To think people do not know what a healthy weight looks like.

[reducingfootprint]

I am a healthy weight for my height and i constantly get comments on my weight like "gosh youre tiny" or "i could just pick you up" and "what do you eat to be small, just eat a burger" from people i work with etc. Do people really not know what a healthy weight is anymore? I just think "im not tiny i am a healthy weight and yes i do eat fucking burgers"
Im glad shops are more inclusive and plus size models are more common but i still think commenting on someones size is wrong no matter the size.

@formerbabe i dont think it is harder to be slim now, if you wanted to be slim, youll make changes to do so
eating more fruit and veg and walking/moving more isnt hard

@Fallsballs

I’m very tiny, like teeny tiny. I often get asked if I fall down drains or cattle grills. I do.

Came on to make the exact same point a poster up thread already did. I think it’s wrong to comment on people’s weight. I am fat. I don’t comment on anyone’s body. I don’t wish people to comment on my body. However thinness is idealised and desired so people comment on it. Doesn’t make it right, but it makes it understandable in my opinion.

@formerbabe

There's such an undertone in these threads of unpleasantness...like everyone else is such a fat bastard they think I'm skinny...it's all over these boards and its very tedious.

Yep. Been a least a week since the last one though so we were due one.

@hopingtobedally wrong! Regular appetite, i eat around 1700 calories with plenty of vegetables and fruit, water and walking!

The thing is, for the vast majority of cases, thin people know they are thin, fat people know they are fat and average people know they are somewhere in the middle.

There is never really any need to comment on it, is there? But still people seem to. I wonder why?

@reducingfootprint

formerbabe i dont think it is harder to be slim now, if you wanted to be slim, youll make changes to do so eating more fruit and veg and walking/moving more isnt hard

Thanks but I didnt ask for diet advice.

I was making the point that to be slim is more of a conscious decision and effort nowadays in a world where we naturally have less physical labour to do and more varied, interesting food available.

People decades ago without a car, washing machine, fridge and no takeaways who smoked would have naturally burnt more calories and,taken less in without making a conscious effort.

I have been skinny once in my life, I've just checked my BMI range at 5ft3". I would have been right at the bottom of my BMI. My Mum nearly cried when she saw me and looking back at a photo I don't like it. I was too thin.

I look better smack bang in the middle at 9 stone.

Everyone is different.

However it is just rude to comment on someone's weight.

I'm about normal
now but when I was younger I used to be very slender. I got sick of comments like 'you're too skinny' 'do you eat enough' and once my whole extended family on one side were basically saying I was anorexic at a wedding. I never was, I ate adequately. I don't think 'skinny' is a very positive word. Most people wouldn't call another person 'fat' so why call them 'skinny'? It's not ok to comment on.

I eat nowhere near that amount of calories run 5 times a week and am OMG OBESE
The fucking nerve of me

I realised how much it has changed when I found a primary school class photo of myself and my class when I was 6. I was shocked at how thin we all looked - these days I think a lot of people would say almost all of those children looked on the underweight side. But we weren’t, none of us. And I’m only 30 and live in a very affluent town where obesity is low. But our perception has changed so much of what is normal.

There was a study which showed that the biggest indicator of if someone would be obese was their peer group, so it makes sense that your perceptions are easily changed based on what you see around you. And every one of us sees many more overweight people these days.

So not smack back in the middle actually.

7.6 to 10.1

Totally agree with you OP, my sister and I have recently come to the same conclusion, that people just don’t know what a healthy weight looks like anymore. I recently got back to my pre baby weight (9.5 stone) and have been told various times by my (very obese) MIL to ‘stop now before I go too far’. I am a size 10/12 and by no means skinny. My sister on the other hand had 5 stone to lose after two babies and was constantly being told that she didn’t need to lose weight etc etc when her BMI meant she was actually obese. She had always been slim and healthy (about 9.5 stone but shorter than me so about a size 8) and before babies people were constantly commenting (negatively) on how slim she was. People always throw out the ‘average size in the UK is a 16’ line which means absolutely fuck all. It just means there are loads of obese people which drag the average up. It DOES NOT mean that a size 16 is a healthy size to be!

I get this a lot. I didn't 30 years ago.. when I was 5 ft 7 and 9 stone.
Now I'm 52, still 5 ft 7 and a couple of pounds lighter due to having a dog.. and get told I look too thin, don't I eat etc.. which is mildly irritating ..my eating habits haven't changed tho my wine consumption may have increased! Normal BMI of around 20. Unless they are confusing 'thin' with 'middle aged and haggard'!

What I did find interesting was that my size 8 dd2 is going to wear my Mum's wedding dress in October (Covid dependent!)
It's a size 12... dd2 is a little over 8 stone and it fits her like it was made for her. Sizing has certainly changed!

@hopingtobedally

Read up thread @reducingfootprint has some brilliant diet advice, (which they kindly gave me despite not knowing my weight nor knowing if I wanted to lose any) Apparently just do some walking and eat more fruit and veg. Honestly, it's been a total revelation.

Do people really not know what a healthy weight is anymore?

It is becoming much rarer in many - but not all - settings. I think that part of it is that many of us don't know what a healthy portion size of food looks like anymore either.

For reasons that I won't go into, I had to be very aware of what I ate for about 6 months and so carefully followed the NHS guidelines on portion sizes etc (the amount of meat you can eat is absolutely tiny, for example, about the amount that will fit on the palm of your hand) and that made a very real difference to me.

Over the course of 6 months I lost 12kg and went from a BMI of 26.5 to 22.5.

I had thought that I was a perfectly fine weight before but seeing myself now - well not just seeing myself but more how I feel in myself I had very much forgotten what it was like to be able to move about this freely and have more energy.

So, yes, I had certainly forgotten what a healthy weight looked like or felt like but I think that was down to forgetting (or perhaps never really knowing in the first place) what a healthy portion size looked like.

I'm extremely thin and the last time I heard anyone say anything rude about it was when I was a teenager, from other teenagers (mostly in relation to the flat chest which I sorted out with some implants at age 20). As an adult I've had some women say things like 'it must be lovely to be able to eat what you like' (and it's true, I am very lucky) but that is the extent of it.

People like the OP here just want to slag off fat people and get away with it, much like the hateful women who spout absolute nonsense about how 'skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming' and make up ridiculous stories about how bullied they are for weighing less than 10 stone. Get back to me when thin women are openly discriminated against in literally every aspect of life, until then, try to develop some perspective and empathy.

OMG you're right OP! Thank god we have you to make this groundbreaking observation which hasn't featured a hundred times before-in the tabloids

Next up. Smoking is bad for your health! Regular exercise helps maintain a healthy heart!

@Fallsballs

I’m very tiny, like teeny tiny. I often get asked if I fall down drains or cattle grills. I do.

Wins thread!

When I was overweight, a lot of people said I was fine, but I knew I was too heavy. Now I am in my healthy weight range people have been very complimentary, and I haven't had any negative comments at all.

I'm lucky that I know such lovely people!

What I did find interesting was that my size 8 dd2 is going to wear my Mum's wedding dress in October (Covid dependent!)
It's a size 12... dd2 is a little over 8 stone and it fits her like it was made for her. Sizing has certainly changed!

Had it been altered? My wedding dress has a size 10 label in it. I'm a 6 and was on my wedding day.

People need to stop making personal comments about other people’s bodies. Just don’t do it unless you are asked for your opinion!

People have absolutely no idea what a healthy weight is. I get the mini intervention ‘are you eating enough’ type comments and I’ve a BMI of 23 so I’d have to loose a good few stone to actually be underweight.

There was a thread today which turned into people giving examples of their ‘disordered eating’ friends who ran in order to maintain a healthy weight.

I don’t like being pathologised.

All women, regardless of size seem to be too big or too small. Maybe the problem isn’t us.

Wedding dresses are really weird sizing tbf. I was a size 10 on my wedding day, but wore a 14, (which had been taken in). That was only in 2011, so not talking about 1980s sizing or anything.

@SoftBlocks Exactly. There is just never a need to comment to another woman negatively about their weight. Or any aspect of their appearance for that matter.