I'm not very clear on what point you're making here. You've decided that fat men are with even fatter women so therefor the women are choosing men who are smaller, relative to their own size and are more hung up on looks? That's a nice story to tell, I guess, but it hardly strikes me as something that has any basis in reality. It could be that maybe, just maybe they like or even love each other regardless of how they look.

Your hypothesis assumes attraction is purely physical. Even on the onset of a relationship, that's not the case. This sounds like it will be a good debate for shallow people who can't see past the physical and can't imagine others could either.

I'll be watching this thread closely.

I think you make some good points here, but we should be careful about confusing "skinny" with "attractive." Some wonderfully pretty women are carrying a few extra pounds, and on the male side of things, let's just say ... K-Fed.

That being said ... NOFATCHIX.

Oh, and were they Christians or Muslim?

I'm happy everyone's getting a hearty laugh out of this, but I'm seriously curious about the nature of this phenomenon. Perhaps, as Certis seems to assert, this has nothing or little to do with weight as physical attraction, but my observation of a statistically significant phenomenon makes me wonder. Perhaps other conclusions can be drawn, but it does seem to me to at least challenge the idea that either: 1) fat is unattractive or 2) men are more shallow than women.

And just to be sure: Please refrain from the fat bashing on this thread. I'm seriously interested in a civil discussion on this.

As I do every Saturday, I had a bagel and coffee with my running club after a run and we discussed this. After a straw poll of the runners, it became clear that the women in the group were FAR less likely to be involved with less physically active men than the men were to be involved with less physically active women (by a ratio of 5 to 1).

Well, unfortunately your observations lack information... here's a question I thought of while looking at this:

How long have the couple been together? When Crystal and I got together (about 9 years ago) I was 20lbs underweight, and she was about the same. Now, I'm about 40 lbs overweight, and she's maybe 5lbs overweight. Thankfully I'm tall for my build, so I really don't look as obese as I am.

To say that Crystal was only after my money would be quite laughable, since I was unemployed for 10 out of 12 months last year. Though if you want to believe I'm an all-star in bed, I won't argue

I believe I read somewhere that it's proven that after we choose a mate, we stop paying as much attention to how we look, so your observations are only on the "now", and not on the courting, which is what I believe you're after. You should also remember that being skinny wasn't attractive until fairly recently in human history. An overweight person was wealthy, and their girth showed that they could be gluttonous, therefore would be a good provider.

PE,

I think you're missing the point I'm making. I'm certainly not saying that your relationship is one that indicates dysfunction. Rather, I'm saying that the phenom of a disproportionately overweight couple is far more common (at least in my observation) with females carrying at least a higher overweight percentage than their male partners. So much so that it elicits the aforementioned unkind comments.

I invite challenge to these observations though. Is this contrary to your own observation? Do you more often see slimmer women with fatter men? I suspect this will not be adequately resolved until a more scientific study is done. Even then, it is anyone's guess what conclusions can be drawn.

Though I accept that, I wonder why then this is the case. Are women less likely to remain active than men in the context of a committed relationship? Are men less likely to gain weight than women?

I haven't seen the evidence, but I'll go with you on the slowing metabolism being gender-wise differential. I understand the child carrying thing, but am noticing that this phenom is also increasingly pronounced in high school age kids as well.

I just wrote to my gf who is strugging for a doctoral research topic in public health. If this is appropriate, we may have our answer in a couple years.

Conjecture:

1)People worry less about the size of their mate once they've dropped out of their sexual peak. So for men lookism would run out after the early twenties but for women it'd just be firing up, leading to a dispraportionate matchmaking ratio of fat.

2)There are more overweight women than men.

3)The severity of obesity is larger in women than in men.

The more I think about the first one the more it looks like crap to me, but not so much so that good writing and fudged statistics wouldn't get you a nice piece in a journal.

The last two conjectures seem more likely or otherwise (if your observations are an indicator of a statistical anomaly) there a lot of lonely, overweight men sitting at home next door to lonely, average/underweight women and they're just not hooking up. Or maybe they are hooking up but the fat men/less fat women couples don't go out so much.

Or maybe skinny women are more likely to be backstabbing, two-timing sluts -- too busy sleeping around to spend time holding hands at the mall with their loving soulmates. Are you reading this, Brenda? Why'd you have to go and do that? Why'd you have to ruin all that was good? I hope you get the clap with all the other hussies.

I wonder if they are not MORE picky considering my observation.

Hmm. According to the statistics though http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/obesity_youth.shtml it appears that obesity is slightly more likely to strike boys than girls and about even in men and women. This would seem to refute conjectures 2 and 3.

I wonder if the phenom has to do with men courting and women choosing. It is, for instance, a lot easier for a woman of any condition to get male attention than a correspondingly attractive man to get female attention.

I have a hard time believing that the whole issue can be boiled down to fat vs. thin. The truth is, there are so many more factors at work here like, for instance, what is the maturity level of the person making the judgement?

Seriously, the older I get, the more I realize that heart, character, loyalty, faith, etc are *much* better measures of compatibility than physical appearance.

-Fan

And though that is all well and good, I think even you would have to admit that appearance is a significant factor in your courtship decisions. I am certainly not saying that it is the only selection criterion, but it is a significant one. Significant enough that exceptions to expectations are noted.

Yup. Women have less risk invested in the courtship process. Once again, men court and women choose.

Those statistics, and none that I can find, say anything about the severity of obesity at all. So my third conjecture remains triumphant.

But I like the courting-choosing idea better. When an insecure man shoots for the less attractive woman that should give him a boost in confidence, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've known dudes who liked big women. But for some people, weight is going to be if not the sole measure, one of the primary measures.