another idle thought

[rm]

Is our culture's excessive obsession with weight a partial product of the casualization of clothing?

I realize that wealthy societies as a rule tend to favour thinness and poor ones heaviness, because those things are markers of affluence (i.e., time to work out and be "healthy" or proof you have enough to eat and are therefore "healthy"), but as I was look at all the bad fashion choices in Union Square today, I realized almost everyone looked like shit because their clothes had no damn structure and excessive thinness can at least fake that structure or "require" less of it, than a larger softer body. That said, people are not made of perfect curves, straight lines and ideal angles at any weight, and I say this as a woman who can bring death with her elbows. I'm not convinced that better tailoring and accurate sizing can solve problems, but I sort of think the lack of both has caused a bunch of them.

Comments

[sdn.livejournal.com]

explain about the corn syrup.

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

Well, first of all, it's really about HFCS - high fructose corn syrup, which has become a more and more common food additive since it about the mid-seventies. It's cheap and transports easily and mixes well, so food processors really like it (and of course if you want to you can get into the evils of the agricultural lobby in this country and how that affects things).

Part of the problem is that it's not just used as a sugar substitute in things you'd normally expect such as soda, but in other foods to prevent freezer burn and keep bread soft and such. And while there is still debate as to what the effects really are, there is a lot of concern about how our bodies process pure fructose as opposed to cane sugar or naturally occuring sugars such as those found in fruit. It strains the heart and certainly the liver and might have a lot to do with our increasing problems with diabetes.

Now I'm certainly not skinny like rm - I am in fact very overweight. But my blood sugar (as well as my blood pressure and cholesterol) is well within the healthy range, and I can't help but wonder how my dietary choices figure into that. See, I tend not to like sweet foods; I mean, on one hand I enjoy some candy and other desserts as much as the next person, but I also find myself avoiding a lot of other foods because of their sweetness levels. I don't eat a lot of bread and I don't like most condiments, and I rarely drink soda. I prefer to make my own tomato sauces for pasta because the premade kinds are too sweet for my preference - things like that. And I think that cuts out a lot of "incidental" sweeteners, if you will, and I think that helps keep me just a little bit healthier.

And in case you're wondering why I would blame the majority of other people's weight problems on HFCS and not my own, well, I know that I'm overweight mostly because I'm a binge eater, but I doubt that's the case with the majority of overweight people.