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Post being replied to
"crushing expectations under which American women live" by doolinbanjos
I think the notion that Americans (women or men) live under unusual expectations to be thin is questionable. Most or all of western European countries of obesity levels less than the US. Outside of Polynesia, the US has the highest obesity rate in the world.
It is possible that our unusually high obesity rate is caused by unusually high pressure to be thin, but I don't believe it. If Sole-Smith were serious, she'd have addressed the inconvenient fact that despite our uniquely American obsession with thinness, we have the highest obesity rate of any country not located in the Polynesian triangle.