To think that skinny celebrities do have a negative impact on women and girls?

[thatisnotcoffee]

How could they not? When you constantly have this ideal body type pushed in your face as the only right one and and when size 14 is considered to be overweight then how can that not effect you?

Dakota Fanning is considered to be a good role model for teenagers and young women but she's a stick! How can that be healthy? She's 21 and still has the body of a child.

I watched an interview with Amanda Holden recently and she's wasting away. I also looked up Gillian Anderson recently when I found out the X Files was coming back and I was shocked to see that she's also very thin. I was even more shocked when I looked at even older pictures of her from 10-20 years ago and I realised she was very skinny even back then. I just don't understand how being that thin can be healthy tbh.

This sort of shit just makes me feel like crap and that I must be a hippo at a size 16 even though that's the average size.

Until the overweight realise that they cannot blame anybody but their own lack of self restraint for their size, nothing will change.

I agree but expect we'll both be flamed.

I am 5 foot 2 size 12 on top and 14 on bottom and weigh 12.5 stone yet I eat healthy (no junk apart from a treat once a month) and cycle 8 miles into work and 8 miles back - and no its not just a flat journey at least 4 very steep hills! I also ride 20 miles each sat and sunday and go to the gym 3 times a week to use the weight machines to make sure I work on those muscles cycling doesn't use as much as the amoutn of cycling I do could create muscle imbalance. Anyway I still struggle to lose more weight and I am considered fat because for my height and age I should be between 9-10 stone. Go figure.

If someone said to me they did that amount of exercise a week I wouldn't think they would be fat. But say you are a size 12-14 and people would say that isn't healthy. Worse do a bmi and get told you are obese! Feck off quite frankly. I take my toned size 12-14 body over a thin size 8-10 any day

LilMiss
Have you had a body fat scan done - as that would give you the data to prove how fit you actually are.

The problem for people under 5'4" is that their calorific needs are so much less than the 2000 on the side of the cereal packet that its really hard to stay lean

A 5'0" 50 year old woman only needs 1100 calories a day to stay healthily at a BMI of 21 after all.

I've just Googled Dakota Fanning. She is not stick thin, she looks very healthy to me. All this 'size 14 is the national average' bullshit does my head in. Average maybe but still unhealthy.

Worra, did you read the rest of my post or just the bit about Perretti? Lots of the cheap foods which are marketed to make people slim end up doing the opposite. As a country, we don't really know how to feed ourselves because the task has been taken away from us and it appears cheaper to let someone else do it - someone else who helpfully puts calorie and fat content on the box but neglects to mention all the fucking sugar/sweeteners or at least the damage they might end up doing.

I know that every woman on MN is just perfect and has been making meals from fresh, healthy ingredients and not permitting snacks since the day her DC were born, but that is not the norm in the UK. My Greek, French, Spanish, Italian friends - their countries' food cultures are nothing like ours, largely. Home Ec in the UK is a wasted opportunity - why are kids learning how to make pizzas and scones and not useful, healthy stuff?

We get East Asian students coming to study at my place of work who suddenly gain pounds and break out in spots, because cheap, shite food is the easiest thing to get your hands on here. Expecting people poor, stupid people, of course to take their health into their own hands when it comes to food is all well and good but it should not be permissible that, in pretty much every major UK retailer, it is cheaper and easier to do the opposite.

So I know I have only myself to blame for being overweight (and the antidepressants had their part to play) but retail in this country does not make it simple or intuitive to reach for health other than ease, cheapness and comfort.

Agentcooper
but retail in this country does not make it simple or intuitive to reach for health other than ease, cheapness and comfort.

Hear Hear

Yesterday I planned to meet somebody for lunch where I knew I could get tasty food.
But because the vicinity of the M27 was totally gridlocked, I had to walk to the nearest shop to buy whatever I could find

the ready to eat options were just shocking - wall to wall carbs and sugar and the "raw veg" we now know has been rinsed in swimming pool water so I left that.

One poxy egg sandwich on stained brown bread later ....

AgentCooper yes I read it all.

Still, I disagree because when it comes to the overweight people/obese people I know, it's not just about the shit food they eat...it's about the sheer volume of it and the lack of exercise.

As I said upthread, there were 120 kids at that football tournament...all living in one of London's most deprived boroughs and yet there wasn't a fat one amongst them.

talkin why is it relevant that a 50 year old woman weighing under 8 stone only needs 1100 calories a day to maintain that weight literally just lying in bed all day? And I believe Lil said she is happy the way she is. Do you seriously believe that she is at risk of heart disease and diabetes, given the lifestyle she describes?

IMO, when it comes to taking responsibility for the obesity crisis the finger can be pointed in so many directions,

• the celebrity culture, that basically tells us that you can only be beautiful and happy if you have a certain body type - one that is only realistically healthy and achievable for a tiny proportion of the population

• a general fear and hatred of fat, particularly among parents who constantly comment, whether positively or negatively on other people's bodies, planting the idea in children's heads that this is what is most important about a person and that they will only be loved if they stay slim (a particularly dangerous thing for kids going through puberty when bodily changes often mean perfectly normal weight gain and are unsettling enough by themselves).

• cheap, ubiquitous, poor quality food that has terrible health consequences - (For example, apparently regularly consuming one single can of fizzy drink a day can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by more than 20% )and, if they are consumed in sufficient quantities, have addictive properties. Hidden sugar in almost all processed food.

• the diet industry and mentality that most of us have swallowed hook line and sinker despite the evidence that for 95% of people, they don't work, the weight lost (plus some extra) is regained. Alongside this, the common perceptions that a calorie is a calorie - ignoring nutritional value) and all fat is bad for us.

-lack of day to day movement and exercise, particularly a culture where it doesn't seem to be 'cool' for girls to exercise

• poor support for people with mental health issues - which can lead to 'self medication' with food

• the over prescription and long term use of anti-depressants which typically have the side effect of causing weight gain

The obesity crisis is a social problem that affects all of us, no matter what our own size, it's no good pointing at overweight people and shouting 'take responsibility' - we need to think collectively about how it can be changed. That is much harder for the adults already struggling with obesity but when it comes to the next generation we need to focus on things like properly educating kids about food, modelling good habits with food and exercise, instilling self worth in them for what they are and do, not how they look, stop buying the body shaming media, stop calling foods naughty/good (or yourself for eating them), stop buying so much processed food....one thing for sure is that fat shaming does not work, it's more likely to compound the problem.

x post all the way back to trickykid

sleepwhenidie
That 1100 figure is a TDEE for an office worker. not a BMR

There are lots and lots of people who do not take on board

• short people need a LOT Less calories than tall ones
• older people need a LOT less calories than younger ones

They eat much too much because they think that the figures on the food packets apply to them.
And they don't.

worra - I think your sample may be skewed because it was a football tournament after all - the non-sporty kids wouldn't have been there - but the London (you are in London I think?) thing is a peculiar anomaly in the country, as with the adults. We are in London and there are no overweight kids in my DC's infant school of about 100, with a very mixed social demographic. When we visit family in the Midlands - where agian there is a mixed demographic, there really are lots of overweight children - I think I read that a quarter of kids in Birmingham are obese...that really is shocking. But when it comes to the ones you see eating KFC and McD on a daily basis, those are horrible habits to form, even if you don't gain weight (and as we know a large number of those sporty kids won't be as sporty in ten years time so they probably will) a shit diet will still lead to things like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a precursor to diabetes.

talkin tbh I'm not convinced that many people count calories at all.

...at least not when they are 'in between' diets

sleepwhenidie
tbh I'm not convinced that many people count calories at all.
Too right they don't.

That is why when we get newcomers to the 5:2 threads, we try to persuade them to log their intake on MyFitnessPal to find out how much they are actually eating as against what their bodies actually need.
It is almost always a rather nasty shock.

Made nastier when people realise that half of them by definition need less than 2000 calories a day
and that many packets of crisps actually contain 2 portions
and that a portion of breakfast cereal is about two decent spoonfuls - not the scrummy heaped bowl they are used to.

But TalkIn, total daily energy expenditure (I'm guessing that's what TDEE means?) surely has to be higher than BMR? I've not seen a calculation as low as yours for BMR, let alone actual moving-around people.

exactly what I thought Lancelottebut I was trying not to engage in the calorie argument that I've had with Talkin on numerous occasions...we have very different views .

Is this really being debated like the OP is saying something original?

Maybe I should start a thread saying I think photoshop has a negative impact on women and girls

sleepwhenidie far from being skewed, it was the entire point of my post...that no matter how poor we are we will not become overweight or obese if we take enough exercise and if we don't over eat, no matter how shit the food is.

Yes, eating shit food will make us unhealthy but it doesn't automatically make us fat, which is why I think blaming the food industry is a bit of a cop out.

Very often it's portion size, constant snacking and not enough exercise that causes people to be overweight, so blaming an industry is a bit of a cop out if we're just talking about weight alone rather than general health.

Lancelottie
I cannot remember which of the calculators I picked up on , but for petite older ladies, TDEE under 1200 is not hard to hit ...
www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

My TDEE on a non gym day is only 1517 and I'm 5'5"

I get your point Worra but if the problem with being fat is that is is unhealthy, why is it ok to have KFC as a staple food as long as you are slim ? Surely the end result is the same - the crap diet leading to poor health? To fatty liver disease in people with 'healthy' weight as well as 'overweight' ones? Slim people openly enjoying doughnuts and KFC don't get frowned at and commented on do they?

Op is over weight and criticising celebrities for being thin yet she thinks the celebrities are having a negative impact on girls and women?
Your body your choice.

the ready to eat options were just shocking - wall to wall carbs and sugar and the "raw veg" we now know has been rinsed in swimming pool water so I left that.
One poxy egg sandwich on stained brown bread later ....

Talkin, you're absolutely right there. I went to M&S to pick up something for lunch today and struggled. Mon-Thurs, I got their 2 for £3 salads but I didn't want to buy 2 today as I don't work on Saturdays. I looked around for what I could have in their £4 meal deal but was there ages, because it all seemed to be big beast sandwiches and crisps. Now, I may have been blinded by hunger and rage, because I've been trying really, really hard to eat well, but if there were salad-y options and non-crisp options, they were either sold out or not there. They certainly weren't the easiest to find, or in the majority of the stock and they should have been.

and also, the crap diets may have just not made those kids fat yet - kids, teens in particular can have scary metabolisms...

sleepwhenidie
The underlying point is that
people are kidding themselves about how much they should eat
people are kidding themselves about how much they do eat
people are kidding themselves about what is in the stuff they eat
people are kidding themselves about how active they are
and they regard it as being fat shamed when that is pointed out.

sleep I did say in both my posts that eating shit food will lead to poor health

However, the poster I was initially replying to was blaming the food industry for obesity.

I think that's passing the buck. Blame it for poor health in general but blame eating too much food and taking too little exercise for obesity (unless there are medical reasons of course).

As a few people have said, if we don't take responsibility for our own weight and our own health, nothing will change.