I think there's a very difficult balance between "you're fat, so you aren't allowed to have any nice stuff" and "fat is the new normal and of course we want your consumer dollars". (They had clothing for overweight kids when I was a kid -- they just marketed it as "husky sizes" back then. There is little new under the sun.) But when it comes down to it, manufacturing will follow the money -- there's no point to expecting them to behave differently.
I do agree that what is perceived as "normal" has an immense influence on how people behave, both for good and ill. It's difficult for people -- whether kids or adults -- to model their behavior on something other than what they see around them. It's as true for inter-personal relationships and for career expectations just as much as for nutritional/activity behavior. And when those norms (speaking of the more general case) have been passed down through several generations, it can be very hard to get people to believe in alternative models in the same way that they do in the familiar ones. Getting a kid to choose healthy eating when all he ever sees is MacDonalds and pizza is as hard as getting a kid to choose college when all he ever sees is high school dropouts and street life.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-11-08 11:39 pm (UTC)I do agree that what is perceived as "normal" has an immense influence on how people behave, both for good and ill. It's difficult for people -- whether kids or adults -- to model their behavior on something other than what they see around them. It's as true for inter-personal relationships and for career expectations just as much as for nutritional/activity behavior. And when those norms (speaking of the more general case) have been passed down through several generations, it can be very hard to get people to believe in alternative models in the same way that they do in the familiar ones. Getting a kid to choose healthy eating when all he ever sees is MacDonalds and pizza is as hard as getting a kid to choose college when all he ever sees is high school dropouts and street life.