To think we have lost sight of what "thin" looks like as much as what "fat" looks like

[marmitenot]

Hi
My daughter is recovering (well) from anorexia. At her worst she was on the 3rd centile for weight for her height and age. The terrifying thing is that she did not look any different to many girls in her year at school and certainly nowhere near as skinny as many women/teens in the public eye. As parents we had no idea that she was dangerously underweight as she didn't look different to many of her peers.

There has been a lot of publicity of how society's perception of what is overweight has changed. Aibu to think that the same has happened with the perception of what is underweight is.

My daughter is now in the healthy weight range with a bit more to go, but out of danger and heading in the right direction.

I don't understand how being on the 3rd centile for weight is being used as a marker for being underweight. The centiles for weight are relative to the centiles for height, surely, so she would only be dangerously thin if she was on a much higher centile for height. A child could be on the third centile for weight and be perfectly healthy.

So if your daughter looked perfectly fine and just like her peers, then how did anyone spot that she was underweight, and how is nobody spotting that those other girls she looks the same as are not underweight?? I don't really get it.

I totally agree with you that we have lost a sense of normal, I would add though that that does include both ends of the spectrum.

I was diagnosed anorexic when younger. I now am very overweight. As a adult I honestly have no idea about normal weight or normal diet. My body doesn't accept dieting well. I fear that if I tackle my weight and focus on it I could easily go the other way again. I don't think I am alone

After being ill, my parents put a lot of pressure on me to eat, it was always the elephant in the room. Hence where I am now. Please be kind to your DD, I hope she is able to shed the elephant.

I'm surprised so many agree with op. As pp have said seeing ribs on children is normal and healthy.

I find fat shamming is seen as totally unacceptable, but skinny shaming is just fine - even though said skinny people are often a healthy weight. I brush it off as usually comes from jealous people with their own issues.

Toad you are absolutely right I don't know what weight the other girls and celebs are. All I can go on is what I see and indeed that is the main driver of anorexia - what other people look not necessarily what they weigh.

My daughters school friends I would mostly see in school uniform so I am mostly comparing legs, arms and faces and my daughter was not extreme compared to her peers.

It seemed worth discussing that an anorexic close to hospitalisation can not be picked out of a crowd of her peers and I wondered why that might be. I thought that one reason is that there are lots of very underweight girls in certain environments. In fact so many that it has become the norm.

former maybe they do eat what they want but maybe eating what they want is different to eating what you want. Also saying you hate exercise is not the same as not exercising ever. I know plenty of people who hate exercise but still go to the gym several times a week.

How old is your daughter?

When I eat what I want and never exercise I get fatter and fatter, yet they keep getting skinnier....weird huh?!

Whilst you're right that they may well be less than honest, it's not really weird because 'what you want' when it comes to eating could be very different to 'what they want' (and how much) when it comes to eating, if that makes sense?

SaucyJack I didn't mean it'd be indicative of a problem because I would probably have been on the lower centiles as a teenager. I meant some on the lower centiles would have an eating disorder because there is a percentage of teenagers who do.

As an aside, is the centile chart reliable for teenagers because there is such a range of heights?

My daughter is 15.

In terms of her weight centile of 100 girls of her age and height 3 would be her weight.

My point is that skinny celebrities are everywhere and make us think its normal...its irritating and false when most of them claim that they eat normally. Take away the tan, designer clothes, fabulous hair and make up and underneath they look like they are suffering from malnutrition. It is not healthy or sustainable for an average woman to look like that.

It is only useful relevant to height. Bmi is useful as its both weight and height.

On your op I think weight ranges have moved further from healthy since the 70s, ie bigger but not sure a greater amount are thinner.

I think you're right. There are a lot of extremely thin women in the public eye, who probably have eating disorders, but if this is voiced out loud it gets shouted down by a chorus of "How offensive - she just looks slim and healthy to me". Ironically, the conversation then turns onto how we are so accustomed to seeing overweight bodies, we dismiss healthy people as underweight.

So I agree with you, OP. I think we have lost sight of what underweight looks like almost as much as what overweight looks like. And besides, thinness is so lauded it's rarely considered to be a bad or unhealthy thing.

Oh, I see OP. I thought the centile chart was a chart of 'girls aged 15' not 'girls aged 15 who are 5ft 6'.

I am glad to hear that your daughter is recovering and well done to her for doing so well. I have to stick up for all of us naturally thin women though (yes, we do exist whether you think we defy science or not). I am 5' 10" and weigh just under 8st. I don't starve myself, I don't go to the gym. I am healthy. I would have to eat enormous amounts to out on weight. To put this in perspective I am a size 6-8 these days but I still have size 12 stuff in the loft from when I was at school in the 90's and it is pretty much the same size as my clothes today, if not smaller. I can't fit into my mum's wedding dress from the 70's which says on the label that it is a size 14. I think we have lost sight of what healthy looks like in that we think thin equals ill. There are variations across humans, some are taller, shorter, slimmer and larger. It makes sense that we are not all exactly the same size and shape.

Well most people are celebrities because they have good genes. I don't think people think a perfect complection is normal because celebs have it.

Well yes obviously, children who are at an unnaturally low weight due to under-eating will be at the bottom of the charts alongside the naturally slim.

But it isn't for you or anybody else to take one look at a child and decide they "must" be underweight and in dangerous health just because they're one of the slighter children in the class. A) it's a bit rude and B) you can't possibly make those judgements without having watched a child over the course of a few years to see if they've followed a steady growth pattern or not- which might well indicate a recent eating problem.

I agree with the op. I remember when I was a teenager Kylie Minogue was always held out as being a bad role model.and now she's the normal.

I was watching This Morning thw other day and amanda holden seems to be literally wasting away.

Kelly Brook who I would say is a good weight looks big compared to most other celebs it's crazy

I think 'healthily slim' is hard to spot because the UK has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe, amongst men, women and children.

So often slimmer people are thought of as extreme dieters or exercise junkies, when in actual fact they're just going about their normal lives, without giving much thought to their weight at all.

I think we need to stop thinking purely in terms of weight regarding health and nutrition.

OP, it sounds like your daughter was severely malnourished due to her anorexia. I hope she is better soon.

I expect someone who is overweight, even, could suffer from malnourishment if their eating is disordered.

I agree with you. A woman in our circle is extremely thin, I hadn't noticed. A friend remarked to me how dangerously thin she was, and I simply said she looked fine to me. The woman has since told me herself she has an eating disorder and very rarely eats. She has been hospitalised for it.

But the significant point is that I don't see a few teen girls that look like my daughter but many. There will be some girls that are as thin as my daughter (whether naturally thin or due to health problems) but that wasn't the case.

My estimate was that at least a third of my daughters class were as thin or thinner.

I agree to some extent, and I'm speaking as someone who was born in 1960, so pre-obesity epidemic.
I think the main difference is that most people used to be able to maintain their weight naturally without thinking too much about it. Nowadays we tend to obsess over food and diets more. The influence of the media and celebrities was also much less.
There also used to be a much smaller range of sizes available (10/12/14) in fashionable clothes and most people fitted into them. I remember being in year 10, and every single girl in my class wore a size 10 or 12 in gym skirts. There just was no variation.
I agree, you do see some very thin teenagers nowadays, and of course some very big ones as well, whereas there didn't use to be the extremes at either end

There are naturally skinny woman but they are few and far between.

I used to know a girl at uni who was a tiny size 4/6...she said she was naturally skinny and I believed her till I saw what she'd have for lunch...sliced up cucumber..nothing else...every day!

And with regards to Kylie Minogue, I remember the frustration in her voice at being repeatedly asked about her weight and her having to explain, time and again that she was just 'skinny' (her words).

How can she be considered a 'bad role model' for goodness sake?

Why aren't real life role models like parents, teachers, doctors, nurses etc considered 'bad' role models for being overweight?

They are the people who surround our children in everyday life. Many a time I've heard teenage girls state that they're dieting (unnecessarily imo), because they "Don't want to get fat like my Mum" (not sure why, but it was always Mum rather than Dad).

I dont agree either.
My bmi was normally at about 19_20 so healthy, and I was always told I was underweight I was not.
I think A lot of normal slim celebrities are criticised as being too skinny