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.

Just seen your subsequent message - no time to respond now but I do know what a meta-analysis is, cheers !

no time to respond now but I do know what a meta-analysis is, cheers !

Great, can you look up the meaning of proof and myth next.

*There are loads of different ways to approach it and all have difficulties.

I think the overwhelming weight of evidence (no pun intended) is that the range of BMI currently defined as healthy is indeed about right (with a question mark over the 18.5-19, and 24-24.9 ranges) *

I agree. It would certainly look like having a healthy BMI is, indeed, healthy. Which is why I wonder why you feel the need to come on here and warn the OP about her obvious "fattness." Unless of course you're trying to convince yourself that a BMI of 20 is the optimal weight? In which case, studies disagree with each other. Especially when you factor in your disordered eating and overexercise issues.

I'm damn sure granny and 99.9% of those criticising women within the officially healthy BMI range have not read any meta-studies suggesting the lower end of this range is healthiest.

They just feel entitled to police other women's behaviour - like a few posters here.

I could stand over every woman having a single glass of wine and discuss research strongly indicating the increased risk increase of breast cancer outweighs the reduction in heart disease.
But I don't, because I'm not an arse.

Leading public health researchers like Walter Willets originally tried to prevent publication of the paper that indicated higher BMi might be healthier - the grounds for this censorship were that it would discourage people from dieting to slim, i.e. censorship in our own interests, because we are too silly to hear different evidence.

Actually, like many scientists, I could see the possible weaknesses in the study and was certainly not convinced by any one paper contradicting the orthodoxy.
There have in fact been several studies suggesting that higher BMi may be beneficial at age 40+.
It just means we needed more evidence, not that we should censor any we have - totally against the scientific ethos.

So, I'm also not convinced by a single metastudy, when the subject is so controversial, the authors so eager to prove a particular point and the public health establishment so desperate to rescue their policies.

Unfortunately, scientific politics (oh yes, they exist !) means such studies can be skewed, the authors not being dishonest, but making a series of decisions leaning in favour of their preferred outcome.
Results are very dependent on what statistical measures they use, how they weight confounding factors etc.

So, not "proof" either way. We should examine a fuller body of peer-reviewed papers and decide where the preponderence of the evidence lies.
And definitely stop criticising women and policing their eating like they are toddlers - outrageous

Those who are overweight because of several extra lb of muscle are likely to be far healthier than those of lower BMi who have low muscle mass.

The thing with the athletes though is that that is their competition 'cut' weight.

At the point they are competing they have shaven their body fat % as low as possible - between 10 & 15%.

A 'normal' female would have a fat % of up to 25%.
Therefore a fit & muscular 'normal' non-athlete with a perfectly healthy fat % could tip over quite easily into 'overweight' and still be far healthier than a less muscular woman.

And Prpteus, I know you didn't call the OP greedy, grotesque or unwomanly; my point was that's the message a lot of us hear when our weight or eating habits are questioned or criticised and that's exactly why even well-intentioned blunt honesty or food-policing is not always a good idea. Not until we can take the shame aspect away from the whole issue.

I think it is obvious that you do not have your issues around weight and eating under control Proteus. It would be nice to see you acknowledge that and apologise to op for telling her that her weight is not good enough. That is exactly what you did ... it is frustrating to seeing you denying it.

I am not going to weigh in on the politically charged arguments surrounding weight (I am more of the school of thought that fitness is the most important thing), however there is one point regarding BMI which has not been mentioned. The normal way of calculating BMI is most accurate for those people who are in the mid range for height. For those who are tall (over six foot ), and those who are short, which the OP is, there is a different calculation of BMI. According to this BMI calculator, she has a BMI of 25.6, in the "overweight" range.

What a helpful comment.

I am not going to weigh in on the politically charged arguments surrounding weight (I am more of the school of thought that fitness is the most important thing), however...According to this BMI calculator, she has a BMI of 25.6, in the "overweight" range.

Why the biscuit Loopy? I did not say the OP was overweight - I put it in parens because that is the name of the category. I was not making any judgement calls, just stating the fact that BMI calculations are different for those who are short and those who are tall.

And what did you think that added to the conversation? Does that make it more or less acceptable for people to reprimand her for eating in public?

Because it's like saying I'm not going to comment on whether I think your nose is too big for your face but according to beauty guidelines it is definitely too big.

Amazing - I'll let my pt know. Im probably overweight because of that stolen bit of bread on the side of a salad with no dressing

Laser's posts are excellent - I agree with much of it.

My BMI is 29 and I feel disgusting all the time. I'm about 50lbs down on my all time top weight and I am trying to lose some more but reading posts like Proteus' just makes me want to give up. I know that's my fault not hers by the way.

Laser's list of things that are implied by being fat is spot on I feel all of those things.

I am closer to five foot two

Not at all - just pointing out that BMI is bandied about constantly, and that many people don't even calculate it properly. The conversation was not about people reprimanding the OP in public for eating - she simply mentioned ONE person reprimanding her, and she was the one who miscalculated her BMI.

It is NOT like saying a nose is too big according to beauty guidelines because there is no such thing as a scientific measure of beauty, whilst there is a scientific concept (flawed though it might be) of BMI.

I spent my whole life closing my ears and eyes to 'diet' talk, both in RL and online, until last year, when I went on my first ever "diet/lifestyle change".

Honestly, it's been an education- I did not grasp the extent of Britain's disordered eating and shame over food. Every time I click on a thread, I end up wondering if this is what it would feel like to be a Martian anthropologist would feel bx page 3.

Assuming that the oft-quoted statistic that 60% of Britons are overweight is true, and assuming that this does need to be remedied, are the current techniques working? Is shaming women (and it is mainly women) for eating too much improving public health? Or is it in fact a contributing factor?

I have been amazed by the number of posters I have seen outwith this thread criticise women for being at the top of the BMI range- it is a range for a reason. I have noted the snideness with which the line "you can't out-train a bad diet" is often (not always, but often) delivered; it's less of an undertone and more of an announcement through a microphone: 'get back in your place, being healthier isn't good enough, you have to be thin'.

Like other posters, I think the national impact of osteoporosis is only going to worsen over the coming decades. Yo-yo'ing does not a balanced intake of minerals and vitamins make.

That's the thing, splendide, losing weight takes a lot of hard work and is easy to get demotivated. If someone keeps shifting the goalposts - oh no, a BMI of 25 is still too high, actually there is a special BMI calculation for people like you - it's tempting to just give up. You are in no way disgusting with a BMI of 29 and a 50lb weight loss is very impressive so well done.

When I was nine months pregnant in the depths of winter, I went out in a massive coat and huge scarf. I looked like a great big barrel. A van slowed down so the blokes inside could shout "fat cow" at me. I can still feel the sting of humiliation. Now, as it happened I lost a considerable amount of weight a week later when I gave birth but what I think some people don't understand is that it's not usually news to tell a fat person that they are fat and it's not like that moment of truth will suddenly inspire them to lose weight. A lot of us learn to eat for comfort and when we are ashamed we are quite likely to eat more. Weight loss isn't simply a logical problem to solve, it's so complicated and subject to a great deal of self sabotage. Feeling disgusting is rarely motivational, it's dispiriting and depressing. Getting fixated on particular numbers is also rarely a good thing. Publicly criticising someone else's food intake is, I would suggest, pretty much never a good thing.

I hope those utter cunts develop knob rot of the most virulent kind Laser.

It's just as you say Laser. I basically live permanently in a state of denying myself and I'm still gross. The nearest I've ever been to a healthy weight was when my son was about six months and I had raging PND. But it turns out even in that state of such distress that I couldn't eat I was still way off.

Fuck it frankly.

Thanks, Mitzy - it was a highly unwelcome insight of what it might be like to always feel like that. I wonder how many women they have humiliated publicly in this way - because something tells me that they probably don't shout that sort of abuse at overweight men. And I wonder what it's like to face the risk of that every time you go outside.

It's horrible Laser, it's happened to me a number of times.

Another thing that gets said on here a lot is "it's women who are bitchy about weight" but I can tell you I've never had a woman lean out of a car and shout fat cunt at me.

Sorry total derail and I've managed to massively upset myself! What a tit, sorry.

It's such a cliché but how unhappy must those fuckwits be with their own lives that they decide to cheer themselves up be wrecking someone's day. And cowardly, because they can only dare say it as they whizz past in their van.

Cowardly fucks.

Actually, the same thing happened to me when I was walking (very slowly) down the street at about 10 months pregnant, Laser. My first impulse was to shout back 'I'm not fat, I'm pregnant!' but obviously realised that shouldn't matter.

Just another way we are taught that our primary objective as women is to be attractive for everyone who has to look at us.