Must we offend large women to sell them yogurt?

If I were you, I would care quite a bit. Being fit isn't just about looking good - it's about being healthy. Being overweight is about the best thing she can do, next to smoking, to shorten her life-span. Thirty-four years is a good run, but I why would anyone want to lose a single day with their loved ones in this blink of an eye we call life?

Well, Henry, that would be great advice - if only it were true. Just more folks who think they know what theyre talking about spouting half-truths and false facts in their eagerness to slam overweight people - and by people I especially mean women.

Remind me - why would any woman want to be thin enough to attract folks like that again? For the life of me, I personally can't think of a single reason. At least being fat weeds out the idiots.

Good riddance, and pass me some more pie.

Let no man's opinion of you become your reality. I forgot who said that originally but, pass the pie! ;)

Gee, I've been waiting for days for somebody to say something like that, but it really wasn't my place because I'm a guy, too. That scratches an itch.

Thanks.

Ignore the facts all you want. It's your life you're ending.

Henry - The jury is out on being overweight, Obesity is definitely a problem that should be addressed. http://www.malehealth.co.uk/userpage1.cfm?item_id=137&pop=424

I tried and failed to find recent Canada/US reports that suggest being slightly (whatever that means) over weight can be beneficial in helping the body fight off "STUFF".

It was a positive review none the less.

What appears to be most important is, getting regular exercise for the old heart muscle and overall circulatory system.

And I didn't want to be alone thinking it, so it all worked out great!

Thura:

I don't want to get off on a rant here (Yeah. Right. Like I ever don't want to rant), but the famous scene upon which Image #2 is based:

Mena Suvari in American Beauty

is more than a little pedophiliac, both in itself and in context.

The ad "spoof" above is considerably sexier.

However, you can't avoid the "sexy versus not sexy" because that's the driving theme of the ad campaign.

In the context of the rest of the campaign, the woman in the bed of roses must be presented as supposedly NOT sexier than the famous image it was intended to spoof.

Otherwise, the ad campaign is incoherent. You can have an incoherent poem or ending to the Sopranos, but you can't have an incoherent ad campaign. At least, not for long.

The inference, then, is that women of the body-type in image #2 are regarded as or are supposed to be regarded as overweight in the audience to whom the ad is addressed.

That's even scarier.

That would mean the second ad was targeted at/for women of that body-type (not uncommon, as someone below mentions) to persuade them that they need to lose weight even though that's a healthy and attractive body type).

Yipes!!!

As you point out, that's the exact opposite of the Dove campaign.

Mena Suvari in American Beauty is more than a little pedophiliac, both in itself and in context.

Perhaps for an old man like you, but for us young ones - 20 isn't even near pedophilia...

...not that there's anything wrong with that.

I'm not sure if you actually, you know, saw the movie?

It wasn't much of a hit among age-appropriate teenage boys.

Yes, I did see the movie. I thought it was excellent. In fact, if is one of my favorite films.

I was simply commenting that you have no idea what is pedophilia. A forty year old man being interested in a twenty year old girl [reality] isn't pedophilia. A forty-two year old man being interested in a seventeen year old woman [the film] isn't pedophilia. A seventeen year old is not a child. Once a child hits puberty, it becomes ephebophilia. Unlike pedophilia, this is not a paraphilia.

Modern American society wants to treat everyone as though they are a child until they turn eighteen. This is an incompetent system of judging maturity.

Suvari's character was at most 17. Probably 16 though possibly 15.

Which of the images do you find more appealing, the zaftig girl in image #2 in the article above or the image of Suvari linked in comment 4.4?

Well, the girl in image two has larger breasts - but overall I find Suvari more appealing. That said, I am probably not the best judge as I find anorexic-looking girls pretty. Also, I like girls that are much shorter than me. Those are just my preferences though - and they aren't for everyone.

H8:

That said, I am probably not the best judge as I find anorexic-looking girls pretty.

So the stuff about "health" in comments 1.1 and 3.0 wasn't all about health, then?

Anorexic-looking. You can be quite healthy if you eat very few calories, but extremely nutritious foods. I would be upset if I were with someone who is unhealthy, but someone on a calorie restriction diet will outlive us all.

Thin people are healthy? And where do you get that? I was watching a special on the entertainment channel about stars' weights going up and down and up and down. The doctor on that program said that the lady who played the title character in "Bridgett Jones' Diary" will be dead by age 46. In addition, most supermodels will die between 10 and 25 years earlier than an average, overweight American. This is because, most supermodels are at least 10 pounds underweight most are at least 20 pounds underweight. This is actually more unhealthy than being 100-200 pounds overweight. Just check those "METLIFE" tables.

What people need to learn is that weight is much like height. It is generally genetically predisposed and there is little you can do to change it more than temporarily. The body is designed to protect life at all costs. That is why things like breathing and digesting are not conscious activities. Tall people can have surgery and become shorter. In fact, to an extent, there is a height range where you will live longer than at another height. Dwarfs can become taller also (although it is very controversial in their communities). But, changing the outside does nothing about WHY being too tall or too short cuts years off of your life.

The vast majority of studies on weight are crap science. Why? Simple, we are not that simple and they can not compare people who STAY fat to people who were FAT but became a "normal weight" for the rest of their lives. The reason is because they can not come up with a population to study of successful dieters because people who lose weight will regain it and more. So, comparing fat people to thin people is like comparing a dwarf to an average height person. The reason dwarfs do not live as long is because of the condition which rendered them shorter than average. It is that underlying condition which is not overcome regardless of how tall or short they are. The same thing applies to the overweight.

What research has found is that weight is not all that simple. They took prisoners and asked who would take part in a study to see if they could gain 15-20% over their current weight. About 50 signed up. Many had to quit exercising, eat constantly and over 10,000 calories and they still failed to make the goal. Less than 10 actually were able to make 10% over their normal weight. And, if they ate anything less than 10,000 calories a day, they would naturally lose the excess weight. When the study ended, all went right back to their pre-study weight but one person. They did exclude anyone who had an obese family member and this one person had one, it was found out, that he had never known about.

In another study, the famous "fat kills" study, they took 2 sets of 200 overweight people. one set dieted and the other stayed fat. The first group were able to lose about 20% of their total body weight. Then, the study waited. 10 years later, 50 people in the first set of dieters had died while 2 of the weight stable overweight people had died. And, the ones in the first group, regained their weight. This supposedly shows that "fat kills" but it was the dieting cycle which caused the increase, not the weight in and of itself. And, when the overweight are active, researchers have to drop them from studies because they are just as healthy as slim people who exercise. This screw up their results.

Lastly, think about any research done lately. There is always the diabetes studies which say that losing, even a small amount of weight will greatly improve their diabetes by using less meds. When you read the study, they stated that the average weight lost was 10 pounds and they provided diet and exercise to the participants to help them lose weight. Now, 10 pounds? Well, let's think for a second. Since that is the average, some people may have lost 5 pounds, others 15 pounds, some may have stayed the same and others may have even gain a few pounds while others may have lost 20+ pounds for the average to be 10 pounds. The study covered 5 years. So, if you assume that everyone lost 10 pounds, that would be 2 pounds a year. Also, we are assuming that the weight loss (which is what is reported) caused the diabetes to get better. That is 7000 calories in a year which comes to a little less than 20 calories a day. Now that seems like a small thing to do and it is. But, let's turn it around. So, the people who had no benefits to their diabetes ate 20 calories more a day than those who had the benefits of the weight loss. Or, they had an extra saltine that they did not burn off by say, making their hand into a fist a couple of times or walking up a couple of steps. Heck, they could burn it off by turning over in bed. That is, if you buy this. The problem is, diabetes is not that simple and it is impossible to believe that 20 calories a day will mean the difference of "well controlled" diabetes and uncontrolled diabetes. Give me a break!

Bottom line, since there are having to start children in Kindergarten and primary school on eating disorder education and have space in treatment for these kids (even 4 year olds have been known to quit eating to stay thin), I think that the world needs a better acceptance of all people and that health is not a number on a scale. The overweight often die earlier not because they are overweight but because they refuse to seek medical attention because everything is because they are fat. I get a cold because I am fat. I have torn rotor cup in my shoulder because I am fat. Like I walk on my hands or something. But, doctors are tell us that. And, we are dying because of that. A friend of mine who is close to 60 now and has always topped 500 pounds, was diagnosed with cervical cancer only because she had to ask the doctor about her bleeding a dozen times during her annual exam. A thin person and they would not have to repeat themselves that much.

Thanks Rebecca. This would make a great article with links to all the references!

pbbbllytttttt.....sorry Robin! I really meant you! Rebecca just came out of my fingers!

Robin... I admire you greatly. You have to be one of the most intelligent people on here. ^_^ And I do find my doctor blaming all of my ills on my weight and I've chewed her out for it.

If we'd all learn to love each other, we'd all be less afraid of each other. Let me admit. I do find men and women who are thin very sexy and I do not find their weight a fault. But I also find larger men and women just as sexy. We're all beautiful but for some reason it seems like we are all against each other when we shouldn't be. Peace and love is what we're lacking in this world.

You're right Angel. Thin people don't understand what it takes some folks to lose weight. If you have generations of overweight family members in your genes, you are pretty much screwed. There's an assumption that you are choosing overeating as opposed to health. Yet friends who hang around you a lot can't figure out how you can eat the same as they do and still be overweight. Fatophobia is powerful and it's everywhere. Frankly, I think the women in the ads are all attractive, as are the women in the Dove ads. Time to stop judging people based on their appearance. Walk a mile, baby, walk a mile.

Our films are popular pretty much everywhere. That is part of the reason many people dislike us; they see us as the people portrayed in the films. We produce far more films than pretty much anywhere else, so they get subtitled or dubbed and sent around the globe.

How many Brazilian films have you seen?

I am Brazilian. If you want to know Brazilian cinema I suggest to start with "City of God" a masterpiece. Then you can try "Lisbela and the Prisoner", but this one I guess makes much more sense to Brazilians than to foreigners. But an awesome movie as well.

I think the "bad" image of the US now-a-days is way more due to Bush than to your movies.

Yes, US movies are popular everywhere, at least in Brazil and Europe. In Brazil at the movie theaters they are always subtitled, which is great. In Europe they are always dubbed, which sucks. My favorites: Tarantino and Kubrick. Those are two really cool Americans!

Thanks, I couldn't agree with you more.

Speaking of cultural bias, there are many MANY healthy people who are heavier - that eat well, even reduced calorie diets, and exercise and still their body maintains them at a heavier weight than is considered 'acceptable' - America is terribly absorbed with physical appearance and body size - especially in it's women, after all, how easy is it to sell something to someone who is Happy with herself?

Indeed. Not to brag about Brazil, but I think we have much more beautiful women that think they are fat than really fat women. Of course we have some fat ones too, but I really believe even most of those laughed about these adds rather than felt offended by them. For example, I work with computers and I am perfectly able to laugh about computer nerds jokes, rather than be offended by those. It is just a matter of sense of humour.

Almost any size ;)