Researchers asked 5,893 people, 54% of them women, to choose their present body size and ideal body size from a chart depicting nine human figures. The discrepancy between the two was used to measure how satisfied the participants were with their bodies. Two to three percent of the subjects overall chose an "above-normal" size as ideal, but close to one in 10 obese people apparently felt that their size was normal and healthy.

However, say the study authors, 35% of obese people who felt this way had high blood pressure, 15% and high cholesterol, and 14% had diabetes. Time to freak out, right? If these people only knew they needed to lose weight, they'd be so much healthier. Except according to lead study author Tiffany Powell, these problems occurred at comparable rate in obese people who did feel like they were too fat. They just occurred along with a "healthy" dose of guilt.

The study did reveal a few benefits of "knowing you need to lose weight." Those who wanted to drop pounds were more likely to have seen a doctor in the past year (and yearly checkups are smart for many people), and also more likely to exercise. But since neither exercise nor going to the doctor has been proven to result in weight loss, isn't it time we stopped using fat-shaming to force people into these behaviors? Couldn't we find some way of promoting a healthy lifestyle that doesn't start with classifying people as abnormal?

Some Obese People Perceive Body Size As OK, Dismiss Need To Lose Weight [EurekAlert]

David DiSalvo of True/Slant offers this explanation:

Presumably this is because underweight women compare themselves equally to thin models and favorably to overweight models, but overweight women compare themselves unfavorably to thin models and find their similarity to overweight models depressing.

But this sounds a little simplistic to me. Must it be that "overweight" woman look at plus size models and think, "Gross! I look like that? How depressing!" Or might it be that, as Kate wrote,

[P]lus models are still models. They're still tall, well-proportioned, clear-skinned, shiny-haired, able-bodied and usually white, on top of only being "fat" relative to size 0s. The standard is basically the same as it always was, just notched up to a somewhat more common range of dress sizes - which is to say, the standard is still impossible for most of us to meet.

When the whole beauty-industrial complex is basically designed to exscript them, and the few models who are supposed to represent them just look like that complex's ideal "notched up" a little bit, it's no surprise that plus-size women might feel just as bad looking at Crystal Renn as they do at Kate Moss. This isn't to say that including more models like Renn and Lizzi Miller on magazine pages isn't a good thing — it is. But it doesn't magically make these magazines friendly to all shapes and sizes, or make fat women forget that lots of other cultural forces are still conspiring to devalue them.

The study's finding about underweight women is interesting too. The idea that underweight women actually feel better after looking at models contradicts an earlier study that showed all women felt worse about themselves after viewing skinny ladies in ads. It's a little hard for me to believe that underweight women compare themselves "equally" to models any more than overweight women do — like Kate said, they're still models. They're still closer to the beauty ideal than most women, regardless of weight, and they still get help from the powerful forces of hair, makeup, and airbrushing. It would be interesting to learn what percentage of the underweight women in the study were eating-disordered, and how that affected their response to the images. I'd also like to know what was going on in the underweight subjects' minds during the study — whether they actually thought, "yes! This model looks just like me," or whether they got a more modest boost from seeing a woman of similar size presented as an ideal, even if that woman was different in other ways. Perhaps this boost is easier to get if you are of privileged (ie. thin) size — although the study did find that overweight and underweight women had similar self-esteem at the outset of the experiment.

Ever since Lizzie Miller was in Glamour, the inclusion of plus size models has been trumpeted as a way to make magazines more friendly to all women. But it's clear that this might not be enough. Internalized fat prejudice goes deep, and just showing women a few bigger models isn't going to erase it. The fact is, images whose purpose is to sell women shit — whether those images look more or less like them — are probably never going to be on the forefront of social change. Including plus-size women in ads and fashion spreads is an important step not just for social good, but for aesthetic value — magazines would be more interesting if they contained a greater diversity of models. But they wouldn't magically make overweight women feel perfect about themselves, or erase all the other influences making them feel bad.

Women's Self-esteem Affected By Magazines [UPI.com]
Warning: If You're Overweight, Don't Read Women's Magazines [True/Slant]

Earlier: Memo To Women's Magazine Editors: White Women Hate Themselves After Reading Your Magazines

• A report claims that an Australian baby was born deaf and blind after its mother was given an injection of the wrinkle filler Dysport in the first week of pregnancy. • British professors have been given a grant to test whether pink rooms can make violent prisoners calmer. • Volunteers at a Houston-area maternity ward wrap Christmas babies in holiday stockings every year. • The Church of England is trying to quell "thousands" of dissidents who are upset over the appointment of a female bishop by creating a new type of clergy that will restrict the rights of female bishops. • Oh look: a dog gulping down a small burrito in one second. • Breaking: Olivia has become the most popular name for British girls over the past year. • A California woman pleaded guilty on Monday to arranging the fake marriages of dozens of Chinese citizens to U.S. citizens so the Chinese spouses could live in the United States. • Freida Pinto is set to receive the Palm Springs International Film Festival's Breakthrough Performance Award on January 6 for her role in Slumdog Millionaire. • A 72-year old woman has been accused of kidnapping her 86-year-old sister from Pittsburgh so they could get her away from her ramshackle apartment so a male friend could make repairs on her sister's home. • On Monday, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights ruled against a church group who discriminated against renting out a beachfront property to a lesbian couple seeking to use the locale for a civil union ceremony. • The Popeye the Sailor copyright is set to expire in Europe this week. The copyright is protected in America until 2024. Bring on the European porn tributes! • Apparently, comfort food is back in style as the economy continues to go downhill. • One of the teens convicted in the "Jena Six" beating case shot himself after he was arrested last week for shoplifting. The wound is not life-threatening. • According to a new study, obese men are three times more likely to have a low sperm count than their normal-weight peers. • If you are feeling blue, blame your friend: moods are contagious. • Hospitals in the U.S. are testing to see if simple arm-strengthening exercises can reduce lymphedema, a side effect of breast cancer surgery and radiation. • A Boy Scout from Long Island, NY has earned all 121 badges. • The Florida meter-reader who found the remains of Caylee Anthony may get a $5,000 reward. • An English woman called the police after she thought she saw a man riding a giant turquoise rabbit balloon floating past her house. • Meet Harry, a pet ferret in England who thinks he's a puppy. • A NASA report releases some graphic details about the deaths of all seven astronauts on the space shuttle Columbia, including information about the astronauts not wearing their full gear which may have let them take more action, but wouldn't have saved them from death. • A new study claims that African American women have been shrinking in size with each new generation since the mid-1960s. •

One quarter of women who wear a size 14 (equivalent to a U.S. size 12) said they were extremely happy with their lives, more than any other dress size, according to a study by Special K. Women who are a U.K. size 24 are the least happy, but the survey found that happiness did not correlate to size, as the fourth least happy size was a 6. Though 12, 14, and 16, were among the happiest sizes, of the 3,000 women surveyed, 48 percent still said they were not happy with their weight. [The Telegraph]

Before we made the video, I had accepted that it would be less than flattering, but I thought that it would be more empowering than soul crushing. I thought it would be saying a big fuck you to the celebrity-sartorial complex which requires everyone to be a size 0. I thought I could quell my vanity to make a point that I felt strongly about. It turns out, not so much! In the weeks that have elapsed since the we put up the video, I've been more self-conscious about my size than ever. Lemme tell you: Having thousands of internet trolls write about how gross you are — even when you've already likened yourself to a "fat hooker" — does a number on the old self-esteem. And I'm not the only one — Tracie felt similarly. She was only less upset than I was because she had prepared herself to be "devastated" before the video went up, whereas I thought that I could handle it.

I read the comments you readers write. Every time an issue comes up relating to weight on the site, everyone rushes to post her measurements. Even anonymous internet commenters feel the need to somehow prove they're not fat. I thought about doing that after the video, but I realized that would be destroying all the things I hoped to stand for by making it in the first place And yes, I realize how shallow and ultimately useless it is to obsess about your weight, and every time I think about how much time I've wasted hating myself for my unwaiflike proportions I hate myself even more.

The way we scrutinize our own bodies — and others' bodies as well — is almost impossible for some of us to get beyond, no matter how hard we try to will ourselves beyond it. I don't have any solutions. Maybe someday I'll be able to pull a stunt like that and be invigorated instead of cowed into size-submission. But for now I'm settling for never, ever seeing myself in a gold lamé tube dress ever again.

Real Naked Ladies [The New Yorker]
Fifty Nude Women [Fifty Nude Women Official Website]

Earlier: American Apparel Will Make You Look Like A Fat Hooker