To ask do you think people always look their best when a healthy weight

I love all these posts where women are saying ‘ yeah I look great now I’m thin’. That’s probably what Sharron osbourne and her ghoul daughter are saying too.

Yes. I say that as someone who weighed 13 stone 12 in May (at 5ft 4). Today I'm 10 stone 9. I look loads better.

I think so. I'm about 2 stone lighter than I was last year and I still double-take at my own reflection as my body in particular looks so much more youthful and lithe, both in terms of posture and bulk. Because my clothes now slip on effortlessly and hang nicely, and the exercising I've been doing means I move better, I definitely feel like I look better.
My face is obviously slimmer too, and I hit a sweet spot where the double chin which had begun to develop had stubbornly stayed put despite the weightloss one day seemed to have evaporated over the course of a week when the scales showed a small loss of .5kg. When I crept up again just before my period, the double chin was noticeable again. So I now try to stay below the "chin window" so that a bit of hormonal creep doesn't matter.

I think people mix up weight with shape.

This is incorrect and an urban myth, unless I am mistaken and you can link fi this study,

what it is is a bmi of 26 or so will help prevent osteoporosis , and I think a couple of other things, however needs to be offset by the risks associated with being over weight, so for example heart attack stroke diabetes, joint degradation etc. just as people get older, the risks associated with being overweight do not go away, but carrying a small amount extra can have some benefits ie reduced risk of osteroperosis and people need to balance the two, but no one should be believing you hit 70, as it is 70 and over, and you suddenly have no risk associated with being overweight, that it’s dangerous misinformation.

I look like a different person.
Losing weight brings out features that were totally hidden by fat.

Yes
Studies show that over 65's do better with an overweight BMI - lower mortality and better health outcomes

@GaIadrielliterally any teen pic aged 15 compared to a glamour shot when you have gazillions is going to look shit by comparison!

Best I ever looked was bordering on underweight when I was much younger and it was naturally how I was. Years later, expect I’d look awful at the same weight.

My BMI is 26 and I look better now than at the Lower end of my “healthy” BMI weight. I’ll see photos of myself from that time and I look so sick. Now I look well!

God the arrogance of ya! How can you say this so definitely to a perfect stranger!

yes they do.

People are obsessed with BMI but I've heard women shouldn't use it as a guide.

This is from chatGPT -
BMI was originally based on male bodies, and it has important limitations because of that.
What BMI was designed for
(BMI) was created in the 1830s by Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet. His goal was to describe the “average man” at the population level, not to assess individual health.
Key points about its origins:
• Based largely on European men
• Never intended for diagnosing individuals
• Did not account for sex differences, body composition, or ethnicity
How that affects women
Because women generally have:
• Higher essential body fat
• Different fat distribution (hips/thighs vs. abdomen)
• Lower average muscle mass
BMI can:
• Label healthy women as “overweight”
• Miss health risks in women with “normal” BMI
• Fail to reflect hormonal and life-stage changes (e.g., pregnancy, menopause)
It’s not just about sex
BMI also performs poorly for:
• Athletes (high muscle mass)
• Older adults (muscle loss)
• Different ethnic groups (health risks occur at different BMI thresholds)
• Individuals with the same BMI but very different body fat percentages
What’s better than BMI?
BMI can be a screening tool, but not a full health assessment. Better context comes from combining it with:
• Waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio
• Body fat percentage (DEXA, BIA)
• Blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose
• Fitness level and medical history
Bottom line
BMI reflects male-centered, population-based assumptions and should not be treated as a definitive measure of individual health—especially for women.

a healthy bmi could be 19 or 25, so there’s a huge range and t think yes people look better in this healthy range.

The trick is losing weight steadily and heavy weight training.

I’m surprised so many comments on too thin looks awful, the sad truth is so does too fat. It’s not just one way. And it validates what the op asked, which is does a healthy weight look best, and the answer is for most people yes. A healthy weight goes from a bmi of 18,5 to 24.9,, and depending on our body composition, it maybe someone looks best at 18,5 and someone else at 24.9. They are both healthy weight people.

then how good you look starts to decline the further away from those points.

as I said at the start, over weight and under weight, for most people is not the best look. But the right healthy weight for body type, be it 18,5 bmi or 24.9. Is generally the best for most people.

That’s why the calculator asks your ethicity, it’s been updated

I remember reading that there are calculators that can be adjusted to factor in ethnicity. From memory, a white person is considered obese at 30 and a POC at 32.

I'd still think it's a smaller difference than that between somebody that trains and doesn't. I weighed myself on the day I took the below pic and was well into the 'overweight' category despite having visible abs.

I also suspect BMI is based on white bodies. Just a hunch, though a quick Google tells me there is something to that hunch.

Yeah I don't think so. The fat test at the gym, body composition scans and regular physicals with a doctor are a far better indication than BMI of healthy body weight for an individual. If I lopped off my boobs, I might fall into the "healthy" range, but my actual body fat / muscle ratio wouldn't have changed at all. In reality I would still be slightly overweight even though my BMI may look fine.

Likewise I had a friend who was overweight, then got very into fitness, dropped 2-3 dress sizes yet weighed the same as her overweight self - she lost fat, and gained muscle. Her BMI was still classified as "unhealthy" even though she was in actual fact very physically fit with hardly any excess fat on her body.

Hmm, not sure about that.

@Frequencyi think Adele looked much better before she lost weight too. She looks quite dull and boring now. I don’t think it of everyone that loses weight but do with her.

I disagree. People who have always been very thin do tend to look awful when they reach late age. You do need a little bit of fat, especially in your face, or it ages you.

I think that for the vast vast majority of people, their best will be somewhere in the healthy weight range, whether that's the top, bottom or in the middle - and that will depend on height/build/muscle mass.

I am in the minority in that I think slightly chubby looks better than the mid bmi weight and I definitely think thin looks good at all.
About a size 16 for women and for men chunky but not overly muscly.
That said, looks are very much not what tends to attract me fancying wise.
I have been all sizes from 10 - 24 and am happiest around a size 16.

The reason a healthy BMI is a given as a wide range is exactly to take all those things into account.