About the universal, non-subjective, standards of beauty....

In China for centuries it was beautiful for a full grown woman to have feet the size of a 5 year old and be unable to walk.

Venus of Willendorf doesn't look a thing like Twiggy.

Twiggy doesn't look a thing like Cindy Crawford.

Japanese women avoid exercise because muscle definition on a woman (see Cindy Crawford) is considered ugly.

At her highest weight, Nigella Lawson was wearing a US size 14 and, in a popular survey, was voted the most beautiful woman in Great Britain.

If one goes to the Acropolis (that is in Athens for people who didn't learn anything in school) and sees the statues there, one quickly realizes that the Greek ideal of beauty was that of a very muscular athlete. That was true of both males *and* females.

In several African societies women are considered beautiful when they are older and wrinkled, not when they look like Eva Longoria.

In some societies, a butt the size and shape of a rumble seat is considered the sexiest thing going. Some men in the US find that to be a great turn-on.

Right here in the US, today, there are numerous men who find the women of Desperate Housewives to be downright ugly, and who prefer to date and marry women who are much larger. Obese even. My stepson, who graduated from college with a 4.0 and played safety on his football team, married such a woman a couple of years ago. Guess he didn't get the memo on what is attractive. He did, however, get the memo on how to deal with having dozens of women throwing themselves at you because you are freakin' hunk.

Somehow, a lot of men in their 40s, 50s and 60s haven't gotten that memo on beauty being universal. I don't look a thing like models or popular US actresses or women in advertisements but they sure do seem to express a lot of interest. Either my mirror and scales are broken or their eyes aren't working correctly.

In some societies, I am quite the babe..apparently

Of course. They don't look anywhere near obese to me, but then again, there is that everpresent element of subjectivity coming into play here.

In any event, I didn't mean to side track the thread or give offense if anyone was offended by my "no obese people in great art" remark.

So you would agree, I take it, that exercise is beneficial for fat loss?

Out of curiosity, what art do you have in mind that proves my supposed poor education?

In the context of Western art, I really don't see how you or anyone can argue depictions of obesity were common. Egyptian art, Mycennean art, Minoan art, early, middle and late Greek art, Roman art, early Christian art, and Renaissance art rarely if ever contained depictions of conspicuously overweight people, let alone obese people.

I'll grant you the Venus of Willendorf.

Do you think Michelangelo's David would have the same aesthetic impact if he were depicted as an obese man?

I've shown it in data on my blog....I have no arguement with the data, which does show if one engages in certain types of exercise (ie. resistance training), that a greater amount of fat and less LBM *may* be lost.....Taubes doesn't say there is less fat loss or similar fat loss....he says, at the end of the day, the weight loss - that is the number on the scale - isn't a statistically significant difference.

can't say for sure, but if 'David' were a real man, I just bet you his BMI would be overweight if not obese.

Sorry to horn in here, but...
I have a feeling JPTJR was talking less about the current, technical definition of obesity, and more about something like this -

Right....except we know that, by BMI at or above 30, this is also obese:


Frank Mir


Trace Adkins


George Clooney


Tony Parrish

-------gratuitous men pics!------

....and we're back to the beefcake pics! (Not that I'd complain, lol.)

I think the point is, though, that the man in the tape measure pic did not get that way from exercise, while those other gentlemen did. And, that the pics of "obese" men we're all drooling over (here and in this thread) do not look like the tape measure guy - which proves JPTJR's point. (And now I've lost my train of thought...honest to God. I need a little more blood to the brain right now. I did have a point, though. Maybe I'll remember it later.)

This is my favorite plus-sized beef-cake pic:

<Unavoidable thread drift...>
I LOVE that movie! Talk about your chick flicks! I got the dvd for Mother's Day a couple of years ago. Oy vay. Thank you for that pic. (And if I didn't have enough blood going to my head a minute ago, it's all gone now.)
</drift>

Ok, that's it!

I'm never gonna click on this thread again.

If Rubens' models aren't fat enough to be considered obese, there's always Fernando Botero. Botero might be a little recent, so here's something that might be a little more "classic".