I read Ms. Kolata's article, and as a somewhat competitive, 20-something female runner, I thought it was simply garbage. I was expecting something interesting about how long-distance runners get better as they age — do years of mileage mean you just keep getting stronger? Do you just get smarter? (I think it’s a combination of these.)

Instead, she left us with some half-baked (and mildly offensive) idea about how women — even the competitive ones, since we’re not talking about back-of-the-pack-ers here — just aren’t confident enough to run fast when they’re younger. Whatever!

As women age, the estrogen goes down (which makes the joints more loose, and fat easier to put on - all a benefit for having babies)

As that estrogen goes down, the testosterone goes up - a hormone which makes it easier to put on muscle mass, and good for joints.

Perhaps older women do better, because the bodies are chemical more like young men’s - hormonally speaking. Old women are also noted to be more aggressive than young women. Evolutionary speaking, since grandmothers tend to stick around as well as mothers - it was a better survive chance for kids - having multiple adults looking out for them. A strong granny benefits the grandkids.

The poster you quote was being sarcastic.

"once the mental oppression of the patriarchy is lifted it will no doubt turn out that along with their already established mental and emotional superiority women are also physically superior to men in every way too."

what is this nutjob smoking?

men achieve and produce and create, women complain and tear down things. Who is superior? Seriously, other than that Harry Potter author and a few immensely successful singer songwriters, what have women created in the open GENDERLESS borderless market these past few decades?

'emotional superiority' just means a talent for complaining, which women excel at.

Physical skills? pah!

I will describe what women seem to excel at. Pumping out the broods of charming assholes, something even amoeba can achieve, then moaning about the results of their mistakes to the better, more honest men around them. In other words women are TOTALLY useless, and indeed seem to be HARMFUL to society.

I'm 50 and my boobs didn't stop hurting till about 1 year ago.

I never thought I could run because they hurt so bad. Now they don't hurt anymore and I enjoy running.

"once the mental oppression of the patriarchy is lifted it will no doubt turn out that along with their already established mental and emotional superiority women are also physically superior to men in every way too."

Sieg, Steinem! Today ze zuper marathon, tomorrow ze vorld!

I can't wait for women to finally start doing their fair share. Let them commence the gruntwork, from flying combat missions to digging tunnels. Inferior, weaker, stupider men will settle for watching the kids...and NASCAR, football, The Three Stooges re-runs.

Let the role-reversals begin!

between elite athletes and people who work out in their spare time. When I played a Division 1 sport, yes, female athletes were not overly concerned with how they looked but how they performed. However, if one compared the varsity athletes' weight room with the gyms that the student body could use, there were huge differences. One of those differences was that in the general gyms, students were engaging in workouts that were obviously to enhance physical appearance. Not many 20-something women were lifting for increased strength (higher weight, lower reps), or doing cardio for increased performance (AT workouts, intervals etc). Rather you see a ton of ab work and cardio for fat burning. Go into your average gym and you'll see most 20-something women working out like this. There's nothing wrong with it, but it exists. Elite athletes train for their particular sport. I've noticed older women are more likely to be utilizing trainers who show them how to work out for better prerfomance. Obviously I have nothing but anectotal evidence to back this up, but I have yet to see much that disproves it.

College athletes and elite athletes represent a very small percentage of active women. Also, I never said anything about women "catching" anorexia, so relax. However I do think if more people, men and women, learned how to train properly and to seek results beyond having a good looking body, perhaps fewer people would give up being active and ultimately become part of the obesity problem in this country.

no matter what else is going on. I'm not saying do nothing to fix the environment but changing the environment alone will not do it, unless you make food unavailable.

Healthyskeptic, dieting is useless -- it does absolutely jack to take the weight off. What works is a total lifestyle change, complete with exercise and a healthy diet. When feminists bitch about young women eating salad, it's not because we secretly want all women to be fat, it's because the phenomenon of undereating and then overeating makes people fatter than they would have been had they just eaten normal portions all along.

However, arguments for "size diversity" are arguments in favor of not *demonizing* fat people or calling them disgusting, lazy, pigs, etc. Given that doing so does absolutely nothing to improve their health, and is more likely to make them stay fat (feeling worthless does nothing for your willpower), and that the major reasons Americans are fat are not under the control of the individual, this is a reasonable thing to do. Also, given that the majority of thin Americans are also unfit, it's really a useless way to solve the problem if the problem is American health. Skinny people who eat crap and don't exercise are less healthy than fat people who eat right and exercise, and most skinny people eat crap and don't exercise. As the saying goes, they were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. I know. I was skinny until I was 24, and I ate whatever the hell I wanted; but my appetite set point naturally told me to stop at a point that kept me 105 lbs. I ate candy bars and fast food and didn't exercise much, but my appetite set point kept me skinny. Now I feel hunger when I don't eat enough to support a weight of 150 lbs, which means I actually have to work and suffer hunger in order to get thin -- work I didn't do when I was young and thin.

The reason Americans are fat are quite simple:

- high-fructose corn syrup in absolutely everything we eat

- ever-increasing mechanization so that we don't need to physically exert ourselves to do anything

- ever-increasing time pressure so that we can't afford to take the time to do things the longer, harder way with physical exertion, and *must* do things in as short a time as possible (thus, driving to a store you could walk to instead)

- lack of support in most of the areas we live for walking or public transit or biking

- steadily increasing portion sizes on our cheap food

- government subsidies supporting corn being dirt cheap, but not making produce or other healthier foods cheaper

- the mentality that if you are skinny, you are healthy (as opposed to "if you are healthy, you are probably thin" -- different emphasis on cause and effect), thus leading to destructive dieting habits that set you up for a lifetime of yo-yo weight gain

This is why feminists are behind things like size acceptance. Because it is our culture that is causing the rates of obesity to climb through the roof, and all the fat-shaming we have done doesn't change this. Yes, the individual has the power to do something about it, but in general, losing weight is hard, intensive work that requires free time and the ability to be selfish and focus only on yourself and your needs; as soon as you get busy meeting other demands, you lose that time and that freedom. Fat people are fat because they live in a culture where it's very easy to get fat and very hard to lose weight, and if they were neither magically blessed with a fast metabolism or low appetite setpoint, nor do they have the kind of lifestyle that easily allows them to eat healthy and exercise, they are probably going to be fat. You want to fix this, work on other aspects of the culture -- why do we subsidize corn to the point where high-fructose corn syrup is practically free, but do nothing to support the growing of green beans? Why are 3 fresh tomatoes at the grocery store more expensive than a Happy Meal? Why are portion sizes so friggin' huge when people *will* try to eat all of a portion if they can? That's going to have more effect than shaming people for being fat.