Is Kate Moss's View on Thinness Controversial? Share Your Opinion!

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Kate Moss's quote, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels," sparked significant controversy, with many questioning the implications of promoting extreme thinness. Some participants argue that maintaining a low body fat percentage can be healthy and desirable, while others emphasize the importance of accepting diverse body types and focusing on overall health rather than size. The discussion highlights the struggle between societal beauty standards and individual self-acceptance, with opinions varying on whether the sacrifices required for a supermodel physique are worthwhile. Additionally, the influence of celebrity messages on public perception, especially among young women, is a critical concern. Ultimately, the conversation underscores the complexity of body image and health in contemporary society.
  • #31
leroyjenkens said:
That's interesting, thanks for the link.
Do you have any information on how severely it effects the person's weight?
From what I understand, it causes them to basically just eat more? Which means they just feel hungrier more often?
I knew there were genes involved, I'm just skeptical of how causative they are in someone being overweight.

There's more than one of these satiety hormones and receptors. It's not so much feeling hungrier more often as not feeling satisfied enough to stop eating. Leptin is best known because of those ob/ob mice, which show such a striking effect of genetics on body size. The mice in the picture shown are matched for age and food availability. Another major one being studied is adiponectin. There is also orexin, neuropeptide Y (which has 5 different receptor isoforms), thyroid hormones (long known for affecting metabolic rate). A fairly new arrival on the scene is nesfatin.

So, there can be a genetic component that comes from any of a large variety of hormones and signalling molecules. Alternatively, just as diabetes has an acquired form, so may obesity. So, just as you can permanently screw up your insulin receptors by being obese for a long time or since an early age, it is possible you can screw up your leptin receptors (leptin insensitivity) or any other of these receptors, if you start out overweight from an early age, and may get to the point where it does not matter how much you want to lose weight, you've already broken that regulatory system. This is of rising concern with the increase in childhood obesity. Children really don't know better, so if their parents allow them to be obese and don't help them regulate their diet when young, they really may be set up for life-long problems that will not be reversible once older.
 
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  • #32
leroyjenkens said:
True, but how many overweight people have these defects?
When your stomach becomes distended, it sends a signal to your brain that you're full. Do the defects interfere with that, causing you to not feel how full your stomach is?

I think it is that you feel full. I've heard people who've had the surgery say they feel full after just a little bit of food. I've never heard any of them say they're still hungry, but they can't fit anymore in their stomach.

Regulation of appetite is very complex and it much more than "feeling full" because stomach distends. The currently accepted model involves at least: ghrelin, PYY 3-36, NPY and AgRP, insulin and leptin. The view "stomach distends" is quite simplistic and unsatisfactory as an answer in appetite regulation.

Any defect in this complex interplay of those neurotransmitters and hormones can influence apetite. Such defects can be inborn , or acquired during life.

Ghrelin is a major signaling pathway in appetite control. This hormone is secreted by empty stomach and it's production is abruptly reduced as soon as food is ingested, you doesn't have to expand your stomach over a certain limit. There exist studies which suggest that certain bariartric surgery types does affect ghrelin levels, and hence it will help appetite control. What you call "feeling full".

Then you shouldn't ignore what happens to a person with a drastically reduced stomach when they overeat. It can cause serious physical reactions such as vomiting. The person is quite unable to ingest the quantities it used to eat, hence the energy balance of the body is changed drastically.

Determining whatever a person does has or not problems in the mechanisms which regulates appetite is done on a case by case basis. It is certain that genetics do influence the hormonal assemble of the body.

Not all persons who are overweight present genetic defects in the regulation mechanisms. A lot of persons who get fat can thank this to a lifestyle where the need to do physical work (and hence oxidize nutrients ) is very low, and food is discretionary available.

However , it should be noted that staying long times overweight can induce acquired defects in metabolic regulation. Some of those can be reversible, some irreversible and you have to deal with them for the rest of your life.
 
  • #33
=DanP;2453866]
So the question is: is it worth the sacrifices to look as a supermodel ?

Giving up tasty food isn't the only sacrifice though? As I understand it if you are not getting the nutrition your body needs it will canabalize the muscle for energy and steal minerals from your teeth and bones that it needs for different bodily functions.


Why should anyone accept anything ? Yes, ppl do come with different body style. The do come with different genetics. Yet one of the wonders of this world is that you wish something hard enough you get it. Why do you think that actually accomplishing something makes you unhappy ? I seen a lot of chubby, but otherwise healthy women, functioning normally. I bet most of them would kill for the sex -appeal which comes with a strong , well proportioned body and low bf%.

I think that wishing for something, no matter how hard, will never make that something come about. Working hard for something you wish/want will give a person a far higher chance of success. A wish might give you a goal but will never get you there.

I have yet to see a "well proportioned" woman with really low body fat, unless they have added some silicone or saline to their bodily makeup, since female proportions are dependent on fat,imo.
 
  • #34
Jasongreat said:
Giving up tasty food isn't the only sacrifice though? As I understand it if you are not getting the nutrition your body needs it will canabalize the muscle for energy and steal minerals from your teeth and bones that it needs for different bodily functions.

I think that wishing for something, no matter how hard, will never make that something come about. Working hard for something you wish/want will give a person a far higher chance of success. A wish might give you a goal but will never get you there.

Tautological to the extreme.
 
  • #35
leroyjenkens said:
That's not a contradiction.
If I say I've never seen bigfoot, then I say I don't believe in bigfoot, how is that a contradiction?
It isn't.

It also isn't a valid comparison to my quotes of your words and is thus irrelevant.

"I don't think there's such thing as naturally or unnaturally skinny or chubby."

This statement alone is a contradiction. How can something be neither natural nor unnatural?
 
  • #36
  • #37
leroyjenkens said:
I've never seen someone who is naturally chubby or skinny. Just look at their diets and lifestyles and you'll see why they are how they are. They may say they can't lose or gain weight, but that's just not true.
Unless of course they're naturally chubby because they naturally can't convince themselves not to eat that cake. But that's probably because they're used to eating that way and it's hard to stop. You can't just eat cake all your life and quit cold turkey, then when you realize you can't, act like it's your genetics that makes you want the cake.
And every skinny person I see who says they can't gain weight, after I see what they eat every day, I know why. If you don't eat more than a handful of food a day, you won't gain weight.
I think many people have addressed it sufficiently, there definitely can be a genetic component. Either the metabolism or the appetite may be affected.

If I look at my family, and specifically to myself and my brother and sister, I'd say there is definitely something in the genes. I didn't grow up with my brother and sister, so that takes away the component of upbringing. We're all the 'ectomorph' type and have always wanted to gain weight. I tried the pizza, BLT burger, french fries diet; the chocolate ice cream diet; the protein-shakes diet. I never dared to join the gym, because you only work out when you want to loose weight. When I found out that you can also join a gym to gain weight, I was still hesitant because I didn't want a bodybuilder body :rolleyes:

Anyway, I've always found it very annoying that people think they can dictate how you should look. A bell curve has two tails, not one :wink:
 
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  • #38
DanP said:
Tautological to the extreme.

Redundancy does not make my statements less true.
 
  • #39
Monique said:
When I found out that you can also join a gym to gain weight, I was still hesitant because I didn't want a bodybuilder body :rolleyes:

Anyway, I've always found it very annoying that people think they can dictate how you should look. A bell curve has two tails, not one :wink:

Monique, this issue that you will end up looking like a female bodybuilder if you go to a gym is largely a myth. With a properly designed resistance training program, tailored to your specific needs and goals, you should be OK.

Hypertrophy effects are mediated through enhanced gene expression in skeletal muscle. But besides the training stimulus, the result is also largely modulated by the hormonal ensemble of the body. Females simply do not possesses enough androgenic steroids to be concerned with massive and fast muscular development. Female competitors in modern pro bodybuilding are all supplementing massively with anabolic steroids.

With *a lot* of dedicate training you may end up having the physique of a fitness or figure model. Although athletic, their physique is a far cry from those of female bodybuilders as size.

Besides, training effects do not last forever. Half-life of the proteins which are up-regulated as a result of training stimulus mainly determine the residual duration of the effects. Upon cessation of stimulus, the gene expression is down regulated, and you start the so called "detraining". For structural, hypertrophyic effects, detraining, and implicitly size decrease starts at about 30 days after training stimulus is stopped. So if you consider you took it too far, it is enough to cut back on the stimulus. The art is in shaping, and working the week points. And no, you don't get fat in this situation you cut back on training, if you carefully supervise your nutritional program and make necessary adjustments. Women doing gyms are "safe". They won't get the legs like professional athletes , that is the result of more than a decade of training using training programs which would "kill" the average gym rat.

Perhaps a good example is Shakira. If you look at her body several years ago , when she came out with "Whenever wherever" hit, and you compare it with the look she has this year, for example in the "She Wolf" video, you will see a startling difference. Smaller ***, much better developed upper body, reshaped legs , a very nice "X" frame. She is still very feminine and doesn't look anything like an athlete, not to mention female bodybuilder.
The key is to know what you (or your trainer / nutritionist ) are doing.
 
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  • #40
Jasongreat said:
Redundancy does not make my statements less true.

Tautological again :P
 
  • #41
Forget about who said it, but I strongly agree that being healthy feels better that ice cream tastes.

In general, people in the Western world have a lot of health issues caused by lifestyle. Specifically, many of us are unhealthy from overeating or eating foods that offer poor nutrition. Diabetes, heart disease, joint problems due to being overweight, cancer...we all know this list of diseases that affect so many people.

So in the Western world, a good way to avoid these common diseases is to control our weight, and exercise regularly.

In a way, it's an interesting "experiment": what happens to humans when you take away the need to perform daily hard labor, and then give them access to basically any food they want, in any amount they want to eat it?

Answer: many of them basically eat themselves to death.

So...not sure about "being skinny," but definitely good health feels better than whatever-it-is-that-you're-craving tastes.
 
  • #42
People can be born predisposed to be skeletal and those that will appear heavier set. It has nothing to do with eating or exercise.

My oldest daughter was 21 inches long and weighed 7 pounds at birth. She is nothing but bones and skin. She wears a size 0 and it falls off of her.

My younger daughter was also 21 inches long at birth, but she weighed 9 pounds 6 ounces. She has a large skeletal frame and looks healthier and more robust than her sister. She is thin, but I believe she wears a size 4-6, she's 5'8", her sister is 5'6".

My older daughter has looked frail all of her life, she's too thin, we nicknamed her razor bones because it hurts to hug her, it's like hugging a skeleton. I can only imagine that touching these frail supermodels feels the same.
 
  • #43
Give em some pies, that'll put meat on their bones!
 
  • #44
DanP said:
Monique, this issue that you will end up looking like a female bodybuilder if you go to a gym is largely a myth. With a properly designed resistance training program, tailored to your specific needs and goals, you should be OK.
It is an image that is created in society: you go to aerobics to loose weight and the gym to become a buff muscle-beast and loose weight (fat). When I figured out that resistance training might be a good option I contacted a gym and asked what training program would be good, but hit a closed door.

I did join a gym for some time and combined the exercise with protein shakes. Now I joined a program that has a more personal approach and strengthens muscles in the extended position. It is called Essentrics and I'm very happy with it. I probably should join my boyfriend to the gym tomorrow, I wouldn't mind a body like Shakira :wink:

If you are skinny people automatically assume you must be anorexic and have Kate Moss as a role model, that's just not true.
 
  • #45
Evo said:
My older daughter has looked frail all of her life, she's too thin, we nicknamed her razor bones because it hurts to hug her, it's like hugging a skeleton. I can only imagine that touching these frail supermodels feels the same.
See, this is what I don't understand. Who wants to be called razor bones. What kind of a compliment is it to say someone feels like a skeleton. You wouldn't say to a chubby person that hugging them feels like hugging fatty-blubber? It is really damaging to someone's self-image.
 
  • #46
Evo said:
... we nicknamed her razor bones because it hurts to hug her, it's like hugging a skeleton. I can only imagine that touching these frail supermodels feels the same.

If I ever score with Kate Moss, Ill report back. Don't hold your breath, though :wink:
 
  • #47
Monique said:
See, this is what I don't understand. Who wants to be called razor bones. What kind of a compliment is it to say someone feels like a skeleton. You wouldn't say to a chubby person that hugging them feels like hugging fatty-blubber? It is really damaging to someone's self-image.
Perhaps it was bad, we actually called her the "razor boned gazelle", and never meant it in a bad way and she never took it in a bad way. I still call her that today and she knows I mean it lovingly, that's what she is. She actually liked the nickname. We were always concerned that she wasn't eating enough to be healthy, but we never tried to make her eat more. I always had served vegetables and she loved my vegetables, also lentils, she ate a healthy assortnment of foods, but never very much.

She did worry me to death when she was a toddler, she would go 1-2 days at a time without eating and the doctor said "when she's hungry, she'll eat".
 
  • #48
Evo said:
She did worry me to death when she was a toddler, she would go 1-2 days at a time without eating and the doctor said "when she's hungry, she'll eat".

My sister was the same way and the doctors said basically the same thing.
This lasted for most of her lifetime so far... she's only recently grown an appetite :-p.
I remember sometimes it would take her close to an hour to eat say a bowl of cereal and she wouldn't have even finished the entire thing.
 
  • #49
Sorry! said:
My sister was the same way and the doctors said basically the same thing.
This lasted for most of her lifetime so far... she's only recently grown an appetite :-p.
I remember sometimes it would take her close to an hour to eat say a bowl of cereal and she wouldn't have even finished the entire thing.
Yes, this is normal for some people. I am also a slow eater, and I would forget to eat when I was in my teens, I'd be too busy, I did end up in the hospital suffering from malnutrition, but that certainly is no longer the case. :rolleyes:

Callista Flockhart has a different problem, she said she can't taste food, so she's never wanted to eat.
 
  • #50
Sorry! said:
My sister was the same way and the doctors said basically the same thing.
This lasted for most of her lifetime so far... she's only recently grown an appetite :-p.
I remember sometimes it would take her close to an hour to eat say a bowl of cereal and she wouldn't have even finished the entire thing.

My daughter has always been like that too. I was concerned about it, until her pediatrician pointed out that she was above 50 percentile for height...yet both her dad and I are very small! The doctor said that the way she recognizes a malnourished children is based more on height than weight, since normal kids can be very skinny.

Regarding nicknames...when she was very young I called her "head on a stick" (since most kids have disproportionately large heads). After puberty, I called her "hips and boobs on a stick".

Did this affect her? Well at age 16, she told me she was very happy with how she looks. Now, how many 16-year-old girls feel so good about themselves? I think it's all about intent. Sure I would tease her a bit, but I also told her she is very beautiful. (But more often, I reminded her how smart she is :smile:.)
 
  • #51
My wife and I have a slightly younger female friend who always looked her best just after she had delivered her kids, and went right back to real skinny soon after. Drinking shakes, eating unhealthy amounts of fried foods, etc never put any weight on her, so eventually, she went the route of getting decent weight-training on a high-protein diet, and ultimately resorted to breast implants to get some curves back. Slender, dark-haired with pale, freckled cheeks and lively eyes - she's the ideal that some women aspire to. She's no bimbo, either. She's the assistant director for the library of a pretty famous deceased GOP senator.

It troubled her that people told her how fantastic she looked a month or so after having given birth, then asked if her health was OK after she dropped back to her "normal" weight a couple of months later. She's a really sweet lady. Her family hired a photographer for her wedding and he did a good job, but the album that I made up of her getting prepared, having fun with her wedding party at the rehearsal, etc, and of the wedding itself has always been her favorite. How many brides do you know that TRIED to gain a few extra pounds to fill out that special gown?
 
  • #52
I tossed my first wedding pictures, I looked awful. My collar bones were sticking out and my dress just hung there. I weighed 92 pounds. I have no shape. No hips, no rear, no thighs. My first husband asked me once how I managed to keep my pants from falling off since there was nothing to hold them up. I was a shapeless cylinder. But now I'm more weeble shaped.
 
  • #53
Evo said:
I tossed my first wedding pictures, I looked awful. My collar bones were sticking out and my dress just hung there. I weighed 92 pounds. I have no shape. No hips, no rear, no thighs. My first husband asked me once how I managed to keep my pants from falling off since there was nothing to hold them up. I was a shapeless cylinder. But now I'm more weeble shaped.
Our friend had hips to provide some shape, but apart from that, she was/is slender to a degree that some of her friends and many in her family considered unhealthy, and they made an issue of it. She is fit as can be and as she ages, she actually has gotten a tiny belly (all below the hip-line) and with the enhanced breasts, she has what a lot of people might consider an "ideal" figure. When I was running open-mike jams at a local tavern, she'd often show up to enjoy the music and get away a bit from the family, and she'd be getting hit on by guys 20 years her junior. Think Kate Jackson, only a bit cuter, with freckles. Being considered too skinny can hurt, though I have to feel that being considered too fat can hurt a lot more. I have a younger sister that is heavy, and she has gotten resigned to it, but is bitter. Another sister is zaftig, and happy with herself, and the other is pretty slim and is unhappy as can be. My sisters all dwelled on self-image/peer-image way too much for their health.
 
  • #54
turbo-1 said:
Our friend had hips to provide some shape, but apart from that, she was/is slender to a degree that some of her friends and many in her family considered unhealthy, and they made an issue of it. She is fit as can be and as she ages, she actually has gotten a tiny belly (all below the hip-line) and with the enhanced breasts, she has what a lot of people might consider an "ideal" figure.

Obviously her looks keeps her happy, and this is the important thing. I don't believe her family has any say in this, and unless they are all MDs they shouldn't go on the "unhealthy" bandwagon.

A good friend of mine, a 40 year old man has 58kg at 1.80m. Imagine that twig with a caveman style haircut, and a full beard. ~10 years ago at his wedding, one of his wife's niece was actually quite disturbed when she seen him for the first time, started to cry and told her mother that she seen Jesus :P
 
  • #55
DanP said:
A good friend of mine, a 40 year old man has 58kg at 1.80m. Imagine that twig with a caveman style haircut, and a full beard. ~10 years ago at his wedding, one of his wife's niece was actually quite disturbed when she seen him for the first time, started to cry and told her mother that she seen Jesus :P
Ahaha, that's funny.
 
  • #56
DanP said:
Obviously her looks keeps her happy, and this is the important thing. I don't believe her family has any say in this, and unless they are all MDs they shouldn't go on the "unhealthy" bandwagon.
In this instance, I think that she was working to keep from feeling unhappy, not just to make herself feel happy. It's a distinction that I feel is important. She is slim, slender, etc, but not gaunt, yet people who had known her for most of her life were commenting on how slight she was. She is married to a close friend of mine and it matters to me whether they are happy. She is in a relatively public position, and when friends and family make comments about her appearance, it can carry over to her work. If I posted scanned images of some of her wedding pictures (or later) most of you would be saying "what a beauty". My wife and I keep a picture of ourselves and her, and her husband's brother, taken when she came back to us from a visit from WA state. It is prominently displayed in our kitchen - we formed a goofy conga-line and posed for my film-camera which was on a tripod on a self timer.
 
  • #57
DanP said:
Your take ?

Moss quote
******************************************************************
WWD: Do you have a motto?
KM: There are loads. There’s “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” That’s one of them. You try and remember, but it never works.

well, first of all, she's admitting that it's not really true ("it never works"), but it's a lie she tells herself to reach her goal. second, in some ways, she's like a pro athlete. to be successful, she has to train her body to meet a certain goal. this is a goal that, apparently, a majority of the public supports with their hard-earned dinero, otherwise, there would be obese (or at least chubby) supermodels.

is it irresponsible of her? no, i don't think so. what if you amended her statement to read "Nothing tastes as good as not being obese feels." ? it would then say that not being obese may require a lot of pain and sacrifice, but that it is a worthwhile goal. but no one wants to hear that. no one wants to hear "You're fat and it's your own damn fault. You should eat less and exercise more. Yes, it's work, but work isn't supposed to be fun, because then it wouldn't be called work." no, i don't think that would go over well at all. it would even be called irresponsible.
 
  • #58
Evo said:
I tossed my first wedding pictures, I looked awful. My collar bones were sticking out and my dress just hung there. I weighed 92 pounds. I have no shape. No hips, no rear, no thighs. My first husband asked me once how I managed to keep my pants from falling off since there was nothing to hold them up. I was a shapeless cylinder. But now I'm more weeble shaped.

weebles wobble, but their pants stay up.
 
  • #59
The issue of weight and health is a complex one, especially for women. The US certainly has a problem with obesity and unhealthy overconsumption. However, many girls who do not have weight problems develop severe psychological problems from a negative body image.
It is very difficult to bring people out of dichotomus thinking, especially when it is so closely tied to ego.

To answer the original poster: If the statement is rephrased as "The millions of dollars I receive from keeping myself extremely skinny is worth abstaining from ice cream," then she is right.

Applying the idea more generally, the balance between health and "indulgence" is something different people draw the line at for themselves. I don't think you can really make a general statement that is going to apply to everyone other then "moderation in habits is usually a good idea."
 
  • #60
turbo-1 said:
rom feeling unhappy, not just to make herself feel happy. It's a distinction that I feel is important. She is slim, slender, etc, but not gaunt, yet people who had known her for most of her life were commenting on how slight she was. She is married to a close friend of mine and it matters to me whether they are happy. She is in a relatively public position, and when friends and family make comments about her appearance, it can carry over to her work. If I posted scanned images of some of her wedding pictures (or later) most of you would be saying "what a beauty". My wife and I keep a picture of ourselves and her, and her husband's brother, taken when she came back to us from a visit from WA state. It is prominently displayed in our kitchen - we formed a goofy conga-line and posed for my film-camera which was on a tripod on a self timer.

turbo,

Im not sure I follow. Why is this distinction important ? Aint the two statements largely equivalent?

About the fact that her family or friends comments impacting her job. Wouldn't be much more reasonable for friends and family to shut-up and don't try to change her into something she doesn't want to be , then her giving to the heat and make herself miserable just to keep happy some ppl which should look after their own business in the first place? Meaning, they should be more concerned with their looks then hers :P

I don't know about others, but I myself would have given the finger long ago to the well meaning but annoying crowd which tries to tell me what I should do with my body. At least I do hope that your friend is 100% behind her in this.