Why are people so hesitant to divulge their age or weight (by ‘people’, of course, I mean ‘women’)? I could understand for example if the person not wanting to name their age or weight was a pen pal, but when admitting your age/weight to someone who has seen you there is rarely a surprise. If a morbidly obese woman told me that she was in the upper 300’s, I’d think, "Yeah, OK, I expected that." It wouldn’t be a shocker.
Age and weight are simply numbers. I would think for most people appearance would be important than whatever the person weighted or their age. OK, I’ll make it personal. On paper, I’m fat - that is, my weight is high. Though cooking for myself has caused me to waste away over the last year, at my peak the year before I was 190lbs. (and 5’10"). Considering only my height and weight, I’m obese. However, I wasn’t (and am not) really fat. I had a high muscle mass, and since muscle weighs more than fat, it put my weight up past what looks "normal" on charts. People trying to peg my weight would always guess at least thirty pounds too low. I told them my weight and no one believed me! In my case my weight (the number of pounds) was meaningless. Rather, it was my appearance that spoke. Actually I just got my body tested about two months ago and I was under the ideal my males my age...yikes! I need more ice cream in the diet!!!
My point is that if you lie about your age and/or weight (or just won’t say) it’s not going to change what your appearance is. If a non-fat person gives a high weight, it’s not like everyone’s opinion of their appearance will suddenly change to think, "Oh, there goes Bob the chunk-monster." Likewise with a heavy person...if a heavier person drastically lies about their weight, well, no one is going to believe them anyway. If they won’t say, people are still going to think they have a high weight, because they’re not blind. Appearance is what matters. This is why they tell dieters to look in the mirror and not the number on their scale. It’s just a number.
Of course, there’s a politeness factor. Asking age and weight is a rather rude question. Even if we could make a good guess, I suppose it’s proper that uncertainty is left. The Census deals with confidential economic data, and there are people working there whose sole jobs are the make sure that confidentiality is kept. People are very careful in dealing with disclosure, even to the point of checking that all the ways a single company’s information that could be systematically determined in other ways are prevented. Everyone in America could guess that the big companies make gajillions, but no one knows precisely how much an individual company makes, at least from Census data. With companies or people, sensitive information might be better left to the individual. We know Miss Daisy is old, but never precisely how old, and if that leaves Miss Daisy at easy, we should leave it was such.
I suppose there are some surprises. With the plastic surgery wave that’s sweeping the nation I imagine there will be more and more people who are actually much older than they look, and I would guess it would be embarrassing to admit that you’re "fake" when your age and appearance don’t match-up. Likewise with weight a person might wear baggier clothing, and so it would be harder to truly know the person’s body type. In these situations since the outside world is prevented from surmising the situation I could see how the person would be even against saying their age or weight.
So, for the sake of politeness, let’s keep it "don’t ask, don’t tell". But please understand that most people already know. I’m sure we all have more skeletons in our closet than that what would just confirm what anyone with two eyes could plainly see, and I suggest focusing our energies on keeping those secrets under-wraps.
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