To think a 84cm / 34 inch waist is not "slim"

[apenny4]

Here's a link to the article

I'm very open to being told IABU, in fact I'd be quite relieved to be told I have a warped view. Right now though I don't think a 34 inch waist is slim. To me slim is no larger than a size 10 so around a 27 inch waist max.

Unless you are a much taller than the average woman (average being 5' 4"?) I think a healthy (in the general sense of the word) waist is less than 30 inches.

However I have a small frame and have felt overweight whenever I've needed to wear size 12 bottoms (and that's still not over a 30 inch waist).

The irony is that I still think I'm at high risk of developing diabetes because my father has it and whilst not overweight I have a diet quite high in sugar.

Genuinely interested in people's views on this and whether my own view is out of kilter with the norm.

Oh god mine's 0.52 go is job I'm going to WW

::good job:: I meant to say But my BMI is normal at 24.5

No green18, you div, I don't. But where I'm describing is where the measurement should be less than 31.5.

I've said repeatedly it's not your actual waist.

Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind was always measuring her impossibly small waist and corsetting herself tighter and tighter to achieve a waist of how many inches? I can't remember, but it was something like 21in. and that was meant to be tiny. I think that 10inches above that would be fairly OK.

These days so many teens look like there is hardly room inside their skin for tendons and blood vessels and so on. It can't really be healthy.

Seventeen inches, wasn't it, that Scarlett O'Hara was aiming for? And I seem to remember her complaining it went up to 20" after her first baby, and she begged Mammy to pull her corset tighter as she couldn't believe how "fat" she'd become. Haven't read it for years though.

Halfway between the bottom of my ribs and the top of my hips IS my natural waist and also the location of my belly button.

I am very interested in all the different configurations of body parts people seem to have! Just goes to show how very varied we all are!

I remember being stunned to discover that my best friend and I were the same height and wore the same size (16) when we were in fact 16, yet I weighed 10 kilos more than she did. She was I was

Bodies vary, that's for certain!

I never got under a 26 waist even when I weighed 6.8 stone at 5'6. I'm a fucking rectangle from proud peasant stock

I was under 8 stone when I went to university and my waist was still 28". Now I'm in my 40s I'm finding it hard work to get the measurement to stay near 30" (think its about 32" currently.) three kids plus a tendency to Apple shape means 9 and a half stone is about as heavy as I can get and still be a healthy shape.

ambroxide, me too! I am blown away by the idea that people's belly buttons are in different places. One of things that I imagine I could have easily figured out from looking, but it never occurred to me as possible! I was mystified through the first half of this thread with the belly button/natural waist difference.

Fascinatingly, that ideal weight calculator put me just about exactly where my weight stayed with almost no change until my health problems and weight gain started.

YouGottaKeepThemSeperated

I'm 5'8"
At 8 12 in the early 90s people assumed I was anorexic or an addict. I was neither, just very athletic. My bones STILL never fitted in a size 10 at that weight, still a 12.
9.7 -10 looks very slim but healthy on me. I'm currently 11. Fitting in a size 10/12. And losing weight aiming for 10 ish. And being accused of getting too thin. People carry weight differently.

I am blown away by the idea that people's belly buttons are in different places.

Yes, me too! I had simply never ever noticed. Next time I go to the beach, I'm gonna have a field day noting relative locations of belly buttons!

As I understand it, your waist is the thinnest part of your middle, wherever that might fall. Its not rocket science.

My dd (15) has a small waist (I guess about 26") but she wears 30" waist jeans because jeans don't come up to your middle unless they are "high waisters".

So they usually sit lower down, nearer the hips, hence the larger measurement.

Or is that too simple an explanation?

2 kids and I weigh 11st atm with a 29 inch waist. I'm hoping to lose 18lb before sunmer as I have gained quite a lot of weight in my thighs and hips! I do hide the weight well with being an hour glass shape but at my lower weight I feel better in clothes.

Cardibach, my 1960's sizing came from skirts I had, 10 was def 22" waist. I think men's jeans sizes were connected in some way but I remember my skinny size 10 friends buying 28" waist men's Levis.
I tried on a vintage Laura Ashley skirt in a charity shop recently, size 12 wouldn't go anywhere near my 29" waist by about 4". I also remember 34" bust was a size 12, all of my size 12 items are at least 38" across the chest.
If you look at old photos we have very definitely changed shape.
I think it is a combination of lots of things, nutrition, sedentary life style, cars, 24 availability of food, snacks etc. When I was growing up, no food was available or offered in between meal times and I had no pocket money of my own to buy anything with to eat out of the house. Even though our diet in the 50's and 60's was quite stodgy at times, we all seemed to have smaller waists. Funny that the waist is the part that everyone notices getting bigger over time.
My (now adult ) sons have always been certain that beer, not excess food, has been the main cause of expanding waistlines especially in people who do no exercise at all. Doesn't explain why my waist has grown though, as I hate beer!

M48, you explained the jeans thing much better than me!

cardibach - no one is making up sizes being smaller in the 1980s! I don't know what happened with your Pepe jeans, but I certainly remember that a 24" waist was a size 10, 26" waist was a size 12 etc. Because back then I actually had a 24" waist! (Astonishes me now but there you are!) Mum used to buy a lot of my clothes from a catalogue, and the sizes were in there. The 10" difference between bust and waist was there too - a standard size 10 was 34" bust, 24" waist, 34" hips. Used to annoy me though because I tended to be all odd numbers - the 24" waist didn't last long, it went to 25", with 33" bust and hips. I was very happy that one of the local jeans shops used to do odd sizes, because I really needed an 11 rather than a 10 for comfort - can't remember which shop it was though!

Vintage clothes are sized much smaller.

I had a 24 inch waist up until late 20's. I miss it. Would happily trade in my double D boobs for my flat chest and tummy.

I was born in 1962 when my mum was 31 years old.

She was 5'5", 9 stone, a size 12 and absolutely average for her time. She went up to 10 stone post menopause and couldn't believe how fat she was!

I can't believe what teeny tiny waists people have! I'm 5'10" and 9 and a half stone, BMI 19ish, thigh gap, sticky out collarbones, the lot - and I'm sure my waist has never been under 28", except maybe briefly after a really bad breakup when I lost so much weight I was pretty much skeletal. I have biggish hips though so maybe that's why?!
And re the belly button thing - mine is between my hip bones and at 5'10" I have a lot of torso so an inch above my belly button is still nowhere near my narrowest point

I wish clothes were still made to vintage size requirements. I have an 11" difference between my waist and hips and it's a bugger getting things to fit.

34" waist is fine and pretty normal at my age (53). An average size for a woman is 14-16. I have a couple of friends who have this sort of waste and they are almost gaunt looking and have far more wrinkles than me

*waist

I don't think its big hips four, it's just that we are all different - see cats with an 11" difference between waist and hips for example.