"Fat" Monica in Friends isn't even fat

[TallGirl24]

As per title. Rewatching all the old Friends episodes. How in the name of the wee donkey was this a recurring joke? She's basically normal sized but beside some very slim costars. I know it was a different time but it is so jarring to watch now.

16 is average so not far off

I keep reading this, but i don't see it in real life.
Most 16's are overweight, especially if you take the average height into consideration.
5 foot 3 inches wearing a size 16 is very overweight.

How tall are you? While I was younger than Bridget Jones, (early twenties when the first film came out) I was the same weight as she was and was certainly not considered even remotely chubby. However, I am a shade over five eight, so that is maybe what makes the difference.

Oh gosh I don't remember that scene! It's been a while since I saw the film (which is very different from the book).

If you think it's "utterly meaningless" how do you buy your clothes? Everyone's guided by it so it's absolutely not "utterly meaningless".

Even in the last few years sizing has changed, when I met my husband I wore size 10 and weighed about 8 1/2 stone. I had a 21 inch waist. I still wear a size 10 but I weigh 10 stone and have a 28 inch waist. That’s in 25 years.

And yes, young Monica character was fat.

Zellweger is 5ft 5. The character was about 9st 4, and wanted to be 8st 7. I think many young women at the time could relate to that.

I agree with all of this.

Monica was obese.

@AngelicKaty I try things on and if they fit I buy them. I don't particularly care what the size label says.

S&B is full of threads comparing a "Zara 10" with a "Marks and Spencer 10". It's a commonly recognised issue with women's clothing.

Agree. Wasn't that the point? That she was relatable.

That makes sense. It's funny how even a few inches can make a difference. While I was aware of the size zero trend, of course, it never really affected me that much. I certainly never ever lacked for male attention, despite not being ultra skinny. If anything, the ultra skinny girls at uni weren't necessarily the most popular among men (not that body image should be all about what men want, but it can be what counts when you are that age)

5' 4.5" to BJs 5' 5".

Yes, I was joking!

The poster who replied to me is right though, we eat so much more crap than our parents and grandparents ever did.

I still think normalising big sizes is equally harmful. Even at a 16/18 you’re bigger than is healthy.

It can be.

Similarly to smokers, the shaming worked..

People can say it is totally different, addiction is addiction.

Putting it in the face of the addicts, helps them open up, telling them they are perfect already, won't help.

It's much more than eat less, move more, psychological and emotional.

Oh, very close to her in height! I get why you found her so relateable. Even though I am over five eight, I don't actually think of myself as all that tall, partly because so many young women nowadays seem to be super tall so I don't feel that tall by comparison. When I was younger, though, I think I was more noticeably taller than average.

If you think a woman 'fat monica' sized is 'normal sized' then you have a disordered a view of whats normal and healthy.

Monica was said to be 255lb and is only 5 foot 5 (which is clearly meant to be all fat not muscle too, shes not athletic or a body builder etc...) so she is morbidly obese.

Just because morbid obesity has become more common does not make it 'normal' or 'healthy'.

I mean Henry the 8th famed throughout the annals history as being 'morbidly obese' was a tall (6 foot 2) man who was only estimated to be 50lb or so more than that.

I watched a Friends with my other half the other day, he’s never really seen it.
He looked at the bigger version of Monica and said most of the women he sees out and about are of a similar size, and I agreed. We are getting bigger and our eyes adjust.
At the time the girls in the show went from slim to being almost skeletal. I am the same age as Jennifer and I did the same - I was like a bag of bones.
Now Phoebe was discussed at the time as being ‘heavy’ when you look at her now she is a size 12 at most!
Another show - I always thought Kim Cattrall looked fabulous. Healthy, comfortable in her own skin, even when wearing Samantha’s!

What a depressing thread this turned into.
Great opportunity for stealth and sometimes overt fat bashing.
Same old, same old.

Another one - Martine McCutcheon in Love Actually. “the chubby girl”. WTAF

It's a Richard Curtis thing isn't it. It's strange because it's a theme across all of his films and quite often the body shaming is just shoehorned into the script with no context and makes no sense. The chubby comments about Martine McCutcheon were just baffling. Funnily enough my teen dd asked if we could all watch Notting Hill last night and there was a scene that honed in on a woman's arse and described it as fat and it was clearly nothing of the sort, she was a very slim, toned woman. It was just bizarre. It's like he always wanted to find a way to shame women.

Monica though was wearing a great big comedy fat suit and was clearly obese. I never thought that those scenes were funny but she definitely did look fat.

255lbs (as Monica was supposed to be) is fat. What's shaming about saying that?

I'm overweight for my height. Kidding myself I'm not isn't helpful in dealing with it for my health.

It wasn't the shaming that worked. It was the restrictions on where you can smoke, the exorbitant prices and the constant health messages and warnings (which are not shaming) -in contrast with adverts everywhere for smoking and bs that it’s good for you/recommended -that had the most impact. Now it's been replaced with vaping .

It’s not fat bashing to say fat is fat. And we need to stop trying to make it so.

Not a fat bashing thread here from what I’ve read. People just pointing out correctly that this character was very fat, indeed mornidly obese. And that so many have lost sight these days of that being a problem since it’s so common & because they don’t want to face up to the fact that they are not a healthy weight themselves. These are factual comments, even if that makes some overweight people uncomfortable.

That wasn’t my point. I was referring to the overall tone and direction the thread has wandered into.

Can you point it out?

You don’t think things have drastically changed in the past 15 years? Wake up deary.
I choose to believe my own eyes and real life experience than some AI crap online.
As if the past 70 years have any relevance to the last 20. Totally different ball game. It’s like saying the world moved on as much in 1700-1800 as 1900-2000. Just not comparable. The average size of people is clearly very different now to the late 90’s. I remember the average dress size being 16 then!