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I wonder why fathers want their daughters to be "perfect". This is the same person who always criticised me because I had acne. Told me to not eat any number of various food because he was convinced that that was why I was breaking out...
I truly think he thought that being critical of my appearance was partially necessary so that I didn't have an overinflated ego about my looks. The fact is, that there was absolutely no danger of that. I think he was convinced that I was so beautiful that he'd have to fend boys off with a stick or something. Nice delusion, but considering that I can count the number of guys I've ever dated on a single hand, it shows how delusional it was. I'm merely of ordinary attractiveness, no matter how much he thought otherwise.
(not to mention, even the ones who were attracted to my appearance, normally got very, very scared, when they met my brain.)
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My step father made fun of my looks when I was Natalie's age. Especially because I developed early, he made jokes about my having a well developed chest. I think he thought it would make me less self-conscious if he turned it into something funny.
It mortified me and made me ashamed of my body and hate my body.
I have made a real point with my daughter to tell her that breasts are not something to be ashamed of, that she should understand they're part of what makes us women and not to look on them as either something to flaunt and be overly proud of, nor something to hide and pretend she doesn't have.
I hope I've done better with her than my step dad did with me.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Dads who hassle their daughters have a special place reserved on my list of unmitigated hatred, which is a very short list.
I had a friend whose overweight father constantly hassled her about the size of her thighs. It was all I could do to keep from throttling him.
I don't know what my Dad thinks of me, but frankly I think the Mormon thing probably bothers him more than anything else, so I have no desire to find out.
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Lol, I'll give my father this, whatever you might say about him, for what he said to me, he isn't a hypocrite. He works out for at least 2 hours a day himself, and is in darn good physical condition. He's got a list of things like chocolate, soda, coffee and tea that he won't eat because he thinks they are unhealthy. (Believe me he's "cleaner" living than most LDS).
My mother went grey before him, and in some pictures I have of them together you'd think she was 10 years older than he was.
Incidentaly on the chocolate, I always thought it was incredibly unfair of him that he yelled at me about eating it. Because the fact was and still is, I don't like the tast of anything darker than hershey's milk chocolate, and any candy that I'd choose to eat, would be something like Reeeses Pieces or Rollows with peanutbutter or caramel inside.
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Isn't it crazy that being fat and having fair skin was more attractive because it meant you had a lot of money to eat and not have to work in the sun. (sorry if someone else posted about this. I'm just lazy)
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My step father was also very critical of my appearance, and had me convinced (with the help of some very heartless teenaged boys) that I was hideously ugly and very fat.
I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never be a super model, but neither am I a mutant. And I may be chubby NOW, in my 40's working a very sedentary job, but I was not even close when I was an active 16 year old.
As many bad things as I've said about my daughters' father over the years, he's always been very positive about their appearance.
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In some (most?) places in the world, having fair skin is still considered very attractive. I am convinced that this is the only reason I got hit on so much more in Mexico than my cute girlfriends.
It's only in places like Minnesota and Sweden that tan people are beautiful.
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If I had been born even a hundred years ago, I'd probably be married already. Note: Not just because it was the style, but also because I'd be sought after.
(Of course, if I was born a hundred years ago, I probably never would have been born... It's scary to look at how many times I'd have died already if I wasn't born when I was.)
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If I were born a hundred years ago, I'd be a low-class servant girl getting blamed for breaking all the china. But I probably would be pleasantly slim.
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My bodytype could never be slim... I'd probably be on some farm somewhere pumping out babies. Gah. I'm glad I'm here and now.
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If I'd been born a hundred years ago, I'd be dead. They didn't do partial chordectomies back then, except maybe in the middle of swordfights.
I'm the sort of guy who has trouble gaining weight even if I try. There was a period in college when I was eating five meals a day, at least two of them fast food (to use up my declining balance so the money didn't go to waste). I gained perhaps five pounds, no more, and not because I was working it off; I'm dreadfully lazy about physical activisty. Being a picky eater doesn't help, but I eat enough fatty foods that that shouldn't matter much.
Sometimes I think I would have been more attractive to women if I were fat, because I've never managed to build up muscle mass either. Still single.
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Just to tell you so, girls who are fans of skinny boys exist. I am one of them. I actually like my boys almost unhealthily skinny. I dunno why.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Wow. I cant imagine having a dad who dared to talk to me about my weight. My father would be Mortified te mention domething like that. I remember the only thing my dad ever said to me about my appearence.It was at a wedding where I was wearing a rather slinky black dress, having just lost a goodly amount of weight, and doing alot of the organizing and seating of people. I felt all important, but also very self conscious. My father came up and drew me aside and said "Sarah, you look beautiful, but you need to stop slumping. Put your shoulders back, and be proud of the way you look." I have never forgot that one time. Everytime I feel myself slumping I remember my father telling me to be proud and have good posture. I still slump, but t makes me happy to remember. I bet every negative thing said would stick just as well.
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I don't doubt it, Ryuko, but there just didn't seem to be any such women at my high school. And, to be honest, I really didn't have much lean muscle mass either.
quote:Actually, I'd bet alot that neither the 20 healthiest nor the 20 wealthiest people have a lot of practical advice, because the extremes are less likely to have advice usable by the average person.
Man, you guys are into practical advice. I actually think that the twenty healthiest people would be more interesting and wise. Then again, I'm of the opinion that healthy people tend to glow and businessmen tend toward oozing, so your mileage may vary.
Edit: And this is going to be controversial.
If my daughter is picking up unhealthy habits, I think it's irresponsible not to say anything.
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I agree, Irami. But the situations I've seen were not cases of fathers giving concerned advice on unhealthy habits. They were purely based on looks.
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If my girl comes back from her first year of college 25 pounds of chub heavier, I'm going to assume it's beer and fried food, and since I can't imagine having much of either in my house, we are going to talk.
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Something lasting, anything lasting, so much so that the measures of success are how long it lasts and how much it makes. Most of america is enamoured with the cult of the businessman. I feel comfortable withholding my support and voicing what I see as undignified priorities.
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The measures of success aren't how long it lasts and how much it makes, with everything else being auxiliary?
I'm not sure that growing-up carries the sense of buying into the charisma of the industial complex, but that's me. There is something to be said for selling people what they need. There is something to be said for selling people what they want. There is something to be said for alerting people to their wants. There is something to be said for instilling a want in people that didn't previously exist. And there is something to be said for doing all of these at a profit.
But if success in these ventures is the acme American culture, I'll pass.
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Irami, you can't run a business that isn't profitable, at least a little. You need money, to pay the employees, the taxes, the medical insurance, the benefits, the lease on the building, the equipment, and utilities.
If inflows exceed outflows even once, you either have to lay people off, shut down the business (in which case everyone loses their job), or buy money from somewhere (the owners, in which case it's equity, or a lender, in which case it's a loan).
There's no two ways about it. They HAVE to make money. And they don't need pretentious, self-righteous prigs telling them there's no dignity in it.
I didn't say it was the "acme of American culture." You're the one into sweeping over-generalizations and insulting vast swaths of the population.
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My mother beats all of your fathers. When I was 14, I weighed about 100 pound (I was and am 5'4''). A lot of that was muscle since I was running cross country and cheering. My mother and I went bathing suit shopping and I found one I really liked. She said to me, "I'll get it for you, but you have to promise not to gain any weight." That was the year when my doctor and both my coaches told her that I needed to gain weight. She told me not to listen to them.
This is just one of a volume of stories about my mother and my weight.
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Yeah, don't get me started. I preferred my dad's method... he likes to poke me in the side-pudge and mentioning how skinny and active HE still is at his age, but then we'll wrestle or fight because I know he's proud of how strong I am and it makes me feel better.
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quote: Incidentaly on the chocolate, I always thought it was incredibly unfair of him that he yelled at me about eating it. Because the fact was and still is, I don't like the tast of anything darker than hershey's milk chocolate, and any candy that I'd choose to eat, would be something like Reeeses Pieces or Rollows with peanutbutter or caramel inside
Just being technical, but I'm pretty sure dark chocolate is healthier than milk chocolate and has less sugar.
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Sigh. Irami I was *not* twenty five pounds heavier. The reason why I was looking a little flabby was because I was working my butt off taking 15-18 units of only engineering courses per semester because it was the educational plan I'd worked out with the same man I call my father. I didn't have time to exercise.
In order to get the grades he wanted me to get it meant no sleep more often than not. This is the same man that told me an 800 on the Verbals section of the SAT wasn't good enough, why didn't I get a perfect score on the math too?
I couldn't ever be perfect enough for him, even though I came *damn* close to it. So I gave up trying.
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I'm not talking in terms of health, I'm talking in terms of quantity of actual chocolate present. Reeses are more peanutbutter than chocolate, and anything with chocolate in it I normally prefer chocolate as the accent flavor rather than the dominant flavor.
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You can gain quite a lot of weight drinking no beer and eating no fried foods, Irami. And jumping to conclusions like that is what made all these ladies feel so bad about themselves even when they didn't have to.
I didn't gain weight over the summer because I was lazy or because I was drinking beer. I gained weight because I worked the night shift, which really effed up my system.
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not to mention that university cafeteria food which is normally what you are stuck eating is ofteng greasy crap and you have no alternative other than starving or spending an arm and a leg for food while you live in a dorm after you've already bought a meal plan.
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Agreed. Sometimes the only edible thing in the entire cafeteria is the pizza, and I'm not even so sure about that. I'd personally rather eat food that's bad for me than go through malnutrition.
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Yeah, it's nearly impossible to eat healthy foods on a meal plan. Especially when there's no cafeteria near my dorm.
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The 25 pounds comment wasn't directed at anyone. I was talking about a state of affairs. But come on, troops, that's a lot of weight for an 18 year old to put on in a year's time, unless he/she is still growing and without a story or a pregnancy involved. But if anyone freshman does put on 25 pounds of fat in a year, there very well may be something broken. I'd say the same if a healthy sized 18 year old lost twenty-five pounds in a year.
Maybe guys like me are the reason so many women are depressed about their body image, but I think it's more complicated than that. I even think it has something to do with girls not being pushed to be physically active when they are in fifth and six grade, or even younger. A lot of guys have never seen the inside of a gym, but they were riding their bikes around the neighborhood since they were 10. That's a large scale culture difference between men and women, and I don't know what to say about that.
I hear now that boys are playing video games and that's starting them up on lifestyle habits that aren't healthy.
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In less than a year in high school, at the age of fourteen/fifteen, I gained 60 pounds and doubled my pants size.
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I realized you weren't directing that at any one person, but I was using myself as an example. Gaining weight one's freshman year is common and can be attributed to things like stress, being unprepared to control one's own diet, changing or busy schedule, etcetera. Also, many people's metabolism changes around the time that they enter college, and they find that they aren't able to eat what they are used to. On top of that, doing schoolwork necessitates a lot of sitting around. It's not all about being partygoers, lazy, or not caring.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Oh, yes, my parents just sat aside and watched me get chubby
Their "concern" only made it worse. Plus the reason it happened was that was the year I took my health into my own hands, if they'd intervened too much would have been a bit counterproductive.
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And all of those changes can be made and/or noticed before they become out of control. I actually know quite a few women who gained weight in college and lost it around 25/26. I think it was alcohol, or they started taking themselves more seriously, but it's too common to be a fluke.
MyrddinFyre,
In retrospect, are you sure that there isn't anything anyone could have done, even you, to help?
_______
As an aside, everytime I see Dr. Phil's book at the bookstore, I think to myself, "This fat man has some audacity to write a book on how to lose weight." Apparently, people are buying it. Maybe he is healthy. I know that in the Midwest, people are just bigger than they are in California. I'm not saying it's healthy for them, or for the country, but it's definitely the case. It may have something to do with the weather, but I also had a hard time getting good produce in Minnesota, and I think that had quite a bit to do with it. People also smoked more, so I don't think that it's merely the lack of produce.
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Definitely, but my blood sugars haven't gotten any better since then. And I've pretty much given up. *shrug*
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Which just goes back to the unhealthy habit of constantly weighing oneself. Regardless of whether some people are able to do such a thing without having any ill effects, many of them are willing to starve themselves so that they can see that number on the scale go down.
I understand what you mean, that people who gain twenty or forty or whatever pounds in college should notice that before it gets out of hand, making them obese. From what I can tell, you're trying to say that obese people are responsible for their own condition at such time as it becomes obvious that they could have done something about their weight problem but didn't.
But what I'm trying to say is that nothing is black and white like that. To say that someone is completely to blame for being obese no matter what is like saying that someone is completely to blame for being bipolar when they are genetically disposed to it. Because if they had noticed earlier, they could have controlled their thoughts better and stopped the progression of the illness before it came to a stage where it was a danger to themselves.
All I'm trying to say is that the culture and outlook that you are promoting causes more harm than good when it comes to people's self-image and decisions about themselves. Only by keeping people educated and keeping them distant from emotions like shame and guilt about their weight will they be able to make any significant progress toward health. Because if shame is the only motivating factor in someone's weight loss, they will stop when they no longer feel shame. Conversely, if they continue to feel shame, they will never stop, causing diseases like anorexia and bulimia, which only began to exist after the culture of thin gained speed in America.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:As an aside, everytime I see Dr. Phil's book at the bookstore, I think to myself, "This fat man has some audacity to write a book on how to lose weight." Apparently, people are buying it. Maybe he is healthy.
I'm no Dr.Phil fan, but if you feel competant to call him "fat", which is an ugly word in your vocabulary, I don't see you as being someone with enough perspective to be taken seriously with regards to this issue.
quote: I know that in the Midwest, people are just bigger than they are in California. I'm not saying it's healthy for them, or for the country, but it's definitely the case. It may have something to do with the weather, but I also had a hard time getting good produce in Minnesota, and I think that had quite a bit to do with it. People also smoked more, so I don't think that it's merely the lack of produce.
I don't think you meant it that way, but this feels like a personal attack. It's true that it's difficult to find some produce in MN, and that that may influence the shape of people here, but by saying something like that, you negate the personal choice edict that you yourself introduced! You implied that if people were overweight, it was because of choices that they had made that they were responsible for. How can you reconcile that with the comments you're making about the Midwest?
Humorous aside: People may smoke more cigarettes in MN than in California, but I'm sure people smoke more weed in California than in MN.
That said, the reason that, as you say, people in the midwest are bigger than people in California or what have you is that generally speaking we come from similar genetic stock, people that were all from colder countries in Europe and were therefore more likely to stand up to the cold climates we have in the midwest. That necessitates being bigger than "normal." People here, myself included, are genetically likely to be bigger, more powerful, more efficient heat and fat producing machines than people in the south or from other genetic stock.
In addition, saying "Maybe he is healthy." about Dr. Phil implies that you can't tell by looking at him, which was supposedly a part of your argument. I'm genuinely surprised, and I'm not trying to insult you here, that you continue to be so ignorant about this particular topic, yet cling to your opinions so tenaciously. I've never debated with you before, and I don't debate very often, so I can't be sure if this is regular practice and you are just trying to see how much of this you can do. Are you playing devil's advocate here?
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I know this goes back a bit, but my pictures on foobonic are 14 and 16 years old. If you want a more current picture of me, there is a snapshot here. The thing is, we have favorite pictures of ourselves. I'm not going to post my "before Body for Life" swimsuit photos. And you should be glad. I'm sure there is something against it in the Patriot Act.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Dr. Phil is a big boy. Maybe he is average sized, but if that's average sized, then I think we've gone too far.
I remember seeing Ariel Sharon, Dick Cheney, and another world leader with a Sharon sized belly at conference, and I remember thinking, "These fat guys are going to go into a room and divvy up the world." It was the strangest sight. There was something odd about watching these three guys, (I think Cheney goes up and down and he was looking pretty big at this time) are going to go to a room, and at the end, someone was going to get bombed. It was like the last scene from "Animal Farm."
I understand what you mean about that, though. I posted only the pictures of myself that I liked, and the most recent picture I have up on foobonic is almost a year old.
Of course there are all those terrible fat pictures of me from the wedding... Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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They didn't do partial chordectomies back then, except maybe in the middle of swordfights.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I dunno why.
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