Mommy I Want Plus Size Barbie

What Saevel doesn't care to understand is that shunning and shaming people can easily have the opposite effect than the one intended. If someone is turning to food for comfort then what are they going to do when everyone is treating them like they're worthless? Yep. More food. Duh.

Another thing about society using shame as a tool is that it doesn't stop with things that may make sense. Society LOVES to shame people for body parts that they can't necessarily control the size of. For his sake I hope Saevel has the penis of a porn star, because men are frequently shamed and ridiculed for not having such. It's just as wrong as judging a woman's value as a human being by her bust size, but this is what societal shaming brings us.

I'm still trying to figure out what unrealistically skinny images the "media" is shoving down people's throats...

Of the most searched females of 2013, according to google, you have names like Rihanna, Beyonce, Brittany Spears, Shakira, Jennifer Lawrence, Sandra Bullock, Kim Kardashian and the token wire frames that are only searched for shock value: Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, etc.

I'm missing the part where women like Rihanna and Shakira are portraying an unrealistically thin body image to children.

It is a huge leap to say "all the women on TV are super skinny" when you're talking about women who are mostly right on the dot in their medically specified weight range.

Yes, some people can be outside that range and still healthy by the current metrics. That doesn't mean that we should shift the standard to encompass them. Some people just don't fall into a nice little category.

Just because there are a few shapeless an unattractive women on TV, doesn't mean that 5 chin Barbie needs to be a thing.

Unless I'm being asked for advice, I keep my mouth shut. People can do whatever they want. The only time I'd ever bring up someone's weight is if they're *** with/insulting/provoking me; in which case, I'm just going to go after whatever you're most sensitive to. For some people, this may be weight; and even in these cases, I'm just trying to press your buttons, rather than poke at overweight people in general.

(For example, if the word fgt pushes your buttons most, whether you're gay or straight, that's what I'm going to call you if I'm trying to push your buttons.)

If there's something wrong with the media's influence on society it's not about weight specifically, but about beauty (especially hilarious when they get extremely attractive women to play "homely" women), but that's capitalism for you, because beautiful people sell (And I doubt any of you are innocent of this). That can easily turn all of us jaded and cranky but the alternative would be censorship and control, and I don't support SJWs that talk about "fat acceptance" more because of that rather than a general message of being nice to people.

Of course, I also think people being insincerely nice can be just as insulting because it's patronizing, so you can't win either way.

I actually touched on this in one of my earlier posts concerning advertising. I still can't fathom how people actually fall for that, lol.

Because they are unhappy with themselves and will take any opportunity to delude themselves into thinking that if they had that product, they'd be like her. Consumption is their problem, consumption in all it's forms.

That type of advertising has never been effective with me. Advertisement about the product itself (at least to me) is more important than who is using said product.

I'm not sure what's worse, the severe shallowness, and disgusting on epic proportions, or the horrible grammar.

I think we can all agree that "Honey Boo Boo" shouldn't ever have aired, except to remind us that such a disgusting thing exists, and should be dealt with.

As usual, people take everything to it's most extreme, instead of looking at the reality of the debate.

kill it, with fire!

I don't think Honey Boo Boo was ever billed as something to aspire to. If anything it fits more into the shaming of overweight and obese women. You're supposed to think they're ridiculous. If they were skinny and attractive then people would take them seriously instead. Sorry, I'm sure I got whooshed, but what the hell.

Ok, here is an example of the type of woman I think you are talking about when you say that "overweight" is misconstrued to mean obese or fat...



Obviously, they are not fat/obese, but they are on the high end or outside of their ideal weight range. I have no qualms at all about portraying women in this way. They are curvy and beautiful and promote a healthy body image. Not every woman is going to be super thin or have the perfect size 2 frame. There is not merit in promoting size 14 as a perfectly healthy body, because 9 times out of 10, women are not a size 14 because they are overly muscular or curvy, but because they are overly double stuffed oreos and KFC'd, and that is not healthy.

Full disclosure, I'm 6'2" and 200 lbs (on the high end of my ideal range, but I had a traumatic back injury and have spent 18 months in recovery, avg ~185 prior), my wife is 5'5" and 120 lbs (slightly underweight but very healthy). I wouldn't try to put my preference of body types as the norm, nor would I outcast people who don't fit neatly into that category. But this is absolutely damaging to the state of public health...

Give a curvy model and flat chested girl will feel pressured.
Give a very slim model and curvy girls will feel pressured.
Give a fat model...and you're stupid.

There is no way to not make people with a delicate state of mind feel under pressure, but I think it's pretty stupid to sell a product like that.

I have no problem with Barbie or other fictional heroines representing an ideal. I just think it should be an ideal that's at the very least humanly possible. At best it should be one that inspires healthiness without one having to resort to surgery to even begin to approach it.

The obese Barbie idea takes it to an extreme that's not helpful for anyone, IMO.

I don't know, maybe I was just a weird kid. But I loved Barbie dolls, had a huge tote full of them and their accessories, had probably over 50 different dolls (not including Ken and Skipper dolls), my parents even had a Barbie house specially built that was as tall as I was at the time, with huge rooms, closets, a kitchen, it even had carpet and wall paper inside. My point is, I loved Barbie.

But I never felt like I had to look like her. By the time I even realized that looks and weight were a thing, I was already in 5th or 6th grade and had outgrown Barbie.

I guess it's just really weird to me that a kid who is young enough to play with a Barbie doll is at the same time old enough to be worried about her weight.

The problem isn't necessarily with the doll. It's more with the parents who turn their kids loose on the doll without explaining anything to the kid. It's a doll, not a role model. If something really needs to be done, then they should make a more average-looking doll instead of two crazy extremes of doll. Or, just, seriously parents. Talk to your kids.

I loved Precious Moments dolls, too. Never once felt the need to make my eyes look like humongous teardrops. I just don't even know.

Pick up an issue of Vogue or Elle. Also, there was the Victoria's Secret fashion show a few weeks ago.

You're using fashion magazines as the benchmark for female archetypes and you are calling us shallow?

When woman are shipping for lingerie what models or images do you think they have to look at? It's not those random celebrities you googled. Better yet who do you think models the majority of the clothing females wear? It's not those random celebrities you googled. It's females like in the image I posted.

I have no objection to those women.

Do you count that as a recent development? Fashion has always been centered around wafer thin women, but women haven't always been obese on the scale they are now.

And please do continue to pretend that average women buy lingerie on the proportion that it is advertised. My wife is a shopper and very fashionable (also roughly the same body type as those models), do you know how much lingerie she buys? None, like basically every woman I have ever known.

I'm sure the majority of women lament the fact that lady gaga meat dress isn't advertised for plus sized women.

As a skinny male, I assure you that I feel as much pressure my overweight kin.

I'm told that I must conform to the Abercrombie model of beauty or I'm throwaway material. Long have I hoped to be graced with the pecs of an Athenean God and a six pack worthy of a Zulu warrior but instead I'm cursed to possess a bony frame mounted to short frame. 5'6 and half and male? I might as well throw myself off a bridge right now. Anyone want my FFXI account? My investments? A Pokemon keychain? I'm not long for this world.

Perhaps I'll reroll as a ginger with freckles next go around.

Or I can simply throw away these idealized models and live my own life. If someone refuses to consider me romantic material because I'm not their blue eyed dream male and don't really care to spend all my free time in the gym then so be it.

Being severely overweight is as unhealthy as being underweight but that is the choice of an individual and chasing societal ideals that change as often as which way the wind blows helps no one but companies looking to part you with your cash. The healthy at any weight movement is a delusion but so is the concept of what an 'ideal' is.

(It's amusing considering America is on its way to being a nation of overweight diabetics.)

in case you thought western ideals of beauty were confusing enough

And stopped reading your post right there. Rice does not contain gluten. It's a wheat protein. Clearly you've jumped on the "all carbs are bad and we're going to blame a protein that is dangerous to coeliac patients to prop up our strawman" bandwagon.

It's almost as if beauty is in the eye of the societal beholder.

Granted I don't watch television all that much, but TV has rarely been accused as the barometer of what is attractive in the minds of the mass media market. Hell, Miley Cyrus's antics lately have been highlighting how many people are grossed out by near-anorexic skinniness and prolonged neoteny.

It's print media that retains the prime position for gauging attractiveness standards. Which is insane because anyone with half a brain knows that magazine articles (note: this now refers to their online version as much or more than the old-fashioned kind) are full of airbrushing and other Photoshopping techniques. It's an industry built on making people insecure and then claiming to provide the answer. I once made the mistake of buying a copy of Men's Health because the headline looked intriguing and I keep it around to remind me not to repeat that blunder.

Every other ad in a men's magazine: Your penis is small, you need a pump/pills/book/ninjutsu/car/ring to impress the ladies.

I like skinny guys. I suspect part of it is because I'll never be one (even when I shed all the weight, I'll still be "overweight" with all this ridiculous musculature). Standards of male beauty are quite broad. Female standards are finally starting to catch up as people admit to preferring a woman with flesh on her bones again. Being skinny only got popular a few decades ago for either sex.

Also, I wonder how often people forget that this kind of stuff only lasts as long as one is single. Even with cheating being a commonplace and divorce happening often, it is less often caused by putting on 10 lbs. after the wedding than by differences that actually matter. Fitting societal "norms" just exposes one to more shallow, unfulfilled people, though unfortunately that is sometimes the only balm available before finding a decent person.

Where in any of my posts did I say that woman shop according to these size standards? Nowhere. Reading is hard.

The question isn't whether individuals are shopping are according to these sizes but rather what are the psychological effects of these projects images.