[Excelsior]

(07-09-2011 12:07 PM)Gmac Wrote:  

I was talking about civilizations in general. The wealthier people were obviously able to eat more. What's so hard to understand about that association?

I think the main issue is perception. When you make statements like this...

Quote:

Kings and wealthy land owners (and their wives) were always more overweight because of the abundance of food available. This led people to associate a larger girth with wealth and status. It's not rocket surgery. It wasn't just Europe, this was widespread in Asia and Africa too.

I'm not saying people found them necessarily more attractive, but fat people in the past weren't as shamed as they are in today's world because of these differing perceptions.

Again, not saying they were "attractive", but they were still desirable because of their status (which was associated with larger weights).

...it becomes very important to also note that what was "fat" in older ages doesn't directly correlate with what we see in modern times. They did not often meet modern standards for the obese or overweight. Your argument presumes this correlation without evidence.

Your association is correct in principle, as it is true that the elite had a superior diet and could consume more food. This does not mean, however (and I believe this is what Blackhawk is getting at) that they were obese or even overweight by today's standards, which means that the assertion you have tried to make (overweight = status) on this basis likely isn't plausible.

Blackhawk is right to bring visual records into the discussion because they are quite relevant. If it were true that there was status in being overweight by modern standards in the past, then that would likely be borne out in the visual depictions of the nobility-we'd see more individuals who would, by modern standards, be "fat". That this isn't the case (most of the nobility appear of a fit, healthy, but medium build, only fattening on occasion with age, as was the case with Henry VIII) shows the notion to be somewhat implausible.

If being overweight by modern standards was a status symbol then(which you claim when you imply that a fat man today would be shamed less in the past), why is it that we see no such depictions in the portraits that nearly every noble/royal had? Obesity may have occurred more commonly amongst the elite, but if it were a norm (much less a status symbol), one would think that it would be more common.

Combine these visual records with what we do know about historical trends for the overweight/obese (read: rates were far lower in the past and have risen largely due to modern technology/nutrition/policy), and we have to conclude that they simply weren't very big. That damages the notion that elites in the past were "more overweight", and that as a result "extra girth = more status". There isn't much evidence that the old rich usually had that extra girth (or met our modern standards of overweight/obese) to begin with.

This is why conclusions like this can't plausibly be drawn from history:

Quote:

fat people in the past weren't as shamed as they are in today's world

There simply isn't any evidence that people meeting today's standards of "fat" were the norm amongst the old nobility, so you can't say that what is shamed as "fat" today would not have been in the past. If anything, it may have been the other way around. A fat person by modern standards would have stood out much more in the past, and there simply is no evidence of "plump" or obese individuals(by modern standards) forming the standard of beauty/attraction/status in any major civilization-the Rubenesque phenomenon is about as close as we get to that. When such individuals did exist(Henry VIII), it was quite notable(read: uncommon) and their situation doesn't seem to have been portrayed in primary documents as worthy of reverence.

In fact, the literary evidence should be noted too. Just as the visual records don't support your theory, nor do the written records make note of any historical valuation/reverence for those who met modern standards of obesity or "fatness". If girth = status at the time, it is likely that there would be much literary evidence to support that conclusion.

"More fit" would be a better term to use for noble weight standards given the prevalence of more medium builds.

Quote:

Right, because NO ONE could have WRITTEN about rich fat people in the past right?

Can you show us that anyone did? In order to prove your larger point, you'd need to show not only that they were written about, but that they were also revered and conferred status upon the basis of their meeting our modern standards of fatness.

Quote:

Art is definitely not the only reference or record we have. It doesn't need to be visual for people to understand this basic concept.

If you argument were plasible, the visual record would show it, as I've already said. If your point cannot be shown in the old visual or literary references(and the burden of proof is on you to bring specific examples of them to us en masse to establish your point), then you don't have an argument.

[Blackhawk]

(07-09-2011 12:07 PM)Gmac Wrote:  

I was talking about civilizations in general. The wealthier people were obviously able to eat more. What's so hard to understand about that association?

It's not difficult to understand. It's a fine thesis, and to someone living in 2011, with all our technology, the huge gains in modern food production from breeding programs, species improvements, animal feed advancements and crop fertilizer advancements, living in the one country that grows so much food it's responsible for 80% of the food exported by all nations in the world, with an entire expensive government subsidy system set up to make food so cheap that its own citizens spend less than 10% of their annual household budgets on food, and where the modern elite work low calorie burning desk jobs where their bodies are allowed to idle and sit all day, clicking at keyboards ...on the surface, it seems that rich people in the past would be obese.

But it's one the actual historical record doesn't support.

If you're really interested, read "The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death". It's a history of food supply, nutrition, and calorie budgets, written by a Nobel laureate. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521004888

[blurb]

What everyone is forgetting is that, back in the past, people were more religious which meant that the Church and community would shame people for their sins such as gluttony (overeating). This is why even the rich never became "fat." Some may have been obese (look at King George III's son), but even the wealthy were "religious" and had some sort of moral code.

[Blackhawk]

I'd push it more towards other factors than moralism:

1) When the average lifespan is between 28-35, most of your life is still spent in development. Extra food tends to go towards increasing height and adding muscle during development, not adding girth. For most of our ancestors, extra food meant being less stunted in height. They still were pretty short by modern standards.
2) Movement away from agricultural employment. When 95% of the people lived on farms, women worked hard physical labor every day next to men, burning up a lot of calories. Because of Victorian feminist movements, women no longer work as hard physical labor today as they did in the past.
3) Birth control. Women today aren't popping out 6-8 lbs of baby every year anymore, nor are they breast feeding for years afterwards further reducing their body weight. Women in the past lost a lot of weight through childbirth and failed pregnancies/miscarriages. (They had to, since most of these kids wouldn't survive to age 8) Some ruling queens had 24 pregnancies. If Michelle Duggar hadn't had 19 children (and even more failed pregnancies on top of this), she'd be quite a fattie for how she eats.
4) Availability of modern calorie dense foods. Being rich in a region that grows oatmeal means... eating two bowls of oatmeal instead of one. That's still not very calorie dense. The calorie dense foods of today are based on sugar, corn sweeteners, and fats, all of which are highly processed through modern industrial techniques. They didn't have all the sweets, candies and cakes of today. And without industrial refrigeration, meat had huge spoilage problems, raising its cost unnecessarily.

I like to point out that before Columbus, europeans didn't have chocolate, vanilla, tomatoes, corn, or a whole bunch of other foods now common. And it was only by combining asian dairy cows with the european technology for condensing milk, adding caribbean grown sugar and south american coa-coa beans (again processing them with european industrial technology) ...that we get milk chocolate, one of the more popular calorie dense foods out there. That's combining four different parts of the world, at least.

[Docter]

^Chocolate is a world conglomerate.

Bow before it.