The A4 waist 'challenge'

[TuggyNE]

Here is the thing: you can't blame one persons body image problems on other people having good body images. What you seem to be against is thin girls enjoying their thinness and that is plain and simple vindictive.

[…] If you believe that then equally you should believe that it is okay to ridicule fat people who take pride in their overweightness, who post pictures of them being fat and proud. Do you have any idea how arrogant you sound when you say that a girl who posts a picture of herself which is supposed to show of she is happy in her own skin is "beyond redemption"?

Ignoring the mistaken idea that there's ridicule going on (as others have rebutted), there's another problem. Someone posting a picture of how they manage to meet some completely arbitrary standard for (presumably) beauty is exhibiting an attitude that is the polar opposite of being happy in their own skin. Because, if they didn't manage to quite make that standard… would they still be happy with themselves?

Pictures of "I met the standard, I'm happy and awesome" are not reinforcing self-acceptance, or acceptance of others. They're reinforcing acceptance only of those who meet the standard. That is a toxic outcome, and it is entirely reasonable to plead with everyone reinforcing that to stop it and do something better.

On the other hand, pictures just of themselves, with no arbitrary standard at all, do no such thing; in sufficient quantities, they drown out the bad influence and leave a faint impression of acceptance. And pictures with an arbitrary standard being deliberately flouted actively reinforce unconditional acceptance.

I disagree heartily with the poster who said that people who post A4 Challenge pics are beyond redemption, though. They're misguided, but not usually malicious… and even those with malice are not beyond redemption.

[A.A.King]

No it’s not tyrannical to fight back against a tyrant. However after skimming back through this thread. There actually aren’t any anti-thinness crusaders here. Nobody has said people shouldn’t participate in this fad at all. What people are saying is that this very arbitrary method of measuring one’s health is bad; because it doesn’t rely upon any sort of expert opinion, studies, factual or anecdotal evidence or any other method of determining a person’s health. Most people are simply railing against the absurdity of this “challenge”.

I'll admit there weren't actually any anti-thiness crusading comments in this particular thread, that was me getting a little bit carried away. However you know what is also not in this thread? Support. Support for the girls who participated in this thread. Did you read the actual article linked in the original post? It mentions girls who are unfairly labelled anorexic by the people around them who used this challenge to find people like them, the naturally very skinny and being able to bond with other people who are judged so harshly by our society with no-one looking out for them. If you're fat and you're bullied people will jump to the change to protect you but if you're skinny and you are mocked people think "yeah, he/she probably has an eating disorder". This was a challenge for those people and everybody else could have ignored it but no, they decided to mock it.

The people posting pictures get all kinds of negative feedback and are being told to take the picture down. Strangers commenting telling them they are underweight or anorexic and even people here claiming that these girls are somehow contributing to other people actually getting eating disorders. Surely these are the people we should defend and not attack

Ignoring the mistaken idea that there's ridicule going on (as others have rebutted), there's another problem. Someone posting a picture of how they manage to meet some completely arbitrary standard for (presumably) beauty is exhibiting an attitude that is the polar opposite of being happy in their own skin. Because, if they didn't manage to quite make that standard… would they still be happy with themselves?

Pictures of "I met the standard, I'm happy and awesome" are not reinforcing self-acceptance, or acceptance of others. They're reinforcing acceptance only of those who meet the standard. That is a toxic outcome, and it is entirely reasonable to plead with everyone reinforcing that to stop it and do something better.

On the other hand, pictures just of themselves, with no arbitrary standard at all, do no such thing; in sufficient quantities, they drown out the bad influence and leave a faint impression of acceptance. And pictures with an arbitrary standard being deliberately flouted actively reinforce unconditional acceptance.

I disagree heartily with the poster who said that people who post A4 Challenge pics are beyond redemption, though. They're misguided, but not usually malicious… and even those with malice are not beyond redemption.

I would say that the backlash counts as ridicule. The girl in the article holding up a Diploma rather than a piece of A4 or the picture of the fat girl holding a piece of pizza while clearly failing the challenge that someone posted in this thread are clearly intended to mock the people who did the challenge.

You might have had a point if people were actually trying to argue for no standard. But suggesting a girl is anorexic or underweight isn't reasonable pleading, suggesting that caring about her figure probably means she is one of those girls whose ambition it is to become a throphy wife is not accepting. Telling these people that what they believe to be beautiful about themselves is not accepting. If someone trains to gain a little bit of extra muscle and posts a picture happy about his progress would you equally tell him that he is wrong? Or is ONLY wrong if the guy would include in the picture his arbiritary goal of gained muscles?

Here is something to consider:
Campaigns like "real beauty" showing only women you wouldn't consider thin as well well as phrases like "real women have curves" have led to a culture change: namely a culture which considers it acceptable to mock the naturally very skinny people. labelling someone as underweight, anorexic or even bulimic are considered okay. When you do that you are simply "fighting against the unfair beauty standards" and "smashing the system". We keep hearing how 'society's obsession with thinness' leads to eating disorders but you don't hear enough about how 'society's obsession with society's obsession with thinness' has created a new eating disorder. There are now a lot of girls in the world who have been told so often that their natural weight is too skinny, that they are not real enough and that they should gain so weight that they have started to believe. People eating unhealthy amounts of junk food HOPING to get fatter, avoiding as much exercise as possible to not burn calegories. That is not healthy, and that is the world in which this challenge was created.

Now we have some of these girls who keep being bullied in the real world for being 'too skinny' who found a fun way to take back control of their live and their body images. And yes, it isn't quite the same as t-shirts saying "I'm not fat I'm fluffy" or other of the gazillion ways the world has for fat people to start believing their weight isn't on the wrong side of normal but on the right side of perfect, but it was their way. These girl are not actually unhealthy, they are just born that way and no were in this challenge did they ever actually state that if you failed the challenge there was anything wrong with you: The challenge was and still is harmless. We, as a society, could have ignored this. We could have let them have their little fun while disagreeing with them but we decided: "No, thin people are not allowed to consider themselves good, we know better for we are best" and we started flooding their photos with comments while posting our own mocking the challenge.

These girls are healthy and until this backlash they were happy. But I guess I should be sorry for trying to stand up for them.

[goto124]

The 'challenge' says 'real beauty is being smaller than this piece of paper, and if you're not smaller than the paper you're a loser because you literally lose the challenge'. How is that healthy, both physically and mentally?

Both fat-shaming and thin-shaming are wrong.

[TuggyNE]

Now we have some of these girls who keep being bullied in the real world for being 'too skinny' who found a fun way to take back control of their live and their body images. And yes, it isn't quite the same as t-shirts saying "I'm not fat I'm fluffy" or other of the gazillion ways the world has for fat people to start believing their weight isn't on the wrong side of normal but on the right side of perfect, but it was their way. These girl are not actually unhealthy, they are just born that way and no were in this challenge did they ever actually state that if you failed the challenge there was anything wrong with you: The challenge was and still is harmless.

You don't have to explicitly state something for that to be a clear message, and sometimes subtext and implication are the harshest and most persistent ways to carry a message. So this was not harmless, and therefore their way was, unfortunately, critically flawed. When someone vulnerable is doing something that is harmful to themselves or others, the correct response is not to encourage them to keep doing that in hopes that this encouragement will help them somehow. Instead… you gently get them to stop.

These girls are healthy and until this backlash they were happy. But I guess I should be sorry for trying to stand up for them.

Certainly not! You should reconsider your methods and reasoning; I don't think you're achieving what you hope for. That's unsurprising, given humanity's penchant for misguided-but-well-meaning zealotry, but that doesn't mean it's totally fine and dandy either.

TL/DR: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[Brother Oni]

There are now a lot of girls in the world who have been told so often that their natural weight is too skinny, that they are not real enough and that they should gain so weight that they have started to believe.

The problem is, there are clinical markers for people who are unhealthily underweight compared to those who are naturally thin (for example, lanugo, amenorrhoea or starvation induced ketosis), some of which are clearly visible.

Of all the pictures I've seen of the Chinese girls passing this challenge, I agree with you that they look healthy, but as stated earlier, the Chinese tend towards slimmer and petite anyway. Exposing people who are already susceptible to body image problems to something that's only achievable with the right genetics is not a good thing.

Instead of the A4 challenge, suppose I posted the collarbone challenge (balance things on your collarbones), which is an indirect measure of your body fat and musculature, or the 'reach your hand around your back' challenge, which is more a flexibility test than anything else. Both are just as arbitrary as the A4 challenge but neither really promote an unhealthy body image (for example, even I can pass the collarbone one and I can just about grab my sides), so they're more silly fun challenges that I have no objection to.

Spoiler: Collarbone challenge

Show

Spoiler: Contortionist challenge

Show

I recognise that this was the intention of the A4 challenge, unfortunately its other implications have blown up massively.

[goto124]

The collarbone example is healthier because those who lose it aren't marked 'looooosers' or 'failures at life'. It's nice if you can, but even if you can't it's all fun - maybe even more fun than winning. People who lost aren't being held up to an arbitrary standard that shouldn't exist.

Helps that the collarbone one doesn't play into a pre-existing misconception that's rather pervasive throughout cultures.

[A.A.King]

You don't have to explicitly state something for that to be a clear message, and sometimes subtext and implication are the harshest and most persistent ways to carry a message. So this was not harmless, and therefore their way was, unfortunately, critically flawed. When someone vulnerable is doing something that is harmful to themselves or others, the correct response is not to encourage them to keep doing that in hopes that this encouragement will help them somehow. Instead… you gently get them to stop.

If you want to talk about subtext and implications I want you to think about the subtext and implications of the extreme backlash to this challenge. The correct responds to this backlas is not to encourage people to keep doing that. Instead you get them to stop.

(I removed the word gently when refocussing your words because the backlash wasn't gently and so I see no need to be gently towards them)

Certainly not! You should reconsider your methods and reasoning; I don't think you're achieving what you hope for. That's unsurprising, given humanity's penchant for misguided-but-well-meaning zealotry, but that doesn't mean it's totally fine and dandy either.

TL/DR: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This too I would like to fire right back at you, because this fighting against a silly internet challenge is not achieving what it is hoping for and their methods and reasoning are far from sound.

A person should always think about what crowd they are joining and no matter how good your intentions or how restrained your own behaviour with regards to this backlash, being part of this backlash made you part of a mob.

This backlash is not making the world a better place, it is making who already have it bad feel worse.

I still only hear arguments from the point of view from the genetically unlucky, still nobody here has tried to image what these A4 girls are going through. I hear not a single grain of sympathy for the way these girls are treated in real life nor for the hate and bullying they received from uploading a picture online. That is all I really have left to say on this matter.

[Brother Oni]

I still only hear arguments from the point of view from the genetically unlucky, still nobody here has tried to image what these A4 girls are going through. I hear not a single grain of sympathy for the way these girls are treated in real life nor for the hate and bullying they received from uploading a picture online. That is all I really have left to say on this matter.

Because bullying and harassment in whatever shape or form, for whatever reason, is bad. That shouldn't have to be stated and neither should be support for those on the receiving end (unless they're denigrating those people who have failed the challenge).

As for why there are only arguments in this thread from those who don't pass the challenge, is there anybody here who actually pass it? As I mentioned in my initial post, even my prepubescent daughter fails it and I value my life too much to even approach my wife with the suggestion.

[goto124]

Do it behind her back. Literally.

Hold the paper to her back and quietly take a shot

Back on topic, I'm sure there are people who pass the test. But not passing the test don't automatically equal to unhealthy or fat or loser or whatever.

[acire]

60% of the North American population is overweight and 30% is obese. I approve of this twitter fad. Personally, I don't think people in developed countries are doing enough to stress healthy eating habits.

Being able to hide behind a piece of paper doesn't make you healthy. It doesn't even make you thin (you could totally be using tricks of perception or probably just straight up image editing).

At best, this is a "Let's see how we can use perception tricks and image editing software by pretending to be able to hide our waist behind the width of a piece of A4 paper" challenge. It is not at all a "Let's see how healthy we can all get" challenge.

[ace rooster]

Umm nope. Not at all. Don’t believe me; try not paying your electricity bill for a few months; or stop buying groceries for a week. You’ll find electricity pretty scarce when they cut you off and food prety hard to come buy if you don't go and buy it (or grow it yourself). In point of fact, we will never have a post scarcity society because as long as someone is providing a product or service to another that person is going to want some form of compensation. Sure we may live in a land of plenty; but food, water, electricity, housing and entertainment don’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone has to grow and make those things; that takes time and effort, and people want something to show for that time and effort.

I did say fairly. The point is that simply surviving has become a minor part of the budget of the majority of people, so that finding survival easy has ceased to be a distinguishing feature. Genuine post scarcity is not possible, but for some discussions we are close enough to behave like we have it. I believe this is one of those discussions, though I understand why the phrase might be a peeve.

I don’t agree with this statement. Men have been making themselves look good for women as long as there has been men and women. A portion of the male population will always be obsessed with it, and that portion of the male population may be growing. But men’s fashion has not just suddenly appeared out of no-where it’s been there since time immemorial.

What "looking good" means is changing though. Where previously businesslike and successful were the height of "looking good", their attractiveness has reduced. They obviously still have appeal, but their weight is reduced. Now the prettyboy will win out over the businessman, so men are spending more (time as well as money) on being the prettyboy.


None of these statements are absolutes. Nothing new has emerged, and nothing has entirely disappeared. The weighting of various factors has significantly changed though, and how these factors affect behaviour can be analysed. In particular we can understand the factors that contribute to modern behaviour and try to adjust them in favourable directions, rather than just tut tut about entirely predictable unhealthy trends.

In general I don't express outrage at problems. I try to find solutions. I'm probably on the wrong board for that though.

[Jormengand]

As for why there are only arguments in this thread from those who don't pass the challenge, is there anybody here who actually pass it? As I mentioned in my initial post, even my prepubescent daughter fails it and I value my life too much to even approach my wife with the suggestion.

I pass. I have a hyper-fast metabolism and am severely underweight as a result, so it's not surprising that I pass a test based around being thinner than is probably healthy.

[JustSomeGuy]

I did say fairly. The point is that simply surviving has become a minor part of the budget of the majority of people, so that finding survival easy has ceased to be a distinguishing feature. Genuine post scarcity is not possible, but for some discussions we are close enough to behave like we have it. I believe this is one of those discussions, though I understand why the phrase might be a peeve.


What "looking good" means is changing though. Where previously businesslike and successful were the height of "looking good", their attractiveness has reduced. They obviously still have appeal, but their weight is reduced. Now the prettyboy will win out over the businessman, so men are spending more (time as well as money) on being the prettyboy.


None of these statements are absolutes. Nothing new has emerged, and nothing has entirely disappeared. The weighting of various factors has significantly changed though, and how these factors affect behaviour can be analysed. In particular we can understand the factors that contribute to modern behaviour and try to adjust them in favourable directions, rather than just tut tut about entirely predictable unhealthy trends.

In general I don't express outrage at problems. I try to find solutions. I'm probably on the wrong board for that though.

Has it? Or is it just a perception that is pushed by companies that make money selling products and services that men think will make them more attractive... lets ask Woman. They all have the same opinion on what's attracive in a man anyway, right? Oh, hang on a minute, they don't - but apparently in the same breath, they all decided they want a man who looks computer/ped/makeup and lighting fresh (ie completely fabricated again) from the latest issue of "men you should look like this to feel good so buy these" monthly.

[ace rooster]

Has it? Or is it just a perception that is pushed by companies that make money selling products and services that men think will make them more attractive... lets ask Woman. They all have the same opinion on what's attracive in a man anyway, right? Oh, hang on a minute, they don't - but apparently in the same breath, they all decided they want a man who looks computer/ped/makeup and lighting fresh (ie completely fabricated again) from the latest issue of "men you should look like this to feel good so buy these" monthly.

Well those companies have always been trying to sell those products, and now they are selling more.

I am speaking about trends, and using shorthand, and simplifying to try to make my point clearer. I say again, none of those statements were absolutes. Do you disagree with the perceived trend?

[JustSomeGuy]

It's pretty hard to disagree with sales figures! I'm not sure they correlate with womens' perceived ideas of male attractiveness though, if you could even quantify that

[ace rooster]

It's pretty hard to disagree with sales figures! I'm not sure they correlate with womens' perceived ideas of male attractiveness though, if you could even quantify that

I would love to quantify that, but have no idea how.

The assertion was an answer to TheThan's comment that male grooming is not a new thing. It was meant as a theory to try to understand the increase in sales figures, rather than an absolute comment on something that is incredibly hard to get data on.

The thinking goes like this; Humans are animals, and all behaviour evolves with reproduction in mind. Creatures of all types, sizes, and genders, will try to make themselves 'attractive'. This is not strictly about physical beauty, particularly when survival is difficult. It is not even restricted to the creature's form and behaviour. In social animals attracting a mate can revolve around social standing. None of this is conscious, it is far older than that. It is behaviour which has evolved over a billion years. This makes getting data extremely hard, because you can't even rely on what people say. The only way to get reliable data is observing what people actually do, such as buy cosmetics, and infer back.

People will always try to make themselves attractive, so what happens if the situation limits their means to do so? The billion year old behaviour pushes them hard to either change the situation (impossible), or focus on the few remaining ways to become 'attractive', sometimes to a pathological extent. My theory is that the recent surge of male cosmetics was due to being successful being perceived (by men) as having less weight as an attractor, rather than physical beauty getting more. It is not to the extent that pathology emerges commonly in men currently, but we seem to be going it that direction.

This leads to my proposed solution. It is impossible to reduce the weight of physical beauty, but we can reduce it's relative weight. Attempts can be made to promote other methods to being attractive beside physical beauty. We need to reintroduce sexy (not based on physical beauty) into areas where our prudishness has removed it.

Apologies if my last response was a little sharp, it was late and I was tired. Does that make sense?

[goto124]

My theory is that the recent surge of male cosmetics was due to being successful being perceived (by men) as having less weight as an attractor, rather than physical beauty getting more.

Or does physical beauty get associated with success? Dum dum DUUUUUUUUM!

[Mightymosy]

It's pretty hard to disagree with sales figures! I'm not sure they correlate with womens' perceived ideas of male attractiveness though, if you could even quantify that

Well, in the times of internet dating, you certainly can!
Privacy issues aside, it would be rather easy taking a huge database from a huge provider and relate mens' physical attributes with number of views, profile clicks, responses etc. from women.

Just saying.

[Mightymosy]

[...]

This leads to my proposed solution. It is impossible to reduce the weight of physical beauty, but we can reduce it's relative weight. Attempts can be made to promote other methods to being attractive beside physical beauty. We need to reintroduce sexy (not based on physical beauty) into areas where our prudishness has removed it.

Apologies if my last response was a little sharp, it was late and I was tired. Does that make sense?

Well, I think physical beauty will always be a thing, the problem comes with people being so bad at judging what is important and what is not, and not weighing things effectively.

So, some people should reduce weight to become more attractive, while others need to gain a bit to become appealing. Still others focus on further perfectioning their visual appearance while the real problem is their crappy personality.
The problem is that many people have a distorted view on where their qualities and deficits really are (in respect to being attractive to potential partners). Also, a lot of those that do have the right idea still can't achieve that goal (most commonly this would be people just not managing to keep their diet, but other examples are plenty).

The first part comes, from my experience, from people asking the right question to the wrong people all of the time.

Here are a couple people you probably should not ask whether you are attractive and what you should change to become more attractive:
- your mother (always loves you)
- your father (always loves you)
- your best friend (likes you and/or is your direct, if friendly, competitor in your quest for the opposite gender (or same, or whatever)
- your sister/brother (although those might work, at times)
- generally speaking, people of the same gender as you are (they either have no clue themselves, or they don't have your best interests in mind (competitors), or beauty comes kinda naturally to them because they were raised in a certain way, or D, all of the above).

Note that I'm speaking generally. Of course, someone could get reasonable advice from some of the persons I mentioned, it's just that I feel that there is a general tendency which makes that a bit difficult.

Who should you ask?
People of the opposite gender (can't speak for gay people on this subject, because i don't have a clue).
More specifically, you need people of the opposite gender you can expect a true answer from. This can be tough to do. But if you want to sell fish, you have to ask someone who eats fish. Asking someone who loves meat, someone who is vegetarian, or asking the fish won't do you any good.
Since sincere answers are hard to come by, I found a pretty useful proxy solution: magazines intended for the opposite gender. Just read those and find out what makes women (or men, for that matter) swoon over. Heck, lurk internet forums where people of the opposite gender discuss their interests. This will get you a way better view on what's hot generally, and what's not. Also, you will find how and where people actually have different views and tastes.

[JustSomeGuy]

Ace rooster; yeah i get what you're meaning, and agree with the sexy

Well, in the times of internet dating, you certainly can!
Privacy issues aside, it would be rather easy taking a huge database from a huge provider and relate mens' physical attributes with number of views, profile clicks, responses etc. from women.

Just saying.

I think the sheer variety of searchable tags and categories on 'adult video' sites tends tp disprove every notion on what men want. Can't speak for the other genders, but can't imagine any less specificity in what gets looked at.

[Mightymosy]

Ace rooster; yeah i get what you're meaning, and agree with the sexy



I think the sheer variety of searchable tags and categories on 'adult video' sites tends tp disprove every notion on what men want. Can't speak for the other genders, but can't imagine any less specificity in what gets looked at.

How so? If anything, it proves the interest of men, or rather it shows a broad spectrum of what men tend to like.

[JustSomeGuy]

Yeah that's what i'm saying - you could plaster pretty much anyone/thing on a picture, say "look like this because men like it" and you wouldn't be wrong. Or to put it another way, you can't say to a woman "men don't want you to look like x, buy this and look sexy for the season's parties" or whatever is said

[BannedInSchool]

How so? If anything, it proves the interest of men, or rather it shows a broad spectrum of what men tend to like.

I think there may be a strong correlation to undress. Not universally, but some inclination.

[Necrov]

Yay... another way to body shame... just what everyone wants/needed.