| Re: "Big fat mess," by Josey Vogels, My Messy Bedroom, June 1-7, 2006.
Please tell me it was a typo when Ms. Vogels wrote: "Cardinal rule: Never, ever, ever tell a woman she's fat, getting fat, packed on a few pounds, looking 'healthy,' etc." It's understandable that most people don't like to be told they're overweight (shockingly, most heavy people actually know they're heavy without being told so by observers, and it's more likely for a woman to be a healthy weight and think she's overweight than for an overweight woman to think she's not).
My concern lies with Vogels’s notion that "looking healthy" is equivalent to "fat." This perception is perhaps true in the distorted body images of people with eating disorders. In fact, that is part of why many people with eating disorders are so resistant to treatment – because what is a "healthy weight" is perceived by them as "fat," even if the new "healthy weight" goal is the minimum weight for their bodies to function properly.
It bothers me that Vogels’s example perpetuates the concept that women are most attractive when at an unhealthy weight, thereby pitting "health" and "beauty" against each other. Sadly, the result of this belief is often the choice of beauty over health, sometimes to dire consequences. When did "looking healthy" become an insult? And why is your paper, of all publications, perpetuating this myth?
I hope the other women and men who read that statement felt equally betrayed.
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