Christie Versus Abercrombie

If you look like this you must have lots of friends

The news was full of weight-related stories last week. Governor Chris Christie had lap band surgery to lose weight despite telling Letterman he’s “the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen”.  Also this week, Mike Jeffries the CEO of Abercrombie came under fire when he explained why their stores do not carry larger sizes.

Let’s start with Christie, the last time I wrote he told Barbara Walters it was “ridiculous”  that people found him too fat to be president. Next thing you know, he has lap band surgery and in an effort to keep it secret even had the surgeon come to his office for the pre-surgery medical visits. The secret gets out and Christie says his motivation was that he wanted to be there for his kids. Oh and there just so happens to be a presidential race in 2016. This is a guy who had a doughnut on Letterman and mac and cheese during the soft foods post-op phase were these "for his kids" too?

And then there’s Mike Jeffries. I should really congratulate him. I have thought more about Abercrombie this week than ever before. There is an Abercrombie store close to where I get my hair blonded; I only know this because of the line of teenyboppers monopolizing the sidewalk. Perhaps, if I were cooler, I would get on that line. Their CEO told Salon magazine:

“We hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”

In case you’re already nauseated it gets worse…

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids.” Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Abercrombie only goes up to a women’s size 10, for men they have larger sizes to account for athletic, big guys so that’s fair, right? Aside from exclusionary this sounds silly in a country of larger people but this is definitely not the only clothing brand with their sizes capped. If you walk up and down 5^th Avenue, where the store I mentioned is located, this is far from the only 12-less store. However, I’m still a little confused. How does being small indicate that you have “lots of friends”? Maybe they ask questions at the door, thus the line. Can you imagine a scale and a questionnaire to assess weight, friend volume and All-Americaness prior to entry?

Bad plastic surgery seems to be "cool"

We can’t get around it; most of us care about and notice size differences. When I compare these two examples, one really rubs me the wrong way and it’s the Christie situation that bothers me a lot more. For years he has said his weight is not an issue or doesn’t get in the way of him doing his job. With the possibility that he may run in 2016 it became an issue to the voting public. Christie sneaks around, gets surgery and when the fat cat is out of the bag he cites doing this for his children. How about saying you realized you needed to take action? Then again, I guess sneaky is more acceptable than 400 pounds when it comes to the White House. As far as Abercrombie, I can guarantee you that the line snaking out of their 5^th Avenue store is just as large, despite the press, this week. Sadly, there are a lot of young people who want to be that cool kid. Though I can guarantee CEO Mike was never one of them, maybe that’s where some of this stems from.

Did you hear about these two stories? Which do you find more troublesome? 

You want an airline ticket? Step on the scale.

When I go to the store and buy wild salmon, the fishmonger weighs the salmon and affixes a price tag based on how much I buy. The same per pound system goes for apples, potatoes and nuts from the bulk bins. I’m not thrilled about it but when traveling, our ginormous black wedding registry (pre bags on scales) bags get weighed as well and this often results in a surcharge. However, if I want salmon and produce and travel, the scale is a prerequisite. Samoa Airlines is taking this one step further. What’s used for Tumi and tangerines is also used for people of all sizes; they’ve started charging based on weight. Passengers weight + baggage weight = price.

There’s a silver lining if you look for one. Kids would be less. Instead of a 2 year old being charged the same as a 200-pound adult male, they would benefit from being smaller and lighter (as long as they don’t charge based on noise level or decibels). And hey, if you’re dropping weight for a beach vacation, you now have a financial incentive. Weigh less pay less? I’m not sure if this would impact initial efforts to lose weight just for the sake of airfare.

In Samoa’s defense, Samoans are large- often the largest people on earth and this airline, to date, flies small planes. Cargo weight does matter. Military planes take weight into consideration. But most people aren’t Samoan, soldiers or excited for public weighing. Not that we’re happy about whipping out the credit card because you happen to have heavy ski boots (or more likely too many shoes with you). I don’t like removing my shoes for the security like but I do it, but that’s for “security” is getting on the scale the same?

This may work for a small airline. I get their stance that planes fly based on “cargo” weight not based on seats. I get that people are getting larger. But what happens when someone gets to the airport and cannot afford their ticket based on their size? Would companies pick smaller employees to do more travel if it saves them money? Would people be willing to do this hopping on the scale pre-flight?

Lots of questions and for now mostly hypothetical but interesting. It doesn’t seem right  nor does the person seated in front of me reclining in my lap or breaching their armrest boarder. On our recent trip, a child in front of us was using an ipad. The parents hadn’t contemplated the mute button or headphones. I politely asked them to lower it. You know what happened? The kid freaked out. I’m not sure telling a person “politely” to pay triple for their ticket would have a better outcome.

What do you think? Is this, as the head of Samoan airlines said “the future”? Can you see this working? What are the advantages or disadvantages?

Thinism

“You’re so fat, you must eat a lot.” Are you cringing? You might be because nobody with a speck of sensitivity would every utter those words. On Friday I read a post on Erica Sara’s blog that got me thinking. Erica wrote about a recent experience that was rather hurtful. Someone said something to her about her eating and her size. This person didn’t know Erica personally. They didn’t know about Erica’s marathon running or her cooking. They didn’t know that she practices yoga. They probably didn’t know how much their words would sting. They might have thought the rules were different because Erica is a thin person.  Somehow, “you’re so thin, you must not eat” is acceptable. Why is this?

I see nutrition clients all week long at my NYC office. Oftentimes, in initial sessions with new clients I’ll hear “you don’t have to think about this because you’re thin.” Or “it must be nice you don’t have to workout.” Or my favorite, similar to Erica’s experience “do you eat?” I know full well these clients wouldn’t probe similarly with a doctor or therapist or other professional who was heavy. Over the years, I have grown thick-skinned to these types of questions. I used to feel embarrassed and utter some incoherent, self-deprecating reply. Now, I generally say something like “I practice what I preach” or “I work hard to stay in shape” which generally reassures them.  I am less offended by comments about my size than the insinuation that there’s no work involved. I think there’s a way to be curious about someone’s size without being critical. “What do you do for exercise?” Or, “do you watch what you eat?” are better ways of saying the same thing.

It’s unfortunate but we all size people up. We look. We look when someone’s very heavy and we look when they’re too bony and we look at people somewhere in the middle. I know full well from what I do that you can’t judge someone’s success or peace of mind by their weight and that feeling good in your skin doesn’t have a size. I also feel it’s probably harder to walk in an obese person’s shoes than in my shoes. Overweight people are the subject of more ridicule than thinner people.  I just don’t think it’s ok to be mean.

Why do you think sizist comments are more acceptable when the recipient is thin? Why do you think people make comments like the one that hurt Erica? Has anyone said anything inappropriate to you about your size? Is it ever appropriate to say anything?

P.S. Not only was Erica the author of our Pot of the Week post, she makes amazing jewelry including my “race bling” marathon necklace.