Per T:

Did you get a lot of pressure to join the football team?

None. I was what they call "Skinny Fat".... 265#, but just a big bag
of bones with hundreds of pounds of lard hanging on it. The joke was
to push me down on the ground in the middle of the athletic field
because I was too weak to get back up on my feet unassisted. I had to
crawl on my hands and knees to a goalpost to get up.

Pre-puberty, my father took me to this "Fat Doctor" in NYC. He put me
on amphetamines and prescribed a supervised exercise program.

My dad didn't think much of the exercise supervisor, so we went with the
amphetamines....

I think the amphetamines delayed my physical maturity (I didn't mature
until my senior year in high school) and had a permanent effect on my
nervous system.... plus I gained any lost weight back, hence the "Skinny
Fat" bag-of-bones picture.


What I noticed from when I was young to now is a huge increase
in fat bigotry. And the more you harass fat people, the
more they diet, and the bigger they get.

Twenty+ years ago, when we used to go to Germany to visit in-laws,
morbid obesity there was almost unknown. Plenty of thick, stocky
people that you might call "fat" but almost zero morbid obesity.

The exception was this one guy that the family knew. He weighted well
over 300# and was basically a social outcast because of it.

Now, in the photos I see from over there, obese people seem more common
and I would guess that guy is back in the mainstream of society.

I had the rare privilege of working with the same 300-odd people for
about 25 years. I have seen a lot of people lose weight, but cannot
think of anyone who did not eventually regain the lost weight plus
noticeably more.

I think the problem is that people think in terms of dieting to lose
weight and then, having lost the weight, getting back to
life-as-usual.... when the truth of the matter is that a lifestyle
change is required.

My own weight loss was the result of severe illness in my freshman year
of college when I lost over 100 pounds. The lifestyle change had
already begun when I started running (actually shambling/shuffling..) in
the summer after my senior year in high school. Once the illness
passed, I kept up the running and became something of an
exercise-obsessive.


And tastes have changed since the advent of the television.
Skinny women were considered unhealthy and had to put up
with a lot of the same scorn that fat women have to put up
with now.

Me personally, I like my women to look like real women.
Women that look like teenage boys are not my thing.
But then again, I am STRONGLY heterosexual. But to
each his own.

I read an interesting article on the Kingdom of Bhutan.

Until relatively recently, their populace had zero exposure to outside
magazines, television, or electronic media.

They showed photos of women representative of the prevailing standards
of beauty before and after the incursion of outside media.

"Before" were sturdy, good-natured, practical-looking women.

"After" were the same ones we see: skinny, big boobs, bony shoulders,
looking like they weren't good for much of anything except the camera.


At businesses where I have a choice of dealing with a fat
or a skinny female rep, I always go for the fat one as I
know the kind of wickedness fat women have to put up with.
And you know what, you get treated a lot better too.

My #1 daughter had a good story last week.

She works part time as the bookkeeper for her township.

The township secretary (also not full-time) weighed about 400#, had
maybe 25# of her teeth, had bad breath that would peel paint; and was a
joy to work with. Ask her to have some papers ready, and they would be
*there*.... and she would do anything to help.

To cut to the chase, she was replaced by an decent-looking woman who was
lazy, uncooperative and basically a PITA to work with.

The high point of the #1 daughter's 2016 year was when that woman got
caught altering the health care data in order to get herself into a full
time employee's coverage - and got sacked because of it.
--
Pete Cresswell