African American
Related: About this forumBlack Women and Fat
FOUR out of five black women are seriously overweight. One out of four middle-aged black women has diabetes. With $174 billion a year spent on diabetes-related illness in America and obesity quickly overtaking smoking as a cause of cancer deaths, it is past time to try something new.
What we need is a body-culture revolution in black America. Why? Because too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity dont understand something crucial about black women and fat: many black women are fat because we want to be.
The black poet Lucille Cliftons 1987 poem Homage to My Hips begins with the boast, These hips are big hips. She establishes big black hips as something a woman would want to have and a man would desire. She wasnt the first or the only one to reflect this community knowledge. Twenty years before, in 1967, Joe Tex, a black Texan, dominated the radio airwaves across black America with a song he wrote and recorded, Skinny Legs and All. One of his lines haunts me to this day: some man, somewhere wholl take you baby, skinny legs and all. For me, it still seems almost an impossibility.
Chemically, in its ability to promote disease, black fat may be the same as white fat. Culturally it is not.
How many white girls in the 60s grew up praying for fat thighs? I know I did. I asked God to give me big thighs like my dancing teacher, Diane. There was no way I wanted to look like Twiggy, the white model whose boy-like build was the dream of white girls. Not with Joe Tex ringing in my ears.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/why-black-women-are-fat.html?src=me&ref=general
sinkingfeeling
(51,490 posts)trying to 'please' their men by obtaining a certain image, but why do men like women to have 'fat thighs'?
Neoma
(10,039 posts)It's why really old paintings of white women have meat on their bones, so I've heard.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)but I'll just say the mere thought of them makes me drool on the keyboard
sinkingfeeling
(51,490 posts)Neoma
(10,039 posts)SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)hell, I photoshop my images before releasing them into the ether, too.
she doesnt' look like that. that is her representative's image, not her.
Neoma
(10,039 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)for true hourglass or coke-bottle shapes...
There's also a subliminal reason why car designers try to work in elegant curves/coke-bottle shapes in their sporty cars marketed towards men
Number23
(24,544 posts)That think that there is only one way to be beautiful.
You ain't it, Ms. Thang
Give me a sista, can't resist her
Red beans and rice didn't miss her
Sir Mixalot was crass, vulgar and unquestionably sexist. But there is no question that alot of thicker women who've been told that butts, thighs, hips etc. were ugly probably considered this kind of their rallying cry.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)For the pushin'!
How's that?
SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)that they don't want a bag of bones; they want the feel of a woman next to them.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)I don't mind big thighs on a woman. But I don't want someone who is extremely bulky.
SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)she has me on that scale every time I go in and I have been losing it, thank god. I certainly do not like being heavy.
I want my weight down to the point where her threats of putting me on blood pressure medication are well behind me. I've started exhibiting symptoms of hypertension--thankfully no diabetes, since it does run in my family. I have height on my side, so that helps, but if I could just reduce the amount of stress in my daily life, I'd be good; but that means finding another revenue stream which affords me the lifestyle I've got and jobs aren't paying what they should be paying in my field, so...
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)I think the times argument has some merit, but so does this.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)mzteris
(16,232 posts)that's the problem -
it's the health.
Insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol...
It's not just the women who have issues with their weight issues - my son fights it every day. People look at him and think he eats too much crap and doesn't exercise and nothing could be further from the truth! (Pisses me off!) He exercises more than most, he eats healthier than probably any kid in his school (though he does probably eat "larger portions" most of the time - then again - he is extremely muscular as well - AND going through puberty shooting up about 6 inches in the last year and a half, so he "needs' the fuel . . . - one of the biggest issues is determining what he really NEEDS to eat, versus "overeating" .
He doesn't process that he's "full" - (doc says due to the insulin resistance) - so he THINKS he's still hungry, even though his body has had enough. We work on waiting for seconds. Taking moderate portions. He already avoids sweets, unhealthy snacks, sodas, ice cream, etc. . . poor kid doesn't get to eat the "junk" all of his friends do. But we can't take that chance.
He's already on Metformin (started at 11 - he's now 13.5) . . . we're fighting to keep on the "pre" side of diabetic.
While I agree that "size" is a huge issue - especially for women - the media presentation of big breasts, small waists, small but shapely derriere - that's the "idealized" version - and wtf really looks like that except for the very few? But here's the thing - men drool over my son's "size" - since he plays football. They want him the bigger the better in their book. His coaches actually got a little ticked that he'd dropped 3 pounds from the weigh-in the year before, even though he'd grown 3-4 inches at the time.
He is able to get back into his 36" waist jeans (though their waaayy too short! lol) but he's pretty happy about that. So we think that even though he's added a few more inches in height, he's weight probably hasn't increased - or not much. He's also getting some "speed" back in his running - and he's VERY happy about that. Before he put on weight, he was the fastest kid around. When he got heavy, he couldn't run for cr*p. I just tell him he has to grow into his body and get it more back in proportion. Pounds are just a number.
We get a blood draw next week, and back to the endocrinologist the week after that. Who knows what the numbers will show? We don't weigh at home. So we'll see. Huge thighs? Check. Major muscle mass? Check. Heavy dense bones? Check. So what's "weight" anyway? I don't give a damn about his weight or size except where it impacts his HEALTH! "THAT" I'm all over.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)I thought it a case of massive projection on the part of the author, that what is the norm in her life is the norm in the life of all black women. She has her own particular issues that I don't think are that widely shared.
I thought the idea of fat as rebellion against the system to be fairly ridiculous.
It is ultimately all about health more than size, but much of health is diet, and the traditional Southern/soul food diet, like traditional diets from many cultures, is not healthy in the long term for anyone. High in fat, high in sugar. Exercise is equally important. It is about holding up standards of healthy living that everyone, regardless of race or background, should aspire for.