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 think the difficulty with the teenage years is there is growth and change in body shape and it all happens at different ages. Maximum weight gain usually happens later than maximum growth, so teenage girls become very slim and leggy and then fill out as hormones encourage fat to be settle on hips and thighs. This change in body can be very difficult to cope with emotionally. My DD was a slow developer so she would have been one of the girls with a BMI lower or around your DD's at 15 but she has since stopped growing and settled at around a BMI of 18, I know her earlier developer friends were envious of her being 'skinny.' At this age the BMI is a very blunt tool. You did the right thing by picking up on your DD's eating disorder and getting her help, the other girls may be healthy, just finishing a growth spurt or they may be suffering too. From my observations girls with AN do look different, from growing pubescent girls especially around the knees and elbows and with lots of fine body hair.
All the best to you and your daughter for her recovery.

I agree entirely OP although obviously we are all built differently so being thin doesn't always mean ill.

At my gym there was a lady who stopped eating. Her head was in a bad place and we all had to just watch her withering away knowing there was nothing we could do.
Her hip bones stuck out at the back. (communal changing - nowhere to hide)
She got so thin that the gym cancelled her membership.
Then she met a man who made her happy again and now looks fab.

Her BMI was at around 14-15 the worst I saw her
Now its back up at 19 ish - ie perfectly healthy

Remember that the healthy range for BMI is now defined as 18.5 - 25 for caucasians people and 18-23 for asians and negroes

People carry weighty differently.

Exactly. If two people can be the same weight and height but look completely different then it's not completely far fetched to believe that two people may also look like they weigh the same but in actual fact may weigh completely different.

Wayfaring I was referring more to the people saying all anorexics look like this or that. The OP itself highlights the fact that we're not all the same.

I dont think we have lost sight of what is skinny. The reason your daughter didnt look too different to other girls is that anorexics are good at layering clothes to hide the weight loss, and a lot of normal teenage girls go thru a leggy 'coltish' patch & growth spurt before filling out & maturing fully. My anorexic baby sitter wore layer upon layer so you could never see her real figure.

I was 5ft9 , size 8, ate like a horse & was the average size for my year at age 15. (three classes in my year, huge intake). There were only one or two overweight girls per class, per year, approx size 16-18: they were the exception back then.

One of my friends - who I have known all her life - models for Storm.
She did several catwalk shows as part of London Fashion week.
Watching her polish off a huge bowl of pad thai is impressive. Let alone bowls of potato salad.
Its really hard to tell by looking at people how or what they eat.

I've only read first page but wanted to say surely Hoppity is right and the centile chart covers all people not just those within a healthy range. So at a guess the top 20% at least are likely to be over-weight to varying degrees and the bottom 5 or 10% (again at a guess) would probably be cause for concern too?

I think there are plenty of healthy weight people on telly.
I only really watch two 'teenage programmes' the vampire diaries and the 100. Lots of female characters all a healthy weight.
The one name from this thread I've Googled and think is underweight is Rachel Zoe, I've no idea who she is though. So I still don't think the norm is for underweight actors/ pop stars. And when actors are on the" skinnier " end of normal they are often criticised for it.

TalkinPeace, negro isn't an acceptable term to describe people of African/Caribbean descent these days.

Sorry.
Was not sure what term to use because the BMI information for different racial groups has had to be altered.
The main one is south asians (so NOT the Chinese basically)
and the data for African/Caribbeans is unclear
as is the data for those who descend from the people who crossed the Bering strait a long time ago.

Sorry, I realise that might have sounded bitchy. It's not your fault that BMI uses such archaic terminology.

Neither is African/Caribbean acceptable.
Black British?

Black British wouldn't be helpful at all when talking about hereditary things.

White?

White-Irish?
White-Irish-Indian 1/8-French-Swiss?
White-but dark hair-probably Spanish?
Its bollocks trying to talk about hereditary things in a forum like this Worra

Talkin was trying to make a pertinent point about the difference in BMI, within certain racial groups.

So it's only bollocks if other people can't/don't realise that.

I think if you qualify what you're saying with 'of...descent,' Surround, that is an acceptable option. For the record, plenty of people of colour aren't best pleased with 'black' as it was a word imposed with derogatory intention by European colonialists. But then 'people of colour' is a term claimed by people of diverse ethnicities and not especially helpful when discussing how ethnicity informs body type.

Sorry, massive derail.

firstly I'm sorry to hear your daughter suffered with anorexia but I'm glad to hear she is overcoming it.

I don't really agree with you. people come in all different shapes and what is a healthy size or weight for one person could be the point at which another is very ill.

I'm very short. the weight at which I look my best is 7 1/2 stone if I haven't built up muscle or 8 stone if I have. my sister who is a few inches taller than me claims her ideal weight is 7 1/2 stone with built up muscle. her boyfriend Is very controlling about how she looks and the last time she achieved this everyone was worried about her. she had no chest and all her bones were protruding. she kept saying but we are the same weight and couldn't see the difference. my frame is smaller I can carry a lot less weight before it becomes a problem

Surroundme
I'm an immigrant to the UK. I just happen to have white skin.
The point is that due to founder effects, certain racial groups have different health / weight risks than others.
To deny that races are different is stupid. (sickle cell anaemia)
I got the terminology wrong. But I got the information right.

OP I really do feel for you as a very dear friend of mine has been through the same thing with her daughter for around 3 years. She has been hospitalised 3 times and would have been sectioned if she hadn't agreed to be admitted.

She is now 21 and has been well on the road to recovery for the last year or so. Fantastic to see her back up to a decent weight, I think at her worst she was 5 stone 3 lbs and she is a good 5ft 7". She was admitted as an emergency as they were concerned about her heart rate as it was so low. It has been heartbreaking to watch and she really went through the mill but with excellent ED care she is so so much better now.

There is hope

I think it's disingenuous to say that there aren't 'degrees' of anorexia. As with any mental illness, of course there are.

My comment about the women/girls I spent time with in hospital wasn't written with the intention of lessening OPs daughter's illness. Since the whole OP was about comparison of her daughter's looks to the other girls in her class, I thought it was appropriate to say that no-one I saw in the hospital had the body of any celebrity or slim teenage girl.

You could never tell from the average slim girl's body whether she is suffering from an eating disorder or just a healthy, sporty, fast metabolising youngster. I have had ED problems for a few years in the past but you wouldn't have known it if you met me once in the street. I was never a walking skeleton.

Out of curiosity can I ask you Worraliberty why you always always always comment on weight issue threads?
And it's always the same message about how slim you are.
I've got the memo now anyway. I'd say loads of people do.

Why shouldn't she? If she is slim and doesn't have to try to be, then she is fortunate. Is she less valid as a commenter because she isn't fat?

I'm also quite underweight (by official measures, I am actually a healthy weight for me) and often comment on threads about weight, under many different names over the years, because I am sick and tired of the assumption that anyone who is slim is necessarily desperately trying to be skinny and also very unhealthy. Some of us just are slim and being slim doesn't mean you are pursuing it at the cost of your own health. In fact, any health issues I have are more than likely of the too many crisps/too much wine variety even though I am by most people's standards extremely thin.

Pilchards i knew two girls at school with eating disorders I was friends with both.

One would avoid eating. The other girl would make herself throw up after eating.
This was in high school in the 80s.
The first girl is the same age as me but looks much older due to the toll it has taken on her system.

The second girl died in 2001. Suicide.

I didnt find out till 2 years later. We were quite close at school but drifted apart in our mid twenties.

It still wrenches to think about it now. There were other factors going on in her life but it would identify her so i wont list them here. She had DC too.