Twiggy… omg

[Newsenmum]

I knew she was skinny but I never knew how bad it was! Looking at those photos of her in the 60s is painful.Why do we do this to ourselves? Have we done this since time began?

I was just reading how in the Victorian times there was another skinny phase where women liked to look skinny and weak like they’d had TB. Awful!

Does anyone know if it’s ever been fashionable to be healthy?

My son is very very skinny. He eats an enormous amount so I wouldn't assume all young people who are skinny are living on salad greens.

One thing that seems to be true is that while people in the 60s and 70s were slimmer for many reasons, there were still many people going to extreme measures to be slimmer. Diet pills, extreme crash diets, and smoking instead of eating were all common.

Many of the people on MN who say they are naturally slim and the rest of society are too big and overeat never seem to allow that maybe the rest of society is naturally bigger when we stop obsessing over our food and weight and stop all the unhealthy attempts to keep our weight lower.

Of course, our environment is more obsesogenic now but that tends to get discounted as an excuse by a lot of people.

It is just down to frame size and healthy diet, I am mid 40s but my waist is 24". It went down from 32" when I cut out upf but I still eat 2000 calories a day. I also carry weight on my lower body, I had a dexa which showed 17% body fat on trunk, 28% on legs.

Don't forget that England at the time was not long out of rationing. There was nowhere near as much for around.

food

I've always been a Uk size 6 in adulthood (apart from being pregnant - 8stone and 8stone 3 when I gave birth to my two healthy babies) and I eat as much as my xxl sized boyfriend! He hates that I can eat as much as him and be as tiny as I am! Some of my friends too. My mum is a couple of years older than twiggy but she too, has always been slim, around 7 1/2 stone and 5'5. I just don't put on weight. When I'm ill, I lose weight quickly and struggle to put it back on. It's just the way I am. Twiggy is probably the same. Kate moss I expect too. My favourite model Jean Shrimpton......also the same

I’ve seen her dresses at an exhibition . I’m a modern 6-8. Same height. I wouldn’t fit into to those dresses even with corseting. My bones are too big.

MM was teeny.

Have you seen the photos of her bones sticking out? Looks like my sister when she was anorexic.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being naturally slim. I know people size 6-8 who are tiny boned and very slender (and sorry but they always say they eat heaps and it’s not 😂) but they don’t have their bones sticking out like twiggy did.

Ok so what about this one? It’s like heroin chic. Why is this seen as glamorous and attractive?

Yes you can be. Clearly you are not the kind of person my post is referring to.

@AlecTrevelyan006 fascinating video! Yes they all look slim but still healthy.

I stupidly didn’t realise how overly skinny she was. Stupidly thought it was a more recent thing (early 00s). I remember being a size 8 and feeling big.

Ps I'm the same size as Kylie Minogue. I'm 52. I weigh 7 stone. Yesterday I ate: breakfast - Greek yoghurt with granola and blueberries. Kit Kat. brunch - smoked salmon, avocado, mushrooms, poached egg, toast with butter. Late lunch - double pie and mash with liquor. Dinner - steak and chips with peas and onion rings. Through the day, two packets of crisps, lots of water, two packets of 'kids sweets' ie mushrooms and shrimps, four chocolate biscuits, lots of grapes. Bottle of wine. I just don't put weight on!

This was for @Lynus

Right now it’s fashionable for young women to look healthy and gym honed

fair point.

I was a teenager in the 60s. Most of us were slim, but we didn't have much in the way of convenience food then (apart from fish and chips) and we walked more. I hardly knew anyone whom I could have called fat. Twiggy was a lot thinner than us though!

I recommend Maupassant's 'A mother of monsters'. It is a very short read.

It's more striking than glamourous or attractive but of course different people will have different opinions.

Also, I don't like being called 'thin' in the same vein that I would never refer to my curvier friends/family as 'fat' or 'large'. It's insultive . I'm tiny, always have been. Never put on weight. Doesn't make me a lesser person. Most of my friends, now we are menopausal, struggle with their weight. I sympathise and go to the gym with them and show interest in keto etc but they know me and just say 'I effing hate that you eat far more than me and you're like a stick insect' . It is what it is. My son is the same. My daughter is not.

Is that an American size 6 to 8? Because that translates as a 10-12 in UK sizing.

Vanity sizing indeed.
I've been a size 12 for as long as I can remember.
I'm 24lbs heavier than I was in my 20s.
Twiggy was naturally slim, that's why they spotted her.

@stevienicksismyfairygodmother nice - how's the tapeworm? It must be fairly large by now.

She was curvy in the old, traditional meaning. Curvy seems to mean something else nowadays. I very much doubt she was a six/eight, more a ten/twelve (uk sizing). She was gorgeous.

The current uk size 8 isn’t what size 8 used to be back in the 80s and didn’t even exist in shops before the 80s. Todays 8 is yesterday’s 10 or even 12.