I don’t know why this is all over the news, because I swear I just read about this not too long ago: A recent study shows that one in four overweight women believe they have an average figure.
Let’s see if I can do the math . . . With eight out of 10 black women considered overweight or obese, two of those eight believe they look just fine. Well, now. I guess that explains some of the outrageous, too-tight/revealing/short clothes I’ve seen recently on several morbidly obese teens and women. I wrote about it recently, and most of you agreed that it’s shocking what these ladies choose to wear in public.
This study points the finger at peers. With friends like that, who needs enemies, right?
The study was conducted by the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Researchers found that almost 25 percent of overweight women of child-bearing age don’t believe they’re overweight, or at least not to a degree that endangers their health. I can understand that. However, this finding is a little harder to swallow: 70 percent of those who actually obese believe they’re just overweight, and 40 percent of those who classify as morbidly obese consider themselves overweight, but not obese.
The sad and scary part is, if these women don’t think they have a problem, they’re not inclined to do anything about it. Of course, all the women who think they do have a problem when they actually don’t will suffer as well.
The lead researcher of the study says he wasn’t surprised by the results, because as we as a nation get fatter and fatter, it somehow becomes more socially acceptable to be overweight, and that impacts how we view the truth.
Hmmm. I’m not buying it. These researchers believe that a certain percentage of overweight/obese women have completely dissociated from reality. Geez. We’re fat, not stupid.
I think the real problem is that when asked about our weight, we tend to just flat out lie, and those lies are showing up as study results that a bunch of university folk interpret as if we answered those questions truthfully.
As for the too-tight, too-tacky clothing . . . Well, I think that’s even more evidence of the lies we tell ourselves.
Not creating delusions is enlightenment. ~ Bodhidharma
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Leslie J. Ansley is an award-winning journalist and entrepreneur who blogs daily for TheRoot. She lives in Raleigh, NC.