Mr. And Ms. Average
Amy sends along this article about “Mr. and Mrs. Average,” two people who won a British contest for averageness.* They have exactly “average” heights and weights, and are being turned into three-dimensional sculptures!
Amy says her favorite part is this:
So how do Jose and Susan feel about being representatives of the state of British health? ‘I’m not ideal, but if this is what the average man in the UK looks like, then people can draw their own conclusions,’ says Jose. ‘Most of my mates look more like me than David Beckham.’
Susan says: ‘I hope women will look at me and realise that the stick-thin models they see in magazines aren’t the norm. I am average and proud of that.’
My least favorite part is that the article devolves into OMG OBESITY CRISIS and OMG AVERAGE IS SO FAT NOW!!11!! Shock horror! Except that they look, you know. Perfectly average.
*I did question the fact that they selected two white people. It seems problematic to default to white = average. Wouldn’t a truly “average” person be mixed race?
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Filed under: Art, International, Race & Ethnicity
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The guy doesn’t look “white” to me, he looks like he might be mixed race or something. (This is not having read the article and just from this photo.)
As usual, the comments section is filled with fat-hate. While I don’t like the article, how it was wriiten, or the general site it was posted on, at least it did bring up the fact that BMI can be useless.
I HATED the article. Same bullshit as usual, too fat, too tall, too short. And YES the one who wrote the rant about this nation being out of control regarding to weight SOUNDS like an obsessive anorexic. I hate all this crap and supposedly-right theorizing about why people are heavier than ever. WE ALSO LIVE LONGER THAN EVER! We do not die from tuberculose or smallpox anymore. Hey can someone just see that all this panic just does not match the reality anymore. It makes me batshit crazy.
Those average people are gorgeous. ;) The article grudgingly acknowledges that they are not unhealthy, but really seems to want them to be… Tsk tsk, they better not gain any more weight!
Your question reminds me of the story about the school mural in Arizona, where that city councilman/radio jerk went on a campaign to have the skin of the boy in the picture lightened, saying something to the effect that because the child isn’t white, the mural is political. So “white” is just default color of humans, and anything else is “in your face”?
I did question the fact that they selected two white people. It seems problematic to default to white = average. Wouldn’t a truly “average” person be mixed race?
To be fair, they’re Brits, and they look like people whose families have been British for hundreds/thousands of years. Large scale immigration is a pretty recent phenomenon there.
Heaven forbid that the general public be planted the notion that it should be socially acceptable for a woman to be anything over a size 12. We all know women of size should be treated like the second-class citizens that they are. :rolleyes:
Anyway, props to Susan for having pride in herself and not falling for that horrid mindset, and nay on the “amandigo” for being so size elitist.
I agree with you regarding the problem of them selecting two white people as the most average, but I have to say this.
I *want* that dress.
Wow – the article itself was really awful, I have to say. Thanks for the warning – there was much skimming on my end, and I’m the happier for it! Part of me feels badly for sticking my head in the sand when it comes to what ‘the other side’ are saying, but so long as people can utterly ignore the statistics that show that ‘overweight’ BMIs are correlated with better health outcomes, I’m pretty comfortable with banning the whole of their illogic.
I do wonder if Jose identifies as white, or as only white – it may be different in the UK, but I def. associate the name Jose with having some Latino heritage. Living in CA and FL have made this a different question than living in Britain, though.
i didn’t consider Jose to be “white”. he looks at least partially hispanic to me, and his name is Jose… or do you guys consider hispanic folks (like myself) to be white?
The guy actually looks like he might be of mixed race.
Sigh…usual fat hate from the Daily Fail (although I hope Richie from Leeds will turn up with a suitably scathing comment, as he quite often does on their weight stories).
I recall reading back in the 80s that I was ‘average’ for a British woman at that time – a size 16, 5’5″ and weighing 140. And from what I’ve heard, we’re meant to be getting taller as well as heavier – there certainly seem to be many more teens pushing 6′ than there ever were when I was that age (although many of them are scarily thin for that height, too). So I’m a little surprised that they ended up with an ‘average’ woman of only 5’3″. Unless they deliberately picked someone slightly shorter to end up with a higher BMI?
Also, this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone (let alone a doctor) use the term ‘pre-obese’, and the sooner nobody ever uses it again, the better.
While it does surprise me that the average height would be that low, it might come down to the fact that the UK has a relatively large immigrant population that is not, for the most part, as tall as their white counterparts. As for the name José it´s definitely Portuguese or Spanish, which might indicate some diversity.
Those average people look pretty great! Susan especially is gorgeous–this will sound super weird, but the first thing I noticed were her legs. They look slammin’! Ironically enough the average woman and I have the same height/weight stats, ha.
Admittedly after reading the comments here I decided to forgo the article, since that’s not a downer I need today.
I’m not going anywhere near the source article or its comments; I know what to expect. What I will say is that these two people are quite appealing and, to my eye, healthy-looking. Though (and of course, this is news to no-one here!) that is something you CANNOT tell just by looking at someone, despite what the creators of Gregory House, M.D., would have us believe.
I’m surprised by the height too – I always thought I was shorter than average at just over 5’3″.
I have not read the comments. I find it’s better for my blood pressure to never read below the line on a Daily Fail article…
Alice – I would imagine that a Jose in Britain is more likely to be Spanish that Latino. I don’t know what effect that would have on his self-identification though. I think the ‘average’ British person is still pretty white.
For anyone not familiar with the Mail, their comments are generally not worth the aggravation. (Nor are the articles). The paper is full of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia and fat hatred.
I believe the average female height for the UK is just under 5’4″. Some of the discrepancy between averages may be due to different methodologies in measuring height – some studies take people’s self-reported height, or measure them in shoes. I’m surprised the average man is only 5’7″, though; I thought 5’9″ was more average.
I was happy to see two “average” people presented that look like the people I see on the street every day rather than the sculpted cheekbones and protuberant hip bones that the media wants to say is average. What I don’t understand is why the flap over the race of average models. I just got back from England, and looking at my photos and reviewing my memory of what I saw, well over half the people I recall were white. (Of course, I live in a town where I am the only even partially black person and 60% (according to the census bureau) of the town is of Hispanic origin so maybe I don’t notice brown skin any more.) Perhaps the largest ethnic group in England is caucasian, and that’s why the “average English Person” is portrayed as white.
“this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone (let alone a doctor) use the term ‘pre-obese’, and the sooner nobody ever uses it again, the better.”
@Emerald–I do find this whole “pre-[whatever]” trend in medicine to be scary, cause it’s starting to mean they can medicate or treat you for a condition even if you don’t have it! Osteoporosis, hypertension and diabetes are the three examples I’ve heard of recently. I guess if they can diagnose everyone as sick or “pre-sick,” there’s a lot more money to be made.
They look average to me. She’s beautiful. I’m a little shorter at 5′ 2″, but I also weigh about 15 stones. I’ve been quote overweight most of my adult weight. I’m still surprised that negativity in the article. Aren’t we living longer than ever? If they are average, then they would also expected to live longer than the previous generation.
more importantly, where is that dress from? I’m 5’3″…. clearly that dress is also made for me. i can’t translate 11s to lbs, but can’t be too far off. dress, anyone know?
Well Britain is 92% white, so…the ‘average’ ethnicity would be to have…one great-grandparent of an ethnicity other than Caucasian?
Britain’s breakdown (from CIA world factbook, 2001 census):
white (of which English 83.6%, Scottish 8.6%, Welsh 4.9%, Northern Irish 2.9%) 92.1%, black 2%, Indian 1.8%, Pakistani 1.3%, mixed 1.2%, other 1.6%
So their ethnicity is average. For Britain!
What would the ‘average’ be for the US in terms of height/weight/ethnicity, I wonder?
PS: 11 stone is 154lbs. 1 stone = 14 pounds.
And it is an awesome dress.