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

Slightly fatter ( your words) might look better, but less healthy and puts a strain on your body.
How about forgetting about what people weigh and concentrating on being strong, healthy and happy. If that’s being very slim, then that’s no one’s business. Let’s embrace that we are all different sizes.

I was very underweight in the past (semi-naturally) and still had an extremely young looking round face. There's no way I could be that weight now and not look really facially gaunt.

Currently I'm at the very bottom of the healthy range and thinking I need a buffer of a couple more kilos because I'm starting to look very drawn and a bit sickly. I imagine with some more ageing especially this weight would look and feel very unsustainable.

But I got my arse handed to me the other day on a thread for saying it's not good for most people's health to be underweight so I'm sure someone will be along to call me a jealous heffalump.

I'm not sure what age you are OP, but I remember coffee and cigs being a fairly standard diet when I was younger. Back when you could still smoke on hospital grounds, you'd rarely get a long enough break to eat something during a shift, but you would have time for a cig and a coffee which would keep you going!
Not suggesting it was a good thing at all, we weren't really thinking about health and wellness back then!

Disagree. That's not the same for every woman. Some of us have fast metabolisms and genes that make us slim no matter what. I eat far more than two light meals a day, and my BMI has never been more than 20 (apart from when I'm pregnant).

I tend to agree with you. I'm 51 and most of my friends/relatives are in their 50's. Those who are skinny do look older and more haggard compared with those who are a healthy weight, but not actually skinny, IYSWIM.

One of my BIL, for example, is a rather obsessive runner and tracks his weight to the ounce (I find his eating habits concerning tbh, borderline eating disorder, but it's none of my business). He's 58 and looks considerably older than my other BIL, who's 57 and slim, but not skinny. We need a little fat to smooth out the facial lines and avoid the "caved in" look!

I am exactly the same. I read this comment in disbelief, I would pass out if I only ate 2 meals a day! I have 3 meals and 3 snacks a day on average and have a bmi of 19.

I am glad you said this, I am tired of people pretending all slim people are slim
because they eat one or two meals a day.

Are you tall by any chance ? I find a lot of my taller friends who are fairly active are able to do this more easily than a shorter more sedentary person which of course makes sense since calorie requirements are affected by height, activity level and other things.

That said me at 5ft 2 was able to eat “a lot” (3 big meals + various healthy and unhealthy snacks and drinks ) for many years while doing little exercise outside of 10K daily steps,and stayed at BMI 22 until I went overboard with the takeaways and sugary food and became completely sedentary mainly during the pandemic and then had to go into deficit to lose 20Kg 🤦🏽‍♀️

17 kg down, 3kg more to go. 😃

I don’t think age matters, I can’t imagine preferring to be fat instead of very slim under any circumstances tbh. I feel awful and self-conscious with any extra weight. And yes, I’m older than mid-30s.

My very very slim friend (size 4-6) isn’t gaunt in the face, has a baby face so she is nearly 50 but looks late teens. She is lovely as well. It’s annoying.

Not “fatter” per se, but pass a certain age, being a bit heavier (especially if that weight is muscle) can make one look more youthful as well as protect you from injury.

I’m the same age and height. Currently weigh 56kg (almost 9 stone) with 25% body fat; and am working to cut my body fat down to 20% and build my muscle mass up from “bang on average” to above average. I think I’m the best I’ve ever looked — even with my deflated tits, grey hairs, and loss of collagen from pregnancy and stress of raising children.

If you have a BMI 20 -24 and a body fat % at 18 - 20% I would consider it a good marker for a healthy body and should look trim but not gaunt.
If it goes with a nutritional and non UPF diet then I would imagine your biological age is younger than you actually are.

I'm not talking about 'fat'. I'm talking about normal BMI as opposed to underweight. Underweight women in their forties and above tend to look haggard.

Well, if you are fat enough you have no wrinkles at all, so there's that.

Source- I am an overfilled balloon of a woman.

As you get older being a bit happier and confident looks better

I agree. I'm slim and tall 5ft 10 and eat a lot more than 2 light meals a day. I eat a healthy balanced diet of 3 meals and snacks.

I don't look gaunt/haggard or like a bag of bones either or any other nonsense written about slim people!!

I’m not surprised that you look better with more weight. I’m a similar height to you and was 9st in my 20s, and a very slim size 8. People would comment on how thin I was at 9st!

If you were a stone and a half lighter then you must have had no muscle mass. I did however always have boobs and a bum, even when very slim I was a 32D

Nothing she said was that different from posters on here claiming that they eat really healthily and they're just small naturally. She wasn't incredibly thin or slim, she didn't fast, didn't binge, didn't purge, she pretty much followed the health advice of the time for a balanced diet.

My original reply was to an attempt to dismiss the very real risks of osteoporosis from pursuing the 'normal' low weight by wanting the poster to talk about the risks of diabetes, cancer and heart disease, all of which she got in addition to the osteoporosis. Because I had said out of those, I'd far prefer the ones that can in the majority of cases be treated than the one that she had first and left her in constant pain for 70 odd years as a direct result of her wish to be in that 'everything's normal, I'm just petite with an implied and sometimes outright unlike the great heifers you see around these days' clique.

@JeanSimmons Yes, I also meant a normal BMI. My SIL (59) looks younger than her DH (58) with the eating issues. She's slim but not skinny; he's skinny with deep facial lines, presumably due to a lack of subcutaneous fat. That's what years of undereating/overexercising can do to you. 🙁

But by your own admission she cut out whole food groups and all fat and watered everything down. That in no way sounds like healthy eating.

Depends upon context. Plenty of people now would say low carb/keto is healthy eating, the advice then was to avoid fat (and salt, the place was a flavour free zone in my opinion). She would also be able to point to advice then to cut out red meat.

It clearly wasn't healthy as she ended up with osteoporosis. But on the face of it, avoiding fat was seen as healthy at the time. The same time that thousands of other women were following the same advice and ending up with osteoporosis as well because they were also conditioned to believe that a low body weight was desirable. And posters now are citing those same women and thinner/consuming even fewer calories and nutrients as being 'normal', 'ideal' or what everybody looked like.

18-20% is definitely on the lean side. Some have allegedly lost their period at that level of body fat.

Most people who are not athletes or don’t train heavily won’t be as low as that unless they’re very thin.

It can be perfectly healthy though of course depending on things like age and activity levels, but being in the 21-25% or 26-30% bodyfat range can be healthy too!

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/female-health/a708160/body-fat-percentage-women/#whats-a-good-body-fat-percentage-for-women

Just going back to what others have said about improving muscle around your face can improve your facial shape - how would you do that exactly? What exercises? I hate how the shape of my face is changing as I age and losing definition. I'm a bmi of 23.6 - size 14, 5ft6, 10.6 stone, so definitely don't want to put more weight on, but if I lose weight my boobs shrink and they are only a B cup as it is. How can I tone my face and tummy?

I think if you go below whatever weight is healthy for you, you can look tired/ill/scrawny, and that is particularly the case as we age.

But honestly? I think on the whole slim women look younger once you get to 45/50 and over. Especially if they are physically fit. I don’t necessarily mean no curves / very slim, but on the leaner side. It says ‘active, agile, vibrant’. Being a bit plump says ‘middle aged’.

I realise there is probably some internalised ageism / misogyny in that opinion, but it’s what I honestly think and it’s definitely true for me.

I’m nearly 50 and lost 20lbs about 3 years ago. Looking at photos of myself from this summer compared to 3 summers ago, I think I look so much better - more youthful, more attractive. I could be wrong of course .

I know when you’re older (talking 70+) it is best to not be right at the bottom of your BMI as you don’t have any reserves to cope with serious illness
my gran was always slim but a stroke meant she went down to 5 and a half stone and it was a long recovery. She had no excess weight to start with