Why is obesity so prevalent amongst BDSM practitioners?

[bridgeburner]

I think it's important to point out that the medical term "obese" signifies an individual who is more than 100lbs overweight.

Obese is --- or at least used to be --- a specific medical term that has been latched onto by the media and pop-psychs and diet gurus to now encompass anyone who needs to lose more than 20lbs.

Certainly, there are more people carrying an extra 20 or even 30 pounds nowadays, but 1 out of every 2 people you see on the street is not carrying 100 or more extra pounds.

There is a problem, but as with nearly every danger or worry in the modern world it has been so sensationalized and blown out of proportion that there cannot help but be a strong backlash against it.

The main issue for me is that with all this heightened awareness there has not been any decrease in the stigma against fat or the many misconceptions and outright false beliefs about why people are or are not fat. Moreover, there has been no decrease in the generally demeaning and often cruel manner in which fat people are treated.

It's perfectly fine not to be attracted to fat people, or thin people, or blonde people or short people or whatever. Your personal tastes are your personal tastes as the good Marquis pointed out. It's ridiculous to get self-righteous about the vagaries of personal attraction. That's different than the current open season on the Fat Folk, however. You can make any kind of comment no matter how rude or mean about fat people --- either in general or to their faces and a lot of people think it's perfectly acceptable.


-B

 

[Phoenix Stone]

"there is some evidence that obesity may be caused by metabolic factors- research is still ongoing on that issue. There is even more conclusive evidence that eating too much makes you fat. No one has ever disproved this theory, although the converse is problematic- reducing the amount you eat does not always make you thin."

What bugs me about the argument the doctors give is they don't seem to ask why do people WANT to eat too much? Why are we even CAPABLE of eating too much? When my husband tries, because it's a really excellent restaurant or something, he CAN'T DO It. It makes him feel sick. That's the way a normal person's body works. THIS is why diets don't work. Average weight people who never had a problem with weight don't have extra willpower, they just don't feel extra hungry. And they lose their taste for food toward the end of their meal. And then they stop. And if they don't they feel sick and the food stops tasting good. People who've had weight problems don't work like that. I know this because I Was the one, and changed to the other. Now I can stay leaner but it is Work, when before it wasn't. (Actually the other things that work are weight lifting helps, and so does avoiding foods that get you started feeling too hungry. For me, that's most carbs outside of fruit and vegetables.)

 

[Marquis]

That's very true PS. I attribute pretty much all my weight loss to changing of my diet to control the size of my appetite. Even now, sometimes something will happen where I will eat more than I normally would (going out to a great steakhouse for example), and I end up paying for it for weeks because my appetite will increase for a while. It's all about the right kind of moderation, maintained.

 

[bridgeburner]

Phoenix,

Yep, some people really can't gain weight. Those who can generally do. Also, once you've screwed up your system it is always work to maintain it afterwards.

There was a popular diet program in the 80's called Physicians' Weight Loss Clinics ( they may still be around ) where you were required to get Vitamin B shots every week and drink a couple of different kinds of vitamin or mineral or something packets every day. The amount and type of food put the body into ketosis --- a state that diabetics try to avoid since it can be deadly.

Now the idea was that they didn't want you to be too heavily in ketosis, but the rapid weight loss that the program produced was exactly like the calorie dumping that happens with unregulated diabetes.

So, the weight would come off and quite quickly --- average results were about 5-7lbs a week ---- but once the diet was finished there were side effects.

First of all, most people couldn't maintain the wieghtloss and not only regained what they'd originally lost but considerably more besides. This was in part because the program did nothing to teach healthy eating habits and in part because it screwed up the body's metabolism.

Other problems that were eventually linked to the program were gall stones which once the body learns to make it will always make and, yep, you guessed it diabetes.

People desperately want to believe that there is some kind of quick and easy fix to weight loss and body building. The truth of the matter is that it is tedious, difficult and requires a lot of dedication to really acheive and maintain results. If it were easy there wouldn't be ANY fat or flabby people.


-B

 

[bridgeburner]

I end up paying for it for weeks because my appetite will increase for a while

Nipping the binge in the bud, difficult but necessary.

 

[Etoile]

it does not mean that we do not associate with any other lifestylers unless they are fit and trim and all that, just that we have preferences when it comes to those we "play" with.

I'm glad to hear you don't mind being friends with people who are not fit and trim! Though believe me, we are both working on it.

 

[Etoile]

your basis is that the fast food chains are at fault because people are overweight? then why am i not overwieght? i ate at mcdonalds and burger king lunch and dinner for almost two years all supersized meals with extra orders of fris or added burgers. i could and still do eate large pizzas by myself. makes my wife nuts that i will eat one whole pixzza in a hour period.

People are overweight for a variety of reasons medical and psycolgical. but i guess its easier to blame fast foods than to spend the money on medical studies.

i need to stop before i really get pissed.

Have you seen Supersize Me? You might find it a very interesting documentary. (It's not quite worth theater prices, though - wait for the DVD.)

 

[ownedsubgal]

I'm glad to hear you don't mind being friends with people who are not fit and trim! Though believe me, we are both working on it.

Etoile, if Daddy only associated with those who are fit and trim, well then i wouldn't be among his associates! lol. i'm thankful that (for now) i have the appearance of being more in shape than i actually am. Daddy has devised this lil workout plan for me so that at some point before summer's over i'll feel comfy wearing a bathing suit in public. just finished a wee ten minutes of jump roping, and i think maybe i'm having a heart attack. next week i'm supposed to up it to 15. please help me lol.

 

[sweetnpetite]

OTOH, as a few poster have said, your sample could well be skewed. For instance. It's unclear from your sample description if you *looked or *read descriptions or both. In either case, the *willingness to show off one's true weight might be a factor. The bdsm folks are simply more willing (to say 'this is how i am), *even though the percentage of fatties is about the same as the rest of the pop.

I agee with this, but for a different reason. BDSM'ers already know they are considered freaks by the 'normal' or 'vanilla' world, therefor they feel no need to conform to weight standards either.

One *could* argue that those who are overwieght are struggling w/ self esteem issues, and those w/ low self asteem feel the need to control others or to be punished or to cause or suffer pain. But one would not become very popular on this board with a theory such as that.

 

[sweetnpetite]

What bugs me about the argument the doctors give is they don't seem to ask why do people WANT to eat too much? Why are we even CAPABLE of eating too much? When my husband tries, because it's a really excellent restaurant or something, he CAN'T DO It. It makes him feel sick. That's the way a normal person's body works. THIS is why diets don't work. Average weight people who never had a problem with weight don't have extra willpower, they just don't feel extra hungry. And they lose their taste for food toward the end of their meal. And then they stop. And if they don't they feel sick and the food stops tasting good. People who've had weight problems don't work like that. I know this because I Was the one, and changed to the other. Now I can stay leaner but it is Work, when before it wasn't. (Actually the other things that work are weight lifting helps, and so does avoiding foods that get you started feeling too hungry. For me, that's most carbs outside of fruit and vegetables.)

You know these are some really good points.

You'd expect doctors to realize this and learn how to properly treat it, but unfortunatly many doctors have the same biases and false beliefs as everyone else.

 

[Krinaia]

Is it true that every dress size you lose is 10 pounds?

pounds aren't inches folks...

 

[bridgeburner]

And it also depends on which end of the dress rack we're talking about. If you're in the size 5-14 range then 15lbs will generally make the difference between one size and the next --- although as SkylineBlue noted pounds don't necessarily equate to inches. Body shape has a lot to do with that. When you get up into the larger plus sizes 22-32 then it may be as much as 25 to 40 lbs between sizes.

-B

 

[Phoenix Stone]

And to give you an idea of how meaningless pounds are, when I'm really fit (lifting as much weight as my instructors, but only able to do 8 men's pushups -- well, 'normally' I can do 0 as I have small shoulders and an otherwise full but non-muscular chest) I wear a size 4-6 at 135 pounds. I'm lean, and look lean, but all that practically invisible muscle is heavy. I'm long-limbed, too, so it just doesn't show on me. (Very frustrating to my taller but tiny boned sisters whose least little bit of fat shows. I just get curvier. Point is, a lot of that measurement stuff you see is either meaningless or lies. Fer instance, last time I was 36-26-36, I looked sickly. And was size 2/4, which is way too small for me.)

Digression but, I've also noticed that at each weight different guys look. Heavier I get, the darker the guys are who still look. The bonier the better for local young white guys.
Latino guys seem to like me about where I am now, which feels about right and is my average. Right now, I'd have to Dress to get attention of any but middle-aged and older white guys, but most will still look then. Right on the edge.
If I gain 15 or 20 African-American men will start looking but the others will stop. There is some size that seems particular to East Indian guys, too, but I didn't take notes. Weird but true. And the skinnier I am, the nicer strange women are too, around here. This is, I believe, a very sizist area. Metropolitan, upper-income, white, and 'healthy lifestyle' obsessed. Makes me want to take up smoking, get a tattoo of a hula dancer, ship's anchor, or maybe just the word 'fuck' on my face, break out into that polyester pantsuit bridgeburner mentioned enforcing on her hypothetical sub, and... anything else unwholesome, unhip and downscale I can think of.

 

[Krinaia]

And to give you an idea of how meaningless pounds are, when I'm really fit (lifting as much weight as my instructors, but only able to do 8 men's pushups -- well, 'normally' I can do 0 as I have small shoulders and an otherwise full but non-muscular chest) I wear a size 4-6 at 135 pounds. I'm lean, and look lean, but all that practically invisible muscle is heavy. I'm long-limbed, too, so it just doesn't show on me. (Very frustrating to my taller but tiny boned sisters whose least little bit of fat shows. I just get curvier. Point is, a lot of that measurement stuff you see is either meaningless or lies. Fer instance, last time I was 36-26-36, I looked sickly. And was size 2/4, which is way too small for me.)

Digression but, I've also noticed that at each weight different guys look. Heavier I get, the darker the guys are who still look. The bonier the better for local young white guys.
Latino guys seem to like me about where I am now, which feels about right and is my average. Right now, I'd have to Dress to get attention of any but middle-aged and older white guys, but most will still look then. Right on the edge.
If I gain 15 or 20 African-American men will start looking but the others will stop. There is some size that seems particular to East Indian guys, too, but I didn't take notes. Weird but true. And the skinnier I am, the nicer strange women are too, around here. This is, I believe, a very sizist area. Metropolitan, upper-income, white, and 'healthy lifestyle' obsessed. Makes me want to take up smoking, get a tattoo of a hula dancer, ship's anchor, or maybe just the word 'fuck' on my face, break out into that polyester pantsuit bridgeburner mentioned enforcing on her hypothetical sub, and... anything else unwholesome, unhip and downscale I can think of.

Okay, to add my two bits... as a heavyset woman wearing a size 24 (eek but damned if i'll be ashamed to admit it); I seem to attract a lot of looks from black men and latino men. Women generally are nice to or ignore me - depending on whether they simply don't see me as competition (catty but true) or whether they are just too pretty to take time for anyone lesser (also catty but true). Not too rule out the people who are nice just because they are nice people. Women of my own size can differ as well - because Ihave a nice figure, sometimes they will treat me diffidently, jealousy I think that I can carry my weight better. And other times they latch right onto me. I myself tend to have thin girlfriends... but I'll keep why I think that is to myself.

Here's the unexplainable part. It took a long time for me to pull my head out of an ass to realize that men DO check me out regardless of my weight and then the more confident I was that they would look, the more they looked. I went to Germany and Austria recently and I would have had to been blind to miss how often I was checked out. I'm not sure if that is just the difference between European and American men...but... I would have thought that they would have NOT checked me out at all... I suppose my features have that Hybrid Vigor of native american, german, scottish cross-breeding that might make my face exotic in Europe. I did notice that the darker skinned Europeans gave me more oggling then the more Nordic Europeans.

 

[Phoenix Stone]

OT: fat in society, not BDSM specific

Agreed. It does make a Big diff how you carry yourself, how you feel especially. But in this area, I got to see a bit of what it would be like to be bigger than I've ever been when i was pregnant, and it wasn't pretty. I was a proud pregnant lady and people would walk into me like i was invisible. I learned to walk with my elbows out and Use them if they got did that. No more crawling around people. Even once I started to show there was this sort of double-take where people would get this snotty look on their faces and walk like they owned the sidewalk or aisle for themselves alone, then they'd sort of look again and be nicer. Only Latino men and the occasional older woman did anything like hold the door open. I had to go to the poor towns to be treated nicely.

And the bit about women being nicer when I'm skinny was weird. They'd act kind of apologetically friendly. Submissive really. Like I had extra status and was doing them a favor by deigning to acknowledge their existence. Or puppyish friendly. When I'm heavier I have to be ingratiating, and even then I'm sometimes scorned. Putting on an attitude for walking thru life as you seem to have to do around here (unless I have my kids with me and am too busy) I've found amused lofty indifference to work best. Disconcerts the worst of them, and then anyone who feels bad you can come off your high horse and be friendly after. Does this makes sense? Other parts of the country seem very different. (In Texas everyone looks you in the eye and you're supposed to look straight back. Not around here.)

 

[rosco rathbone]

Etoile, if Daddy only associated with those who are fit and trim, well then i wouldn't be among his associates! lol. i'm thankful that (for now) i have the appearance of being more in shape than i actually am. Daddy has devised this lil workout plan for me so that at some point before summer's over i'll feel comfy wearing a bathing suit in public. just finished a wee ten minutes of jump roping, and i think maybe i'm having a heart attack. next week i'm supposed to up it to 15. please help me lol.

Your daddy is The Man for taking such time and effort to help you help yourself look your best. WHat a lucky girlie you are !

 

[lorddragonwolf]

Have you seen Supersize Me? You might find it a very interesting documentary. (It's not quite worth theater prices, though - wait for the DVD.)

no not yet but i have heard of it.

 

[Esclava]

<snip>as for the theory that being abused leads one to bdsm in life, that may indeed be true for some, but personally i believe that having a certain personality/nature, such as being submissive, makes one more vulnerable to abuse, and being abused makes one more vulnerable to other issues such as depression, eating disorders, self injury, etc.

While there MAY be some relevance to a connection between abuse, vulnerability and, for example, a submissive nature; In my own experience, I have seen far more instances of that connection in non-BDSM practitioners. Or could it be that these non-BDSM people are "hiding in plain 'nilla sight" to cover desires that society says are abnormal?

I can understand and empathize with those who have been abused and succumbed to that vulnerability by allowing the other issues to creep in and take hold. I know because I have been there. I also know that DEEP inside everyone of us that has faced undesired, humiliating abuse at the hands of another there lies a well of strength that we only need tap into and we will realize that we ARE strong enough to survive and be whole again.

Unfortunately, the longer we wait to tap into that source - the easier it becomes NOT to do so. IMHO, therein lies the vicious cycle that perpetuates itself not only in our thinking but our actions as well. And I don't think that has anything to do with BDSM tendencies which I believe start in the womb.

Esclava

Edited because I wasn't awake and couldn't spell a few words correctly. E

 

[The Mutt]

Your daddy is The Man for taking such time and effort to help you help yourself look your best. WHat a lucky girlie you are !

My Mistress made it very clear. If I was not fit and trim, she would not share me with her friends. It was the greatest motivational speech I ever heard.
I want her to be proud of me. I want to look my best for her. And her friends.

I think bdsm and bigness go together because hedonism and gluttony go hand in hand.

 

[Netzach]

Gee, I just go to bed and jack off.


Does anybody outside of NYC and SF walk anywhere anymore?

No!!!! Goddamn it.

 

[Kajira Callista]

No!!!! Goddamn it.

one of the bad parts of living in the woods *sigh* you cant walk to the store when you want ice cream.

 

[lorddragonwolf]

one of the bad parts of living in the woods *sigh* you cant walk to the store when you want ice cream.

yes but the good thing about living in the woods is the neighbores cant here you scream as the crop hits your able ass cheecks.

 

[Kajira Callista]

yes but the good thing about living in the woods is the neighbores cant here you scream as the crop hits your able ass cheecks.

i dunno...that hasnt been tried out yet....what time will you be here?

 

[The Mutt]

i dunno...that hasnt been tried out yet....what time will you be here?

Oh, but it is much more fun when you can disturb the neighbors.
~looking for property next door to a church~

 

[Lancecastor]

But why are so many BDSM people heavy? I can't think of any systematic theories. Thoughts?

Low self esteem would explain the weight as well as the deviant behavior.