Body positivity is out of control…

It’s weird to say that a size 12 is fat because whether or not you are fat depends entirely upon….(you’ll never guess)… how much fat you have on and around your body.

It is possible to be very small and light but still be carrying too much body fat. It is possible to be quite large and weigh quite a lot but have low body fat and significant muscle mass.

I am 5ft 3 and weigh 9 and a bit stone. I’m a size 10 on my lower half and a size 12 on my top half. I weigh quite a lot for my height and I am sturdy, but I have around 18% body fat which is quite low for a woman my age (late 40s).

care to explain why eating a salad is so funny?

Pretending that vanity UK sizing "size 12" is healthy or on the small side is normalising excess weight, and it's neither healthy nor helpful.

Well, we’ve lost sight of what a healthy weight is, there’s an obesity epidemic and we’ll all be dead within 10 years if we’re not careful. My DS’s are 6ft rugby players and they eat maaassssssive salads and have hollow legs. The French are so much more attractive and sophisticated than us digusting fat British pigs…love a good fatty bashing thread on MN, and get this - i’m not even obese 😜🤣😂😆

Yes with the underlying sentiment that if you are a 10 you must somehow be ill.

Typical Mumsnet.

Absolutely agree. On the afternoon thread people were falling over themselves telling everyone how much they could eat in a day. One person said they ate 12 Krispy Kreme donuts in one sitting and were congratulated. Overeating is celebrated on MN. People that say they have small appetites are laughed at, called names and near enough bullied on here.

So I agree there are elements of the body positivity movement that are negative - being morbidly obese is not good for you.

‘Size 12 is fat’ is the kind of generalisation which triggers people into eating disorders.

I usually buy a 12 and my BMI is 20. I’m 178cm so I’m guessing my shoulders and pelvis are just proportionately broader than a short person’s.

I think you just pissed on your own chips with that line of argument OP, and ruined any reasonable point you might have had about the health of the nation.

I'm broad-shouldered with small boobs and a long body. If something is sleeveless I can easily be two dress sizes smaller. Regardless of your caveat, I think that point detracts from your argument.

I agree, however, that the modern diet contains so little actual food and has been replaced by addictive crap that is contributing massively to our national health.

I try to eat healthily, but a bad day or if I'm feeling a bit emotional then I'm the first to reach for the bag of treats to reward myself. From then it's a slippery slope until I can force myself to get back on track.

I don't want to pick on one person specifically, but this illustrates well the kind of comment you always get and why there's never a possible discussion

I would much rather be my size now 14/16 (the horror) and feel healthy than years ago I was a 10 (yes how shocking clearly on the edge of being obese
No one is shocked/horrified/ passing out. 14-16 is still not a healthy size, and is still the size of an overweight body.

I would add that a 14-16 in M&S or one of the more mumsy shop can't even compare with a much smaller 14-16 New Look.

Stating facts is not fat shaming.

I went for dinner last week with 2 friends who are size 18. One has lost 2 dress sizes in weight through keto and the other has done various diet plans, would like to try keto but her salary (she’s well paid too) means she has to watch what she spends on special food.

My friend on keto admitted the bread and cereal cost more than normal items.

The friend who’s tried everything was on weight loss injections until her doctor stopped prescribed them due to a shortage.

Snacking is seen as normal though and I wish it wasn’t. I’m currently trying to lose weight and my main way to avoid snacks is just to not buy them. At the weekends I treat myself though.

I have just returned from France (Bordeaux area) and it was notable how much slimmer the population in general was

Oh, here we go 🙄
French people come in all shapes and sizes, it's a ridiculous MN myth that French people are all thin.

Size 12 is my lowest healthy size. I'm pear shaped, and at one time I was doing a lot of exercise and dropped down to a size 10 in trousers and I was clinically underweight and my periods stopped.

Despite that very high number, France ranked 31st
and the UK third, with 64% - overweight and obesity

(WHO report)

They might not doing amazingly well in France, but we are an embarrassment.

If anyone here is in any doubt that this is a massive problem they should read Ultra Processed People.

It is laughable you picked a size 12 to be honest. I wouldnt say it was overly big size but I’m bigger so I guess I wouldn’t see it like that, 12 is my ideal size I am able to maintain comfortably. But anyway, I would much rather be my size now 14/16 (the horror) and feel healthy than years ago I was a 10 (yes how shocking clearly on the edge of being obese 😉) and so unwell with it. I was continuously being sick and just loosing weight not ED just my stomach wasn’t happy for a good few months. I looked good but physically I was shit. Body positivity has helped me accept my body when I feel like absolute shit, then I also remember how crap I felt being smaller unable to keep food down and the realisation I would only be that size if I didn’t eat much at all.

Obviously it’s not good to overeat or eat UPFs. But, humans are designed to store fat - until about five minutes ago food wasn’t plentiful for most people. It’s difficult to maintain a diet that only supplies the calories needed to maintain the body and no more. If it was easy everyone would be within healthy weight ranges.
Body positivity is something else in my mind. The forced “celebration” and “acceptance” of obese bodies as normal and healthy is a flat out dangerous lie. It tells on health as they age, and makes people unhappy and filled with self loathing.
No-one wants to be fat.

As a fifty-something I can only remember one kid in each class being noticeably fat - primary and secondary. It is startling how many fat kids there are now - from all backgrounds but mostly more deprived households.

Girls seem to be of the opinion “if I can struggle into it, and fasten it, it fits” eh not! Others are skinny as they ever were. Boys are big and doughy instead of lean and rangy.

There definitely is a “new normal” as far as body size hors, not for the goof either.

@Tomatina I am wearing a size 12 skirt today. I am 12 stone and my BMI is obese.

Us shorties can be fat at a size 12.

And yet 47% of French adults are overweight with 20% suffering from obesity.

I think class has a lot to do with it. Posh tourist or residential areas more likely to have wealthier, slimmer people, whereas poor areas more overweight ones? Which gives you the misperception that everyone in France eats well and is slim.

I guess it's like a tourist to the UK basing British physiques on a visit to Kensington.

I am currently fat (I am size 12-14 but short) and am trying to lose weight.

For me personally being overweight negatively impacts my life and I am changing that. What body positivity means to me is that I don't need to hide in baggy black clothes while I'm too fat, and I can go out running in shorts even if my legs jiggle and to try and have the confidence to wear what I want.

I don't agree either, I've never heard of size 12 being described as fat. Yes, clothes sizing in shops is notoriously unreliable, but I've yet to meet a fat person who normally fits into a size 12.

Oh bugger off with your ignorance. Body positivity is an attempt to balance the disgusting body shaming experienced by fat people and is not about the health or otherwise of being fat.
Fat shaming actually makes trying to lose weight much harder as it leads to self loathing, guilt, depression which can all cause comfort eating. It also makes people frightened to go out and exercise because of what others will think and sometimes say to you or about you.
People are fat for a variety of reasons, some more complex than others.
As for size 12 being fat well thank you for revealing yourself and your narrow minded views even further.
Is it time for fat season again on MN? Are we bored with disabled scroungers?

I would definitely be fat as a 12, but I am barely 5', light framed and have always been 6-8. Even a 10 is overweight for me, even if the notoriously inaccurate BMI charts disagree that I would be based on weight.

I do agree that we should not be cheerleading for obesity being healthy. It isn't, for anyone, regardless of it's cause. That said, I don't think any individual should be shamed or excluded for it either. I am more interested in who people are than what they look like or what their dress size is. Which is where the whole body positivity thing started from, acceptance of everyone for themselves, as they are. The pendulum may have swung a bit far at the moment, it will swing back.