According to a new study, overweight women aren’t nearly self-critical enough when it comes to relative perception of their size.

The study polled around 2,000 women- only women- to discern if there was a disconnect between perceived size and actual size. And despite funding multi-million dollar industries dedicated to weight loss aids, weight loss clubs and weight loss accessories, like shoes, the study authors were of the opinion that overweight women are just not hard enough on themselves about the fact that they may be fatties.

According to the study’s data, white women tended to be appropriately horrified by their fatty-fatness, and even tended to perceive themselves as larger than they are. Conversely, black and Hispanic women were not as in tune with their weight:

Race seemed to play a role in self-perceived weight. Among overweight women, 28 percent of blacks and about 25 percent of Hispanics considered their weight within the normal range, compared to 15 percent of overweight white women. The trend was the opposite among normal-weight women, with more whites (16 percent) believing they were fat, compared to just 7 percent of blacks.

Women who were more in tune with the fact they were overweight also tended to have higher levels of education and spent more time using the internet. A woman whose bread and low-fat butter commented on the study’s results, saying women need to think more about how much they weight if they hope to not gross out other people:

“Unfortunately, women can’t do anything to lose weight if they don’t perceive themselves as overweight. It does start there,” said Keri Gans, a registered dietician based in New York City and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “If they don’t perceive themselves as overweight, they’re not going to adopt healthy behaviors to lose weight and prevent disease.”

Comments on earlier news studies regarding the study pointed out that the exclusion of men was an interesting feature, but LiveScience.com dug up an earlier study that showed overweight men were about twice as likely to perceive themselves as thinner than they are.

Study: 1 in 4 overweight women ‘in denial’ about size is a post from: The Inquisitr

Picking a clever women’s magazine is kind of like selecting the classiest member of the cast of Jersey Shore.

Still, Marie Claire kind of hovered a bit above rags like Cosmo with some pieces on women’s issues around the world and a less trashy style focus. Like many former glossy readers (I consumed most of them voraciously in my college days at FIT) I can’t recall the last time I’ve flipped through the pages of one, but I seem to recall Marie Claire being slightly less focused on blowjobs, stilettos and lipgloss. In a time when magazines are desperately clinging to readers and trying to convert the techie ones to blog subscribers, the magazine with the motto “More Than a Pretty Face” has managed to fritter away a lot of that lingering esteem with one single, poorly written blog post by writer Maura Kelly.

Kelly, an admitted recovering anorexic, posted at length about her disgust at a new show that dares to depict fat people making out. She describes her horror at a new CBS sitcom about fatties, called Mike & Molly, in terms that have sparked widespread outrage in the blogosphere:

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

(Is a “heroine addict” someone who is dependent on romance novels?) Kelly goes on to insist she’s not a “size-ist jerk” despite the prior two paragraphs proving the opposite without a shadow of a doubt, even dusting off the “I have fat friends” argument. Then she lays down the icing on the fat-hating cake- the condescending advice to fat folks that may be tempted to walk across a room in her line of sight, people who clearly don’t know Kelly’s secret formula to being not repulsive:

(I’m happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it’s cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you’re getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more. I admit that there’s plenty that makes slimming down tough, but YOU CAN DO IT! Trust me. It will take some time, but you’ll also feel so good, physically and emotionally. A nutritionist or personal trainer will help — and if you can’t afford one, visit your local YMCA for some advice.)

Kelly tacked on a majorly half-assed apology to offended fatties, but judging by the comments, it has done nothing to improve goodwill toward the magazine in the wake of the post’s publication. (Marie Claire is also currently a trending topic on Twitter.) Does Marie Claire need to re-evaluate its online editorial policies? Do you find this piece horribly offensive, or just sadly truthful? And is it just me, or is Kelly way too horsey-faced to complain about having to look at fat people in public?

‘Marie Claire’ loses ‘thinking women’s’ distinction with anti-fatty blog post is a post from: The Inquisitr

Don’t put down the beer and Baconator, guys, if you want to be better at shagging.

The results of a year-long study at a Turkish university are in, and it appears that stockier men far outperform their more svelte counterparts when engaged in the subtle art of boning. The study contrasted 100 men who were suffering issues related to their sexual performance with 100 men who regularly stuck it to their ladies all night long. While skinny men are lucky to keep going for a scant 108 seconds, men with higher BMIs actually lasted an average of 7.3 minutes.

The reason, alas, is far less sexy-sounding than all night makeouts and banging- girly hormones apparently explain phenomenon:

Men with excess fat showed higher levels of the female estradiol sex hormone. This substance apparently disrupted their bodies’ natural “male” neurotransmitter chemicals and slowed their progression towards orgasm. Ironically, the less masculine their bodies appeared, the better lovers they proved to be.

So, boys, have you anecdotally noticed a connection between weight fluctuations and sexual stamina?

Study: chubby dudes more awesome in bed is a post from: The Inquisitr

Whole Foods is supposedly a great company to be employed with.

Unless you’re a big fat fatty, in which case Whole Foods would like to remind you that you’re less valuable to them than your thin co-workers. While Whole Foods offers a 30% discount to workers who are skinny- with a BMI below a certain number- if you’ve got junk in the trunk, the rate of your discount plummets 10% to a paltry 20%.

Who are the marketing whizzes behind this divisive and cruel policy? Why it’s none other than CEO John Mackey, who, when not fighting health care reform, is busy astroturfing it up on internet forums. Mackey helpfully gets down and douchey to his staff, in a letter:

Mr Mackey said the company hoped the programme would be “empowering and fun for team members who enjoy a challenge”, and that the company was not taking anything away from workers who chose not to participate.

“These new higher discounts are incentives to encourage our team members to be healthier and to lower our healthcare costs,” he said. “We believe this is a win-win programme that will help both our team members and our shareholders.”

Being as limited food budgets are known to increase obesity rates, this strategy is retarded. However, as no one working in retail can afford to shop at Whole Foods, I think the discount thing isn’t going to affect Whole Foods employees one way or the other, so it kind of cancels out except for being totally judgmental and insulting. It is unclear whether staff will be further incentivized by having co-workers chant “boom, boom, boom” under their breath as fat employees walk by or having POS terminals pop up helpful messages like, “do you really need a whole pound of organic cocoa nubs? Well, if you think so…” during staff purchases.

Whole Foods blatantly discriminates against staff “of size” is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you grew up a fat kid, you know that this is a commonly speculated upon situation in fatty taunts.

As you sat there stewing in your angry fat kid juices, you probably pondered the likelihood of such an event occurring. But it happened. A very fat woman actually sat on her baby’s daddy. And killed him. By sitting on him.

Mia Landingham, a 300 lb woman from Ohio, sat on Mikal Middleton-Bey, 120 lbs, during a domestic dispute. Wednesday, Landingham (huh, huh. Landing. Ham.) pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the deadly domestic dispute. Landingham and Middleton-Bey had three children together, and her lawyer told the judge that the couple had a history of domestic abuse.

Landingham expressed remorse before a judge for the sitting death of her boyfriend:

“I just want to say that I am sincerely sorry about this situation,” she said. “I wish I could take it back.”

Shockingly, the portly perp was let free with probation. Middleton-Bey’s family was not pleased with the judge’s decision:

The judge sentenced Landingham to three years probation and 100 hours of community service — much to the dislike of the victim’s family.

“So basically you can say that I can go sit on somebody and get probation?” one of the victim’s sisters told Fox8.com. “I feel there wasn’t no justice.”

Landingham says she’s sorry for “squishing” the father of her children.

Big fat lady kills boyfriend by sitting on him is a post from: The Inquisitr

Like chubby people don’t have enough teasing to contend with…

A group of dieters got a nasty shock at their weekly Weight Watchers meeting when the floor beneath them buckled and collapsed during a weigh-in. I shall not make any “extra padding” jokes in mentioning that none of the dieters were injured in the collapse. An attendee at the meeting (at a Weight Watchers clinic in Växjö in south central Sweden) described the incident to a local news outlet:

“We suddenly heard a huge thud; we almost thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along the walls,” one of the participants told the Smålandsposten newspaper.

Then floor then started to give way in other parts of the room. Shortly thereafter, the smell of sewage began to waft up into the room.

The determined dieters didn’t let the collapse slow them down, however. When the debris stopped falling, they actually moved the scales to a corridor and commenced their weigh-in. The cause of the incident is still under investigation.

[Image: FailBlog]

Floor of Weight Watchers clinic collapses during weigh-in is a post from: The Inquisitr

Red beans and rice didn’t miss you? That might not be such a bad thing.

A Canadian study recently indicated that people who carry “a few extra pounds” live longer than both their average and obese counterparts. According to the study, underweight and very obese people tend to die earlier than average people. But slightly overweight people had a clear advantage. Yay, science! This totally makes up for skinny jeans and Karl Lagerfeld.

Buzzkills reseachers added that the study accounted merely for longevity, not for quality life. In my entirely unscientific opinion, any lifestyle that includes less restricted access to crème brûlée, butter and brie is of a markedly higher quality.

Some statistics:

During the study period, from 1994/1995 through 2006/2007, underweight people were 70 percent more likely than people of normal weight to die, and extremely obese people were 36 percent more likely to die.

But overweight individuals were 17 percent less likely to die. The relative risk for obese people was nearly the same as for people of normal weight.

Study results echoed a previous study in the US.

An earlier study, conducted in the United States and published in 2005 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed similar results.

[Source: Reuters]

Who knew? Junk in the trunk linked to longevity is a post from: The Inquisitr