The Uglification of America

From my archived blog (August 2018) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my primary Substack here: donaldjeffries.substack.com

Whenever I go out and about, to restaurants, stores, or any other place with substantial numbers of people, I am increasingly mortified by what I see. I’m not talking about the overt lack of civility, or the buried  heads in smart phones. I’m referring to  how the vast majority of Americans look nowadays.

When I graduated from high school in 1974, in a large class, I can recall exactly one girl who might have been considered fat. There were perhaps 2 or 3 overweight boys. In other words, the fat kids were statistically insignificant. When I drive by my local high school now, I see nothing but fat and obese teenagers. The situation has flipped completely, so that the non-overweight kids are now the anomalies.

The average American woman today weighs just under 170 pounds.  The average height of an American female is about five feet three inches. The average American woman now weighs more than the average American man did fifty years ago. And the average American man now weighs almost 200 pounds and has an average waist size of just about 40 inches. When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, even the heaviest people I knew didn’t wear size 40 pants. Now the average U.S. male does. The average dress size for a woman is now sixteen.

It’s not just weight. One can’t help but notice the absurdly casual, slovenly way most Americans dress now. Not at home. In public. Did anyone envision seeing adults parading around in stores wearing pajama pants? So many men and women just appear to have “punted,” to simply have stopped trying to appear attractive in any way, shape or form. Instead, they slide on their XXL sweat pants, and their XXXL tee shirts, and parade about as proudly as their in-shape ancestors did.

Factor in the gratuitous tattoos that are everywhere now. I see otherwise good-looking young girls with an entire arm, perhaps both arms, completely covered in tattoos. There’s a good reason why, in the past, only pirates and drunken sailors got tattoos. They don’t make anyone look better. And when your skin is mostly camouflaged by ugly conglomerations of ink, it automatically causes others to view you less respectfully. Tramp stamps, and all that.

I regularly refer to the increasingly Third World nature of America. With our overgrown median strips, outdated airports and railways, crumbling roads and bridges, and woeful power grids, we don’t look like the world’s wealthiest country. But our people, and not just the actual immigrants from Third World countries, are taking on that Third World look as well. What the world used to castigate as the “ugly American” is now becoming a reality, from the inner cities to the heartland. Just look at any crowd scene from the 1950s to understand what I’m talking about; they all look like super models in comparison. And I’m not talking about any particular race. One way in which our increasingly diverse population is assimilating well is in their weight, their unattractive dress, and their affinity for tattoos.

I realize this is a sensitive subject, especially for women. A few years back, a study was published that concluded that the startling weight gain among U.S. women over the past half century was largely related to a precipitous decline in housework. A collective cry of “Excuse Me!” emanated from every corner of this nation, and that particular study was summarily shoved down the memory hole. Even I’m hesitant to bring it up. That’s the way political correctness works.

The other day, I went to a fast food restaurant to pick up some breakfast. I almost never do that, but my son wanted it for his birthday. The drive-through line was backed up, perhaps fifteen cars. Knowing what I do of the average American’s laziness, I parked my car and walked inside. There was no one in line there. Think about that; Americans are so unwilling to walk fifty feet from their car, that they instead wait twenty minutes in line. For “fast” food. That’s an essential reason for the weight gain; people are just lazier now. Fortunately, it’s not just women, or not just some minority group, that’s lazier. Otherwise, there would be another collective cry of “Excuse Me!” and I’d be shunned from polite society for pointing it out.

Today, while waiting for some food at a high upscale place, I again noticed not only all the overweight, unattractive people, but the truly laughable hairstyles of some. So many females, including one that had to be sixty or so, with purple or pink dyed hair. So many with uncombed, sloppy hair. Too many with that extra short look that often advertises a hatred of men. And the men with all the shaved heads. Are there that many guys who are going bald now? With so many balding men desperately trying to save what they have, or miraculously grow back what they’ve lost, why do so many even young males just shave it all off completely? Again, even forty years ago, that shaved head look advertised potential criminality. Think Lex Luthor.

I guess I sound superficial. Maybe I am, but for those of us who lived in another era, when this mass unattractiveness didn’t exist, and where people at least attempted to look halfway decent when they left their house, it’s a huge culture shock. I know from being an overweight child just how hard it is to resist fattening food, but things have really gotten out of  hand now. I can’t remember the last time I was in a crowd, where there were more non-fat people than fat people. Virtually every guy has some kind of gut on him, and even the more attractive young girls are at least twenty pounds heavier than they were a generation ago.

And I don’t want to leave out the oldsters. The older generation now is too frequently entitled, as they cut in line and demand the best service at restaurants while tipping the least. Today I saw a kind woman jump to her feet, and hold open the door for an elderly couple. The elderly woman was using a walker, as an alarming number of Americans now are, and neither she nor her husband even glanced at the good samaritan, let alone thanked her. That’s just mind-boggling to me, and reflects the lack of courtesy and civility we see all around us in today’s America. Thank goodness I don’t go to the likes of Walmart, where obese, sometimes half-clothed patrons buzz about the store in motorized carts.

I don’t want America to turn into a bona fide Third World country, but our leaders are doing everything they can to make that happen. And the masses they’ve brainwashed into obeying their consistently counterproductive rules and laws, are now starting to really look the part of hopeless, unthinking, uncaring sheeple.