FAT: Ideal & Talk

What is the Ideal Body?
Why is it so deeply ingrained in our self-image?

Read about Mauritania:

• In Nigeria, the ideal body is FAT (the fatter the better)
• what are the beauty norms for desert Arabs in Nigeria? 
• In what ways are these body norms expressed?
• girth
• weight
• stretch marks on your arms
• In what way are they achieved?
• forced feeding
• seclusion and fattening of females for marriage
• inactivity

• Symbol & Meaning
• long neck & no collar bones
• walking slowly and swaying butt from side to side to show off size
• womanhood needs girth
• stretch marks as symbols of beauty

Are body ideals "physical manifestations of beliefs and practices that are anchored in a wider set of cultural values"?

• self-discipline
• strength
• industry
• general virtue

where do these body ideals come from? (all cultures have well established and IMPOSED views about the ideal human body).

• Mende people of Sierra Leone: spend a great deal of time achieving body images, like high buttocks, plump bodies, very dark oiled skin and graceful movement. Express these in complex initiation rituals.
• Burma: Long necks and neck rings

• India: nose rings

 

• China: lotus feet 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•  generally speaking, fat bodies are appreciated where food is scarce and thin bodies are admired where food is abundant.
• fat women become potent symbols therefore of men's success since it signals that they are supplied abundant food (from herds) and cannot work  (Capitalism on the other hand needs male and female bodies to WORK-so they must be in a physical form so that they can perform labor most effectively)
• American bodies need to SLEEK EFFECTIVE MACHINES
• Social/cultural variables also contribute: Men should be thin in Nigeria and women should be Fat. It is part of the definition of masculine and feminine. Also, women are "open" and therefore subject to "cold" forces. Getting fat helps them to "close off". balance these energies and get hotter.

Thin is IN in Sweden

• Teenage girls are preoccupied with the desire to rid their lives of fat
• fat is DISGUSTING in all its forms
• greasy food
• oily hair
• fat women
• plump thighs

• Fat is something that they all harbor inside their own bodies waiting to ruin them and their lives. They wage a constant and vigilant battle against it
• what causes this?
• body distortion disorder? Images in the media?
• Allows the sharing of concerns and talk about fat to be NORMALIZED
• how about the ways that girls talk about FAT to each other?
• RULE: only talk about yourself being fat, not others who are firends
• RULE: you must always bemoan YOUR own fat (only comment on fat of people you hate)
• RULE: You can only talk about your fat body if you are actually NOT fat yourself
• if you ARE FAT, dont talk about trying to change your body
• SYMBOLIC CAPITOL (Bourdieu): the qualities or characteristics that one has to possess in order to be acknowledged as someone worth talking to or interacting with. (Thinness)
• not talking about being fat makes you seem "cocky" (like a boy) Therefore fat talk acts as a PROTECTIVE DEVICE (verbal amulet that protects you and deflects the negative thoughts of other people and secures you as a normal girl)

• CONTROL OVER YOUR BODY MEANS POWER IN THE WORLD FOR WOMEN

Comparison of the two and the cultural definition and discussion that goes into determining body ideals.