K.W. Bogen, an author/influencer, declares in a public Facebook Reel that the commonly cited male preference for thin/fit women is a conspiracy of corporations and white supremacy.
Because isn’t everything a conspiracy of corporations and white supremacy nowadays? No doubt the patriarchy had a hand in it all, as well.
Ms. Bogen then goes on to show us her figure (about which I will refrain from comment). She asserts that thinness is “really, really difficult to achieve” without “starving oneself” or taking drugs. (I assume she is referring to Ozempic, though I can’t be certain.)
First things first. Many men do prefer thin, fit women. A smaller percentage prefer women who are “pleasingly plump”. A very small percentage actively seek out heavyset women. (This last group of men is rare; but they do exist.)
But what men like is not the central issue here. On that point, at least, I think Ms. Bogen and I may be in agreement—though for entirely different reasons.
America’s obesity epidemic is not a feminist issue, exclusively a women’s issue, or—for goodness sake—a capitalist conspiracy. (Everyone was a lot thinner in pre-capitalist times, after all, because few people had enough to eat.)
1980: U.S. obesity rate = 15 percent. Today: U.S. obesity rate ≈ 40 percent
Let me take you back to the 1980s. In 1980, the U.S. obesity rate was around 15 percent. Today it is approaching 40 percent, more than double what it was in my formative years.
The American girth has steadily expanded since the 1980s, regardless of sex. While a slightly higher percentage of women are clinically obese, American men have gotten fatter, too.
Let’s leave the sex appeal angle out of it. Obesity is unhealthy, plain and simple. The obesity rate of recent decades has contributed to unusually high cancer rates among young adults, for one thing.
Ozempic and similar drugs are not the answer for most people. Nor should anyone engage in self-starvation.
The answer is more exercise, and a healthier, more moderate diet.
Skip the donuts and hit the gym, in other words. Like we did in the 1980s.
My lived experience
I speak here from direct experience. At the end of 1983, I was a 15-year-old fat kid. I weighed about 210 pounds, far too much for my 5 feet 10 inches of height.
In early 1984, I got a look at myself on VHS footage. (Yes, we had video recordings in those days.)
I said to myself: “Hey, Ed, you’re fat!”
(Of course, other people were already telling me this. The 1980s were a far less touchy-feely era.)
I decided: I am going to change this.
And I did. I started running and working out. I eliminated bad foods from my diet. I lost more than 50 pounds and became a state finals cross country runner by my senior year of high school.
And I’ve stuck with that program ever since. I have not had a single donut or milkshake since 1983. I still exercise every day at the ripe old age of 58. My weight today is within ten pounds of what it was when I graduated high school in 1986.
Notice what I did not do: I did not blame capitalism, impossible beauty standards, the patriarchy, white supremacy, DEI, black people, gay people, straight people, drag queens, Republicans, Democrats, women, or Seventh-day Adventists for my weight problem. I did not declare to the world that getting in shape was impossible without drugs or a self-imposed famine state.
I sucked it up, buckled down, and did what I needed to do.
Because that was the way we did things back in the 1980s—when the national obesity rate was less than half of what it is today. There’s a lesson here, for the denizens of this benighted 21st century.
-ET