MFP is women centric

dckim

You want to see a women centric website go to Spark People, most men would probably die of estrogen poisoning over there.

Funny, I was on Sparkpeople. Now I am here.:laugh:

SueGremlin

Sadly true. Our culture conditions us to believe the most important thing about women is how we look. There is little worse a woman can do than be overweight. You are persona non grata if you're fat. So women concern themselves more with weight loss. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of eating disorders are in girls and women.

I know it's not what you're saying, but this has always annoyed me. Do women have it harder than men when it comes to expectations of their body? Yes. Does that mean that men have it easy? No.

The fact that there are more women with eating disorders has resulted in many men being going undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. I don't have all the reasearch I've seen on the subject readily accessible from work, but a quick google search yielded: http://www.namedinc.org/statistics.asp.

Again I doubt that's what you were saying, it's just something that gets to me. Competing in sports with weight classes I've known a lot of guys that have done horrible things to their bodies that caused lasting damage.

Definitely not what I am saying. Everyone has their cross to bear.

Katefab26

Sadly true. Our culture conditions us to believe the most important thing about women is how we look. There is little worse a woman can do than be overweight. You are persona non grata if you're fat. So women concern themselves more with weight loss. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of eating disorders are in girls and women.

I know it's not what you're saying, but this has always annoyed me. Do women have it harder than men when it comes to expectations of their body? Yes. Does that mean that men have it easy? No.

The fact that there are more women with eating disorders has resulted in many men being going undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. I don't have all the reasearch I've seen on the subject readily accessible from work, but a quick google search yielded: http://www.namedinc.org/statistics.asp.

Again I doubt that's what you were saying, it's just something that gets to me. Competing in sports with weight classes I've known a lot of guys that have done horrible things to their bodies that caused lasting damage.

I definitely get what you're saying, but guys don't generally hear from their fathers that they're never going to find someone to love them because they're overweight. I heard that, and I have a lot of girl friends that heard that too. Plus we're told from the day we're born that men are wired to the physical and women not so much. Obviously these are stereotypes and far too generalized to be completely accurate, but the simple truth is that women are told that they have to look good or they're worthless.

Look at it this way: Jessica Simpson was harshly criticized for her weight. I remember reading an article about Vince Vaughn (granted it was a few years ago) almost praising him for being comfortable enough with himself to have a few extra pounds. Double standard or what?

I know guys get tired of hearing this from women, but it's what's up. Fortunately I have enough confidence in myself to still think I'm beautiful, and I'm working on my personal fitness for health reasons, but sometimes it gets old...