Hate Your Thighs?
Many Feel Your Pain

by Don Mathews

A seemingly innocuous article published in the October 2000 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine has unleashed a new movement that has spread like varicose veins across the country.

The article, entitled ‘I Hate My Thighs,’ does little more than illustrate a set of exercises to help firm and tone the thighs. According to Sondra Gassman, however, ‘I Hate My Thighs’ revealed a hulking social problem: many Americans loath their thighs.

"The response to ‘I Hate My Thighs’ has been a wake-up call to the nation," says Gassman, author of Americans in the New Millennium: A People at Odds with Their Thighs. "Before the article, the thigh issue was off the radar screen. Now we know that the number of Americans who hate their thighs is reaching the crisis stage."

The problem is so prolific that experts have recently given it a name. "People who hate their thighs for an extended period of time are now diagnosed as suffering from ‘loathing one’s thighs disorder,’ or LOTD," says Geoffrey L. Fitzpatrick, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Loin and Thigh Research.

Victims of LOTD fit a standard profile. "LOTD preys on a particular segment of the population: the segment who think their thighs are unbecoming," says Fitzpatrick. "As a general rule, people who find their thighs attractive don’t come down with LOTD. But many people see their thighs as hideous masses of lumpy flesh riddled with ruts and trenches, frightful blemishes, and blotches of odd hues. They develop a general sense that their thighs are unsightly. Once the general sense of unsightliness takes hold, LOTD may set in."

The Good Housekeeping article appears to have jerked many Americans out of a state of denial about their thigh shortcomings. Carol Gruber is the director of Coastal Thigh and Calf, a Virginia Beach, Virginia leg care facility that provides shank wraps, buffing treatments, and counseling. Says Gruber, "We have three thighologists and six clinical thighgienists on staff, and these folks have been plenty busy since the ‘I Hate My Thighs’ article appeared a year ago. We’ve also experienced growth in the number of patients who want counseling for help in coping with the psychological chafing and discomfort that accompany thigh loathing."

"LOTD is an enormous and costly problem," Gassman says. "We need to develop a sense of urgency about this issue."

Others disagree. Bob Smithers, a radio talk show host and the leading pundit of Rock Springs, Wyoming, charges, "Do any mature adults over the age of thirty really care what their thighs look like? I don’t think so. I know I don’t."

N. Eric Hibbard, an economist with the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, believes Gassman and other experts overstate the economic impact of LOTD. "Economic science is not equipped to answer the question of whether a person might be justified in hating his or her thighs," says Hibbard. "But numerous empirical studies have been conducted that examine the effects of LOTD on the economy. The studies have shown pretty conclusively that the relationship between LOTD and labor productivity is statistically insignificant. Our position is, so long as LOTD does not reduce GDP, we’re not too concerned."

Though economists may pooh-pooh the thigh issue, academia does not. In July, Harvard University opened the doors to its new Thigh Studies Department, and appointed Barbara Conway as Chair.

Ms. Conway, formerly a distinguished member of Duke University’s Department of Appendage Studies, says, " The mission of Thigh Studies is comprehensive and broad-based. It is to explore the impact of thighs on all aspects of the human experience, from art and mathematics to class and gender relations."

Thighs in literature is Ms. Conway’s specialization. "World Thigh Lit, which is the course I teach, reveals that hating one’s thighs is a condition that has plagued many people in many cultures throughout history." Her course begins with a sonnet entitled, "My Appalling Thighs: A Lament," written by the sixth century Byzantine poet Olga Loingirder.

The emergence of thighs as a hot button issue has not surprised veteran social activists Ann and Ralph Fleming. "This issue was a boil waiting to pop," says Ann Fleming. "Let’s face it. If our bodies were a produce stand, our thighs would be the bruised fruit."

The Flemings have been pioneers in the thigh field. Ten years ago, they unveiled their Thigh Outreach Initiative, a support program for people who hate their thighs. "In high school, a boy I dated told me my thighs were as thick as mighty oaks," relates Ann Fleming. "I took it kinda personal. But I finally decided to turn a negative experience into something positive by reaching out to others who also might be down on their thighs. That’s when Ralph and I began Thigh Outreach."

The Flemings take a simple approach to getting their clients to feel better about their thighs. Says Ralph Fleming, "We want to instill in our clients a sense of camaraderie with their thighs. After all, thighs are important. Without thighs, leg-intensive activities such as walking or tennis would be more difficult."

The Flemings are also working passionately to bring thighs into the raw arena of social politics. "This nation must change the way it thinks about thighs," says Ann Fleming. "American society is a thighocracy. It is skewed in favor of those with smooth, taut thighs. Just look at presidential elections. With the possible exception of 1992, every presidential election since 1950 has been won by the candidate with the smoother, tauter thighs."

Fleming expresses outrage that America has turned its back on people with unsightly thighs. "I’m outraged that America has turned it’s back on people with unsightly thighs," expresses Fleming.

In July, the Flemings established the Coalition for Thigh Justice, an organization of concerned social activists dedicated to raising public awareness to the plight of people who hate their thighs. The Coalition hopes to hold its first annual Thigh-A-Thon fundraiser in December. Thigh-A-Thon attendees will kick-off the event with a candlelight vigil and, for a small donation, will be issued flesh tone thigh awareness ribbons. Funds raised by the event will be used to lobby Congress to pass the Americans with Unsightly Thighs Act, legislation that, according to the Flemings, "puts all people on a level playing field, regardless of thighs."

Author’s Note: "I Hate My Thighs" was actually published in the October 2000 issue of Good Housekeeping, but the rest of this essay is fiction. May it, however, challenge social activists, scientists, and journalists to advance this cause – justice for people with unsightly thighs (my thighs are most unsightly) – in the same way in which they have advanced so many other worthy causes.

November 14, 2001

Don Mathews [send him mail] is a columnist for the Brunswick (Ga.) News.

Copyright © 2001 LewRockwell.com

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