We are a nation of fat people. Take any newspaper or other media outlet in the western world and you are sure to find an article about the concerns that health authorities and experts have about the “Problem of Obesity”. In fact, it has gotten so bad that experts predict obesity will become a bigger health problem than smoking. The worst part is that while you don’t see children under the age of ten suffering from emphysema, you do see many overweight children. So maybe the expert’s concerns are valid: We’re all getting too fat.
Unlike other “trends,” however, obesity is not a problem that clothing manufacturers, car designers, furniture manufacturers, and other segments of the industrial and corporate world have adopted as a target market niche, which they would have capitalized on. virtually any other goal. available market. Although there are some designer brands that cater to larger men and women, the clothing available at larger retailers caters from the “skinny” to “must watch our weight” range. For those of us who have given up watching our weight because we can’t lose it now, finding clothes that fit, seats that are comfortable, and cars that are easy to get into is becoming as rare as chickens’ teeth.
For older women, the problem is even more apparent. Although aging Baby Boomers remain one of the largest target markets in the Western world, advertisers have decreed that even older men and women must be slim. While anyone with half a brain can understand that spending their lives eating fatty foods while sitting on a couch is unhealthy for a number of vital organs, there is little appreciation for what might be called “symbols of life.” Let me explain with an example.
Jackie is a middle-aged woman on the downhill slope at fifty years of age. She is also a “big” woman, weighing now what she used to be when she was nine months pregnant. Her weight gain is likely based on lifestyle with a hint of genetics (all of her maternal relatives were also large women). Contrary to what lifestyle experts predict for her, Jackie is a happy and, more importantly, healthy woman. She walks for thirty minutes every day; she eats and drinks in moderation, making sure she has enough fresh fruits and vegetables every day; she runs a small but busy business out of her home and she can’t remember the last time she was out of work due to illness.
When Jackie was asked if she thought she was overweight, she replied quite candidly that if she had been left to her own devices, she would have thought her body image was fine. But what she did say is that because you can’t buy clothes on department store shelves very often, and because you have to be careful where you sit because you’re likely to get stuck in those little plastic chairs that looked like they were designed more for children than adults, she believes her environment makes her feel overweight. And perhaps most significantly, she is made to feel that something is wrong with her.
In our interview, Jackie said: “I know I’m not a petite woman, but I look at my body in private and think ‘what’s wrong with it’? I’m not a mini skinny, never have been. I have five kids and probably won a little weight with each one. But I look at my body with pride because I had five kids, it does what I want it to do, and while I may not fit into societal attitudes about what the ideal body weight should be, I know I’m healthy , energetic and strong enough to do what I want and need to do in a day. So why should I change to fit society’s ideas?”
Jackie makes a valid point. Surely there should be a time when women who have paid their fair share; have given birth, raised their families, and basically spent at least twenty years of their lives caring for someone else (even if they don’t have children of their own) don’t they have to conform to a social image? That these women can be comfortable in their own skin and not be dictated to by a (younger) generation of people who don’t appreciate the good things these women have done?
Society shows its disrespect for older women through its constant comparison techniques between young and old (read skinny and fat) to create a community in the western world where at least women of all ages should conform to a unrealistic body image And it’s because of this peer pressure that companies don’t realize that there are a number of older women who are, at the very least, secretly and passively rebelling. They don’t watch their weight; They don’t care about their body image. These women have many other exciting things going on in their lives. It is only as consumers that these women have to face society’s rejection of them and who they are.
Good health is important, and this writer is not suggesting for one moment that women—or men—should deliberately go out and engage in risky behaviors like overindulging in fatty foods. Overweight children should definitely be told to get off the couch and go out and play. But on the other side of the coin, this writer does believe that there should be a place in our society for women who are proud of who they are, proud of what they have achieved and who wear their bodies like an old coat, feel immensely comfortable. in.
So if you’re looking for the next “best business idea” then maybe you should start considering one of the biggest target markets out there in today’s society, and how you could make money appreciating the value of older women, and start to think fat, instead of thin.
