A little Christmas season query

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Friday, December 16. 2011

A little Christmas season query

How come 99% of the people shopping in the malls, at Macy's, etc. are either overweight or plain fat?

I took a little seasonal tour in Manhattan, where, for sure, the average person on Madison Ave. or 5th Ave. looks a lot more shipshape than the average person in America. But other than that, do all of the fit, skinny people shop online? Or are most people wide loads these days? What's that about?

All the people I work with are pretty trim, in good shape, reasonably fashionable, and they do not go to malls, discount stores, or to Macy's. Nothing against Macy's, which is a fine store with tons of useful and pleasant stuff which I do not need but, at Bloomies, Saks, and Tiffany, people certainly are generally more attractive. Some people there clearly spend more money on Yoga, working out, and Botox than they spend on stuffing their faces with carbs, and I guess that is a strange segment of today's America too - people paying hard-earned money for the opportunity for physical effort at the gym. Sheesh. People should get paid for that effort instead of paying for it. Women used to say that "you can't be too thin or too rich," but I think both are in error.

There was a time in America when people paid you for physical labor, and a time when prosperous was fat. Crazy world. Oh, well, fat, medium, or fit - it's a free country. Best to be whatever you want, as long as you shop and spend!

All of my own minimal Christmas shopping is online, at my wine shop, or at my cigar shop, but I like to poke around town at holiday season for the fun of it. NYC is magical at Christmastime, Christmas cheer and decorations, and highly annoying Christmas Muzak (if I hear Drummer Boy one more time I promise to shoot myself), and wonderful Christmas Capitalism.

Put it on the Mastercard, suckers! It's priceless. Do it for Jesus!

Posted by The News Junkie in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 11:53 | Comments (38) | Trackbacks (0)

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If you are seeing only fit, trim, beautiful people where you shop, then you are probably shopping only where the upper-crust buy their fabulous objects. As a general rule-of-thumb, in the U.S. the wealthy are slender, while the poor are fat/obese.

I've rubbed shoulders (at both my workplace and my wife's former upper-crust private school) with the wealthy, and they are uniformly tall and in reasonably good shape. A misshaped troll such as myself stands out as blatantly middle-class in such a gathering.

The wealthy, and even just the upper-middle-class, can afford the luxury of the time necessary to maintain health and appearance. At the end of a sedentary 12-hour day spent sitting on my posterior in front of a computer, I have neither the energy nor resources to do much other than go home, collapse, and do it all over again the next day.

#1 Blackwing1 on 2011-12-16 12:23 (Reply)

"The wealthy, and even just the upper-middle-class, can afford the luxury of the time necessary to maintain health and appearance."

Not exactly the right explanation, I think. The people you mentioned have good all-around habits that are conducive, even necessary, for success in life. That includes adopting good work habits, following a healthful diet, sticking to a sensible lifestyle, and thinking carefully about important decisions in their lives. They take care in every aspect of life. The same personal traits that lead to better health will also tend to make people wealthier. Wealth and health reinforce each other but it's not strictly cause and effect.

#1.1 Agent Cooper on 2011-12-16 22:38 (Reply)

You have got to be shitting me.

#1.1.1 comatus on 2011-12-16 23:51 (Reply)

watch out for that inconvenient truth!!!

#1.1.1.1 dmitryb on 2011-12-17 02:32 (Reply)

What you have written is very true of successful people, but not necessarily true of people who merely have money.

Don't confuse wealthy with successful.

Wealth can be inherited, success must be earned.

#1.1.2 Lee Reynolds (Link) on 2011-12-17 05:08 (Reply)

Perhaps. Or perhaps the people you describe have better food options, or take a lot of drugs, or both - as both work really well to keep fat from accumulating. The washed-out skinny bleached blonde trophy wives I see at Saks and Neimann hardly look like they have "good-all around habits." More like a good doctor with a script for thyroid medication. Funny that the actual malnourished in the world tend to be obese, isnt it, since they arent exactly overeating?

#1.1.3 Bill McGill on 2011-12-17 07:55 (Reply)

The women you are describing are a perfect example of what I mean by inherited wealth, or in this case married to it.

Their job is to maintain their sex appeal so that the shallow men they've entered into concubinage with will continue to want them sexually. They're also competing with others of their tribe to look the youngest (or I should say the most surgically altered), the thinnest, and to have the nicest things.

#1.1.3.1 Lee Reynolds (Link) on 2011-12-17 11:53 (Reply)

I'm 6' 2" 240 and beat the crap out of skinny people every weekend.

Keep dieting dudes.

#1.2 phaedrus on 2011-12-17 10:39 (Reply)

At the end of a sedentary 12-hour day spent sitting on my posterior in front of a computer, I have neither the energy nor resources to do much other than go home, collapse, and do it all over again the next day.

I'm working a lot of hours right now too and I could look better ... but I have a suggestion. Park 15 or 20 blocks away from work every shift. That means you get two reasonable-length walks for exercise every day. I'm doing it. No gym, no showers, no changing (I keep some extra shoes and socks at the office), no fees, free parking. If this is possible for you, try it. It's a hell of a lot better than nothing.

#1.3 Exurban on 2011-12-18 22:05 (Reply)

We have a government and medical establishment that insists on telling us to eat more grain. Carbs are cheap after all. Unfortunately, carbs are what cause weight gain, especially if you mix it with grain based oils. Rich folks can afford high protein, low carb food.

#2 Teri Pittman on 2011-12-16 12:44 (Reply)

Stupid, fat people who shop atthe mall. Why do they have to make the holidays so difficult?

#3 Jephnol (Link) on 2011-12-16 13:01 (Reply)

Boom!

#3.1 the nj on 2011-12-16 13:05 (Reply)

If you think Macy's is bad try WalMart.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/photos/page/2

#4 JamesG (Link) on 2011-12-16 13:18 (Reply)

True to your word...heh.

#4.1 Jephnol (Link) on 2011-12-16 15:36 (Reply)

Yeah...that was supposed to be addressed to NJ @ 3.1. My bad.

#4.1.1 Jephnol (Link) on 2011-12-16 15:37 (Reply)

Don't scrape and paste the link NJ. It is the Little Drummer Boy. hee hee hee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfpb8d9I_2A

#5 feeblemind on 2011-12-16 13:37 (Reply)

We Americans are fat because we can afford to be fat — Par rum pa pa pum.

#6 PacRim Jim (Link) on 2011-12-16 14:39 (Reply)

ROFLMAO

I don't know why I think that is so funny but it made my day.

Thanks.

#6.1 feeblemind on 2011-12-16 15:26 (Reply)

I have a friend who is 5'9" tall... 155-160 or so. He still wears the same size clothes he did while in high school -- and he's 55 years old. He simply refuses to buy new clothes... so when they start getting tight, he quits eating. People tell him how lucky he is. Yeah... only it's not so much luck as discipline and willpower. His jeans are a 31 waist -- and he has to special-order them.

Carbs... protein... blah blah blah. Bottom line: Calories in. Calories out. Either eat less or exercise more. That's it. When I go on a "diet" I just quit eating fried chicken, donuts, corn chips, and cookies. The weight flies off. I went from 220 to 190 but it didn't happen overnight. I'm 6'1", by the way so I'm no oinker either. Just don't need to carry extra weight around. I weighed 155-160 too when I was 21. I also consumed 5500 calories a day. But I exercised. A lot. That's how it works.

#7 unclebryan on 2011-12-16 22:00 (Reply)

Funny you should mention that. I am 5'9" and weight 151. I am within 12 pounds of what I was in high school. I also just turned 56. It is simple, I make a choice not to over eat. Just as I had to work at not overeating, fat people, on the other hand, made no effort to do so. After 5 years they weigh 100 lbs more than I do and look disgusting.

#7.1 Don on 2011-12-16 22:28 (Reply)

Utter BS and a friggin lie. It's genetic and hormonal. The genes you are stuck with, but the hormones (and insulin response, etc) are controlled by diet. I personally can eat nothing but toast, drink OJ and run 6 miles for 3 times a week, and I will gain weight. Then again, I can stagger 5 meals a day of meats, fish, hard cheeses, almond butter, etc, take naps and not work out at all, and lose weight like sweat. PS, the reason you ate 5500 calories a day back then and didn't gain weight was an abundance of testosterone. Try that now, and see if you keep mocking those "fat" people.

#7.2 Bill McGill on 2011-12-17 06:25 (Reply)

Genes cannot create fatness. They may make you more prone to overeat, but you still eat all the calories sufficient to gain the weight. Genes can make you more prone to diabetes, but you still have to eat to gain the weight. It’s magical thinking like that that keeps so many otherwise rational people from making good choices for themselves.

#7.2.1 Dave on 2011-12-17 07:03 (Reply)

Bunk. Some people are genetically engineered to be thin. Others aren't. It's that hormonal and genetic imbalance that causes people to overeat, not the other way around. You miss my point - this isn't an excuse. It's taking that knowledge and creating a healthy* diet that works for you. *"Healthy" per the standard jargon is also bunk. By BMI, I'm "dangerously" obese at over 34. In reality, I have a 32" waist, bounce between 10-12% body fat and can easily squat over 400lbs. But I wasn't always this way. I used to eat a helluva lot less, work out a helluva lot more, and was still 45 pounds heavier. It's all about chemistry, not thermodynamics.

#7.2.1.1 Bill McGill on 2011-12-17 07:42 (Reply)

Everyone is a little bit correct. But, carbs do matter. If you don't eat carbs, you don't put on weight. But that doesn't mean you'll lose weight. Depending on your age and weight level, the calories-in vs calories-out method may or may not work. If you're overweight, eating fewer carbs will (in most cases) cause you to lose weight even without exercise. But as your weight decreases, at some point the weight loss will stop and you either need to eat less (maintain low carb intake) or exercise more to lose weight. This is the threshold where calories-in vs calories-out works. And where that happens depends on a lot of factors include your genetic makeup.

#7.2.1.1.1 Pat on 2011-12-17 09:08 (Reply)

When is the last time you were at an "all you can eat" place and watched the eating habbits of fat people? They pile it on and go back for seconds. The non overweight don't. Period. End of story.

#7.2.2 Don on 2011-12-17 10:58 (Reply)

In my area, I see fat everywhere. And lots of them are apparently well-off, if judged by their wheels. It seems a planetary problem - whatever the real root cause - it's a fitting companion to the short-term-non-thinking culture that has their [yet-to-be-born] great grandkids up to their eyeballs in debt to serve gluttony.

#8 egoist (Link) on 2011-12-16 22:07 (Reply)

Yes, people can control their weight at will. The science is settled. Unfortunately, people can't control the amount of bigotry and hatred they feel. Every time you think "fatty low life" Lester Maddox's ghost sits on your shoulder whispering the word "n*^&^%. " I understand. You were born that way. It must suck.

#9 Bob_R on 2011-12-16 22:32 (Reply)

Beautiful people can kiss my wobbly pale butt.

#10 Mitch (Link) on 2011-12-17 01:02 (Reply)

"Botox than they spend on stuffing their faces with carbs,"

Not a seasonal sentiment.

The Bloomingdale's shopper's assistant welcomed a portly couple as the thin women whose hair was slightly greying left with a receipt for her new yoga mat, which would be delivered the day before Christmas by one of the many illegal aliens Bloomingdale's preferred to hire. The assistant offered them a cold "season's greeting," to which they returned "Merry Christmas," and after they had passed, but not far enough to be beyond earshot, the assistant sniffed, "Are there no Macy's, no Targets, no Wal-Marts?"

"The same personal traits that lead to better health will also tend to make people wealthier."

Praise the personal traits of Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and the deserving wealthy of our society. How thin they are! The fittest survive and become fitter; the rewards of society go to those who have earned them; failures deserve their fate. 'Tis the season of social Darwinism: hostility and contempt instead of common charity. How advanced we are over the decadent civilizations of the past who worshipped sincerely at Christmas.

#11 ErisGuy on 2011-12-17 05:36 (Reply)

What a load of rubbish. I am normal sized. The rest of you are shockingly stunted and underfed. Runts.

Merry Christmas!

#12 Ed Zeppelin (Link) on 2011-12-17 08:14 (Reply)

Since I've been burned before, I'm going to go ahead and believe that this post was a spoof, satire or just a good old fashioned goof.

Because, of course, if it isn't, the News Junkie is a complete, snobbish ass. And in addition, needs his smug backside heartily kicked.

What a douchy line this is:

"All of my own minimal Christmas shopping is online, at my wine shop, or at my cigar shop"

#13 mare on 2011-12-17 09:32 (Reply)

All of the above, I think.

#13.1 Bird Dog on 2011-12-17 10:24 (Reply)

Oh, and my younger children just hate it when I give them wine and cigars for Christmas.

#14 mare on 2011-12-17 09:34 (Reply)

Prejudiced, snobbish and ignorant post. I hope it is a parody. I'm a former marathon runner, so I'm not writing as one of the people you are being so snarky about, but I'm wondering if your parents taught you that it is bad manners to sneer at other people's appearance and/or medical conditions. We were taught not to make "personal remarks". Do you also sneer at "wack jobs" and "retards" and "cripples" in posts about the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, and injured veterans?!

As to the wine bar and cigar shop gifts, this is a free country and you can enjoy your vices and give people whatever you please. But alcohol and tobacco contribute to many expensive medical condtions that other people (on your insurance plan, or your fellow taxpayers when you are an old person) will have to pay to treat.

So get off your high horse.

Plenty of people eat too much, just as plenty of people drink and smoke and screw around too much. And do insider trading. And commit tax fraud. I think you've just picked an easy target. Rather a bullying thing to do. Unworthy of you.

#15 retriever on 2011-12-17 10:37 (Reply)

Please, to the OP and all others who agree with the OP - what does it matter to you what geometric shape a person's body is in? How does that truly impact your life in any material way? Does even the sight of someone who is not straight up and down revile you in some way? Or, is it the very convenient "fat people make my health insurance cost more" which, of course, renders the most vile and self righteous criticisms of others perfectly acceptable.

Get off your high horses people. We all have faults. For instance, I'll bet that quite a few of the oh so skinny and fit people are, on the other hand, quite ugly. Which offends me. Fat people, however, can always get thin (and many do at different times in their lives) but ugly is forever.

Now, all of you very self-righteous folks, make hay with that.

#16 Whatdoesitmattertoyou on 2011-12-17 10:41 (Reply)

I think I qualify as a skinny person as a 5'8 135lb male*. The reason I spend almost no time shopping at the mall is, aside from Banana Republic, there's no stores that consistently carry clothes I can actually wear. I used to try to "shop" as in wander the mall looking at all the different stores to find the best combination of style and price. But after digging through pile after pile and rack after rack of clothes and finding nothing within an inch or two of my waist, I simply stopped wasting my time. I either go to Banana Republic or skip the mall completely and go to Old Navy who also carries stuff in skinny guy sizes.

*I come from a family of larger proportioned people and I have the same genes they do. But I ride my bike to work almost every day.

#17 Anonymous Coward on 2011-12-17 11:34 (Reply)

Body weights a good number all things being equal.

But I personally feel a lot better if I lift weights even tho my body weight has gone up after my big crash diet - the stimulation of pressing heavy iron just makes me feel good i think.

Also, that Warren Buffet guy looks like he is no stranger to the buffet line to me.

#18 x (Link) on 2011-12-17 12:10 (Reply)

I cannot believe the amount of keyboard thumping over why “rich” people are “good looking”. We are talking about a huge class of people here depending on how you define the above qualities. The “rich” and/or “successful” people as a class are a very diverse group. However, the range of their diversity tends to be biased towards “healthy”, “skinny” and whatever contemporary society considers attractive at any time. There is no mystery here. This is an outcome of what money, will power, intelligence, social capital or a combination there of can do for people.

#19 Nirmal on 2011-12-17 15:58 (Reply)

I have nothing of substance, to add. Interesting comments.

#20 XRay on 2011-12-17 20:11 (Reply)

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Friday, December 16. 2011

A little Christmas season query