4 ms·

You can't get an idea of what Americans are really like by watching the media. You have to come here, travel around and see for yourself. Specifically, the me

You can't get an idea of what Americans are really like by watching the media. You have to come here, travel around and see for yourself. Specifically, the media rarely shows fat people. Not the truly fat ones, with the exception of the freakshow genre of TV specifically about extremely fat people. In recent years they've started to show more and more fat people, but not nearly fat enough to give you an accurate impression of average Americans. Just fat enough to give token representation of fatness. Truth is, the hugely fat people on freakshow TV aren't on freakshow TV because they're freakishly fat. People that fat are common, you can see them yourself any day at walmart. The people on those shows are freaks because they have freakishly little shame and agree to be on TV.

yellowapple 4y ago
> Truth is, the hugely fat people on freakshow TV aren't on freakshow TV because they're freakishly fat. People that fat are common, you can see them yourself any day at walmart. Not really. Truth is, the hugely fat people on freakshow TV are pretty rare even in America; if they were at all common then there wouldn't be much of a market for such shows in the US ("you're just gonna show me ordinary people like me? yawn.") You might see one or two hugely fat people at Wal-Mart, but they'll be surrounded by dozens of people who are plump but otherwise mobile, and they'll be surrounded by dozens of people who are fit by European standards.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > You might see one or two hugely fat people at Wal-Mart, but they'll be surrounded by dozens of people who are plump but otherwise mobile, Have you been to Ohio? That ratio is flipped. "Plump" is merely overweight but not obese. In states like Ohio, plump seems athletic because the massively obese are very common. You can easily see several 500lb people a day, fat enough for any TV freakshow.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > Have you been to Ohio? Yes. Have you? Because no, that ratio is not "flipped". It ain't even flipped in Texas - and everything is bigger in Texas. > several 500lb people a day Yes, "several" meaning single digits. The average Wal-Mart has anywhere from double to triple digits of people in it at any one time. All but the tiniest of US towns have quadruple or quintuple digits of people in them. Thus, even by your own accidental admission, people in the 500lb range are an extreme rarity. This really shouldn't be surprising; the human body can only take in so much nutrients and can only reduce its energy expenditure by so little, so at some point even an entirely sedentary lifestyle with an entirely unhealthy diet will result in a stopping point far short of 500lb. The people you see on TV are that fat because they are outliers, not the norm. That's also - again - what makes them interesting enough to be worth televising to an audience that's already disproportionately obese. Put differently: if 500lb+ people were the norm, then Wal-Mart would sell clothes that actually fit them instead of them having to be limited to overstretched sweatpants. The fact that Wal-Mart does not should make it patently obvious that they are far too small of a market segment to be worth catering to, even in the very store in which you seem to disproportionately see them.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > Yes, "several" meaning single digits. This is my point. If you can see several 500lb people a day going about your everyday errands around town, then the people on the 500lb TV freakshow are not freaks for being 500lbs, they're freaks for agreeing to be on the TV show. And how often are such massive people on TV shows that aren't specifically about 500lb people? Almost never. If you judged America just by the TV shows, you'd think that 500lb people are very uncommon. But in reality you can see them every single day without even trying.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        > This is my point. If you can see several 500lb people a day going about your everyday errands around town Compared to how many people you see total going about your everyday errands? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? That is my point: you're deliberately ignoring the overwhelmingly vast majority of the people you encounter in favor of a very tiny minority solely for the sake of asserting that tiny minority to be far more common than they actually are. > And how often are such massive people on TV shows that aren't specifically about 500lb people? Almost never. Exactly. Shows have to go way out of their way to find 500lb people, because they are exceedingly rare. If they were anywhere near as common as you assert, then they would be far more prevalent on American TV. In attempting to refute my point you've accidentally proven it, twice in the same comment. I rest my case.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    I'm offended as a native Ohioan. This is just not true, Ohio's obesity rate is the same as everywhere else. The spread between states is tiny. California is a whole 2% less obese. What about Ohio do you think magically makes people fatter?
alistairSH 4y ago
I live in the US, but in a "fit" suburb outside DC. I guess that skews my perspective a bit. DC-proper and Arlington VA usually rank highly on most fitness rankings. I'm a bit west of there, but generally a pretty fit area, I guess.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Even within my middling-fat red-state city, you can see very different size distributions traveling to different parts of the city. Downtown? Skews young and relatively fit. Most 'burbs, and out in our more-diffuse second business district? Average weight of an adult is a solid 50lb higher than downtown, and probably more like 75lb. Poor areas? Everyone seems to be either ruler-thin or very fat, young and old alike, in about equal measure. That one rich people enclave town with its own country club? A glorious place to drive through when the stay-at-home spouses are out for their jogs, let me tell you. You see the same sort of pattern visiting e.g. a coffee shop in that area, so it's not just selection bias of the activity of jogging. Traveling around to various cities, you see this variation city-to-city, too. Some cities are just fitter (and, in some cases, way "hotter" all around—like you gotta re-calibrate your "10" scale, to use a crude but illustrative example, or you won't see anyone under a back-home "8" your whole visit) than my home city. Others are even fatter (largely in the deep South). Though in all cases you have to take into account that you may only be seeing their equivalent of the "hot" part of town and that may be skewing your overall impression.

yellowapple 4y ago

> Truth is, the hugely fat people on freakshow TV aren't on freakshow TV because they're freakishly fat. People that fat are common, you can see them yourself any day at walmart. Not really. Truth is, the hugely fat people on freakshow TV are pretty rare even in America; if they were at all common then there wouldn't be much of a market for such shows in the US ("you're just gonna show me ordinary people like me? yawn.") You might see one or two hugely fat people at Wal-Mart, but they'll be surrounded by dozens of people who are plump but otherwise mobile, and they'll be surrounded by dozens of people who are fit by European standards.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> You might see one or two hugely fat people at Wal-Mart, but they'll be surrounded by dozens of people who are plump but otherwise mobile, Have you been to Ohio? That ratio is flipped. "Plump" is merely overweight but not obese. In states like Ohio, plump seems athletic because the massively obese are very common. You can easily see several 500lb people a day, fat enough for any TV freakshow.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > Have you been to Ohio? Yes. Have you? Because no, that ratio is not "flipped". It ain't even flipped in Texas - and everything is bigger in Texas. > several 500lb people a day Yes, "several" meaning single digits. The average Wal-Mart has anywhere from double to triple digits of people in it at any one time. All but the tiniest of US towns have quadruple or quintuple digits of people in them. Thus, even by your own accidental admission, people in the 500lb range are an extreme rarity. This really shouldn't be surprising; the human body can only take in so much nutrients and can only reduce its energy expenditure by so little, so at some point even an entirely sedentary lifestyle with an entirely unhealthy diet will result in a stopping point far short of 500lb. The people you see on TV are that fat because they are outliers, not the norm. That's also - again - what makes them interesting enough to be worth televising to an audience that's already disproportionately obese. Put differently: if 500lb+ people were the norm, then Wal-Mart would sell clothes that actually fit them instead of them having to be limited to overstretched sweatpants. The fact that Wal-Mart does not should make it patently obvious that they are far too small of a market segment to be worth catering to, even in the very store in which you seem to disproportionately see them.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > Yes, "several" meaning single digits. This is my point. If you can see several 500lb people a day going about your everyday errands around town, then the people on the 500lb TV freakshow are not freaks for being 500lbs, they're freaks for agreeing to be on the TV show. And how often are such massive people on TV shows that aren't specifically about 500lb people? Almost never. If you judged America just by the TV shows, you'd think that 500lb people are very uncommon. But in reality you can see them every single day without even trying.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > This is my point. If you can see several 500lb people a day going about your everyday errands around town Compared to how many people you see total going about your everyday errands? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? That is my point: you're deliberately ignoring the overwhelmingly vast majority of the people you encounter in favor of a very tiny minority solely for the sake of asserting that tiny minority to be far more common than they actually are. > And how often are such massive people on TV shows that aren't specifically about 500lb people? Almost never. Exactly. Shows have to go way out of their way to find 500lb people, because they are exceedingly rare. If they were anywhere near as common as you assert, then they would be far more prevalent on American TV. In attempting to refute my point you've accidentally proven it, twice in the same comment. I rest my case.
- Spivak 4y ago
  I'm offended as a native Ohioan. This is just not true, Ohio's obesity rate is the same as everywhere else. The spread between states is tiny. California is a whole 2% less obese. What about Ohio do you think magically makes people fatter?

alistairSH 4y ago

I live in the US, but in a "fit" suburb outside DC. I guess that skews my perspective a bit. DC-proper and Arlington VA usually rank highly on most fitness rankings. I'm a bit west of there, but generally a pretty fit area, I guess.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Even within my middling-fat red-state city, you can see very different size distributions traveling to different parts of the city. Downtown? Skews young and relatively fit. Most 'burbs, and out in our more-diffuse second business district? Average weight of an adult is a solid 50lb higher than downtown, and probably more like 75lb. Poor areas? Everyone seems to be either ruler-thin or very fat, young and old alike, in about equal measure. That one rich people enclave town with its own country club? A glorious place to drive through when the stay-at-home spouses are out for their jogs, let me tell you. You see the same sort of pattern visiting e.g. a coffee shop in that area, so it's not just selection bias of the activity of jogging. Traveling around to various cities, you see this variation city-to-city, too. Some cities are just fitter (and, in some cases, way "hotter" all around—like you gotta re-calibrate your "10" scale, to use a crude but illustrative example, or you won't see anyone under a back-home "8" your whole visit) than my home city. Others are even fatter (largely in the deep South). Though in all cases you have to take into account that you may only be seeing their equivalent of the "hot" part of town and that may be skewing your overall impression.