It looks like the NYT Public Editor (I like how pub ed becomes pubed in the url) has gotten involved with the Cintra Wilson JCPenney kerfuffle. I had trouble actually reading the piece because I got hung up on the average American woman statistics “wears a size 12 and weighs 150” cited by a JCPenney rep.
So, the average American woman must be pretty short, too. I’m a size 12 and weigh a heck of a lot more than 150. If I weighed 150 (which I don’t think I ever will considering I was 155 at high school graduation and I can’t see myself as an adult ever being smaller than my teenage self) I would be quite slim, 15 pounds under the normal weight threshold for my height, and a very medium size 8.
I get concerned when I see arbitrary numbers like 150 or size 12 thrown around as if that automatically constitutes obeseness. For some it might be, for many it is not. There is some twisted standard that causes people to think anything over 125 pounds is fat for all women, regardless of whether they might be 5’2 or 5’10.