Gillette ad features an unapologetic fat woman in a swimsuit; heads explode (See Staff Post)

[RoninChaos]

This is the wrong attitude in terms of obesity. Yes, targeting an individual person and dictating them is, well, wrong.

But obesity is a health crisis, one that costs individuals and the health system at large a fuck ton of money over the period of ones life. It's a crisis that is a mix of poor personal choices which are greatly exacerbated by extremely poor food planning on a national level, with companies engineering shit to make us addicted to convenience, taste while giving us zero nutrition or even doing basic things like actually filling us up.

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Calling the lady in a Gillette add a fat ass doesn't fix the base issues with what you've mentioned. It's just cruelty for cruelty's sake and a lot of people in this country, who can barely take care of their own shit want to act holier than thou because a fat chick is wearing a bathing suit.

People shouldn't be telling people how to live, especially when the people saying fat people shouldn't be fat or shouldn't be comfortable in their own skin are the people who don't want to help pay for and fix our current healthcare system.

We have endemic and systemic problems with how food is produced in this country where food is loaded with additives that are addictive and shit that is AWFUL for you because these companies are greedy. Couple that with the fact that we have a healthcare system that's based on profit and not health. A system the prioritizes profits rather than preventative care that would stop most of the issues before they become issues. On top of that most people can't afford good healthcare and are working in jobs that promote being unhealthy, be it through not offering health insurance or from doing things like penalizing people for taking time off to take care of themselves. It's not hard to see why obesity is such a problem in America when you look at those foundational issues.

Being fat sucks and if people has choices to not be fat they'd take them. But people always act like it's just a matter of putting down the cheeseburger. And it's not that simple. And I say that as a guy who lost over 100 pounds. I grew up poor and what we could afford wasn't remotely nutritious. Meanwhile people from the rich side of town we're eating healthy and nutritious meals because they had access to great food sources and basic food education that wasn't available to a lot of other people. I had to unlearn some really awful habits I picked up and my body is paying the price for it. I'll live with it and I'm doing my best to take care of myself and make sure I am still alive in 30 years to play with my grandkids. I'm doing okay now monetarily, and the food options I have for my son are light years away from what I had or what some of my son's current friends have. I've seen this from both ends. We have a major problem and the obesity problem in this country doesn't come down to "Just don't eat bad food!" And shirting on people who are just trying to feel comfortable in their own skin is an absolute trash way to go about things. Especially since a lot of these people say shit like "I'm just trying to help!" No they aren't. They're just assholes.

 

[Mona]

What about hairy women?

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Gillette isn't leaving them out, they can shave and go to the beach aswell

 

[Stouffers]

Why should women or anyone else feel pressured to shave their pits, legs and crotches? Couldn't Gillette be accused of hair shaming?

 

[Dude Abides]

This is a really good point

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You misspelled "stupid." It has no "g".

 

[HammerFace]

I mean, in many cases it is negligent parenting. This perhaps applies more to well off families rather than poor ones though. Where they don't really care about how overweight or underweight the kids are and just feed them whatever. That to me is negligence. If you can educate your kids (assuming you have the chance) to eat healthy from an early age, it becomes an easier issue to deal with it.

Also could you link me to the study? From my perspective it would seem developed countries are the ones having more issue with this than underveloped ones, but I could be wrong of course.

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Here you go

I would agree. I think it has more to do with poverty gap than just poverty alone. In that the necessities to survive aren't scarce, but rather the ability to have a healthy lifestyle and nutritious diet is a luxury saved for those who can afford it.

 

[Zoe]

Just saw the tweet. Based on the discussion, I'd have figured she was a little heavy but that's way more than just plus size or overweight, no?

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Correct

Because as someone who lost weight and had to deal with people telling me about my weight loss (where I still deal with people commenting on how I'm a normal weight), I think there is an absolute issue of normalizing obesity to the point where peoples baselines are fucking horribly out of wack to where I was having people tell me they were concerned that I wanted to lose another 20 pounds.

20 pounds that, mind you, would land me in the normal BMI range.

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Wholeheartedly agree, but I do tend to give friends IRL some slack because any change is going to seem drastic when given a baseline that's personal. If you had been a complete stranger I doubt they would see anything wrong with it.

 

[RocknRola]

Why should women or anyone else feel pressured to shave their pits, legs and crotches? Couldn't Gillette be accused of hair shaming?

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I mean...they sell razors...that's kinda their business model as a whole: cut your hair. Be it whatever type of hair it is, for anyone really. Not just for women nor not just for men. The men on their ads also lack the glorious chest hair of the 80's for example.

 

[Deleted member 888]

I think the way we treat education, Healthcare and agriculture as giant business opportunities rather than core aspects of national strength and societal security are the most corrosive institutional problems. We have created a nearly unique set of American beliefs about things that other nations with better outcomes would be outraged by and enough military industrial and business lobbying graft that they have become enormous parasites that need to be continually fed - and to survive they have to grow - and they grow through bloat and inefficiency - so the taxpayer has to continually be milked to support that growth. We find new ways to monetize the poor and the middle class - and elect Politicians who are part of that vicious cycle.

There's actually more than enough money from waste alone - $500 navy toilet seats and unwanted battleships - to $50 Tylenol at the ER - to young men in jail to fill empty private prison beds - and on and on and on - to pay for education and Healthcare for every American - but the frog is so thoroughly boiled that Americans don't even really talk about it - the myths about Canadian and European Healthcare are repeated every day on the news and senators continue to pay for failed unwanted weapons projects and nobody blinks.

1. Citizens United
2. Complete hijack of judicial systems
3. Legal gerrymandering
4. Atrocious media abdication and false equivalency
5. Disproportionate or illogical power sharing between states and the electoral college that makes few accommodations for a 21st century economy or demographics and encourages and enables corruption and voter suppression while amplifying emotional rivalries and discord inside and between states.


These are just a couple of the levers of power that explain why irrational waste and theft and destruction is tolerated and rational change is impossible and why comparatively few amoral billionaires are able to create unsustainable systems and outrages and everyone just goes along with it.


The teething troubles of technology and information society and social media could also be ways to fix this but first we have to encourage better uses of them and avoid ceding control to "net neutrality" villains here and abroad. If that looks bad now imagine what Ajit Pai's information society looks like in twenty years.

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But even if a lot of what you're talking about here is speaking truth to power, it doesn't fully answer to the cultural and societal problems people have, in the ways they interact, talk and portray themselves to others.

America isn't how it is just because of "big bad Government" and "all this fast food shit". Most of the world right now is inundated with a capitalistic venture to sell us convenience and "fatten us up", speaking metaphorically and literally.

Some cultures as a collective do not fall victim to this as much as others. Why is that? Well, part of it may be generations of people not brought up normalizing or downplaying or looking to handwave or trying to find ways to always blame something else. Many countries with socialized healthcare have "no choice" other than to flood the population with the messages they need to, to try and get it instilled into public discourse that obesity is not something to just shrug off and/or normalize.

It's like when people throw the word education out, as some answer to a complex problem, without even beginning to grasp everything that goes into education being accepted and diluted out through a country. If the population resists and the general narratives and ways of speaking ignore and/or are inflammatory towards said education, then the people don't change. Education ends up failing to set out to do what it is trying.

Now, I'm generalizing a little, but routinely when it comes to America and the obesity questions, there is soo much hostility, defensiveness and sometimes an almost championed rejection of everything and anything that dares to "threaten" ones American dream to live free. It's almost like talking to gun nuts at times and trying to point out to them the consequences of fuck all gun control aren't good.

edit: While you're talking about taxpayer money being wasted, I already posted what obesity costs

The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was $147 billion in 2008 US dollars; the medical cost for people who have obesity was $1,429 higher than those of normal weight. [Read paperExternal]

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https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

 

[Stouffers]

I mean...they sell razors...that's kinda their business model as a whole: cut your hair. Be it whatever type of hair it is, for anyone really. Not just for women or not just for men. The men on their ads also lack the glorious chest hair of the 80's for example.

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Right, but the implication is it's only acceptable to frolick at the beach if you don't have curls peaking out your knickers.

 

[Deleted member 8561]

Calling the lady in a Gillette add a fat ass doesn't fix the base issues with what you mentioned. People shouldn't be telling people how to live, especially when the same people saying these people shouldn't be fat are the ones who don't want to help pay for and fix our current healthcare system. We have endemic and systemic problems with how good is produced in this country and we have a healthcare system that's based on profit and not health. On top of that most people can't afford good healthcare and are working in jobs that promote being unhealthy, be it through not offering health insurance or from doing things like penalizing people for taking time off to take care of themselves. It's not hard to see why obesity is such a problem in America when you look at those foundational issues.

Being fat sucks and if people has choices to not be fat they'd take them. But people always act like it's just a matter of putting down the cheeseburger. And it's not that simple. And I say that as a guy who lost over 100 pounds.

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It's not that simple, no. But unless you have an underlying physical condition or mental condition that is causing you to over eat, literally reducing consumption of food is almost always the solution. The struggles come with the urges and personal will and making sacrifices to convenience that you once had.

People go to the store and load up their cart with a few two litter coke bottles, something that is literally the only thing they drink for refreshment or hydration. Now obviously that's a personal choice which can be fixed by not drinking half your daily caloric intake in the form of soda, but it's a habit that was created as a child when parents give kids juice boxes and introduce them to sugar and other trash from toddlerhood all the way to young adolescent, and at that point the idea of not drinking soda or other "flavor" filled things when your thirsty is a completely unknown concept.

This is why it's not an easy thing to talk about. Because a major factor in obesity are habits created as a child/growing up that people live with to this day. Habits created because companies figured out how to get people hooked on their trash, figured out how to market to kids and parents to create the chain of consumption going for generations.

But there comes a point where there is personal responsibility in taking control of your life and severing the habits you grew up on. It's why this topic is so tough to talk about, because the underlying issue is absolutely food production and habits people learned as from young ages, but there is always choices that people can make to change their lifestyle.

 

[theotherMittens]

We can't have an ad promoting fat people engaging in healthy outdoor activities, oh no

 

[RocknRola]

Here you go

I would agree. I think it has more to do with poverty gap than just poverty alone. In that the necessities to survive aren't scarce, but rather the ability to have a healthy lifestyle and nutritious diet is a luxury saved for those who can afford it.

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Thanks! Will give it a read!

 

[RocknRola]

Right, but the implication is it's only acceptable to frolick at the beach if you don't have curls peaking out your knickers.

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To be fair, be it on men or women, hair coming out their knickers is a bit........much. For me at least.

Though I agree that you can perhaps view it that way yes, but you gotta remember that they have a very much vested interested in that, thus it makes no sense for them to advertise or promote the opposite really.

 

[RDreamer]

I mean, you're the one that brought poverty as a comparison into this discussion. Being poor isn't really a choice, not for thousands of peoples in the US (or millions in the West alone).

Obesity on the other hand isn't passed on though, it's not something that becomes a defaut condition that will happen to you even if your parents are themselves overweight (as your link tells us). It is always gained but it can also be lost, unless it's caused by medical conditions.

From your own study:
"They also found that 48 percent of children with overweight parents became overweight, compared with 13 percent of those with normal-weight parents."

Which implies that 52% didn't become overweight (until the study ended, at the very least), aka, they didn't get the condition of overweight or obeseness "passed on" to them. Having overweight parents doesn't mean overweight kids. It's clearly a greater indication that it might happen especially when paired with others (poverty, poor family conditions, negligence, etc), thought it doesn't necessarily mean that it will happen.

I don't have stats for the kids, just talking about what I observe on my daily routines (going to and coming from work, walking around, etc). But I can withdraw that argument, if you wish.

I dunno, maybe I'm underestimating how much of an issue it is, but having been overweight myself I never felt I didn't have a choice, nor something that was passed on to me. It just took getting to a mental breaking point to do something about it.

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From this study on poverty:

According to the study, around five percent of adults who never experienced poverty as children were poor at ages 20 and 25. If they were poor anywhere from one to seven years as a kid, that number went up to approximately 13 percent. For those who spent eight to 14 years in poverty as children, 46 percent were poor at age 20, and 40 percent were poor at age 25.

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Well shit, 56% of people who spent 14 years in poverty were then not poor at age 20! 60% were not poor at age 25!

So... uh... it actually seems that growing up with overweight parents is more correlated to you being overweight than growing up with parents in poverty is correlated to you being in poverty.

As for this:

it doesn't necessarily mean that it will happen

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I never once implied 100% correlation and I even stated that outright. I'm not sure why you're trying to argue with that straw man.

 

[Deleted member 15737]

What about hairy women?

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Right, but the implication is it's only acceptable to frolick at the beach if you don't have curls peaking out your knickers.

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Um, someone posted earlier Venus (Gilette) doing the same sort of campaign with a woman who chooses not to shave. The message is it's your skin, do what you want with it.

EDIT: Duckroll posted it earlier:

This does not seem to be accurate at all?



#MySkinMyWay is an ongoing campaign that Gillette Venus is using to empower women into making their own choices and being comfortable with it. This includes not shaving if they don't want to. Selling a razor doesn't mean you have to feel compelled to shave in a particular way or to shave to meet the expectations of others. It can mean taking care of your body hair and your skin the way you want to and what makes you feel the most comfortable. You are in control.

I don't understand why people want to twist stuff into the most cynical way to put down marketing that they clearly don't understand, have not followed and aren't even targeted at them.

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[Stouffers]

To be fair, be it on men or women, hair coming out their knickers is a bit........much. For me at least.

Though I agree that you can perhaps view it that way yes, but you gotta remember that they have a very much vested interested in that, thus it makes no sense for them to advertise or promote the opposite really.

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Maybe weight watchers should launch a similar ad with a skinny breathtakingly-hairy woman bikiniing it up at the beach.

 

[PixelatedProphet]

My only issue is people who Fetishize being overweight. Go on twitter,youtube,any porn site and lots of womem/some men sell videos of them making themselves fatter. Huge difference between loving the skin your in and "promoting" obesity.

 

[Cryptosporidium]

I understand that Stinkles, there are other medical conditions that cause or are directly responsible for what happens to people's bodies. The statistics about America though, and the UK which is catching up, are not all conveniently swept under hereditary diabetes or such.

Do you think America could support a nationalized health system as is, without some drastic attempts at stopping that 40% figure inching closer to 50%? If some of the ads and programmes our Government (in the UK) ran were run in America, you'd have public outrage that everyone is being shamed. It's just not that simple and to imply so is intellectually dishonest and/or purposefully being antagonistic towards the truth. Though we did have that outrage over the Cancer Research UK campaign. But the UK is seemingly trying to follow in America's footsteps.

The things you mention we do try to do. It's not as if no one is trying to help with healthy eating. Even when I was at high school there were non-stop Government interventions and programmes to try and push healthy eating. Ads on TV (for junk food) were banned during children's programmes. Dentists and other professionals including doctors spoke honestly with children and their parents. Things get done, but people can still put whatever they want in their mouths (or their kids).

So what else is important? The societal debate. At times it almost seems like it's becoming a tradition or right to portray America as the land of the free to the extent of, shut the fuck up, don't you ever tell us what we can eat. And that is true to some extent. But when we get people just casually mixing obesity with being overweight and also thinking skinny simply means anorexia, the public discourse is fucking failing.

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.

 

[RocknRola]

Maybe weight watchers should launch a similar ad with a skinny breathtakingly-hairy woman bikiniing it up at the beach.

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Only if she colours her body hair. Like so.

Either go all-in or don't go at all.

(Also no idea why that ^^^^ is a thing, but it is. Apparently.)

 

[Stinkles]

But even if a lot of what you're talking about here is speaking truth to power, it doesn't fully answer to the cultural and societal problems people have, in the ways they interact, talk and portray themselves to others.

America isn't how it is just because of "big bad Government" and "all this fast food shit". Most of the world right now is inundated with a capitalistic venture to sell us convenience and "fatten us up", speaking metaphorically and literally.

Some cultures as a collective do not fall victim to this as much as others. Why is that? Well, part of it may be generations of people not brought up normalizing or downplaying or looking to handwave or trying to find ways to always blame something else. Many countries with socialized healthcare have "no choice" other than to flood the population with the messages they need to, to try and get it instilled into public discourse that obesity is not something to just shrug off and/or normalize.

It's like when people throw the word education out, as some answer to a complex problem, without even beginning to grasp everything that goes into education being accepted and diluted out through a country. If the population resists and the general narratives and ways of speaking ignore and/or are inflammatory towards said education, then the people don't change. Education ends up failing to set out to do what it is trying.

Now, I'm generalizing a little, but routinely when it comes to America and the obesity questions, there is soo much hostility, defensiveness and sometimes an almost championed rejection of everything and anything that dares to "threaten" ones American dream to live free. It's almost like talking to gun nuts at times and trying to point out to them the consequences of fuck all gun control aren't good.

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Well I'm saying we can't really even get to that discussion without getting past the institutional barriers that push those considerations to the back of the queue. Most Americans, like other people in other countries, are born into their context and just accept it and don't care about politics or media bias - they just want to feed their family and pay the bills and fix the car and go to sleep. You have to get in underneath that and give folks the luxury of being able to care. Even people who do care about it in the now, are also paying the bills and being frustrated by institutions that they can't control or modify. I'm not saying issues like this can't be addressed directly or immediately - just that people's priorities and bandwidth and exposure and comprehension are all contextualized by their circumstances.

 

[B.O.O.M.]

I mean, you can have your beliefs and such about what constitutes to be healthy and I can understand that. But you also don't have to be an asshole about it. If people are fine and happy with who they are, that's great. Some of the comments are like when vegans can't stfu about their diet and how eating meat is wrong and bad for you.

 

[Deleted member 15737]

It's also shocking to me that I've seen many mentions of soda, sugar, alcohol, red meat, dairy and fast food as root causes of obesity on America, but not a single mention of cars, which I think I'd argue is the #1 cause. The USA would have a helluva lot less obese people if our only options were bike, walk, or public transit.

My wife has a nutrition degree and has given several talks on access to healthy food (particularly among poorer communities). Tons of people have to drive 30+ minutes to have access to quality healthy food. On their way they'll surely pass several convenience stores and several fast food restaurants.

Less reliance on cars would lead to a better distribution of stores, instead of one Walmart or meijer per 200,000 people (or whatever the figure is, just pulled 200k outta my rump.)

 

[Wazzy]

Uhhh, I do?

If I was in a thread about food consumption (and I have been) I would be talking about food consumption and food production. I'm in a thread about the social aspect of obesity.

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The societal aspect has been the same for years. Obesity has been treated and viewed as bad and unhealthy. The epidemic isn't because obesity is now viewed as healthy and acceptable. It all stems from the same thing it always has which is the food industry. You will see people make excuses for fast food and every industry in exisitance because they place blame on individuals rather than the massive corporations lying about the effects of what we eat.

You think showing obesity exists somehow makes it worse when really the constant abuse directed at people who are overweight/obese easily makes it worse. Many people who struggle or struggled with weight loss will tell you that being ashamed to go out in public made working out difficult and demotivating. Even the ones who claim they are against making people not feel ashamed admit they were bullied.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I can't help but feel this is not some "oh lets promote body positivity!" but simply this was made literally to cause an outrage by some cynical suits in Marketing.

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Gillet knows has been on a roll recently with their PR push. That includes the "toxic male" commercial they made. Nike as well with Kaepernick. The very definition of "woke brands". They know the outrage they get from a minority of people who will boycott their product is nothing compared to the overall positive buzz of people who will start picking up their product. Its clearly super cynical.

With that being said, the message of progressive values is still a positive one and one that deserves to be shoved in the face of as many ignorants as possible despite my reservations with this specific type. So let's call it a wash.

 

[mael]

I'll never get the idea behind body shaming.
At this point you can say all you want that you're doing this to "help" people or whatever but you're just about to find a way to feel superior to someone.
Shaming someone is not gonna help that person change their lifestyle if it's unhealthy (probably quite the contrary) and I'm pretty sure people that are living unhealthy lifestyle don't need the help of perfect smug strangers to open their eyes about how you think they are going to die soon either.
In the US particularly, maybe fix the goddamn food schools give to children if you really want to do something about this epidemic.

 

[Br3wnor]

My only issue is people who Fetishize being overweight. Go on twitter,youtube,any porn site and lots of womem/some men sell videos of them making themselves fatter. Huge difference between loving the skin your in and "promoting" obesity.

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Who are you to police people's kinks?

This thread is an amazzzzzzzzing look at the hypocrisy of some users here. Some really, really awful views in here expressed via concern trolling.

Gonna remember a lot of responses in here the next time we have a thread about a state instituting Medicaid work requirements. Ya'll m'fers gonna break your necks doing a 180 as you defend people being victims of their circumstances and patting yourselves on the back for being so forward thinking and progressive.

 

[Deleted member 888]

Well I'm saying we can't really even get to that discussion without getting past the institutional barriers that push those considerations to the back of the queue. Most Americans, like other people in other countries, are born into their context and just accept it and don't care about politics or media bias - they just want to feed their family and pay the bills and fix the car and go to sleep. You have to get in underneath that and give folks the luxury of being able to care. Even people who do care about it in the now, are also paying the bills and being frustrated by institutions that they can't control or modify. I'm not saying issues like this can't be addressed directly or immediately - just that people's priorities and bandwidth and exposure and comprehension are all contextualized by their circumstances.

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Yes, you do need to get underneath and encourage people to care. What doesn't help though is the politically turned on people being incredibly hostile towards education they "should know" needs to be said how it needs to be said. If the so-called "politically woke" people in a country are rejecting change/information/reality, then yeah, sure, what chance do the less politically active people have who maybe rely on friends, family or other people to engage with them?

Resetera, as a collective, would probably say it's one of the most politically awakened forums there are, but even in this topic you have a concerning number of posts conflating being overweight with being obese and when challenging anyone around anorexia just referring to it as "being skinny". That's not true and it does not help discourse. The reason I've been talking about being on the fringes is that if you shift the discourse boundaries soo far that you end up including obesity within the categories of simply being overweight, then that normalizes or suggests that obesity "isn't much different" than carrying some extra around your belly.

It couldn't be further than the truth when it comes to health issues. Kids find that out far worse than anyone else. They're reliant on their parents to feed them and parents that have normalized obesity can end up producing kids like this

(This was taken from an article parents were interviewed for, but I blurred the kids face anyway. Just in case mods think it's a random FB photo or something)

We all fluctuate throughout life, but as a collective if we don't all do our part in a society to speak truth to power, yes, but also truth in general, then all that happens over time is things DO become normalized. Sometimes incredibly harmful things.

The complexity of this topic is off the charts as any doctor, professional, psychologist or more will tell you but every single one of us also plays a part in all of this. How we speak, what we say to others, what we tell ourselves and also at times how we might hold other information sources accountable. Like ads, marketing, corporations and so on.

 

[RocknRola]

From this study on poverty:



Well shit, 56% of people who spent 14 years in poverty were then not poor at age 20! 60% were not poor at age 25!

So... uh... it actually seems that growing up with overweight parents is more correlated to you being overweight than growing up with parents in poverty is correlated to you being in poverty.

As for this:


I never once implied 100% correlation and I even stated that outright. I'm not sure why you're trying to argue with that straw man.

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Errrm... did you read that right? Because it clearly demonstrates that being poor as child has a much greater chance of keeping your poor as an adult. Or, in other words, it's harder to escape from it. The statistics you posted prove just as much. Also, did you really just compare statistical data from two very different studies? Like, really?

This is in bold in the link you used:

Children who grow up poor are more likely to be poor as adults

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It also states, for example that:

The gaps only widen when it comes to college. A 2015 report from the Urban Institute found that 23 percent of children who spent at least half their childhood in poverty enrolled in postsecondary education by age 25, compared to 70 percent of children who were never poor. While roughly 37 percent of children who were never poor completed college by age 25, only 3 percent of children from persistently poor backgrounds were able to do the same. The study found that poverty played a role, even when race, gender, parent's education, and other factors were taken into account.

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And we all know how "easy" it is to get a good job and escape from poverty without those college diplomas in the current market. I mean...................that seems pretty damning to me.

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As for your second quote: Nor did I? I meant what I literally wrote. Not sure what you're getting out of that statement tbh.

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In any case we're getting quite sidetracked here. I have much different view from you on this issue, that much is clear.

 

[Cryptosporidium]

I think the way we treat education, Healthcare and agriculture as giant business opportunities rather than core aspects of national strength and societal security are the most corrosive institutional problems. We have created a nearly unique set of American beliefs about things that other nations with better outcomes would be outraged by and enough military industrial and business lobbying graft that they have become enormous parasites that need to be continually fed - and to survive they have to grow - and they grow through bloat and inefficiency - so the taxpayer has to continually be milked to support that growth. We find new ways to monetize the poor and the middle class - and elect Politicians who are part of that vicious cycle.

There's actually more than enough money from waste alone - $500 navy toilet seats and unwanted battleships - to $50 Tylenol at the ER - to young men in jail to fill empty private prison beds - and on and on and on - to pay for education and Healthcare for every American - but the frog is so thoroughly boiled that Americans don't even really talk about it - the myths about Canadian and European Healthcare are repeated every day on the news and senators continue to pay for failed unwanted weapons projects and nobody blinks.

1. Citizens United
2. Complete hijack of judicial systems
3. Legal gerrymandering
4. Atrocious media abdication and false equivalency
5. Disproportionate or illogical power sharing between states and the electoral college that makes few accommodations for a 21st century economy or demographics and encourages and enables corruption and voter suppression while amplifying emotional rivalries and discord inside and between states.


These are just a couple of the levers of power that explain why irrational waste and theft and destruction is tolerated and rational change is impossible and why comparatively few amoral billionaires are able to create unsustainable systems and outrages and everyone just goes along with it.


The teething troubles of technology and information society and social media could also be ways to fix this but first we have to encourage better uses of them and avoid ceding control to "net neutrality" villains here and abroad. If that looks bad now imagine what Ajit Pai's information society looks like in twenty years.

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Well here I can talk about Canada. Our healthcare system is failing. First off, its just a different philosophy when you have universal healthcare. We strive to help those who have no control over their condition from type 1 to cancer. Ppl living in excess of food, drugs, and so on put themselves at a higher risk which costs us more.

And heres the reality. In BC, about 45% of our budget is on Healthcare. Much of that budget is funded through Canada Health Transfer. A federal conditional transfer. We do not make enough money as it is as a province to support our people through austerity. Old ppl are living longer, needing more and more doctor visits and so on. We do not have a large enough young population tax base to support the elderly we have and the boomers are just going to be worst. Thus BC will have to rely on equalization funding which has a slew of other problems for our country given we have a finite tax base.

Given that it is going to be a massive challenge to continue funding universal healthcare as the boomers age in the next 10 years, having obese family members like mine who have a myriad of health issues caused by their lack of control makes them selfish. No exercise, several sodas a day, big carbs, etc. I love them, but this is a very real issue that will be bubbling up in the next years.

American citizens are not in a place in which universal healthcare could be accomplished compared to us in the 50s. We were fitter then, dying younger then, and were unable to beat many diseases then. Nowadays, ppl dont die as easily and we in Canada need a system that reflects that. Our current system is held together by duct tape and glue. And while the CHT isnt in the constitution per se (it is but its malleable), equalization is. More Provinces relying on EQ cuts how much EQ is available as its a fixed pool.

So we need to do whatever we can to limit strains on our healthcare system.

 

[YellowBara]

My only issue is people who Fetishize being overweight. Go on twitter,youtube,any porn site and lots of womem/some men sell videos of them making themselves fatter. Huge difference between loving the skin your in and "promoting" obesity.

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nice kink shaming

Good post

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Thank you for putting this into words I cannot.

 

[YellowBara]

oops double post srry

 

[Oticon]

I have very mixed feelings about this ad.

On a personal level, I think a person should be happy about themselves and who they are and shouldn't be shamed for being themselves.

But coming from a healthcare background, obesity is essentially the co-morbidity of almost all of the health problems our country faces (heat disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.) and I feel like this ad is normalizing obesity in a way.

I don't know, it's definitely landing in a grey area for me.

 

[Kreed]

All this ad is saying is that it's ok for Women to be shown "at any size". There's no "obesity promotion" here. It's not like the photo in the ad has the Woman eating McDonalds, she's just posing at the beach in a photo.

 

[DigitalOp]

Lady in the ad only needed to be photographed to prove she's 100% better person than the online assholes judging her.

Progressive forum my ass, yall bask in superiority complexes. Makes you feel better than others it seems.

 

[RDreamer]

Errrm... did you read that right? Because it clearly demonstrates that being poor as child has a much greater chance of keeping your poor as an adult. Or, in other words, it's harder to escape from it. The statistics you posted prove just as much. Also, did you really just compare statistical data from two very different studies? Like, really?

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Holy fuck dude. Yes I read that right. Yes it clearly demonstrates that being poor as a child has a greater chance of keeping you poor as an adult. Yes it's hard to escape from. Just like.... wait for it... obesity!

Children who grow up poor are more likely to be poor as adults

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THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT I'M SAYING ABOUT OBESITY.

The statistics I provided about poverty put staying in poverty roughly in a similar ballpark as having obese parents means you will be obese later. You've literally not refuted the other statistics I posted about obesity.

No i'm not saying they're exactly equal. No I'm not trying to say they mean exactly the same things. I am however saying that "CHILDREN WHO GREW UP WITH OBESE PARENTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE OBESE AS ADULTS." That's what I've been saying. That's what I am saying now. I'm not saying it's harder for obese kids. I'm not saying it's worse.

Just like poverty, it's something hard to work out of in our society. Like poverty. Not exactly the same. But like it.

I really don't understand what you're doing with this back and forth here. My original "thesis" was that obesity was a lot like poverty in that it can be inherited through parental choices and incredibly hard to rise from because you started there and our society has a lot of issues that push it on people. Statistics for both staying in poverty and obesity being passed from adult to child then to adulthood bears out this thesis. This thesis was refuting that it was "100%" choice and that poverty was somehow not. I've demonstrated statistically at least through some studies that while obviously the two problems aren't exactly the same (what two problems are?) they are as similar as I stated them to be.

So just exactly what are you getting at? How is obesity not like poverty? Because you seen some shit? I've provided all the statistics here and you've got nothing.

 

[Starmud]

many in such a position with their weight already feel isolated from life or too embarrassed to go do such things. It can easily become a cycle that makes changing anything even harder.

Encouraging all sorts of people to self love, enjoy their life now and "come out" as themselves is a positive message for everyone's health.

 

[Everybody Lies]

These kinds of woke marketing campaigns are cynical as fuck, I hate them.

Aside from that, good on women for being confident.

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Yup. It is the crassest of commercialization. It's like Disney's diversity. It's always about the dollars.

 

[Eugene's Axe]

One attempt at inclusion and people turn it into something negative. Just imagine the kind of looks the woman in tne ad would have to suffer if she decided to "hit the gym".

 

[Deleted member 19003]

Here is my question.

So we currently have an ad of a person who is morbidly obese. What ever lifestyle she is living is extremely unhealthy, dangerous and prone to reducing quality of life. It's an issue that is becoming increasingly common around the world, let alone the United States. Lets ignore the tweet of what Gillette is saying, because it's pretty obvious their intentions are not pure nor about "being comfortable in your skin". It's about garnering a reaction, so lets focus on that aspect of the ad.

We see in this thread people defending the ad, mainly talking about body shaming.

So, what if we flip it. What if instead of this extreme where the person is extremely overweight, morbidly obese and doing massive harm to their body and lives, Gillette showed an incredibly anorexic person on display.

Anorexia, which much like being morbidly obese, are likely linked to eating disorders, possible connections to untreated (or treated/in treatment) mental disorders that cause people to do harm to their body in some way.

Do you think people would be defending an ad featuring an extremely underweight person with the same wording? I'm actually curious what the response would be, because I have my own ideas of what people would say.

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Yeah that would never happen. The marketing calculus is very exact here, and they know it. Morbid obesity featured in an ad can walk the line of current cultural 'body acceptance' trends and give them good controversy buzz. While anorexia would almost assuredly be overwhelming negative.

 

[Jadusable]

thicc

 

[Deleted member 888]

Yeah that would never happen. The marketing calculus is very exact here, and they know it. Morbid obesity featured in a an ad can walk the line of current cultural 'body acceptance' trends and give them good controversy buzz. While anorexia would almost assuredly be overwhelming negative.

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You don't think that would go down well?

Go back in time to an earlier era and there probably would have been ads like that, with like some of the shit the modelling industry did and can still do with people who would undoubtedly be coming very close to being clinically anorexic.

 

[GSG]

Just saw the tweet. Based on the discussion, I'd have figured she was a little heavy but that's way more than just plus size or overweight, no?

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Same here, I thought she was just gonna be fat at the most, which is totally fine, but the woman in the picture is outright obese. Not sure I can support normalizing obesity. Even if an individual has a medical condition, it's in no one's best interest for anyone to remain obese. On the flip side, being nasty to obese people is unacceptable as well , these are human beings with real feelings, there can be a middle ground where a healthy lifestyle can be promoted without being an asshole.

 

[Legacy]

Came to post this. We shouldn't glorify obesity. It's a legitimate health risk affecting tens of millions of people.

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I agree, I'm not shaming anyone and certainly think the vile comments online and trolling is out of order. I don't agree with making someone clinically obese a poster person for a campaign like this, there are obesity problems all over the world and it should not be glorified. Good on Gilette for changing up their game though, probably could have stopped at plus size but they went all the way. Either way, a different group of people are being represented.

 

[Dad_and_Videogames]

So like I've spent the vast majority of my adult life at around 400 pounds. My twenties, up until my early thirties, when I lost 200 pounds through diet and exercise. Over the course of 3 years or so I gained it all back and am now turning 40 this July. I began this year at 360 pounds and weighed in at 329 Sunday morning. I'm considering seeking a mental health professional to help me decipher WHY I let that happen again. I know how to lose weight by monitoring nutrition and of the value of physical activity, so losing weight isn't actually very difficult for me, it's just the psychology of keeping it off I think I need help with.

I loved being thin. Being able to do all kinds of cool shit; riding bikes with no hands on the handlebars, obstacle courses, beat my kids in a race. I truly can't wrap my mind around it, but I've spent years blaming getting promoted into some stressful positions at work, or relationship stress. Every day I'd eat like a pig and go to bed telling myself I'd try to do better tomorrow. I did that for years with no progress, until I started acknowledging that the only one I had to blame was myself.

Yes, there's a conversation to be had that food companies have spent millions, if not billions, on R&D learning to create foods that trigger certain parts of our brains. There's a conversation to be had about how our biology betrays us at every turn. There's a conversation to be had about how advertising bores its way into our skulls from childhood. (Interesting article on this kind of stuff- https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/junk-food2.htm ) Ultimately, as a 360+ pound man rapidly approaching middle-age in 2019, a man who had accepted that he'd have a heart attack sooner rather than later, there's nothing I could do about all that crap. What I could do, and am doing, is restrict my calories, watch my macros, and get active. I could work to have a healthier relationship with food, and if I can't entirely figure out how for the long-term I could get help.

I think often that it isn't someone's fault that they're obese. Bad parenting. Bad environment. I'm no stranger to using food to treat trauma, myself. That said, I feel personally that while it may not be our fault it is our responsibility to do something about it if it bothers us. The people who might be responsible for it aren't going to come into your life and fix it. Science isn't going to create some pill in the near future to fix it. If you don't like being obese there's really only you who can help. If you don't mind being obese, go for it. Rock it, I guess. I, myself, hate what I did to myself. I feel ashamed of it, so I'm trying to correct it.

Ads like this aren't normalizing what is already normal. Maybe in some way, they contribute to a culture of accepting it's normal, but we've been there for quite some time. Where I live I see a lot of obese children and adults. If trends continue I guess we'll be the majority before too long.

 

[AliceAmber]

Yep this thread went exactly as to be expected. Most of my plus sized friends are terrified of going to the beach because of judgemental people.

I think it's a great ad. Plus sized people need representation too outside of fucking diet ads.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

You don't think that would go down well?

Go back in time to an earlier era and there probably would have been ads like that, with like some of the shit the modelling industry did and can still do with people who would undoubtedly be coming very close to being clinically anorexic.

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I think there is a better chance that an overweight woman is happier with her body than an anorexic person who by definition is not happy with their body.

 

[Deleted member 888]

I think there is a better chance that an overweight woman is happier with her body than an anorexic person who by definition is not happy with their body.

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That implies everyone who is anorexic is unhappy. As part of the illness like with obesity, people can often "look in the mirror" and think they are fine. That happens a lot with those that are anorexic. They genuinely don't think anything is wrong with them sometimes until it is too late or until there is some sort of intervention.

Edit: Just so it's clear by "fine", I don't mean not love themselves, I mean genuinely not think they have an illness.

 

[Deleted member 19003]

You don't think that would go down well?

Go back in time to an earlier era and there probably would have been ads like that, with like some of the shit the modelling industry did and can still do with people who would undoubtedly be coming very close to being clinically anorexic.

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No, I don't think it would go down well today. And yes, I remember the backlash against super skinny models back in the 90s. Gillette's marketing department knew what they were doing.

 

[Pekola]

The thing that sort of gets me is how her mere existance is being translated as an invitation to comment on her body and diatribes about obesity.

Even when she's an absolute stranger we know very little about.

 

[maximumzero]

My only issue is people who Fetishize being overweight. Go on twitter,youtube,any porn site and lots of womem/some men sell videos of them making themselves fatter. Huge difference between loving the skin your in and "promoting" obesity.

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That's an entirely different thread topic though, and has nothing to do with Gillette's advertising campaign. Seems disingenuous to bring such things up here.