Funny though that they decided to do it by BMI. What about female body builders?

They're lumpy and their boobs have shrunk.

...Did I just say that out loud?

Why?

BMI is bs. When I was in the service they tried to use that. I had a 50 chest and a 32 waist but according to them I was 6 pounds over wieght and put me on the warning list.

It says that Arnold Schwarzenegger is fat.

Judging a person's fitness by just height and weight is inaccurate.

The Israelis aren't also getting rid of fake boobs, are they? That would be a sign of the apocolypse or something.

Breaking News (TYDY): Condie Rice says that UN Security Council will not step in to intervene in this war until Isreal has a chance to drive as many skinny models out of the fashion industry.

On an unrelated note, average starting wage for new pron starlets drops to lowest levels in 20 years.

Because Crowley's made it clear that he doesn't like healthy women.

Look man, in the past, there have been skinny models in Israel. Also, rockets and bombs exploding all the time. Correlation? Try causality!

Hmm. looks like a job for....

http://www.icebox.com/index.php?id=show&showid=s18

I've often wondered where the fat = healthy mythology originates. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that being fat will negatively affect your quality of life, contribute to avoidable illness, reduce your self esteem, and kill you.

So I date size zero athletes and don't date girls with extra poundage. So what of it?

It comes from the pre-Industrial Revolution days, where fat = better access to nutrients = better nourished = healthier. Poor people were skinny, because they didn't have the money for better food. And that idea has been around far, far longer than fat = gross.

I think it's funny how symptoms of poverty--skinny bodies, tanned skin--have become chic as access to health care and better food becomes more universal. In fact, I've heard it argued that skinny = healthy these days because skinny = access to better food = less access to junk food = better nourished = healthier. Same logic pattern. Just different end results.

I never realized that Lebanon was the world's source of skinny models.

I've received pm from folks I care about and feel I need to clarify something here. I am NOT advocating prejudice against, ill treatment of, or ridiculing of overweight people. I do believe that folks are far more complex than the very superficial element of their appearance. Overweight folks are not lazy, irresponsible, bad parents, sociopaths, limp-wristed liberals, gun-toting crazies, or any other stereotype that might or might not be ascribed to them. They are simply people (which is complex enough as it is).

What I AM saying is that I think a concerted effort to oppose a market mechanism based on the allegation that anorexic models are harmful (without hard science to back it) seems to me a bit silly. The vast majority of positive male characters on TV are white. That doesn't make me want to bleach my hair blonde and get eyelid surgery.

As a clinician who deals with anorexia on a regular basis, I can tell you that BMI is a very good screening test. Of course there are healthy people with abnormal BMI's, especially well conditioned athletes. But for the purpose of screening models, I think it is an excellent step in the right direction. Other tests are important in the clinical management of anorexics (echo cardiograms, serum electrolytes, etc.) but none are as easy to collect as a BMI.

-Jayavarman.

I agree that the backlash can be as harmful as the original idea causing the harm.

I never thought I had a "type", I don't favor redheads over blondes, blondes over brunettes, girlie-girls, tom-boys, etc. But recent conversations with other friends have brought to my attention there does seem to be a pattern of my liking "skinny" chicks. The past couple girls I've been interested in have indeed been thin. Not anorexic skinny, but definitely thinner than "average". But also I don't see why this is such a problem for so many people. I'm a skinny guy. Again, not anorexic, but thin. Why is it unreasonable I'd be attracted to girls of a similar body type? It's one of the first things I remember covering in psych 101 that often (not everyone, I don't feel like sorting through everyone sounding off on how in their case they're hefty and their significant other not, toned and their other "comfy", just perhaps a majority) that people tend to be attracted to those physically similar to themselves. But when it comes up, it comes up on the side of my being shallow, which I think is silly.

I think I've gone on a bit of a tangent, but more in line with the ridiculousness of the backlash, before I quit my video store job recently a movie came out called "Phat Girlz". Monique is in it, she's the "big but beautiful" woman who is ostracized by everyone around her for being fat, but in the end she proves that big girls are pretty too and she nets, get this, a "mandigo with a king size--!", how the movie puts it, a tall, muscled, super-handsome African man. Which is just as ridiculous as the prejudices they're fighting against. The moral of the story is you can be fat and still get the model-looking fellow is just as silly as saying you have to be thin to get him, and it preaches internal beauty while pursuing external beauty. I find it absurd that the most realistic and fair portrayal of how subjects like this should be treated is the animated feature "Shrek".