Aibu to think as you get older being a bit fatter looks better?

On the face/arse dilemma, I am team face.

Toned and strong better than skinny any day, and not worrying about what the scales say.

It's science backed that going through menopause and beyond it's better to be going into the overweight category, but be active. The nutrition we need is difficult to get, if we are calorie counting. It's always better to be as active and strong as you can be, size shouldn't be a guiding factor.

Having seen the effect of osteoporosis from 35 onwards, I'd far rather have any of those conditions which can frequently be treated and/or managed than have my spine and feet crumble and then need my entire hip sawn off and replaced with an implant if I survived tripping over my own feet or stepping on a patch of ice one November morning.

@CIaudiaWankleman thank you. You’re so right. I’m late 60’s and very underweight due to illness. My physio says I need to work on building muscle.

And to all the pp’s who think we’re playing skinny bingo it is no fun looking like Madge on Benidorm, apologies to the lovely actress, I feel very self conscious about my thin face.

I think that being healthy and strong - however that looks - is far better than whether it makes one look younger or older.
We spend that much time concerning ourselves with how we look that we don’t spend enough time thinking about actual wellness.

Surely totally depends on your body composition? I find I look better thinner as excess weight on me seems to go straight to my jowls. 😂

I am not as thin as you though - it's possible that 8st 4 and below would not look good on me either!

For sure OP im 64 and lost 6 stone on mounjaro. My face now looks like an ancient tortoise. Ive booked a facelift in Lithuania.

I think 7.5 stone at 5’6” is really quite low and even 8 stone is a little underweight at that height so it does make she as that being within a slightly higher bracket would look better as you age. I thought this thread was going to be saying that you need to be actively slightly plump to have a nice face but you’re still very slim at 8.5 stone.

I was always 8 stone 3 to 6 at 5’3” and have just got back to that from 9 stone post DC, at age 47 and I still look fine. I think you just need to not be underweight/excessively slim as you get older.

Being underweight never looks good regardless of age.

Er, Its not quite as clear cut as - if you stay slim you'll die.

The reason the BMI figures look different after 65 is that BMI becomes a much less useful measure of health as we age.

It isn't that being heavier suddenly becomes healthier. It's that muscle mass becomes increasingly important, and older people naturally lose muscle as they age. Someone with a BMI of 21 at 30 may have plenty of muscle, whereas someone with the same BMI at 75 could have very little muscle and very little nutritional reserve.

There’s also the issue of reverse causation: illness, frailty and poor appetite can cause people to lose weight, so the low BMI may actually be a consequence of declining health rather than the cause of it.

So in older age, muscle mass, strength, fitness, nutrition and whether someone's weight is stable becomes much more important than solely BMI

Reading this thread it makes me think how much our upbringings can shape us in terms of body image.

I grew up in the 90s but for some reason the 90s skinny supermodel trend absolutely missed me and my friends 😂 I only heard about it recently. I mean I do recall Kate Moss and the media slagging off celebs for putting on some weight, but for me and my peers it didn’t translate into wanting to be super skinny or thinking that was beautiful.

At the school I traveled to in another city, the goal was not to be super skinny and the same applied to the local friends I had. The most popular girls were mostly slim except a few slightly chubby ones, who were quite proud of their curves. But it wasn’t considered particularly desirable to be super skinny. I don’t remember anyone doing crazy diets or anything like that.

I actually had a childhood friend on my street who was ridiculed a fair bit unfortunately for being so thin and honestly she wasn’t even that skinny.

She actually developed a bit of a complex about it and was delighted when she put on weight after her 3rd kid even though she’s around a stone overweight now.

Could you try building some more muscle @Rainbowralph? I know it’s harder for some people than others but might be worth trying some strength exercise if you don’t already.

Tbf Barbara Cartland would be 125 years old now and Oscar Wilde could be construed as equally misogynistic yet a better author so the same message with more wit.

And there always a post like this too, just to complete the bingo card.

Yes, I’m 5ft6 and my bmi has always been 19/20. When I was younger I liked being slim, now I’m late 40s I look gaunt and scrawny but I struggle to put on weight. I also saw the research about low bmi linked to poor outcomes in old age so I guess I’m f@ucked!

This is so interesting.

I am not old enough to use this but I’ll bear this in mind next time I hear of an older woman desperately trying to stay tiny.

I am late 30s but never thought a low BMI was a good thing or something to aspire to. I’ve always been happy to be right in the middle or in the upper range of healthy BMI.

I have always been very slim but started to put on weight as I approached 50 and it did not look good on me at all.

7.5 stone is very light for someone 5’6” though so perhaps not surprising that a bit of extra weight has improved your looks as you age.

Exactly this. That weight at 5ft 6 sounded too thin.

I’m 5ft 3 and the lowest weight I should be is 7St 11 but I start to look terrible at any less than 8.5 stone. So I aim to be around 9 stone.

I heard it’s better for older women 70+ to be on the upper range of the healthy BMI range, or even maybe slightly above it - as it makes them a bit more robust especially if they have a fall. I am not sure if that’s true but it makes sense.

I agree!!

Which is weird, because all the men over 50 I know look like shit, and have let themselves go, and all the women over 50 I know look great.

Actually, there’s an undertone of misogyny in all this stuff. It’s vanishingly rare for anybody to worry about whether or not a man’s face might look better if he gained a few pounds here or there.

Yes it’s Mumsnet competitive thinness bingo.

Agree. I'm mid 30s, 5 ft 4 and normally around 8 stone. My face isn't round but has quite sharp cheekbones, it does look older than my years! I'm six months pregnant now and weigh about 9 stone but my face is still gaunt. If I could try and keep my weight to around 8 and a half stone I think it I would look better.

Hilarious how so many(slim)posters rush to threads like this to tell everyone their height and weight 🤣

No, its not as simple as this at all.

The best way to look youthful as you age is to retain MUSCLE and that means not being too thin and not being overweight. Working out (resistance training) and increasing your protein is so important as you age.

I dont agree that being overweight as you age makes you look younger at all. It places extra pressure on your joints, it increases inflammation in general and after a certain age men and women typically hold extra weight around their waist which not only makes you appear older, it also poses higher health risks.

Don’t forget weight looks different on people.
I weigh that and wear size 10 and 12- I need to be 9 stone for an 8