Life In The Fat Lane
I feel like the internet has been extra-quiet today! So maybe I'll try one of these open thread things. I don't exactly understand them, but you're a smart bunch. You probably do. So share a link, an anecdote, a pet peeve, a happy thought. Let us know what's going on out there.
I'll start: I was shopping at Sephora this weekend and buying Bliss products (I love their face wash and pore-refining scrub so much) and noticed that they had an anti-cellulite cream called Fat Girl Slim. I probably should have boycotted Bliss on general principle, because that's such a horrifying product name, but I didn't. You may use this open thread to shame me.
Please note that "Fat Girl Slim" is caffeine you rub all over yourself, and is the "skin-slimming stuff of choice of supermodels, spokespeople, and other celebs." I guess that's the upside to spilling your morning latte in your lap: it'll save you twenty-five bucks.
I'll start: I was shopping at Sephora this weekend and buying Bliss products (I love their face wash and pore-refining scrub so much) and noticed that they had an anti-cellulite cream called Fat Girl Slim. I probably should have boycotted Bliss on general principle, because that's such a horrifying product name, but I didn't. You may use this open thread to shame me.
Please note that "Fat Girl Slim" is caffeine you rub all over yourself, and is the "skin-slimming stuff of choice of supermodels, spokespeople, and other celebs." I guess that's the upside to spilling your morning latte in your lap: it'll save you twenty-five bucks.
posted by mo pie at 1:04 PM
13 Comments:
"skin-slimming"?
Great, now my skin can be fat, not just my bum? I know it's a pun on Fatboy Slim, but still, it's an awful product name.
Um. Random open-thread comment: I just bought underpants without an "L" in the size marker! (they're medium) this feels as though it should have been accompanied by fanfares and stuff, but it wasn't. Not like the time I teared up in a Banana Republic dressing room because I finally fit "mall" sizes again (sometimes).
Of course if the stores routinely stocked size 18 or 20 I would never have felt it was such a landmark to fit into the size 16s.
Anybody else have a random milestone this week?
Oh! I forgot, I saw a news piece on how baby car seats need to be made bigger, because of all the "obese" babies.
I know there's a bunch of overweight small children around, but I also think carseats probably haven't been re-scaled for decades, and kids are BIG now, not just fat. Every 2 year old I've met recently looks more like 5 to me. This whole "fat baby" news freakout makes me worry that people are going to put their teeny children on low fat diets and screw up their mental development for life. Infants and small children need the happy fats and omega-3s for proper brain development.
Mo, this is what you get for making an open thread when I'm stuck late at work waiting for a timer to go off.
No, I'm happy you're here! I sadly did not even get the "Fatboy Slim" pun, and I enjoy hearing about "obese babies" because COME ON, PEOPLE. That's just crazy!
like rosemary grace, i too, just bought a package of underwear that had an M on it rather than an L, and bought a bunch of clothes that fit me and look good on me, and i realized that i am only about five pounds away from the promised land of size 10, and i write promised land of size 10, because everything i found that i liked that was out of my size 12 had a boatload of size 10 left.
and i read that obese baby thing, too, mo. we need a fat version of susan powter to scream "stop the madness!" at television cameras
I think it's mildly harmful to tell children what size they're "supposed" to be. Apart from anything else, pre-pubertal size doesn't always translate to adult size (this goes for build and height). I know plenty of people who were chubby as kids, but grew out of it - and the reverse. On the other side of the coin there's the self-fulfilling prophecy - those of us who thought we were fat as teenagers, even though we weren't. Yet.
As for me, I was a tall child (I had a predicted adult height of 5'10). But I was also an early developer, so my actual adult height is 5'5. Whereupon I've spent a long time with the insidious feeling that I ought to be taller than this, even though 5'5's not exactly short.
I'm rambling. But I think if I was the parent, I'd prefer to do my best to provide healthy food and opportunities to have a good time being active, rather than creating body anxiety where it might not have existed before.
Oh, Bliss, you cheeky monkey!
Have you also seen that new Loreal drugstore product "Sublime Slim Patches"
http://www.ulta.com/control/product/~product_id=2123891
Yeah. Slap a patch on your "trouble spots". Give me a huge break.
I don't see how these companies can push these topical products KNOWING that they DO NOT WORK. We can't rub something on us to make cellulite or loose skin go away -- even though I slather tummy butter on my shrinking tummy with the superstitious hope that since pregnant women use this it will help me to avoid that shar-pei look. I admit I'm a dork.
YAY for smaller panties! My problem is that while my panties are the same size, it's my bras that are loose, and not the cups, the back band. Luckily, I have a wardrobe of bras in all different sizes so I have a few I can go back down to.
RE: Fat kids/babies -- I know from those in my life with kids that they have to plop kids into car seats until they're 4 or something like that. I have seen some pretty chunky 4 year olds.
My theory is that kids don't play outside anymore. Parents are worried about molesters, child snatchers, killer bees, alien abduction, whatever threatening that's out there and beyond supervision. My Mom locked us out of the house when it was nice out saying, "Kids belong outside!" I attribute my youthful slenderness to the fact that I was very active as a kid. I didn't get fat until I found beer in college.
I saw an ad for "Honey we're killing the kids" on TLC last night:
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/honey/honey.html?dcitc=w99-530-ah-0017
And I've set my Tivo to record it. First showing is April 10. "Using state-of-the-art computer imaging and certified assessments based on measurements and statistics, Dr. Hark first gives Mom and Dad a frightening look at the possible future faces of their children – and a dramatic reality check."
The commercial was amusing, I hope the show is too.
I realize that I didn't give any weight (har har) to the genuine concern that children are being over-fed and under-nourished. It's pretty clear that it is a real problem, there's a whole generation of parents who think that "good food" means stuff that's yummy, not neccesarily nutritious, and there is the astonishing new rates of type II diabetes developing in children and adolescents, when it used to be something that hit most sufferers in their 40s or later.
But.
The storm in a teacup reportage about fat babies and obese toddlers is, in my opinion, likely to make matters worse. Useful information on real nutritional needs of children (along with double checking that there are carseats available scaled to fit the kids that need 'em) is what's needed, not guilt trips and panic attacks that could lead to people switching from over-feeding to under-feeding their kids.
My problem with the carseat article was the one sided panicky message, and lack of practical suggestions of how to address the problem.
My contribution to the open thread: Christopher Walken Enjoys Pie
This is unrelated but I just saw it and it kind of terrified me a little bit... Has anyone seen the picture of Julia Roberts on CNN? (Under "entertainment") Maybe it's just because it's her first time on broadway and that can be extremely physically demanding, but it looks like she has lost an inordinate amount of weight. How does ones chin even GET that pointy? I've always thought she was pretty- not unbelievably gorgeous, but pretty. In that picture she just looks scary.
I went and looked at the Julia Roberts picture, and thought the same thing you did about the scary pointy chin. When you look closer though, her shirt/scarf (hard to tell which) is covering up part of her chin, so she's really not as scary as she initially looks.
Jan, I am your opposite in the pants/knickers confusion. I still wear size 16 pants, but the most generously cut of my "L" knickers are too loose. Most of them are still fine though. This is extra strange because the majority of my weight is in the bum-thigh area.
Go figure.
Eeeeek @ fries and coke for a 1 year old. This is what I meant about people just plain having NO CLUE what is appropriate food for a baby.
The California health board has started airing commercials to get the message out to parents that kids shouldn't eat junk food, and to really think about how often "just this once" is happeneing. I would like to see the commercials go beyond "junk is a bad idea" and show the kids being handed fruit and baby carrot sticks, to enforce a positive message and give some ideas as to what can replace the junk.
Jan, my thought is that it may not so much be the fat in the food as it is the CRAP in the food that the body can't use. For more, read "Fast Food Nation".
I gave up Bliss when one of their operators tried to upsell me when I was on the massage table. Plus I found out that parabens are carcinogens. So now I use Aubrey Organics and Carol's Daughter, that are all natural and have lovely scents like rosa mosqueta and vanilla cinnamon, and all my friends say I look fabulous (although they could be fibbing -- that's what friends are supposed to say even if you haven't slept in months, right?).
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