A recent article in Huffington Post cited from a survey of 70,000 people, nearly 50% of the males said they would leave a partner if she gained weight while only 20% of the females said they would do the same. No ages were listed, nor were there any definitive variables like length of relationship, economic status, ethnicity, value systems, geographic regions. Additionally, whether this was a phone survey, a pencil and paper test, a random sample or skewed for cities, nothing was given. Just a fatuous bold-faced statistic. But then again, look at the source: Cosmopolitan.com and AskMen. I mean are these people kidding? Not only are their vapid values, single digit IQs and vulture voraciousness for readership showing, there is wanton callousness and abject cruelty: the summation by the editor of AskMen "some romantic behaviors have proven to be timeless ones"...including the inevitability that "size matters." That's not all that matters...rationality matters, too, and the ability to see clearly when the readership is being taken for a Hooey ride.
That such "research" is nastily flawed appears to be as timeless as "size mattering." Both of course are not timeless. Such body and appearance "research" emerged with newspapers and magazines around the turn of the century and burgeoned with the onset of Hollywood's dream factories as advertising cemented mass cultural folkways, brainwashing women about appearance lifestyles (clothing, hair, etc.) in earnest. Three hundred years ago, a rotund woman was "IN," the antithesis of today's folkways according to Cosmo and AskMen, the primateur of what "IS." Well, according to what IS visible, that is not necessarily the case. But until credible researchers jump into the fray, then Cosmo and AskMen hold sway. And that is truly pathetic.
Why? Certainly, there are readers who believe such nonsense which has sustainably permeated our cultural mores. Often, those so "brainwashed" are younger, less educated, more susceptible to media influences, more vulnerable to relationships influences, less soul formed and partially at sea about their identity. Males and females. Thus, males need eye candy and arm confections to upgrade their marketability and status in their own perceptions. Women pressured by the inherent messages from males and females become predatory and vengeful toward their competitors who are ranging for mates. The cycle is warfare and it never ends, worsening after marriage when the economic stakes are higher and an "overweight" female becomes a liability in her own eyes, subject to losing her life partner to a younger, more beautiful and much more slender chicky. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.
And what of the children who are mentored by such folkways that dung sprinkle their parents' moldy relationships: second and third marriages? Some learn fortitude; the children are fathers and mothers to their parents, wiser and more circumspect about marriage partners. Other children repeat the same painful cycle, learning little, gaining psychic pain along with the gene of skewed relationships.
If fat and appearance truly matter in a relationship, then it is surely doomed for couples grow older and plastic surgery heaven is only as good as the next pension check, trust fund allotment or alimony payment from the first husband. Eventually ENTROPY makes its final call. And by then will the couples have gained enough wisdom to make it past the sagging skin, slowed brain power and creaky and achy bones?
We must keep young, if not in body, in spirit and fat can age a body, or so they say. It is also used to preserve meats and keep bodies warm. There is a lot scientists do not understand about fat's benefits. Pushed by the diet, health and medical industries, fat is the bane of American existence. Now Cosmo and AskMen in keeping with their usual scenario of making the populace fearful, dependent and brainwashed would have it be the bane of 50% of relationships between men and women. But please, please, please, think clearly. Relationships are mostly intangible, quantum mechanics not withstanding. The Bible in the Proverbs (the book of Solomon's wisdom) posits this: "Who can understand the mystery of what happens between a man and a maid?" Truly, I do think it is even beyond Cosmo and AskMen!
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