Can I ask a question of team female... And I am not trying to be contraversial or clever, I would really like to hear an answer... And I am must say I am not decidedly on either side of this issue eiher... What do you think is the reasoning that if women put on weight nobody should tell them that that is the case...? I understand teenage girls may develoop eating disorders, but beyond the age of lets say 20, why do you think a woman should not be told she has put on weight but a man can (and don`t say a guy will care less), even though perhaps in telling her it may be the extra push necessary to start her making an effort which will result in her looking better and thus ultimately feeling better and being happier... Thoughts please... Recent events in my family have prompted this question, I didn`t just randomly pick it out of the void...Please help alleviate my ignorance :-)
oh ryan ryan ryan... "perhaps in telling her it may be the extra push necessary to start her making an effort which will result in her looking better and thus ultimately feeling better and being happier" do you not think that a woman ALREADY KNOWS when she has put on weight? it's not like she's accidentally been eating CALORIE MATE thinking it's a weightLOSS bar and she's unknowingly put on a few pounds. if she's put on weight, believe me, she'll know it. TELLING her that she's put on weight will do nothing positive but only make her feel more depressed about it, which is, sadly, how most women DO already feel after only having put on a couple of pounds. if a woman feels good about herself, then she will be more inclined and more motivated to eat healthily, get out and excersize, etc. feeling like a heffer only makes her feel that it's hopeless. eating is often tied to emotions as well. so this is where boys and girls differ and i don't think you can use the argument of 'nobody thinks it's a big deal to tell a guy he's put on weight'. i would argue that this is because, for the MOST PART (and, of course, there are many exceptions), guys don't feel the same emotions about putting on weight as girls do. guys aren't constantly pressured to feel they have to be skinny. now, on the other side, i would say that guys feel more of a pressure to be muscular, or 'big'. i would NEVER go up to a guy who i know might feel a bit tender about the subject and tell him "hey, dude. you're friggen SKINNY man! i think maybe it's a bit unhealthy and it doesn't look very good. you should really get out to the gym more". and even this comparison isn't completely compatable because i really don't think there's anywhere near the same amount of pressure for a guy to be big as there is for a girl to be skinny. another thing is that it's not really endangering a woman's health to put on a few extra pounds. so in telling a girl that she has put on weight, where she already knows, is basically telling her she doesn't look good, because there is really no other reason that putting on a few extra pounds is a bad thing. (unless, of course, this weight is quite extreme, heightening colestorol levels and blood pressure etc). is it EVER ok to just go up and tell someone "you look ugly at the moment...why don't you do something about it?". it's belittleing, and patronizing.
eating disorders do not only occur in people under twenty. people of any age can be affected.
people usually gain weight for a reason. unhappy, lonely, stressed etc. eating disorder or not it usually has a cause and the weight gain is only a result. pointing out the negative physical effects is unlikely to be very helpful. if you are actually concerned you would probably have more effective if you actually tried to understand what was going on in the person's life and supporting them. people know when they are gaining weight. they have eyes. can feel there clothes getting tighter. commenting negatively on someones appearance is never a very kind thing to do
- because you have no right to! It's personal. And though youre saying guys dont mind, i would NEVER tell a guy he has to lose weight!! Why assume that all women would?
Anyone who goes up to someone and says that aint all that nice. health interests, you say? Hmmm, i dont buy that. Like J said, afew pounds arent gonna harm ones health, you cant use an excuse like that.
At the end of the day, women THINK differently to men. It doesnt help that women are faced with body issues on a day to day basis. Im not saying men dont, everyone feel this 'pressure' from society, but DONT EVER suppose that women will take your 'friendly, motivational speech', as friendly, let alone motivational.
Women think differently. That's what you have to remember, end of story.
You'll just end up hurting their feelings. Espeically if it's someone you care about, because they ll think you re judging them based upon appearences, and that isnt how you base your relationships (with friends AND family) now, is it?!
Yeah... All valid points... Please understand I am trying to work this one ou in my head... Secondly, I do realise that to be perfectly thin and fatless is not intrinsicly a good thing and is so because of societal conditioning (although so is most of he things we think are good and bad, so adopting that idea poses even bigger questions beyond the bounds of a blog comment).Fact is my sister has apparently put on a visible amount of weight because she has been studying so hard for exams and working and what not... Anyway she flew back to Johannesburg for the weekend and my father being the Italian he is and being a member of our perhaps oddly open family told my sister. He said to her that it was her 21st birthday in a month and thus people would be taking millions of pictures of her and thus if she wanted to remember herself looking beauiful on her most important birthday she needed to make an effort or she will look at those picures for he rest of her life and wished she`d looked nicer... Anyway my sister responded with `you know you`re a shithead but might be right...` now she going to make an effort and will no doubt be looking closer to her normal self for her birthday... Upon hearing this story I started thinking about it and remembered that me going on my crazy healh and fitness bliz this year was spurred both by fooball tournaments and by my sister telling me when she was here that I needed to make more of an effort to eat properly as I was packing it on... Granted I wanted to throw her out of a window when I heard that but it made me take notice and make the necessary effort, something I am very happy I did...Thus, I asked the question... Fact is maybe this particular commen(the weight one) has progressed to the point where it has become an untouchable subject but I wish sometimes people would tell me discreetly what was wrong with me so that I could change my failings in time, like my sister will do now... I know exactly what is wrong with me(in the same way that you say women know their weight issues) and these inadequacies appall me daily but unless I hear these things from the mouths of other people, I will never do anything about... I don`t always want to hear it and only in the right circumstances but knowing how the world sees you is so necessary to growth in a world where a lot of who you are can only really be gauged by how people view your behaviour from an external point of view...If you know what I mean... Some things you can`t change and those you just have to accept and if people make negative comments you lob them with the closest hard object but the things that you can change are a different story... Not telling someone close to you about something you think they could improve smacks a little of assuming they don`t have the strength of character to improve it... Where this argument may fall apart is that I might have no idea of the way societal pressure has turned a remark of the sort I am discussing into such a thunderbolt that hearing it causes the anger and the depression mentioned earlier whilst no longer providing the element of drive to be better that comments on a different topic might... This could very well be true and I realise that... It could also be said that it isn`t necessary to lose weight unless it is going to become a medical problem such as obesity... This however falls flat because although it obviously shouldn`t be the case it pays to look good in this world and thus regardless of whether it should or it shouldn`t, helping somebody lose weight will in effect ALWAYS prove to be a benefit to that person... I think the key however is that you never know how the other person is going to react and thus taking the chance that they will not fight to be better and instead just fall to pieces over it, is obviously not fair and your place to make... In this case, if my father KNEW how my sister would take it then it justifies the means... She was probably crushed for a few hours but for the next while every time she looks a said Mars Bar she will think how angry and embarrased she was at that moment and not eat it... Thats the extra push I was talking about... And on her birthday she will look beauiful and be happy to take every picture when she wouldn`t of if my dad hadn`t made a comment... Anyway I was very proud of her character when she phoned me to talk to me about it although I admit that had my father not known here as well as he does it could have been a very stupid thing to say... Sorry if I didn` incorporate something somebody said before me ino my little paragraph but I rushed this so I can make it to the bank...
ryan, i understand where you're coming from, and do agree with what you wrote about: "I might have no idea of the way societal pressure has turned a remark of the sort I am discussing into such a thunderbolt that hearing it causes the anger and the depression mentioned earlier whilst no longer providing the element of drive to be better that comments on a different topic might." i really think this is the EXACT issue and why this topic is different from all other topics, and why it's different for men and women. your sister is obviously very lucky in that she is very confident in herself. also, it seems as though she is maybe somebody who has never battled with weight issues, and so therefore, putting on a few extra pounds is abnormal for her, and easily rectified ("by refusing to eat said mars bar"). but the fact is that i think this is a smaller minority of women...who have or don't have weight issues, and that for most women it is far more hurtful to hear, and will only bring about negative feelings. that's great that your sister, after hearing a comment like that, can think "hey. ok. he's right. i HAVE put on weight, and it's not normal for me. i'm going to make an effort and get back to 'normal'". for most women (because of 'societal pressures' etc etc etc), i agree with you that it is UNFORTUNATE, but it is not possible to receive a comment like that and not feel really degraded, attacked, and hurt.
Hey guys, interesting conversation indeed. Justine, you're points were put so well that this comment need not be too long. Most people reading this will already know that I have a mouth on me, love to take the piss and am very thick skinned when it comes to getting shit thrown back. But, I cannot overstate the counter-productiveness in the vast majority of cases in advising a girl that she's overweight in order to motivate her to change her body shape. The simple fact is that the skinny shape most women long for is only possible for a small minority. You say ryan that looking good gets you places, and i don't disagree, but self confidence goes a lot further. And unhappyness with body weight is almost certainly the biggest factor effecting women's confidence in virtually every sphere of their lives. It is not really men's fault but they cannot comprehend how obsessive an issue weight is for women and how thoroughly depressing it is to be unhappy with your figure. Nor can men appreciate how incredibly deeply a simple comment really cuts, to the extent that it will probably stay with a woman for the rest of her life. In a job interview she will probably be thinking 'am i as thin and pretty as the last girl' when she should be thinking about what the fuck she's going to say. As Justine said, only an exceptionally confident woman could turn such a comment into a motivating factor.
I am a relatively confident person, but my father used to make continual comments about my weight, and it only ever succeeded in making me feel hopeless and shit, and more likely to comfort eat. i lost weight when i came to japan and was out of his sphere of influence. The comments he constantly makes to my mum, who is a UK size 8 up top but 12 on the bottom half because she's 'pear shaped'(and fucking thin for 50!), have caused her to be so unhappy about her body that she cannot stand to look in mirrors or at photographs. More than that it has changed the nature of her as a person.
Also, it really is not the case that tiny model like figures are always preferred. Many men are more attracted to women with different shapes and sizes so the pressure that every woman puts on herself to be thin already far exceeds men's desire for a thinner girlfriend/sister/daughter/secretary. So unless you want to do severe emotional damage to someone, even if you can't understand why, on this issue, seriously, shut the fuck up! Ryan, thanks for bringing it up.
15 Comments:
i just read a story about some poor girl in Quebec who died from kissing her boyfriend.
She has a peanut allergy, he ate a peanut butter sandwish or something then kissed her....
omg that's aweful!
bugger eh
Can I ask a question of team female... And I am not trying to be contraversial or clever, I would really like to hear an answer... And I am must say I am not decidedly on either side of this issue eiher... What do you think is the reasoning that if women put on weight nobody should tell them that that is the case...? I understand teenage girls may develoop eating disorders, but beyond the age of lets say 20, why do you think a woman should not be told she has put on weight but a man can (and don`t say a guy will care less), even though perhaps in telling her it may be the extra push necessary to start her making an effort which will result in her looking better and thus ultimately feeling better and being happier... Thoughts please... Recent events in my family have prompted this question, I didn`t just randomly pick it out of the void...Please help alleviate my ignorance :-)
oh ryan ryan ryan...
"perhaps in telling her it may be the extra push necessary to start her making an effort which will result in her looking better and thus ultimately feeling better and being happier"
do you not think that a woman ALREADY KNOWS when she has put on weight? it's not like she's accidentally been eating CALORIE MATE thinking it's a weightLOSS bar and she's unknowingly put on a few pounds. if she's put on weight, believe me, she'll know it. TELLING her that she's put on weight will do nothing positive but only make her feel more depressed about it, which is, sadly, how most women DO already feel after only having put on a couple of pounds. if a woman feels good about herself, then she will be more inclined and more motivated to eat healthily, get out and excersize, etc. feeling like a heffer only makes her feel that it's hopeless.
eating is often tied to emotions as well. so this is where boys and girls differ and i don't think you can use the argument of 'nobody thinks it's a big deal to tell a guy he's put on weight'. i would argue that this is because, for the MOST PART (and, of course, there are many exceptions), guys don't feel the same emotions about putting on weight as girls do. guys aren't constantly pressured to feel they have to be skinny. now, on the other side, i would say that guys feel more of a pressure to be muscular, or 'big'. i would NEVER go up to a guy who i know might feel a bit tender about the subject and tell him "hey, dude. you're friggen SKINNY man! i think maybe it's a bit unhealthy and it doesn't look very good. you should really get out to the gym more".
and even this comparison isn't completely compatable because i really don't think there's anywhere near the same amount of pressure for a guy to be big as there is for a girl to be skinny.
another thing is that it's not really endangering a woman's health to put on a few extra pounds. so in telling a girl that she has put on weight, where she already knows, is basically telling her she doesn't look good, because there is really no other reason that putting on a few extra pounds is a bad thing. (unless, of course, this weight is quite extreme, heightening colestorol levels and blood pressure etc). is it EVER ok to just go up and tell someone "you look ugly at the moment...why don't you do something about it?". it's belittleing, and patronizing.
eating disorders do not only occur in people under twenty. people of any age can be affected.
people usually gain weight for a reason. unhappy, lonely, stressed etc. eating disorder or not it usually has a cause and the weight gain is only a result. pointing out the negative physical effects is unlikely to be very helpful. if you are actually concerned you would probably have more effective if you actually tried to understand what was going on in the person's life and supporting them. people know when they are gaining weight. they have eyes. can feel there clothes getting tighter. commenting negatively on someones appearance is never a very kind thing to do
Ryan
I hear what youre saying. You want to 'help' in some way, but rest assured, that you WILL NOT help at all.
Everything Justine said is spot on.
Dont go there. Just dont. :-)
well said, anonymous. is it pamela?
"why do you think a woman should not be told?"
- because you have no right to! It's personal. And though youre saying guys dont mind, i would NEVER tell a guy he has to lose weight!! Why assume that all women would?
Anyone who goes up to someone and says that aint all that nice. health interests, you say? Hmmm, i dont buy that. Like J said, afew pounds arent gonna harm ones health, you cant use an excuse like that.
At the end of the day, women THINK differently to men. It doesnt help that women are faced with body issues on a day to day basis. Im not saying men dont, everyone feel this 'pressure' from society, but DONT EVER suppose that women will take your 'friendly, motivational speech', as friendly, let alone motivational.
Women think differently. That's what you have to remember, end of story.
You'll just end up hurting their feelings. Espeically if it's someone you care about, because they ll think you re judging them based upon appearences, and that isnt how you base your relationships (with friends AND family) now, is it?!
Yeah... All valid points... Please understand I am trying to work this one ou in my head... Secondly, I do realise that to be perfectly thin and fatless is not intrinsicly a good thing and is so because of societal conditioning (although so is most of he things we think are good and bad, so adopting that idea poses even bigger questions beyond the bounds of a blog comment).Fact is my sister has apparently put on a visible amount of weight because she has been studying so hard for exams and working and what not... Anyway she flew back to Johannesburg for the weekend and my father being the Italian he is and being a member of our perhaps oddly open family told my sister. He said to her that it was her 21st birthday in a month and thus people would be taking millions of pictures of her and thus if she wanted to remember herself looking beauiful on her most important birthday she needed to make an effort or she will look at those picures for he rest of her life and wished she`d looked nicer... Anyway my sister responded with `you know you`re a shithead but might be right...` now she going to make an effort and will no doubt be looking closer to her normal self for her birthday... Upon hearing this story I started thinking about it and remembered that me going on my crazy healh and fitness bliz this year was spurred both by fooball tournaments and by my sister telling me when she was here that I needed to make more of an effort to eat properly as I was packing it on... Granted I wanted to throw her out of a window when I heard that but it made me take notice and make the necessary effort, something I am very happy I did...Thus, I asked the question... Fact is maybe this particular commen(the weight one) has progressed to the point where it has become an untouchable subject but I wish sometimes people would tell me discreetly what was wrong with me so that I could change my failings in time, like my sister will do now... I know exactly what is wrong with me(in the same way that you say women know their weight issues) and these inadequacies appall me daily but unless I hear these things from the mouths of other people, I will never do anything about... I don`t always want to hear it and only in the right circumstances but knowing how the world sees you is so necessary to growth in a world where a lot of who you are can only really be gauged by how people view your behaviour from an external point of view...If you know what I mean... Some things you can`t change and those you just have to accept and if people make negative comments you lob them with the closest hard object but the things that you can change are a different story... Not telling someone close to you about something you think they could improve smacks a little of assuming they don`t have the strength of character to improve it... Where this argument may fall apart is that I might have no idea of the way societal pressure has turned a remark of the sort I am discussing into such a thunderbolt that hearing it causes the anger and the depression mentioned earlier whilst no longer providing the element of drive to be better that comments on a different topic might... This could very well be true and I realise that... It could also be said that it isn`t necessary to lose weight unless it is going to become a medical problem such as obesity... This however falls flat because although it obviously shouldn`t be the case it pays to look good in this world and thus regardless of whether it should or it shouldn`t, helping somebody lose weight will in effect ALWAYS prove to be a benefit to that person... I think the key however is that you never know how the other person is going to react and thus taking the chance that they will not fight to be better and instead just fall to pieces over it, is obviously not fair and your place to make... In this case, if my father KNEW how my sister would take it then it justifies the means... She was probably crushed for a few hours but for the next while every time she looks a said Mars Bar she will think how angry and embarrased she was at that moment and not eat it... Thats the extra push I was talking about... And on her birthday she will look beauiful and be happy to take every picture when she wouldn`t of if my dad hadn`t made a comment... Anyway I was very proud of her character when she phoned me to talk to me about it although I admit that had my father not known here as well as he does it could have been a very stupid thing to say... Sorry if I didn` incorporate something somebody said before me ino my little paragraph but I rushed this so I can make it to the bank...
ryan,
i understand where you're coming from, and do agree with what you wrote about: "I might have no idea of the way societal pressure has turned a remark of the sort I am discussing into such a thunderbolt that hearing it causes the anger and the depression mentioned earlier whilst no longer providing the element of drive to be better that comments on a different topic might." i really think this is the EXACT issue and why this topic is different from all other topics, and why it's different for men and women. your sister is obviously very lucky in that she is very confident in herself. also, it seems as though she is maybe somebody who has never battled with weight issues, and so therefore, putting on a few extra pounds is abnormal for her, and easily rectified ("by refusing to eat said mars bar"). but the fact is that i think this is a smaller minority of women...who have or don't have weight issues, and that for most women it is far more hurtful to hear, and will only bring about negative feelings. that's great that your sister, after hearing a comment like that, can think "hey. ok. he's right. i HAVE put on weight, and it's not normal for me. i'm going to make an effort and get back to 'normal'". for most women (because of 'societal pressures' etc etc etc), i agree with you that it is UNFORTUNATE, but it is not possible to receive a comment like that and not feel really degraded, attacked, and hurt.
...and so therefore, my final point being...not necessary.
Interesting conversation... Learnt something today... :-)
Hey guys, interesting conversation indeed. Justine, you're points were put so well that this comment need not be too long. Most people reading this will already know that I have a mouth on me, love to take the piss and am very thick skinned when it comes to getting shit thrown back. But, I cannot overstate the counter-productiveness in the vast majority of cases in advising a girl that she's overweight in order to motivate her to change her body shape. The simple fact is that the skinny shape most women long for is only possible for a small minority. You say ryan that looking good gets you places, and i don't disagree, but self confidence goes a lot further. And unhappyness with body weight is almost certainly the biggest factor effecting women's confidence in virtually every sphere of their lives. It is not really men's fault but they cannot comprehend how obsessive an issue weight is for women and how thoroughly depressing it is to be unhappy with your figure. Nor can men appreciate how incredibly deeply a simple comment really cuts, to the extent that it will probably stay with a woman for the rest of her life. In a job interview she will probably be thinking 'am i as thin and pretty as the last girl' when she should be thinking about what the fuck she's going to say. As Justine said, only an exceptionally confident woman could turn such a comment into a motivating factor.
I am a relatively confident person, but my father used to make continual comments about my weight, and it only ever succeeded in making me feel hopeless and shit, and more likely to comfort eat. i lost weight when i came to japan and was out of his sphere of influence. The comments he constantly makes to my mum, who is a UK size 8 up top but 12 on the bottom half because she's 'pear shaped'(and fucking thin for 50!), have caused her to be so unhappy about her body that she cannot stand to look in mirrors or at photographs. More than that it has changed the nature of her as a person.
Also, it really is not the case that tiny model like figures are always preferred. Many men are more attracted to women with different shapes and sizes so the pressure that every woman puts on herself to be thin already far exceeds men's desire for a thinner girlfriend/sister/daughter/secretary. So unless you want to do severe emotional damage to someone, even if you can't understand why, on this issue, seriously, shut the fuck up! Ryan, thanks for bringing it up.
good discussions guys! ryan...thanks for the leading question ;)
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