"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.

I don’t think we all have got used to seeing obesity we can’t recognise it any more. The comments on this thread show this. I see someone commented everyone must be skinny on this thread, I assume meaning to see fat Monica as fat. I’m positive it’s not the case.

there are a number of threads about healthy weight models, the ops claiming they are underweight. I think some people are so messed up about weight they can no longer see reality.

but it’s a small proportion. Fat Monica would have been clinically obese. And the models posters are generally a healthy weight, albeit to the lower end of the scale. But some small minority of people don’t wish to accept that, they wish fat to now be seen as a healthy weight.

it is not and won’t ever be.

Oh come on now, she WAS fat, even by today's standards, and especially back then.

She looks visibly fat to me. And certainly over weight by medical standards. Probably obese on the official scale. Doesn’t take much at all to tip into overweight.

Oh I hate all this “not aged well” bollocks.

Friends is amazing precisely because it hadn’t got touched by the modern wokery that ruins nearly all tv shows made now.

It was public knowledge she was pregnant. It was an open joke.

I have googled it as I don't watch the TV show as it was awful and I've only seen snippets as unfortunately when my daughter was a teenager she enjoyed watching it in DVD and TV repeats.

Anyway, the character made to look overweight looks extremely overweight/fat so how can you say she doesn't look fat?

She looks ginormous!

That is fat, sorry.

Whether that’s common or not now, it’s fat. Was fat, still fat.

Fat isn’t all about social standards, it’s also about actual fat around people’s bodies and organs. Monica has lots of fat on her face, around her tummy and bum.

Not sure what people don’t get about that?

I agree.

People can’t have a laugh now, so sensitive! Friends was and is still hilarious!

Two things seem relevant to me - one, her weight in comparison to her v slim adult character and two, her age as high school student. There were v few if any teenagers that size when we were growing up, to the point I remember the one or two. As for the loss being unrealistic, one of those I remember lives near me now and is super slim, so had a similar pre-medication turn around. She'd have been noticeably overweight in primary. Again, rare.

Separately to this, the 90s was a killer for girls and women wrt body image, as mentioned above.

I’ve been watching Big Bang and I’m wincing at the racist things being said.

Monica in the fat suit was obese. Of course, I don't think her obesity should be the target of any jokes, but I find it concerning that so many posters don't recognise that it's not a healthy weight to be.

The obesity rate has skyrocketed over the past decades, as has other problems of insulin-resistance such as diabetes, some cancers, infertility etc.

We're clearly doing something wrong. Perhaps if we ate more like people did 50 years ago we'd be a bit healthier as a society - less processed food, no snacks, cooking from scratch.

I was obese in my early 20s and managed to get down and stay at a healthy weight. Friends was helpful in a way because it showed someone on tv who lost weight through eating healthy, high-quality food (or at least that's how I interpreted Monica being a chef). Much less toxic than shows like the biggest loser.

18 the average size? Where do you get this? 18 is fat.

It was disgusting what they did to her character. Slim Monica was clever, funny, had relationships and was a full formed adult woman. Fat Monica was infantilised, laughed at, the butt of every joke and had no prospects of a relationship before Chandler. In some ways it didn’t matter how “fat” she was, it was the implication that anyone bigger than the very very slim ideal of the actress Courtney Cox deserved to be mocked and have the piss taken out for them simply for existing. Having her eating chocolate bars whilst dancing and the audience falling over themselves laughing was pretty much a thumbs up to look at anyone plus size as a character for mockery.

She's definitely fat. Mostly of these pictures don't show the hips which were huge, and don't forget she was a child and teen - not an adult so definitely very large for that age group and wouldn't have been able to wear age labelled clothes or children's clothing at all

Also if i saw this woman walking down the street (or dancing with bagels 🙄) I would not be doing a double take thinking she was hugely fat!!

Oh come on, any show that uses canned laughter is and was horse shit.

If the TV audience has to be instructed when to laugh, it's not funny.

Fat Monica is fat. She's just not so obese it warranted her being seen as unusual and the butt of all fat jokes. She wasn't even back in the 90s.

The story requires you to believe she lost the weight in the space of a year and managed to keep it off pretty easily ever since, so they couldn't make her so massive that was going to be unbelievable. The jokes made by other characters (mostly Ross) highlight the potential cruelty of siblings as much as the fatness itself. It resonated with me, as I have a thin brother one year older than me and have always been the fat one! He didn't watch friends but his jokes were always pretty similar!

I’d not do a double take and think she was hugely fat, but that’s because right now the average size is a 16 in the uk. Overweight for most people other than the very tall. However if asked and I looked at her properly, I’d see she was overweight, yes. I do think you’ve tried to find the slimmest looking pic you can though, plenty of images up thread as well.

she was generally a size 20 I’d say, but smaller looking in that image.

but she was fat. There is no hiding from it. No pretending otherwise.

Her weight was so unhealthy. It would have caused various health issues and most likely lead to premature death.

To be fair, thin Monica's BMI is also low enough to risk health issues and premature death too.

What this post proves is being fat is the norm now! Young Monica was obese and if you can’t see it, it just proves my point!

I would say her bigger self is fat. The whole point of the show was to show that she was overweight, lost it and had a glow up.o

No she’s really not!

If I paid attention to a random woman like this on the street I would think that she's obese, just like over 1 in 5 adults in the UK are. In some areas, it's close to 1 out of every 3 adults. So yes, she's a 'normal' weight in that many people are her size, but it's not a normal weight when compared to people from 50 years ago. It's also imo not a healthy weight, but that's a separate argument.

I loved Friends, must have watched the whole thing over and over again about 15 times 😆.

When I watch it now, I can detach myself and see that a lot of the jokes would not pass as funny today, but I still love it.