Can fat people be beautiful?

Can fat people be beautiful?

Some argue that being slim is not the only physical form of beauty. Others contend that calling those who are overweight beautiful, condones unhealthy lifestyle habits and poor choices.

What's your take on this?

I think that beauty is something that is very much in the eye of the beholder. Do I personally find overweight people attractive? Not really. Do I think that everyone will feel the same as me? Of course not, I'm not that arrogant.

JohnnyMustang said:

Fat people can be beatiful, but as harsh as it sounds, they'd be probably be a lot more beatiful without the extra weight. That is just how it is. I might not find them all attractive, but I don't care, I'm not that superficial.

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That's kind of a good bit of evidence to my point. What each individual finds beautiful or is attracted to is completely subjective. I don't believe that any one person - big, slim or in-between - is inherently beautiful or inherently ugly. It depends on who is looking at them.

People have the right to feel pretty if they want to be described as such - naturally not everyone is going to have attraction, or even tolerance, towards overweight people and that is a simple social truth. I'm very much a vain person; while vanity doesn't equate to the same thing for everyone, I am aware that my vanity is of a rather typical definition. So I am doubtful that I am going to be attracted to someone above a certain weight range. But that is me - if you wish to call it such, it may be my issue. But should this be a societal standard? No. Should we deny someone their beauty based on what we think is right for them? No. We as a society, particularly Western, obviously do have a problem with equating beauty with people of a smaller weight, lighter skin colour, whiter facial features, stuff like that. There is nothing wrong with people challenging that problem and I applaud them for it.

My dad is fat and he's beautiful.

Then again beauty is subjective.

I find praying mantids beautiful.

I also find certain slices of cheesecake beautiful, but only when cut correctly at a particular angle.

You can make anything look beautiful these days. It just depends on the right tweaks to hit the right spot.

Besides, I really don't get the plump-hate. Large ladies can be just as enthralling under the right circumstances. Like TaiChi. The momentum from the weight and movements can be great if used in just the right way. /TMI

JohnnyMustang said:

Nathan, I get the strong feeling that you're trying to start a riot by making polemic threads lol

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Definitely not!

If someone is looking for true beauty on the inside, or has an internet paraphilia for fat people (e.g. inflate images from deviantART), then yes, fat people can be beautiful.

Beauty is subjective and based on people's personal tastes, whether natural or by choice. So a fat person is beautiful to another while being not as attractive to others.

Yes, they can. Because as everyone has already stated, beauty depends on the person. So whilst they might be displeasing to what is most likely the majority, they will also be beautiful to another niche.

The problem is that society is too harsh with mild overweightness or chubby people to me, really, when it should be focusing on more extreme fatness. I myself can't stand intense overweightness. I dislike looking at it, and the fatter a person gets, the more the general consensus will be that that is not beautiful to look at. Particularly in the realm of obesity... this is the type of overweightness that is just plain unhealthy and should not be encouraged in my opinion. If you get to that point, I do think that you need to start buckling up and losing some weight. (This is discounting genetic conditions) There is a line that needs to be drawn between "just a little bit chubby" and "so fat that they need nurses to help them move." A balance needs to be struck rather than the extreme thinness that we're harshly judged on right now.

curiousnathan said:

Can fat people be beautiful?

Some argue that being slim is not the only physical form of beauty. Others contend that calling those who are overweight beautiful, condones unhealthy lifestyle habits and poor choices.

What's your take on this?

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I'm going to be honest: I think this is a really boring question. In general, questions that only have a YES/NO answer don't tend to be that interesting, in large part because they create a black/white dichotomy with no room for any grey. Using this subject as a base, we can pose what I think are much more interesting questions, such as:

• What defines beauty?
• What is beautiful to you?
• What are the current beauty standards and why do they exist?
• Why do we obsess over beauty?
• What does the expression "beauty is only skin deep" mean? Is it true?
• What aspects of beauty are based on appearance, and what parts focus on the person?
• What price do we pay for beauty? Is it worth it?
• Why do we believe that accepting "fat" people "condones unhealthy lifestyle habits and poor choices," but we don't say the same thing about skinny people?
• Why is there such a huge aversion to fatness now, whereas just a couple hundred years ago fat people were considered beautiful?

Just my opinion, but any of those would have been significantly more interesting to discuss because they invite discussion and have space for nuance. YES/NO questions are great for school tests, but not really for debates.


As for the thread topic, my answer is this: can old people be beautiful? Can people with disabilities be beautiful? Can people with burns or scars be beautiful?

The above people can obviously be beautiful, and often it's not "in spite of" their age or disability or scars, but because of them. The notion that "you'd be beautiful if you weren't in a wheelchair" is appalling, not just because it's insulting, but also because it ignores a part of what makes that person who they are. That may not be a perfect parallel to being fat, but the sentiment remains.

With that said, it's horribly shallow to focus solely on appearance. We as a culture are obsessed with looks, and for no good reason - outer beauty doesn't indicate how nice or hard-working or generous or smart or creative or funny someone is, and imo those are significantly more important qualities.

The beauty of any given person lies primarily in who they are, what they believe, how they act. A lot of people are blinded because they just focus on appearances, and all I can say is that those people are shallow and will never be able to fully appreciate those around them. Their loss, I suppose.

~Psychic

Psychic said:

I'm going to be honest: I think this is a really boring question. In general, questions that only have a YES/NO answer don't tend to be that interesting, in large part because they create a black/white dichotomy with no room for any grey. Using this subject as a base, we can pose what I think are much more interesting questions, such as:

• What defines beauty?
• What is beautiful to you?
• What are the current beauty standards and why do they exist?
• Why do we obsess over beauty?
• What does the expression "beauty is only skin deep" mean? Is it true?
• What aspects of beauty are based on appearance, and what parts focus on the person?
• What price do we pay for beauty? Is it worth it?
• Why do we believe that accepting "fat" people "condones unhealthy lifestyle habits and poor choices," but we don't say the same thing about skinny people?
• Why is there such a huge aversion to fatness now, whereas just a couple hundred years ago fat people were considered beautiful?

Just my opinion, but any of those would have been significantly more interesting to discuss because they invite discussion and have space for nuance. YES/NO questions are great for school tests, but not really for debates.

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You may think this question is boring, but I certainly don't. Some might agree with you, but I'm sure there's others who do not. Whether it's a question well suited for a debate or it isn't, is another story.

If you take a quick look at the prefix of this thread, it's prefixed "debate," not "discussion." Generally in a debate there's a for and against side, which is essentially yes or no. Within this there's room for the piggybacking of perspectives and the potential for a clash of opinion. Just because a question seems shallow on the outside, that doesn't mean it won't generate a debate that consists of a conglomerate of diverse viewpoints. Someone might disagree with something another has said, and this might lead to a discussion somewhat tangential to the original question, such as the ones you provided above.

But I'm sure you would already know this. You seem to portray yourself as some sort of expert when it comes to debates, especially mine where you nitpick my questions to hell and back. I'm not going to debate this much further considering it will steer this thread considerably off-topic, but I thought I'd reply considering this is the second thread you've derailed. If you'd like to debate about what constitutes a "good" debate question, why not make a separate thread instead of steering yet another debate from its original topic?

As for the topic at hand, I think beauty is comprised of both an individual's personality and their appearance, but more importantly hinges on whether these align with another's definition of beauty. That is, we all find different qualities attractive. What one might find beautiful, another might ugly.

Despite the fact that Nathan's threads have generally just been a question that sort of boils down to yes/no, they have been and can be expanded upon by posing (and then discussing) questions like the ones Psychic has. I would hope that since this is the Round Table people would be somewhat naturally inclined to do that in threads. This isn't the Treehouse ya know.

In regards to the topic there is this one point I'll answer:

Psychic said:

Why is there such a huge aversion to fatness now, whereas just a couple hundred years ago fat people were considered beautiful?

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Centuries ago middle class wasn't really a thing, and generally if you were poor you were like ultra-poor and would sometimes have difficulty adequately feeding yourself consistently. I don't think there were a lot of soup kitchens or homeless shelters or food stamps or welfare back then. So fat was seen as attractive back then because if you were fat, it meant you had the money to buy and consume enough food to make you gain weight. It was more that they had money and food than that they were beautiful. "I wanna marry you so I don't have to worry about starving ever again" pretty much.

JohnnyMustang said:

Nathan, I get the strong feeling that you're trying to start a riot by making polemic threads lol

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really Nathan is secretly trying to get as many people banned as he possibly can via RT threads

he's already gotten one person lol

Of course bigger people can be beautiful..even if beauty weren't subjective... I mean just look at Gabourey Sidibe...... anything and anyone can be beautiful if you work it right, hunty.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

If someone is looking for true beauty on the inside, or has an internet paraphilia for fat people (e.g. inflate images from deviantART), then yes, fat people can be beautiful.

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Or if someone is a decent human being that doesn't reduce people to fetishes.......

I think it depends on what you think " fat " is.
But personally I dont hate fat people but I do not find them attractive to me. Some do and some others do but its not right to make fun of them and it would be wrong for a larger person to make fun of a slim person. Although I did come across very pretty female plus sized model.
I think if you are eating healthy and doing exercise and so on then it is good.

To answer your question, I think anyone can be beautiful.

In all honesty, I'm not attracted so much to your physical body, but rather who you actually are, our shared interests, your ideals, opinions, etc. People just tend to put way too much emphasis on appearance.

Depends on how fat. Beauty is determined by a myriad of different factors, some of which may be thought to be irrelevant. But physical fitness is one of the things we find most innately attractive. Heterosexual men and women see beauty as they consider someone as a potential mate they could raise children with. On top of that, it generally gives off an impression of hard work, healthy eating and attention to personal appearance. Being fat gives the opposite impression. But as I said, it definitely depends on how fat. I wouldn't preclude someone from being called beautiful just because they aren't perfect. I know not everyone has the time or money to dedicate to working out and buying sustainable healthy food. Still, a majority of the people who refuse a healthy lifestyle only do so because they want to. If someone is obese, or they are only overweight due to poor choices, then I don't consider that beautiful.

Of course. Just because you're overweight doesn't make you any less beautiful than a skinny person imo. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. Whether it's because they are fat, disabled or whatever. We should be able to embrace ourselves for who we are and not worry about how society defines the word beauty. Thanks to society, the word beauty seems to only be applied to those who are of a certain weight. There are more and more campaigns being created to promote beauty for those who have 'more to love' as well. I think this is a good thing. There are so many women out there who feel ashamed of their weight because of society.

I think we need to just stop with all the stereotypes. Have you guys ever heard of All About that Bass by Meghan Trainor? To me, this is one of the first songs I've heard that have embraced beauty for what it really is. It's cheesy, but it's a got a good message to those who are overweight.

What you find beautiful has many infinite opinions just never target for perfect because simply noone is perfect not you not someone else NOONE keep it in your mind, write it down and never forget it lol. Anyway, it's true that most people avoid overweight (fat sounds a bit rude to me) people but they don't know if those people are really fat by option or if they are overweight because they can't do many things or missing something to keep them trying for avoiding being overweight.

To stay in shape for some people is hard indeed why? That goes without saying that something happens in their life that prevents them from losing weight and live better. So the causes? One of the causes of being fat is that you cannot stop eating it happens usually to people who eat a meal but after they would like a bit more or seconds (Stop watching One Piece,Kabamaru and Toriko lol jk).

So, in that case someone because rarely by themselves has to tell them something not like move yo freakin' ass and go to a gym lol but like this hey buddy i've heard that a new gym opened to the town wanna go visit it? That means that one cause of people being fat is that they feel a bit depressed for becoming comedy gold during their school/college/work and they lack company to keep them happy as a result they are closed and start to become lonely which results in double danger simultanously 1. Being overweight is unhealthy if you don't know it Mars/Jupiter is probably waiting you lol 2. Being lonely is unhealthy too because it can cause you bad/negative thoughts, strange actions, quick decisions that you may didn't want to do ever and more.

Another cause of overweightness (i doubt if this word exists but..... DEAL WITH IT MOVING ON lol) is that if that person is overweight because they have an illness rare or not but i'm going to refer to a usual illness which is called thyroid. Probably you have heard about thyroid that it is incurable and has many forms one of the worst forms apart from c***** <bad word don't wish it to happen even to your worst rival, is thyroid in dna which means that you will lose weight ultra slowly and gain weight very fast thus making you being overweight for the most time of your life if not all.

To sum up, i will not say if they are attractive or unattractive i will just talk with that person and if i can match the it's ok if not then np. It's true that we see the outside appearance putting me in first place for that and i will not hide it but you may find a thin attractive lady or a thin handsome man that you cannot speak with her/him (no match) which as a result equals to being again to the start position. Hope it helps and sorry for the big walls :)

P.S Recently i've found something which may sound to some of you intruging. One person that i know has broken 2 relationships because his girlfriend was cute and attracted other people as a result he broke up twice and found another girl which most of you will find unattractive but he ensures that since she is unattractive to other people his relationship with her will be stable.

I've seen a lot of "fat" people who looked really good! They had a good style, a wonderful face, awesome hairs... But sometime you see someone really overwaight and you want them to lose some weight, not because they aren't beautiful, but because it might be dangerous for their health. But that's another subject, it has nothing to do with the concept of beauty.

But hey, I've seen some people who were fatter than me (that doesn't mean that they are "fat") but were in a better shape than me.