To feel depressed by this DM article re size 16

[Rachtoteach]

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2342207/Is-size-16-normal--danger-These-women-Britains-common-dress-size-youd-expect-healthy-battery-medical-tests-came-surprising-worrying-results.html

After 37 years on this planet I have finally developed something I wish more women could have - an acceptance of who I am and the ability of being happy in my own body..... even though - shock, horror - I am 5ft2, size 16, 11 something stone. Anyway, I don't cry in the changing rooms anymore . I exercise 3 x week, eat a balanced-ish diet, don't smoke, blah blah blah.

It just makes me sad and mad that the DM have taken 4 size 16 women who each turn out to have some health issues, and declare (effectively) all us size 16 women a picture of ill-health! On the results of four women?!! And implying, or least leaving the reader with the impression, that any other (smaller sized) women would conversely be in tip-top health - all of them, simply based on their size!

AIBU to think that there must be some healthy size 16 women out there and probably some not so healthy smaller women? If I am BU then I may as well give up now as I know I am unlikely to ever be much smaller than I am now.

ephemeralfairy and we have been conditioned to think that size 16 is fat

I think its the opposite. I think we are being conditioned to think that size 16 is "normal".

Yet Britain does seem to have larger people than other Northern European countries. As in more overweight people. In Holland, if you are even a little overweight, your friends will tend to tell you that you are a bit too fat, or similar. Rather than all this vitriol about size 16 being "curvy" and normal.

I think what you see around you affects how you perceive your own weight. Many of my friends are competitive athletes, and I'm often shocked when I go into a supermarket and see so many overweight people about. Its not just their weight, its their skin. You can literally see that they have inefficient circulation and poor liver and kidney function in their skin, even if it hasn't yet manifested itself in a health condition.

And I'm sorry, but doing a long walk 12 once a week is not what I consider exercise. At least not in a young person. The trouble is that most people lead such sedentary lifestyles and have pretty much unlimited access to food, so they try to justify creeping weight gain by normalising it.

I am a 12 and if I am a picture of perfect health then god help everyone else.

I have a cold. In June. A COLD

ephemeralfairy - BMI is VERY limited and doesn't take into account lifestyle or build but given that there is a huge range of weight from bottom of healthy to top of healthy the majority of people fit into it. The top end of healthy is fine for health, some people look better at that weight whereas I find as I have a very small build I look overweight.

My friend is a personal trainer and boxer, she has a higher BMI than me but looks much slimmer, she is very muscly and toned.

Well yes, but the other point is that talking in terms of sizes is arbitrary anyway, because they vary so much from shop to shop. I am a size 16 in Primark and H&M and a 14, sometimes a 12 in Marks and Spencer.

"To be less would mean a real diet and loads of exercise and that would make me stressed and miserable, not healthy"

You would be surprised. Hormones will kick in when you start to exercise (properly, minimum 45 minutes of cardio several times a week) and you will feel elated. And when you start losing weight, and you keep on losing weight, you will be very far from "stressed and miserable".

Don't lose weight if you don't want to - I'm all for loving your body and doing whatever you like with it. But just don't say you would be miserable if you started dieting & exercising.

(Btw I take "dieting" to mean eating sensibly, with far less carbs, butter, and oil, and much more vegetables/salads. The only "diet" that will work in the long term is permanently changing the way you eat.)

justneed - of course BMI is a simple tool for people of average fitness.

but does anyone think your PTer is overweight?

exactly, I think the trouble is people are saying well I'm only a size xyz and that is average so I am fine. It really isn't the case.

I cannot fool myself into thinking I am really a size 8 because Next clothes come up a size/size and a half bigger than other places, I know my measurements and what they really equate to. I am aware what is healthy for me and I want to stick around that weight. I have no disrepect for people who don't but I know I want to be healthy as its important to me for both health and my confidence.

sizes.darkgreener.com/ this is interesting as shows clothes sizes varying by 2 sizes from shop to shop

I'm 5'9" and pre-pregnancy was a 14-16 despite a healthy BMI (and cycling 90 miles+ a week).

I carry weight around my hips and thighs - classic 'pear' shape. Even at my slimmest - BMI 21/22 - my bottom half never gets smaller than a 12-14.

Dress size is a totally rubbish way of trying to classify healthiness.

"big bones"

I don't understand what that is supposed to mean. Have any of you ever seen skeletons? Bones of one skeleton can easily be longer than the next, but they are hardly much thicker.

I get these comment all the time. "You're not exercising properly though" or "How much do you really eat?" or "You can't possibly be fat and fit"

To which I usually point out my body fat is the result of genetics and PCOS. Underneath my fat I have huge muscles and big bones. You can track this tendency through my family, many of whom find it difficult to find hats to fit our large skulls or shoes to fit our massive feet.

My fitness is something entirely different. I was a size 20 when (briefly) a sporting international and competing in triathlons on the side. I find it incredibly patronising when an unqualified person suggests I'm not really as fit as I think I am or when they suggest my diet is poor. I had access to national coaches, doctors and dieticians, all of whom accepted that my body shape was inherent rather than acquired.

I'm actually smaller now than I was at the height of my mad sporting years. I put this down to an improvement in my PCOS. I'm still bloody fit though

Cote I have no idea how it works but I have tiny hands, feet, wrists and ankles. I generally weigh less than my friends who are the same height and size.

Slug - I have no doubt that you are fit and healthy but I really don't think this is the case for most people. I have lots of friends who are bigger and they may go for a run once every few months but drink and eat lots.

People always mention athletes and super fit/exercise mad people when the subject of BMI is brought up...but they are not your average person on the street are they?

So why does it always come up?

No matter what your BMI is (and imo it's quite a generous marker anyway) just take your clothes off...stand in front of a full length mirror and use your eyes and your honesty.

If you are fat, or you're carrying too much fat in an area that's likely to do some damage (i.e the stomach area) then no matter what your BMI is, you'll need to make adjustments to your exercise routine/diet.

If you don't want to that's fine, but you're quite likely increasing your risk of developing some quite nasty conditions.

I don't get the 'big boned' excuse either!

slug - I don't know about you personally, but I do know many people who think they are following brilliant training programs in the gym while slooowly riding the bike while reading a book or walking on the treadmill, getting their heart rate up to maybe 110. That is what I was thinking when I said referred to "proper" cardio exercise (which leads to releasing happy hormones).

slug To which I usually point out my body fat is the result of genetics and PCOS. Underneath my fat I have huge muscles and big bones. You can track this tendency through my family, many of whom find it difficult to find hats to fit our large skulls or shoes to fit our massive feet.

we have massive head and feet. its nothing to do with big bones. it to do with being veeery intelligence.

big brains.
big feet to we don't fall over

OK By 'big boned' I mean, in my case at least, that the measurement, for example, across my shoulders is bigger than the average female. Even if I had no fat or muscle on my body at all I would find it hard to get into a size 10 simply because my shoulders wouldn't fit. Added to this I have a larger than average skull, huge hands and large, wide feet. Even as a scrawny teenager with no body fat, before the PCOS hit, I wore a size 12 or 14 jeans as my hip bones are also wide. I'm 5 foot 7, so I'm tallish but not particularly so.

My large shoulders, hands and feet of course, give me the frame to be a damn good swimmer. Take a look at Rebecca Adlington. I have similar proportions, though sadly not the flat stomach. (curse you childbirth!) However thin she is, she will also probably never grace a size 10 top either.

Some of it comes down to physiological things we can't really help. I've had periods of being very, very thin in my life, and even then, I still had a podgy stomach, which is apparently the mark of Healthy Living Satan and punishable by early death.

Then there is my aunt, who has been seriously overweight for most of her adult life, and puts on weight very easily. She is very active, and has the heart and lung function of a much smaller person, and quite low blood cholesterol too. She freely admits to eating far, far too much, but professionals don't believe her and assume she is lazy.

I'm a size 10-12 and it made me feel bad about myself...think it was the way it was worded!! Xx

It's true about bone sizes as well. Some people do have bigger bones than others - bones vary in thickness and density, up to a point. It is partly genetic, and also can be the result of intense activity from an early age, injuries and other pathology.

Ha FasterStronger. I used to tell my students I had the brain the size of a small planet. What didn't fit in my massive skull had to be accommodated around my waist.

Worraliberty People always mention athletes and super fit/exercise mad people when the subject of BMI is brought up...but they are not your average person on the street are they? So why does it always come up?

Just because you aren't an athlete and have friends who are athletes doesn't mean to say that other people don't. I don't think mumsnet is representative actually - sporty people are generally out and not on the internet, and you would think there were more SAHMS than there actually are as well, because most people don't have the luxury of spending their spare time on here.

Do you have any idea how popular running is? Our local park run is full of the "average person on the street", getting up at 9.30am on a Saturday morning.

I don't believe a lot of what I read on mumsnet. I will be accused of stealth boasting, but I tried on a size 14 pair of cycling shorts at the weekend by mistake. They gaped so much around my middle that they wouldn't stay up. Am I seriously supposed to believe that, as the same height as the OP, putting on the extra fat around my middle (ie around my organs) and even more to get to a size 16 would make me "normal" and keep me just as healthy as I am now?? Ridiculous.

And the trouble with size 16 is that any more weight gain at all and you are into the verging on obese category.

The biggest single thing you can do to affect your general level of health is not smoke. THe second is pay attention to your diet and exercise.

BMI and weight are guidelines, not facts. Some professional athletes, for example, can fall into the slightly overweight category because they've bulked up as a result of all their training. Likewise, very slim people will have a low hip to waist ratio, yet this is usually an indication of a weight problem. There are always going to be people who don't fit the rules, but as a generalisation they hold true.

It is perfectly possible for a person to be up to 2 stone overweight with no affect on their health as long as they are eating well and exercising regularly. In fact, a little excess weight helps the immune system and is a valuable defence against illness.

Beyond that 2 stone or so, however, the chances are that health IS going to be affected. Most people who claim otherwise are in denial.

I know quite a few people who are overweight who regularly exercise and eat a good diet, but it is obvious (to me, at least) that where they're going wrong is the sheer amount of what they're eating. Portion sizes count for a lot, and they've got bigger as a result of food being more available and cheaper than at any time in history, and the fact that we tend to measure them against portion sizes as provided by manufacturers (all of whom are making their portions bigger to encourage more spending - family sized bags of this and that, and extra large ready meals, etc).

I also know quite a few people who eat excellent healthy meals, but counteract it by eating between meals. Apparently one of the main reasons diets fail is because people consistently underestimate the calorific content of their snacks, even though they may go as far as weighing the ingredients of their main meals.

'Big boned' may be a misnomer but there are very real genetic and environmental factors that affect eg adult pelvic diameter.

Worra I think I'll trust BMI over your method ("do you, subjectively, look fat") until you've done the research to back it up. Yes there is some evidence that central obesity (apple shape) is proportionally more risky but I think saying a visible inch of fat anywhere on your body = unhealthy is bollocks.