seven8the9:
I'm a fat girl and over the years, the fact that less people have hit on me in public has taken a toll on my confidence. Now that I'm older , I know better (most of the time) that there ARE people out there that prefer bigger, fatter bodies.
Why are you all so quiet about it in real life?!
I mean, of course there are the societal norms and pressures... but could someone explain it to me simply, laymen terms?
The closer to a group median (observable ideal normal) you are, the more like "family" [kin] you look to the group around you.
The closer your attraction is to the "normal" the more "normal" you are therefore the more you fit in to the surrounding group.
The more you fit in the group, the easier you are to be looked at by the group as close or "like family".
This in our history as humans has been key to the evolution of our behavior.
The brain says: "Care for family."
Therefore a non family member who looks and behaves closer to "family" will likely receive more care and will therefore have a better chance of survival.
So brains that says: act more "normal" in a local group sense, are trying to receive more group care and therefore are more likely to survive.
When dictated fashions change that normal to be thin, that means a person attracted to someone not normal (fat) will try and correct their visible behavior against their attraction as they believe it will fit in with the larger group around them and therefore instinctively think that they have a better chance of survival.
Fatphobia is only a small part of the behaviors that this hypothesis creates.
It can make vast parts of society behave racist even if they wouldn't naturally be so.
Herd behavior is odd, but our inheretance of it cannot be overcome quickly.
Slowly, if it becomes less useful for survival, it will fade. But for now, unless the perceived normal which we mostly receive through a mix of family and media changes, then our expressed preferences, whether real or faked, will always be partly driven by the now false longing to "fit in".
