Talk:Fat men's club

FAT WOMEN'S CLUB????

These men were sexist and took women for granted did they have a fat women's club? The correct answer is no. They did not! 91.110.223.115 (talk) 05:43, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course, everything in the world is an offence and needful of denunciation, yet factually, as one of the references says: However, female versions of fat men's clubs did exist, according to Leeworthy. He points to a Hazleton, Pa., venue whose female members weighed 236 pounds on average.

https://text.npr.org/469571114

To be honest, today is the first time ever in the history of the world I've heard of this phenomenon, 'Fat Person's Clubs' --- coming to it from the equally bonkers American sport of Competitive Eating --- but there seems no reason, apart from all men being sexist anyway, to indicate these were more so than others. Quite considerably less so considering their gluttony and failing stamina; PGW would have had a field day describing a Fat Men's Club Annual Race.

Besides, warning women to be thin sylphs would equally be wicked sexism.

Claverhouse (talk) 00:45, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Wealth and fat men's clubs

Wikiedit4444444, several of the already cited sources specifically highlight wealth as a component of these clubs:

• NPR The fat men's clubs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were spectacular celebrations of the wealth and chubbiness of a bygone era.

• HuffPost Self-proclaimed "fat men" -- wealthy, usually powerful men in major U.S. cities -- gathered together in clubs

• Texas Monthly The fat men’s clubs were also not places for the impoverished or those with physically demanding jobs. These were clubs of men with enough money to sustain themselves and then some

_signed, Rosguill ^talk 03:31, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Further, relating to the contested claim about perceptions of fat people, my statement from the edit summary stands: cited texas monthly source backs up this claim directly, [Cambridge] link in prior edit summary doesn't really prove or disprove anything related to fat men's clubs and attests to a range of perspectives on weight in the 19th century. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 04:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

The sources used such as the Texas monthly source have very little information to back up that claim that " attitudes towards male obesity were largely positive". from work such as Obesity in America, 1850-1939: A History of Social Attitudes and Treatment, The metamorphoses of fat : a history of obesity, The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain and so on claim that obesity in the gilded age was widely unpopular. Going over other sources of this wiki page also have very little sources in there articles and most of them clearly copy the other, I would highly suggest doing more reading on the subject rather than believing the first articles you see on it. Also look at the sources used in these articles as well. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 19:55, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Generally reliable journalistic sources aren't expected or required to spell out the bases of their assertions; they aren't Wikipedia. While they can be refuted by higher quality sources, the sources you have proposed in edit summaries have not refuted, but rather further supported, the claim. Let's look at the best one IMO, from this edit, as the most recent one is an entirely unrelated article about masculinity in Nazi Germany and you haven't provided an accessible link or citation for the work you cite above:

In contrast to the generally negative view of “excess” body weight today, scholars note that fatness was regarded positively in the past, as it indicated either wealth or health, and often both (Green Reference Green1986; Stearns Reference Stearns1997). These accounts have been supported by research suggesting that fatness was widely valued in the nineteenth century, even becoming fashionable as an appearance ideal for women in the form of voluptuousness (Dinh Reference Dinh2012). While this bodily “plumpness” was indeed praised by the fashion world, it was also extolled by nineteenth-century physicians who associated a plump figure with good health. However, this more positive view of fatness receded at the beginning of the twentieth century, as interest in slimming techniques and weight reduction took hold (Czerniawski Reference Czerniawski2007; Schwartz Reference Schwartz1986). Spurred by a cultural fascination with efficiency and scientific management (Haber Reference Haber1964), and driven by growing anxieties over excess and abundance in US society (Schwartz Reference Schwartz1986), reducing one's weight and monitoring diet became taken-for-granted norms in the early 1900s. Thus, scholars suggest that Western societies gradually transitioned from valuing plumpness to stigmatizing fatness.

What troubles this historical narrative, however, are the many warnings against body fat throughout the nineteenth century. Physicians and laypeople alike wrote regularly about the unhealthy state of “corpulence,” illustrated by Banting's (Reference Banting1864) popular pamphlet, Letter on Corpulence. Such texts existed alongside numerous physician reports and medical essays praising plumpness. But, given that doctors did not regularly weigh patients or measure bodily fat in this time periodFootnote 1 (Czerniawski Reference Czerniawski2007), there is little evidence as to what these different states may have looked like. In some cases, people were proclaimed to be healthy and vibrant because they were fat, and in other cases they were proclaimed to be unhealthy and debilitated because they were fat. How these two seemingly disparate diagnoses sat side by side in the same era constitutes an interesting historical question.

The source presents that during the 19th century opinions of general society in the US viewed fat as a generally positive trait. Doctors, meanwhile, were only just beginning to recognize the health risks of obesity, leading to contradictory claims about health indication of obesity within the field during the time period. It in no way contradicts the claim attested by the several journalistic RS, that heavy weight was popularly (not necessarily medically) associated with positive traits (not necessarily health), including wealth in particular. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:37, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

First sorry for the unrelated article on Nazi Germany it seems I accidently sent that a while back, that was for something else. Second I'm not sure you really understand the source you have just quoted, In David Hutson's article it goes over the meaning of different uses of vocabulary in the 19th century from corpulence which was seen as a negative and plumpness generally viewed more positively. When going over his article plumpness usually describes slightly over weight women babies and sometimes the old but never men, I even got in contact with David and he he stated to me "my article doesn’t make the claim that plumpness was an ideal form of male embodiment—only that it was a category through which doctors understood bodily health. The article is really just about that narrow space where embodiment and health intersect... But, your points about male embodiment are very in-line with what other scholars have also found—that it was more complicated than just equating fatness with wealth/success and assuming that was an ideal form of male embodiment." He also told me that both Green and Stearns were not the best sources to use to back up equating wealth with obesity. Finally your first point that "Generally reliable journalistic sources aren't expected or required to spell out the bases of their assertions; they aren't Wikipedia" Yes they are, if you quote something and your source is incorrect and has little sources its self to back it up, it means your source is bad and you should probably do more research. In all honesty it seems your "research" you did for this wiki page was that you clicked on the first links you saw after typing in fat men's club into your google search bar. Please in the future try your best to do more research, if you were being graded by a teacher/professor for your sources you would probably get an F. Hope this helps you out. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 20:29, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

You can't keep restoring your same edit over objections. I'd suggest you revert your last attempt to edit war before it results in a block; the correct way to raise your objections would be to do that and then move to call an WP:RfC on this question, as the two of us seem unlikely to come to an agreement.

I maintain that you're barking up the wrong tree with your objections: the variety of existing perceptions of health in the 19th century does not invalidate that there existed of a popular perception that obesity represented health and wealth, especially in contrast to 21st century perspectives. In particular, your repeated removal of the perceived connection of wealth to fatness, alongside your more plausible arguments regarding health, is egregious, as none of your sources address this question at all. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

In the Huff post article you cite, there is no source used to back up what you quoted in their article. Same thing in the other two of your articles you quoted. I suggest you should get in touch with these authors and ask where they got their information from for these specific claims. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 20:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

First sorry for the unrelated article on Nazi Germany it seems I accidently sent that a while back, that was for something else. Second I'm not sure you really understand the source you have just quoted, In David Hutson's article it goes over the meaning of different uses of vocabulary in the 19th century from corpulence which was seen as a negative and plumpness generally viewed more positively. When going over his article plumpness usually describes slightly over weight women babies and sometimes the old but never men, I even got in contact with David and he he stated to me "my article doesn’t make the claim that plumpness was an ideal form of male embodiment—only that it was a category through which doctors understood bodily health. The article is really just about that narrow space where embodiment and health intersect... But, your points about male embodiment are very in-line with what other scholars have also found—that it was more complicated than just equating fatness with wealth/success and assuming that was an ideal form of male embodiment." He also told me that both Green and Stearns were not the best sources to use to back up equating wealth with obesity. Finally your first point that "Generally reliable journalistic sources aren't expected or required to spell out the bases of their assertions; they aren't Wikipedia" Yes they are, if you quote something and your source is incorrect and has little sources its self to back it up, it means your source is bad and you should probably do more research. In all honesty it seems your "research" you did for this wiki page was that you clicked on the first links you saw after typing in fat men's club into your google search bar. Please in the future try your best to do more research, if you were being graded by a teacher/professor for your sources you would probably get an F. Hope this helps you out. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

sources

some areas of this page are in dire need of proper sources, such as this "and members were generally quite wealthy as well." I have seen articles online say this with no sources as well, when citing information you must get your sources from primary documents or trustworthy authors, which this wiki page has none of. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

This is the same complaint you raised in the above section, and which I have already sufficiently responded to. If you want to pursue this issue further, please follow the instructions at WP:3O or WP:RfC to seek broader community input. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Third opinion: Rosguill showed here three quality sources to support the assertion that "members were generally quite wealthy". IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 05:08, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi IOHANNVSVERVS glad to have you here as a third opinion, though you could say these sources here are quality is fine, but only one article by NPR states that "Traditionally, being fat was closely associated with wealth and status". The problem I have here is that one, NPR does not source this fact, yes they say Leeworthy told them but that is not a source, meaning its not trustworthy. Second though the point says "Traditionally, being fat was closely associated with wealth and status" it says nothing about if the fat men's club members were generally wealthy that is just speculation. Another point I'd like to bring up is later in the wiki article Rosguill states "the popularity of fat men's clubs waned as obesity became increasingly associated with bad health." I am quite certain and have a lot of sources to back up that this is false, yes way before the 19th century many doctors and the public knew that obesity was unhealthy, and no source is used for this point either. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 15:22, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

As I've pointed out in the section above, this argument misinterprets the sources that Wikiedit4+ is presenting by conflating claims about medical discourse with those about popular discourse (and ignoring that the cited sources provide evidence that both were heterogeneous in the 19th century), it ignores half the sources I have provided, and it subjects RS to a level of scrutiny that is out of sync with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to such a degree that most text on Wikipedia would have to be deleted if we were to apply consistently Wikiedit4+'s method. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:39, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

By the way, here's a peer-reviewed source in German that confirms the same information as the other cited sources, , in particular pages 229-230 (16-17 in the PDF) where it says {{tq|die Fat Men’s Clubs symbolisierten Erfolgsstreben und die Eskapaden, die in diesem Zusammenhang aber nicht nur ohne strenge gesellschaftliche Sanktionierungen möglich, sondern sogarzum Zeichen des Erfolges wurden. Die Zeitungsartikel beschrieben die Fat Men als dicke Gentlemen und kreisten immer wieder um den Wohlstand und die Respektabilität der Mitglieder. Ob es um die Insignien des Clubvorstandes ging – einen »riesigen hölzernen Gehstock mit einer goldenen Plakette«, auf der die Namen aller Clubpräsidenten eingraviert waren – oder um die »hoch geehrten« Speisen, die auf den jährlichen Clambakes gereicht wurden – der Club stellte sich als Vereinigung weißer, wohlhabender und angesehener Traditionalisten dar.56 Zu seinen Mitgliedern zählten hauptsächlich Geschäftsmänner, Juristen und Politiker – darunter auch prominente, wie etwa der ehemalige demokratische Präsidentschaftskandidat William Jennings Bryan.57 In einem Aufnahmeformular, das 1908 an den US-Präsidenten William Howard Taft versandt wurde (der aber wohl nie antwortete), hieß es, Mitglied werden könnte derjenige, der über 200 Pfund wog sowie ein »weißer Mann, ehrbar [und] gesellig« war.58 The Fat Men's Clubs symbolized ambition for success, and their outings during this time period were not only permitted without social censure but further celebrated as symbols of success. Newspaper articles of the time describe Fat Men as large Gentlemen and always emphasize the health and respectability of its members. Whether when looking at the club insignias (a "huge wooden cane with a golden platter" on which all club presidents' names were engraved) or at the "highly honored" dishes featured at their yearly clambakes, the club presented itself as a meeting ground for white, well-to-do, and well-recognized traditionalists. Its membership included businessmen, judges, and politicians, including very prominent ones, such as Democrat presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. A 1908 invitation to join a club sent to President Taft (which never received a reply) described membership of the club as open to any "honorable and sociable white man" over 200 pounds.The article further describes the interest of this topic precisely being that ideas of the relative pro-social/anti-social/healthy/unhealthy perception of fatness in society were changing in this period, ultimately leading the clubs to fall out of favor in the 20th century as public perception turned decisively negative. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:17, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

For the first section we might not come to an agreement but I would suggest changing it from " and members were generally quite wealthy as well" to "some members such as some politicians and businessmen were wealthy" nothing in this states that many were wealthy in the clubs just some happened to be. The sources used later down about fat being a sign of wealth and abundance, the sources used for this point don't add up, I read all these books an none claim this, in fact the opposite is true, in one source used, "Obesity in America, 1850-1939: A History of Social Attitudes and Treatment" by Kerry Segrave, he states on page 41 in an article at the time by the Los Angeles Times called "Our quota of club freaks" in the article it categorizes the fat men's club into the eccentric order along with the One-Legged club, Anti Matrimony club, and the Suicide club. This primary source along with others at the time shows pretty damming evidence that even though in some cities these clubs were somewhat popular they were still quite strange and not of the norm. And when it comes to health the article you use uses no sources that obesity was ever seen as healthy. It seems you also got this article quite quickly around 40 minutes after my last reply. I hope you didn't just quickly google search information, sourcing info takes time and its good to research without having a conclusion already in ones head. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 20:15, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

also in your notes you seem have mistranslated the document, in one section you claim its says "Newspaper articles of the time describe Fat Men as large Gentlemen and always emphasize the health and respectability of its members" when it actually says "newspaper articles described the Fat Men as fat gentlemen and repeatedly revolved around the wealth and respectability of the members." I hope you didn't purposely mistranslate to further your argument, I am trying to be as civil and helpful as possible and need you to do the same Rosguill. Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 20:29, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

here is the full text in english you cited "The Fat Men's Clubs symbolized the pursuit of success and the escapades, which in this context were not only possible without strict social sanctions, but even became a sign of success. The newspaper articles described the Fat Men as fat gentlemen and repeatedly revolved around the wealth and respectability of the members. Whether it was the insignia of the club's board of directors - a "giant wooden walking stick with a gold plaque" engraved with the names of all the club presidents - or the "highly honored" dishes served on the legendary clambakes - the club stood its ground before as an association of white, wealthy and respected traditionalists. Its members mainly include businessmen, lawyers and politicians - including prominent ones such as the former Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. In an admission form sent to US President William in 1908 Howard Taft (who apparently never responded) said that anyone who weighed over 200 pounds and was a "white man, honorable [and] sociable" could become a member." Wikiedit4444444 (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Notes