> Now, comes obesity. On a diet of rice, wheat, dairy, and meat, it’s difficult for European and Asian peasants to get fat, especially when they live at subsistence levels and work long hours. Any person who would become visually overweight would stick out like a sore thumb, **so there was quite a bit of social pressure to stay thin even beyond the environmental difficulties**. And any society that, for whatever reason, adopted social norms that permitted obesity, would be out-competed by those who suppress it.
I think the opposite it's true. Pre-industrial peasant cultures were so poor compared to modern standards than been somewhat plump, specially as a juvenile or a female, was seen as positive and interpreted as a sign of wealth. Some boomers and genX's in southern and eastern Europe still experience their grandmas, who grew up in borderline famine condition, trying to fatten them as children. I'm sure similar experiences persist in younger cohorts in the middle east, India and East Asia.
This is a complete myth spread by the the fat acceptance 'movement'
Anyone who has read a good number of 1700-1900 books knows that everyone then was uber fatphobic, being fat was seen as being filthy, lower than human. Average BMI was 19.5 so people who had even a tiny bit of extra fat stuck out like a sore thumb. Here are some quotes from books.
“Wherever the fat woman finds herself in a crowd—and where can she avoid it in the metropolis?—she is in effect an intruder. For, she occupies twice the space to which she is entitled, and inflicts upon her companions, through every one of her excessive pounds, just so much additional fatigue and discomfort. Too often, this so redundant flesh seems to serve as a. bullet-proof armor, repelling all consciousness of the rights of others. The woman who makes a god of her stomach is incorrigible, and I fear no word of mine will avail to induce her to reform. She is the innately selfish woman who makes her very existence an offense.”
“Obesity always carries with it physical and often mental weakness”
''Obesity is the root of social, moral, and physical decay, the corruption of innocence”
“People have rather an erroneous idea, probably gathered from Dickens’s Fat Boy in ‘Pickwick,’ that corpulent people have none of the finer feelings and are of a lethargic and dull comprehension. This is altogether a mistake, as many a poor corpulent lady can tell you. When she ascends a crowded omnibus on a hot summer’s day every one of the indignant glances levelled at her by her more fortunate sisters are as so many little dagger thrusts of mortification, though her ruddy complexion and defiant stentorian breathing may seem to belie the truth of these words.”
Came here to comment this. Being fat was a sign of wealth in the past. There was not a major stigma about obesity because obesity was nigh impossible for non-rich people. Also, oddly for this substack, the genetics of obesity goes ignored but we know the most obese countries in the world are island populations with genes selected for resistance to starvation. Cultural drift doesn't seem the main factor for obesity.
> Now, comes obesity. On a diet of rice, wheat, dairy, and meat, it’s difficult for European and Asian peasants to get fat, especially when they live at subsistence levels and work long hours. Any person who would become visually overweight would stick out like a sore thumb, **so there was quite a bit of social pressure to stay thin even beyond the environmental difficulties**. And any society that, for whatever reason, adopted social norms that permitted obesity, would be out-competed by those who suppress it.
I think the opposite it's true. Pre-industrial peasant cultures were so poor compared to modern standards than been somewhat plump, specially as a juvenile or a female, was seen as positive and interpreted as a sign of wealth. Some boomers and genX's in southern and eastern Europe still experience their grandmas, who grew up in borderline famine condition, trying to fatten them as children. I'm sure similar experiences persist in younger cohorts in the middle east, India and East Asia.
This is a complete myth spread by the the fat acceptance 'movement'
Anyone who has read a good number of 1700-1900 books knows that everyone then was uber fatphobic, being fat was seen as being filthy, lower than human. Average BMI was 19.5 so people who had even a tiny bit of extra fat stuck out like a sore thumb. Here are some quotes from books.
“Wherever the fat woman finds herself in a crowd—and where can she avoid it in the metropolis?—she is in effect an intruder. For, she occupies twice the space to which she is entitled, and inflicts upon her companions, through every one of her excessive pounds, just so much additional fatigue and discomfort. Too often, this so redundant flesh seems to serve as a. bullet-proof armor, repelling all consciousness of the rights of others. The woman who makes a god of her stomach is incorrigible, and I fear no word of mine will avail to induce her to reform. She is the innately selfish woman who makes her very existence an offense.”
“Obesity always carries with it physical and often mental weakness”
''Obesity is the root of social, moral, and physical decay, the corruption of innocence”
“People have rather an erroneous idea, probably gathered from Dickens’s Fat Boy in ‘Pickwick,’ that corpulent people have none of the finer feelings and are of a lethargic and dull comprehension. This is altogether a mistake, as many a poor corpulent lady can tell you. When she ascends a crowded omnibus on a hot summer’s day every one of the indignant glances levelled at her by her more fortunate sisters are as so many little dagger thrusts of mortification, though her ruddy complexion and defiant stentorian breathing may seem to belie the truth of these words.”
Came here to comment this. Being fat was a sign of wealth in the past. There was not a major stigma about obesity because obesity was nigh impossible for non-rich people. Also, oddly for this substack, the genetics of obesity goes ignored but we know the most obese countries in the world are island populations with genes selected for resistance to starvation. Cultural drift doesn't seem the main factor for obesity.
I was not expecting China to be fatter than India, or for Czech Republic to be one of the fattest countries in Europe.
Under my real name.
But it's the opposite in America
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=bbw