🐱 Economic Working Paper Entitled 'The Value of a Slender Spouse' Is Exactly As Bad As You'd Think

Economic Working Paper Entitled 'The Value of a Slender Spouse' Is Exactly As Bad As You'd Think

In the year 2021, the National Bureau of Economic Research decided that, for some reason, it was both appropriate and necessary to provide a platform for a working paper that is literally entitled: “The Value of a Slender Spouse: Couples Agree that Keeping the Wife Svelte is more Valuable than...

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In the year 2021, the National Bureau of Economic Research decided that, for some reason, it was both appropriate and necessary to provide a platform for a working paper that is literally entitled: “The Value of a Slender Spouse: Couples Agree that Keeping the Wife Svelte is more Valuable than Keeping the Husband Fit.” It’s hard to know where to begin with this title, but I can’t help but wonder how these authors managed to pluck their study topic directly from the mind of an early ‘00s sitcom creator!

Now I will not even pretend to have read this entire study, as I only have an hour to write this blog, and also I’m afraid if I start reading it I’ll actually lose brain cells—a belief that is further supported by just reading the abstract, which literally begins:

“According to the World Health Organization, obesity is one of the greatest public-health challenges of the 21st century. Body weight is also known to affect individuals’ self-esteem and interpersonal relationships, including romantic ones.”

..... So somehow the first two sentences of the abstract are even more wildly fatphobic than the title!

And it turns out the very premise of this study is scientifically unsound, as it uses BMI as a means of measuring “fitness”—despite the fact that BMI has been widely known to be unreliable as a means of measuring “health” for over a decade now, and is often used by medical professionals as a justification for dismissing fat people’s legitimate health concerns. The assumption that if a person’s BMI falls within a certain range they must be “healthy” can also lead to doctors overlooking serious medical concerns in thin people, such as disordered eating habits..... the very same disordered eating habits that could be triggered by reading a study that flat out states that wives have to be thin to keep their husbands happy!

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I won’t go through the abstract line by line (let’s be honest—none of us really want that), but it concludes with another particularly disturbing passage:

“Women on average value changes in their own BMI about three times higher than changes in their spouse’s BMI. Men, on the other hand, value a reduction in their spouse’s BMI almost twice as much compared to a reduction in their own BMI. Married couples therefore agree on one thing, that keeping the wife svelte is even more valuable than keeping the husband fit.”

In other words, women experience significant pressure both from society and within their marital relationships with men to lose weight or remain thin, while the heteropatriarchy does not put the same fatphobic expectations on men within the structures of their marital relationships with women. That’s not to dismiss or even minimize the very real fatphobia experienced by men, especially Black men and other men of color, but rather to recognize the specific way these systems of oppression can function within heterosexual relationships.

It’s incredibly unclear what the purpose of this research even is other than to provide further “evidence” to validate people’s fatphobic, heterosexist, and misogynistic beliefs—what is the purpose of quantifying the societal “value” of thinness within heterosexual marriages without being at all critical about WHY it has that so-called value??

 

[Unpaid Emotional Labourer]

I thought it was going to add up all the $$ you save on food and medical expenses not keeping a porker porky.

 

[Gig Bucking Fun]

Mad bc fat

 

[God of Nothing]

Fatty weep, fatty eat, fatty loses both her feet.

 

[Niggasaurus Rex]

>Obesity is a public health crisis
>body positivity

Pick one. Fat people hate themselves so you don't even have to. Nobody buys into body positivity shit. It's just another temporary coping mechanism, like shoveling a big mac in your mouth and drowning it with a liter of soda.

 

[Jarolleon]

I thought it was going to add up all the $$ you save on food and medical expenses not keeping a porker porky.

I think this is in the sense of "psychic profit" as the Austrians would call it. Your quality of life improves, so it's as if you're richer.

 

[Yaniv’s Hairy Balls]

The fats are at it again.

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

Yeah but skinny women are hotter though.

Also I hit the gym for my SO, I would hope she would do the same for me.

 

[Cpl. Long Dong Silver]

Article author looks like a burnt Jazz Jennings

 

[BobbyBriggs69420]

thought you all were supposed to be jolly?

 

[Yamamura]

The fat acceptance movement seems to be the one movement genuinely propped up without any backing from up top. You see tons of trans/black recognition days sponsored by large corporations. But I have never once seen a company support or publicly sponsor the fat acceptance movement. Even on youtube you can still watch videos of people making fun of fat asses like Boogie or Hamberlynn or wingsofredemption, but that would never fly if it was about a trans or black person. They would get removed for bullying and harassment. You even get shows like my 600 lbs life which are made for the purpose of putting the lives of these people on display as a public spectacle.

It seems like the one thing in society everyone agrees on is dunking on the fat acceptance movement. It is taken seriously by no one except the land whales who created it. Not only is it allowed, it is encouraged to make fun of fat people as a national passtime. They are a class protected and taken seriously by no one.

 

[Alkaline Cab]

It seems like the one thing in society everyone agrees on is dunking on the fat acceptance movement.

Did you forget the vegans?

 

[potato fan]

based economics paper, at last some good use from the modern phrenology
author sounds fat

 

[Unpaid Emotional Labourer]

Article author looks like a burnt Jazz Jennings
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I honestly cannot fathom why women with Snake River Canyon cleavage don’t *cover that shit up*. I’m sure someone out there has a fetish for pendulous, deflated tubular tits, but I’m also sure there’s porn for that. I also feel like I see it more on black women than anyone else, not sure if it’s more of a predilection for exposing it, or if they actually have a greater tendency toward collagen disorders.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm not fatphobic, I feel disgust towards fat people, not fear.

 

[Eternal Gopnik]

I honestly cannot fathom why women with Snake River Canyon cleavage don’t *cover that shit up*. I’m sure someone out there has a fetish for pendulous, deflated tubular tits, but I’m also sure there’s porn for that. I also feel like I see it more on black women than anyone else, not sure if it’s more of a predilection for exposing it, or if they actually have a greater tendency toward collagen disorders.

I think they do it because people staring at their chests makes them feel better about themselves. They'll go on twatter and humblebrag: "Eugh, everywhere I go people look at my tits! This cisheteronormative patriarchal bullshit must stop!" Of course, people only stare because it's horrifying, but a Jezebel writer doesn't have enough self-awareness to consider that.

 

[Tleilaxian]

I honestly cannot fathom why women with Snake River Canyon cleavage don’t *cover that shit up*. I’m sure someone out there has a fetish for pendulous, deflated tubular tits, but I’m also sure there’s porn for that. I also feel like I see it more on black women than anyone else, not sure if it’s more of a predilection for exposing it, or if they actually have a greater tendency toward collagen disorders.

And just to think, her boobs probably smell like balls as well, because of the overlapping skin under those tube sock titties.

 

[L50LasPak]

The fat acceptance movement seems to be the one movement genuinely propped up without any backing from up top.

We have a massive, billion-dollar consoomer culture and you think the new wave of fat acceptance isn't funded by at least two or three shady marketing thinktanks?

I agree that its origins were probably not a marketing op, but that was a long time ago.

 

[frozenrunner]

Article author looks like a burnt Jazz Jennings
View attachment 2184276

It's unfortunate when you can tell someone's tits are shit from a tiny amount of cleavage.

 

[CaesarCzech]

The fat acceptance movement seems to be the one movement genuinely propped up without any backing from up top. You see tons of trans/black recognition days sponsored by large corporations. But I have never once seen a company support or publicly sponsor the fat acceptance movement. Even on youtube you can still watch videos of people making fun of fat asses like Boogie or Hamberlynn or wingsofredemption, but that would never fly if it was about a trans or black person. They would get removed for bullying and harassment. You even get shows like my 600 lbs life which are made for the purpose of putting the lives of these people on display as a public spectacle.

It seems like the one thing in society everyone agrees on is dunking on the fat acceptance movement. It is taken seriously by no one except the land whales who created it. Not only is it allowed, it is encouraged to make fun of fat people as a national passtime. They are a class protected and taken seriously by no one.

Fatties are desilusional but im afraid the reason The Fucking Internationalists is because they want divide and conquer so people fight among themselves and be good little slaves, fatacceptance is not something they support because it harms the effectivness of their slaves, so their motivations are scummy.