I'm NOT fat

[TheJollyPostmansWife]

Name change as about to give all details as too late to text friends for advice. Visiting DHs family today, out for lunch where I had a prawn salad. After I finished I reached over to nick a bit of my dds bread and as I did so My DHs grandmother piped up 'not watching your figure then?'. This is not the first time she has been rude about my weight and to be honest I am really pissed off. We see them very rarely and I don't think she has any right to make personal comments at all - last time she said something she suggested I would lose my looks and therefore my husband if I carried on the way I was. I don't think it's important as I don't think anyone should comment on others appearance but for context I go to the gym 3-5 times a week, walk the dog at least an hour every day and see a personal trainer weekly. I am five foot one, 9 stone 3 and size 8. I'm not normally so sensitive but I don't want to see the woman again, she is elderly and not in good health and adores my dds. Aibu to refuse to see her? I would never stop the dds but we live the other side of the country which is obviously limiting.

Exactly. All this arguing that OP is not overweight suggests that if she were people here would agree with the grandmother.

Agreed totally LaserShark

I have a lot of muscle and muscle weighs more than fat.

I can't beleive people are still this stupid.

Muscle does not weigh more than fat.

It is primary school maths....1kg of.muscle weighs 1kg and 1kg of fat weighs 1kg.

Muscle is denser than fat so 1kg looks smaller than 1kg of fat but they weigh the bloody same.

Sorry to reinforce the point that I'm stupid but surely that means the same amount of fat by mass ie cubic cm would weigh less than muscle?

I agree too but not sure what the OP wanted really. Just everyone to tell her she's not fat? I mean obviously she's not but I guess she opened herself up to critique by posting her stats and people who really care about weight/body image pointed out that she does seem a little heavy to be a size 8 - but without photos etc it's impossible to tell. I'm 5"3, 9st 6 and a curvy 10-12. Looking at a photo of my top half you'd probably think I'm pretty slim but then I have massive hips and have always been this way. Some people would think me fat and others not just depends who you ask.

It doesnt weigh less than fat though.

It is denser. Meaning it takes up less area. But 1kg of each weighs the same.

To be fair when I was 2.5 stone heavier people still told me I looked skinny.

People perceive how other people carry their weight differently, I'm always viewed as skinny, even when I'm not because I'm just long and gangly. Other people may carry their weight in different places that give the illusion they're heavier than they are.

If that makes sense?

At the end of the day, does it really matter as long as people are fit and healthy?

Maybe it was simply observation.
Snarfing bread at the end of a meal would indicate that you aren't watching your figure

Another fat vs muscle pic.

Weight threads on MN are dreadful. Women policing one another's weight, judging those whose weight has been impacted by years and childbearing, the moral superiority of thin.

It's internalised misogyny.

Agree with laser. I love this quote and it rings so true especially when I read some threads on MN. Disclaimer: I got this online so who knows if it's right or a misquote!

"A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one."

Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

Lynda, yes, exactly

And YY to internalised misogyny lynda. I hate this utter shit some women like to throw at other women. It is always under the guise of being concerned but it often actually comes from a desire to be superior imo.

It's internalised misogyny.

Agree totally. It's also the social idea that fat=bad, or fat=lazy and that affects men and women.

Take this thread for example, the vast vast majority of people have done nothing but comment on the OP's original sentiment, that it's not ok for someone to comment on her weight. But there are a few posters who, due to their own issues or feelings of superiority, feel the need to comment on the OP's weight/body type and make judgements. Rather than those few posters being ignored for the goady fuckers they are, suddenly it changes the whole gist of the thread. Because most of us aren't our "fighting weights" and with that comes a whole hell of a lot of guilt, shame, embarrassment and we feel the need to defend ourselves and the OP.

Every single thread about weight seems to take this turn on MN. Because according to some (the patriarchy, big business, the diet industry, the media) we aren't allowed to be happy with ourselves, and if we are, we're doing something wrong.

SoThatHappened Mon 13-Jun-16 08:03:35

I have a lot of muscle and muscle weighs more than fat
I can't beleive people are still this stupid.

^^

I am sure the person who posted that is not stupid SoThatHappened - it was just a not very well thought-through shorthand to express what we all know already. Factually inaccurate, but we all know what she meant and didn't need to express our superiority by pointing it out and writing her off as "stupid" which is a personal attack if ever I've seen one

By the way, you spelled believe wrong.

thefitfatty " the vast vast majority of people have done nothing but comment on the OP's original sentiment, that it's not ok for someone to comment on her weight. "

Except that was NOT her original sentiment!

Her thread is called "I'm NOT fat"

Not "DH's grandmother is rude" or "AIBU to think this comment was out of order?" or something.

But "I'm NOT fat." Followed by an opening post in which she outlined all of her stats in great detail. OP herself has said she thinks this was badly worded and she regrets phrasing it that way. However, it's not the fault of other posters, who have responded to her actual post and to her thread title, and not to an imaginary or ideal one that she didn't actually post.

On a separate issue, re BMI and health outcomes - all of the recent research showed that the original research indicating that a BMI around 25 was healthiest was very skewed by the fact that many people lose a lot of weight when they are ill and thus the lower BMIs included disproportionate number of people who were on their last legs and had recently lost weight due to serious illness.

They also included smokers, who tend to weigh less but obviously have terrible health outcomes.

Once they corrected for that by taking out everyone who died within 5 years of the study, and looking instead at that person's maximum BMI, and also taking out smokers, it turns out that the best BMI for long term health outcomes is either 20 or 22 depending on which meta-analysis you look at. I willl post the links shortly

"Overweight and obesity is associated with increased risk of all cause mortality and the nadir of the curve was observed at BMI 23-24 among never smokers, 22-23 among healthy never smokers, and 20-22 with longer durations of follow-up. "

www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2156
"BMI and all cause mortality: systematic review and non-linear dose-response meta-analysis of 230 cohort studies with 3.74 million deaths among 30.3 million participants"

Note that 'nadir of the curve' here refers to the bottom of a U-shaped curve showing the relationship between BMI and mortality - so 'the nadir of the curve' is the healthiest BMI in terms of mortality.

It is somewhere between 20 and 24 depending on whether or not you exclude smokers, and in the long term your best chance of living longer is to have a BMI of 20-22.

Proteus - the OP didn't ask if she was a healthy weight. No one has asked you for health advice or what the best BMI is for long term health.

I presume by now she's realised that she needs to be a lot more careful about how she words threads in future if she doesn't want MN's Fat Police on her case

Actually Lynda i was replying to an earlier post by StrangeLookingParasite who said
"This [change in BMI scale] despite the best health outcomes being in the category called 'overweight'."

I was responding to a scientific claim - which has now been disproven - with a scientific study. A more recent meta-analysis that conclusively disproves the myth that 'the best health outcomes are in the category called overweight'.

And also responding to a similar statement by thefitfatty above, as well as various other posts that engage with this particular debate.

You're not the thread police and I wasn't replying to you so really it's not for you to tell me what I can and can't post, is it?

But the OP's thread title is accurate - she is not fat. A BMI of 24 is not fat. It's not overweight. You may be unhappy with the same BMI and feel fat at that BMI, but she isn't fat. Not everyone will be the optimim BMI all the time - it doesn't mean they are fat the moment they go over 22. Her thread title is true. She feels she is carrying a bit of extra weight according to her later posts but that doesn't make her fat.

No, I'm not the thread police. But I wish you'd have a bit of a think about why you seem to have this need to police other women's weight

And the original sentiment she expressed was that she didn't want to see this woman again because of the rude comments. She posts her height, weight and dress size - hardly great detail. These stats support her assertion that she is not fat. Her question is whether she is unreasonable to avoid the woman in future so that is what she is actually inviting comments on.

Had her thread title been 'I am the ideal and optimum BMI', then your posts may have been more relevant, Proteus.

Laser that's exactly what I said in my first post on this thread:

" no you're not fat , but at 5 ft 1 and 9 st 3, you have a BMI of 24.3, and you are only four pounds from the maximum you could weigh without being overweight. A healthy weight range for your height is 6 st 13 to 9 st 7. So you're at the top end of healthy weight. "

Lynda i wasn't replying to you or 'policing anyone's weight'. I was responding to the actually quite dangerous misinformation being spread by people saying that an overweight BMI leads to the best long-term health outcomes. It really doesn't. It encourages people to gain weight by falsely reassuring them that there is no health risk and that it's all dreamt up by 'the diet industry'.

It is irresponsible to spread this misinformation and it is a good thing to counter it with truthful scientific research that shows that even being towards the top end of the healthy BMI range is associated with much worse health outcomes once you rule out smokers and those who have lost lots of weight due to terminal illness.

even being towards the top end of the healthy BMI range is associated with much worse health outcomes

"Much worse"

So how many years shaved off your life?

I'd much rather die a bit earlier than linger around for ever with dementia or similar tbh.