Nowadays, the health risks of obesity are well known. Between that and a culture whose beauty standards often revolve around slim figures, thin is in. Throughout most of history, however, to be fat was desirable. Thinness, on the other hand, was often seen negatively, as a sign of poverty or illness. Indeed, fat used to be so admired that it was celebrated by chunky fellows who formed fat men’s clubs, while hefty rubenesque women were all the rage. Below are some fascinating facts about the days when fat was the in thing.
Our Ancestors Would Have Found Our Desire to be Thin Incomprehensible
As our waistlines continue to expand in the modern era, so do the profits of the weight loss industry. The existence of such an industry would have baffled our ancestors, most of whom could only have dreamt of being so lucky as to have to worry about being too fat. They were often forced to flee for their lives from saber toothed tigers and other predators, or had to eke out their living with back breaking toil as peasants and serfs.
In short, most people in the past were neither sedentary enough, nor had that much extra (or even enough) to eat to pack on the pounds. In times when leisure, and especially food, were relatively scarce – and food scarcity was an ever present threat throughout most of humanity’s existence – to be chunky was a sign of good fortune. And throughout history, the fortunate have loved to showcase their good fortune. That, as seen below, explains the rise of fat men’s clubs in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America.
The Rise of Fat Men’s Clubs
Prosperous fat American men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century got together to celebrate and showcase their obesity. Membership was contingent on weight, with usually a 200 pounds minimum as a condition for acceptance. That 200 pounds was considered significant back then only highlights just how obese we have become nowadays. At their get-togethers, club members had weigh-ins that often got competitive. Especially at clubs that assigned roles based on weight, with the heftiest appointed president, the second fattest treasurer, and so on.
These days, we try our best to downplay and hide our weight. In the fat clubs of yore, however, members went to great lengths to add weight at weigh-ins. They cheated the scales by stuffing their pockets with coins, among other shenanigans. It was not until the 1920s, when the link between obesity and poor health became better-known, that fat men’s clubs declined. One of the biggest, the New England Fat Men’s Club, last met in 1924. By then, membership had dropped from 10,000 to just 38, and the club disbanded when none of the members passed the weigh-in.
When Fat Was Seen as Good, and Thin Was Not In
To be fat was seen as a good thing throughout much of history. It visibly told everybody that you were prosperous and had all you could eat (and more). Skinny was not attractive, but was a sign that somebody did not have enough to eat, suffered from poor health, or both. Chunky was sexy, as illustrated by Rubens’ standards of beauty, above. Some went beyond the rubenesque, though, and got carried away. Take King Rumanika, a nineteenth ruler of Buganda in central Africa, who liked extremely fat women.
His Majesty had a harem of big ladies. So big, they couldn’t stand. Rather than walk, they waddled about like elephant seals. They were fed – or more accurately, force fed – a porridge heavy on goat’s milk to keep them pleasantly plump. As in literally force fed: His Highness had servants stand over his big mamas at mealtimes with whips to make sure they finished all the food they were given, and flog them if they did not until they did. To this day, fat women are seen as sexy in some parts of the world, while “model thin” skinny girls are pitied.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Moorehead, Alan – The White Nile (1960)
NPR – The Forgotten History of Fat Men’s Clubs
Stuff – The Torturous Path to Finding the Source of the Nile
