[68skylark]

But a good indicator of the extent of this problem might be a rise in the cases of anorexia among teenage girls.

If I read your post right, you're making a similar point to the author of this piece, and it's a point that's also been made (over and over) in other articles. The point seems to be that "society" is putting too much emphasis on keeping thin.

I'm just not sure I agree with the thrust of this argument -- my perceptions are pretty much the opposite.

It seems to me I see far more people making themselves sick and unhappy from being way overweight, compared with the numbers who make themselves sick and unhappy through excessive weight loss.

Seems to me that "society" isn't doing enough to get out messages to young people about the importance and benefits of keeping their weight under control.

Let me know what you think.

[babble-on]

I wonder if the depression resulting from obesity isn't another symptom of societal pressure though. Not all people's bodies are the same. There are people who are "fat" by society's subjective standards, who are actually fit in a cardio-vascular sense and quite healthy and will live to a ripe old age.

I think the point of the body-image thing is not really a "health" point, which is why your harping on that theme is sort of extra-topical. I think the reason why this article seems like a serious topic to conservatives is that it is that so many, women in particular, but also men, derive their sense of self-worth/ lack of self-worth, and also the worth of their peers, from their appearance and their peers' appearance. To determine social status on something so basic is a sign of a very shallow culture, and one that has lost some of the ideals which created western civilisation.

[Aquinasfan]

Let me know what you think.

I think the obsession with weight paradoxically leads to obesity, as others have mentioned. But as you have said, it's probably just one of the factors leading to obesity.

I'm also concerned with the image of "the perfect woman" that is presented to young men. The impossibility of this standard, and the reduction of male/female relationships to sex, is destructive to healthy male/female relationships of all kinds.