Manhattan's Skinny Minnies Explain Their Motivation

After news that Manhattan is—relative to the rest of the NYC—the thinnest borough, with just 42% of its residents overweight, a NY Times reporter stalked the svelte, why. One Upper East Sider said, "My mom always says, 'The smaller the dress size, the larger the apartment,'" while a painter, "attributed his slim frame (5-foot-11, 160 pounds) to a combination of healthy and unhealthy habits: daily two-mile walks, weekly soccer, and breakfasts of coffee and cigarettes." Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys, seen leaving the gym, said, "Our closets are filled all these expensive clothes that are like swords of Damocles, because we may not fit into them anymore." He also added he wasn't "fatist" but, referring perhaps to some in middle America, "I’m appalled by people my age who can’t get through the airport without a wheelchair. Photo: flirtypants on Flickr

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on July 23, 2009 6:28 PM

Comments [rss]

whitecastlerock

Rents and prices for anything are too high in Manhattan resulting in lower food consumption...

KiljoyWasHere

This article seems more New York centric than Manhattan centric.

Tower18

It's not like they're working to keep these skinny bodies. Most of it is a result of cocaine and eating disorders.

NannyState

Coke diets are so...last week.

MisterTissue

Let's vapid! Look, health is one thing, but these downtown folks affix and implied worth upon waistlines. Empty stomachs, empty brains, empty souls.

robingee

'The smaller the dress size, the larger the apartment,'

I don't get it.

NannyState

It means that in your anorexia-induced stupor, your broom closet in Chelsea appears much bigger.

Mott the Hoople

it means your mom is an idiot, and you should tell her to stop drinking martinis before noon and have some goddamn crackers or something because she's spilling vermouth all over the apartment and that's a lot of square footage for the hired help to sweep, mop and polish every day.

Trilby16

It means that rich people are thin and thin people are rich (and have large apts.).

Guest

It could also mean that the thinner you are the bigger your apartment feels because you're not waddling from room to room trying to squeeze through doors that are less wide than you are and there's more room between you and everything else.

It could also mean that skinny girls marry richer.

Trilby16

"can't through the airport without a wheelchair" is what my son calls too fat to walk. Plenty of those folks around. Noonan wasn't talking about people who are truly disabled.

The article forgot to mention the self-respect that comes with maintaining a healthy weight. It gets harder in your 50's but the feeling of superiority is well worth the self-control that it takes.

Mott the Hoople

"feeling of superiority"? so you exercise your body and consume moderately to satisfy your unaddressed psychological fixation with domination, not to achieve a balanced relation in and with the existing world. wow, i can feel myself actually burning calories trying to figure out who's more selfish, you or the 600 pound man.

Jose

coffee and cigarettes, the breakfast of champions

Gnomie

"I'm appalled by people my age who can't get through the airport without a wheelchair"

Like disabled people?

jules1000

come on, you know exactly what he meant

AvenueHebrew

Doonan's a fairly older gentleman, at least in his late 50s. If he's talking about "people my age" needing wheelchairs, I worry he might just actually mean older and infirm people. People who perhaps, in his eyes, didn't take good enough care of themselves to prevent the need for hip replacement surgery.