird in our class in, say, high school. Tall, curvy, her forms then resembled Jen, except for not nealry as pretty a face (honour to whom ...). Quite obnoxious, too. When I met her again a couple of years back she was like Marianne. The contrast to the picture I had in my memory was stark. It was like 'Jesus Christ, is she ill or what?'

I later learned from friends of hers. That her BF was a**hole enough to tell her she was too fat, and that he didn't like it. She was stupid enough to love him enough to try keep him by losing weight. So her displayed self esteem of earlier years was all a sham. Sad.

Whenever I see such folks in a restaurant telling their ladies show's over, or that they want a salad my temper flares and I feel like throwing pieces of furniture or cutlery. Sure the girls are idiots too, but that doesn't make the men any better.

 

I've never heard of either of them. But this Jen Hunter looks a hell of a lot better than that walking pile of bones. She looks like something I would have put in one of my game crypts.

 

What bugs me is how Tyra Banks got all huffy and angry for being called fat and got applauded by her (mostly female) audience when she was like "I've got curves... so what! I'm beautiful!" and then a month later she loses weight and gets cheered by her (mostly female) audience for getting skinny. Mixed messages anyone?

 

I want that bathing suit!
And no, size 12 is not too fat. I'm a size 14 myself (gotta have petite pats, too) and while I'm slightly over my ideal weight range (170lbs at 5'3"), I'm certainly not obese according to my doctor. The only reason I'm trying to lose weight at all is because my blood pressure is going up.

I'm all for requiring models to have a minimal BMI requirement to walk. While the BMI index is not a great reference, it's a start...

 

My first thing is does she look healthy. From there let's see what she looks like. I wouldn't be comfortable with a woman who can open a beer bottle on her ribs...

 

Marianne looking like a member of the walking dead could probably be turned by a cleric.

 

Stefania,
analysing in metrics: 1,60m @ 77kg, which means your normal weight according to Broca would be 72kg. When you do some sports you'll be fine without changing your diet.

Bathing suits are perfect for curvy ladies, bikinis are better for skinny ladies, and there are the blesseth who can wear both and look good

I wouldn't wear either I'm inbetween with 1,79m @ 72kg, ideal weight would be 69 or so kg, BMI 22,8 - which is pretty ok for my age. The dream I'm chasing without investing anything but running into, it is a firm belly, which I do have now, but there are these this little cussions around my waist, in front and at the side, that just won't go. Sigh.
So I can partly understand people who are concerned about their figure. Yet I still eat my steak, have an occasional burger, fried potatoes, chrisps, and have my beer, or potato salad, just measured. My thesis on weight: When you don't burn all that much due to a sitting lifestyle, ingest less energy.

 

I think Jen Hunter looks *much* better compared to Marianne. Although I think I've become accustomed to seeing stick figures seeing as how they almost made up half my school population...and the rest of us were 'healthy' and understood what the word 'food' meant. (Err...though I think almost all of us were underweight at varying degrees...-_-;; ).

Edit: Oh and no I don't think size 12 is too fat, but I think that size 0 is just gay (heard about it somewhere...isn't it like in the USA somewhere? I have no idea what size it actually is, but what's the point in calling it zero...? I mean you've still got flesh and bones no matter how skinny you are so how could you possibly be a size zero? That's just stupid!).

 

The unanimity of our responses has me curious. There's a broad cross-section of people here, admittedly skewed in favor of young males, but still a good representation of different viewpoints - and there's not been one voice favoring the super-skinny look. So my question is this: Who is the fashion industry trying to reach, when NO ONE like the look they're pushing?

(Don't say it's the young women who don't frequent SP. Everyone knows that female fashion decisions are based solely on what will attract the most males.)

 

Ehh, they're supposed to attract clothing designers...

I mean it is easier to design a rag for a ragdoll such as ms.(?) Berglund. Fashion industry's infatuation with piles of bones is that every skeleton looks more alike each other than every curvacious bombshell. You need less fabric and you don't have to take the curves into account when designing the clothes.

It's just more practical to have these walking tailor's dummies homogenized in their skeletal appearance, than make clothes individually for every model. And when you're a supermodel like Tyra Banks, you can afford a little more weight, since then it might be that it's the person wearing the designer's clothes and not the clothes needing just something to walk them on the catwalk.

 

Jen Hunter is gorgeous, that other one looks like a male alien from some old Star Trek episode.

Women are supposed to be curvy, its how evolution made them. The 'fat' on a real woman is there to help her during pregnancy etc. Its natural for a woman to look similar to Jen Hunter, and since its natural it should also be 'normal'...good on her for trying to change the world

 

Rally,
people only want to be nice to each other here. There is a point when the responses would tilt. As there is such a thing as 'too thin', there also is a 'too fat'. It's just that Jen Hunter is safely within acceptable limits, wheras Marianne Berglund is not

But then, put Miss Berglund in a bikini and she'd only look half as creepy.

My limit would be as much woman as I can handle that is, approximately in my league in terms of weight.

I lost love for my schoolyard sweetheart when she went BIG, big time, and saw her in leggins, after she, from rather normal weight, gained some 20kg or so over the holidays and closed in on the three digit realm. It was worse than you might imagine. I was shattered. We were still friends afterwards, but romance died in me that day. Which was probably good, because she was the gf of a good friend then. In that sense, I was actually relieved.

[ February 08, 2007, 14:52: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Rally,

I think it may have something to do with the way most men think of supermodels. Most guys don't consider models to be "real people" for lack of a better word. Most guys know they aren't ever going to date a supermodel, that we're not in their league. To put in bluntly, supermodels for the vast majority of the population are unattainable.

I'm not saying that most guys want a bag of bones as their wife (except for a few jerks with unrealistic expectations), I'm simply saying that big boobs, wide hips and small waisted women you see on the Victoria's Secret commercials are not considered by most men to be potential mates. That having been said, most guys do want to get married, and what most people do is chose someone from the general population that is average. Regardless of what body type is set up as the "ideal", that's not what most people are going to get. To put it another way, for something to be the "ideal" it has to be at least somewhat rare, or there wouldn't be anything special about it. If most people fell into the "ideal" category, then there would be nothing special about it, and so it would cease to be the "ideal".

This also reminds me about a psychology study that I saw a couple of years ago. I may have posted this previously, back when I first saw it, but for those who weren't on the boards at the time, I'll say it again. They gave the following survey to both men and women. The survey showed two sets of silhouette images of the male and female body numbered one through five. The picture of the woman #1 was a silhouette of a super-thin woman - possibly anorexic, #2 was thin, but not as thin as the first, #3 was average, #4 was overweight, and #5 was obese. The pictures of the men followed a similar pattern except that it concerned muscle mass instead of body fat. #1 was the 75 pound weakling, and #5 was a 250 pound beefcake. After seeing the images, the men and women were asked the following questions:

1. For the opposite sex, circle the body type that you find most attractive.

2. For the same sex, circle the body type that you think the opposite sex would find most attractive.

So men were basically asked what body type they found most attractive for women, and what body type they thought women found most attractive in men. For women it was the opposite - state what body type of man you found most attractive, and what body type you thought men would find most attractive in women.

The results were as follows:

The most common answer given by men to what body type they found most attractive was body type #3 - the average woman. The next most common was #2 (thin), followed by #4 (overweight). Responses #2, #3, and #4 comprised over 90% of the answers received. #1 came in fourth, with #5 coming in last, but those two categories represented less than 10% of the respondents combined.

Women followed a similar pattern with the answers to what body type they found most attractive - #3 was once again the most common answer (average), with the two extremes (weakling and beefcake) being by far the least selected answers.

For the question of what body type you thought the other sex thought was most attractive, men overwhelming thought that most women found #5 most attractive (beefcake). The number of responses decreased with each category (so the order was #5, #4, #3, #2, #1), and the men picking #2 (small build) and #1 (weakling) represented fewer than 1% of all respondents. The women followed a similar pattern, except that they overwhelming picked #1 (anorexic) as the body type men found most attractive. The order here was #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.

The take home message here is that members of both sexes seem to think that the opposite sex is seeking the media-driven ideal. Women think that most men want their women to look like the Victoria Secret model, and men think that women want their men to look like professional wrestlers or "World's Strongest Man" contestents. The reality is that regardless of the sex, most people are seeking average or close to average body types of the opposite sex.

That's why I don't think it's strange at all that most people here think the size 12 is more attractive than the size 0. It perfectly mirrors the results of the study. We're being asked to compare a #1 with a #3, and just like the study, #3 wins. Visual media may try and beat into our heads that we all should shoot for the idealistic extreme, but it cannot disconnect us from reality. Most of us are average, and as such we tend to find the average of the opposite sex most attractive.