REsponse to Big Fat Blog site

Here’s the initial quote from Big Fat Blog (see below for hyperlink to html of the original message).

. . . but I was especially struck by this [quote] from Our Bodies, Ourselves:Many of us are convinced that making women afraid to be fat is a form of social control. Fear of fat keeps women preoccupied, robs us of our pride and energy, keeps us from taking up space.There's a certain amount of energy that each of us has to spend in making sure we are healthy, making the best choices, and feeling good about ourselves. But this quote still gave me a chill.

Not sure what this means. Somehow there’s a grand conspiracy (presumably among evil men?) to keep women down by making them worry about weight? Not sure I even understand this quote from the outset to be honest with you.

Then it goes on to say:

Because not a single one of my male friends obsesses about weight or has ever obsessed about weight to the extent that women do.

Well, I’m quite confused by a few things. Perhaps you don’t have enough male friends? Do you have male friends that suffer from being overweight or obese, or dare I say morbidly obese? Perhaps that’s part of the problem.

Maybe men do feel the same preoccupation, except without the societal permission to talk about it. Or maybe we, women, are allowing ourselves to be controlled by this fear, as the quote above suggests.

Now you’re asking the right questions.

Men obsess about weight. We just don’t do it publicly, like women do. That doesn’t mean that the pity-party for being overweight has been cornered by women.

Here’s what’s interesting to me: In this country of women over 20 years old 25% of them are obese; of men over 20 years of age there are ~19% that are obese. (see, http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/o/obesity/prevalence.htm). And yet, the blogspace is ABSOLUTELY DOMINATED by females.

The truth is, I don’t have a great explanation as to why that is, but I can tell youas an avid (and predictably anonymous male weight loss blogger) it is very difficult for me to find quality MALE weight loss blog sites. In a few weeks of searching I’ve only been able to find ~5 that are maintained and look at least half-way decent.

I have my suspicions though: Men have self-worth issues (Lord knows I do at times) – but when we have them, those feelings are ones that we (much more so than women I’d guess) feel the need to bury them and never release it to the public.

Just to give you an example of the daily obsession I have over weight:
I weigh myself daily;
I track my body fat daily;
I constantly think about whether I’ll be able to buy new clothes if I continue to lose weight;
I worry that I’m not tracking what I eat well enough;
I track my calories via a wipe board;
I consistently exercise in an effort (partly/ mostly?) to control my weight.
I worry about how I look and how it effects my ability to attract and retain members of the opposite sex; (and yes, it has come up as an issue in every relationship I’ve ever been in. . . so don’t think that criticism is reserved solely for the overweight / obese female: It’s not.).

It’s not that men are better than women or vice versa – but they sure are different. And to say men don’t “obsess[] about weight to the extent women do” is really either a gross-over-simplification or downright not true. It’s surely not true for me.