To think size 18 is plus size and not 'hardly plus size'

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The poster, with a very large following, is saying a size 18 isn't really plus size by much, and that 'most people (in the UK), are above a Size 16?

Really? I don't know that many people above a size 16. I really don't. I know lots and lots of size 12/14 and thought that was about average? It's usually the first sizes to sell out

www.instagram.com/p/ChiDp-1Mos3/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Thing is if you are not a nice person then being thin doesn't suddenly make you a better person but sadly a lot of people think this way You're just the same horrible person you were before but there is less of you. I have met a few people (my mother included) who think that once they lose weight then everyone will love them, want to spend time with them etc. They also talk about nothing else and are unbelievably dull. They constantly judge the weight and clothes of others they deem bigger than them and are in some weird obsessive weight competition with everyone else. They put every single problem down to weight when in reality it is just that they're not nice people. I don't choose my friends by their BMI or dress size as I'm not a shallow idiot. I choose my friends because of who they are. This thread has a lot of contributions from the 'smug thin' and they come across as very sad people who maybe need to live and let live.

Boris had the most prestigious job in the country. He was probably obese!

One of the biggest issues in the nhs is dealing with the consequences of some of the general population failing to take responsibility for the fact that their life choices of eating too much, exercising too little, smoking and drinking are why they are in a hospital bed, having limbs amputated, stents inserted or having a lung removed

But once you go down the route of checking whether someone's lifestyle is virtuous enough to deserve treatment, where does it end?

What if someone plays rugby or goes mountaineering? They have a higher chance of needing NHS treatment while carrying out their preferred method of keeping themselves fit.

Let's call this the way it is -
This is not an Informative, civilised discussion.
It's one of hundreds of fat bashing threads on mumsnet.
Much like the "I survive on a lettuce leaf per week" competitive under eating threads, mumsnet is a competition of who is the healthiest, who eats the least, and who's the thinnest. It's always been the way.

It makes fuck all difference to anyone what size clothes they wear, and what category they fall into.

I think you'll find obesity and it's consequences is the biggest killer in the uk

This may well be, except that death certificates rightly list heart failure/stroke/cancer/diabetic complications/whatever rather than obesity, and instantly some obese - even those already very ill as a result - will insist it proves this has nothing to do with the death because they know someone who died of the same but was 8 stone wet through

As so many of us have said, some simply don't want to acknowledge the risk, far less have it discussed in wider terms, and so the problem continues

As several people have already said, obesity is a severe drain on the NHS, with the direct and indirect health effects costing many billions of pounds per year. The cost of the effects of type-II diabetes alone could make a major difference to which other services could be better funded.

I do wonder whether those type of decisions are coming.

But there are more obese people needing surgery than people falling off mountains on any given day.

It's an interesting discussion.

Yes, and everyone used to know someone who smoked sixty cigarettes per day and yet lived to be ninety. It’s the same issue here.

You really seem to have a major issue with people who are a healthy weight.

You don’t seem to be alone in that either. I find it very sad..

Anyone is entitled to a view on anything. But some of the stronger posts suggest a level of investment that goes beyond mere concern about a social issue, and appears very personally motivated. The recent post where someone is calling overweight people lazy and regaling us with the amount of excercise she herself does would be a good example of someone seeking recognition as superior to overweight people.

Obesity makes no difference to a person?

It doesn’t increase the probability of cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, angina or back problems?

If you have some data to back this up you should publish, it’s an absolutely remarkable claim.

"This thread has a lot of contributions from the 'smug thin' and they come across as very sad people who maybe need to live and let live."

I think very few posters have made nasty remarks. Most of the discussion has been around health, and vanity sizing and on the whole, factual.

I will also draw your attention to the fact you have no idea of the size anyone is who is commenting.

And the post by someone morbidly obese saying how much they swim and walk, and how sexy they are? No sense of superiority in that one?

Why is it acceptable to be a cunt on mumsnet if it involves plus sized people? It's almost encouraged.
Someone will post something unbelievably cuntish and then before you know it, it's been quoted a million times with "this In spades" "great post" -

You can be a size 8, and assume society will love you for it because you're so slim and pretty and exactly what everyone should strive to be.
I hate to break it to you - if you're a nasty bitch, it cancels out how beautiful you may be, and that's exactly how society will really see you - a smug, self righteous, cunt.

No @CanDo92 - it makes no difference to YOU

I didn’t ask why obesity matters.

I was wondering WTF it matters whether 18 is firmly plus size, barely plus size, not quite plus size, or any other relation to the plus size universe? As per the thread title and OP. Which is supposedly what the thread is about.

It doesn't bother most people whether or not motorcyclists wear helmets yet, as a society, we have legislation that requires them to do so. This, presumably, came about as a result of debate and has almost certainly prevented many deaths and maiming.

Now we are looking at another threat - obesity - and having a debate which, hopefully, will eventually end up in helping many people to avoid being harmed by it.

Interestingly, there seem to be a lot of people on MN who are very concerned about cyclists wearing helmets, yet, apart from those close to them whom they may hope to influence directly, it's hard to see why a stranger not wearing a helmet would bother them.

We seem very selective about which members of society we should be concerned about harming themselves and which we should just let get on with it, for fear of 'shaming' them.

We seem very selective about which members of society we should be concerned about harming themselves and which we should just let get on with it, for fear of 'shaming' them

@amicissimma So if you see a fat person eating, should we as a society be saying "Stop doing that!" People have to eat. The analogy with motorcyclists wearing a helmet is such a hilariously awful straw man.

Why this implication that people who are a healthy weight are more likely to be a “nasty bitch”?

If anything, it seems in these threads that it’s those who say that they are obese who are the ones using such sexist, insulting language.

Why is this? Why do so many women think that being obese allows them to say such horrible things to women who aren’t?

Yes, the same issues that can lead to obesity (inability to defer pleasure) can also lead to poverty, which is likely a major factor in the correlation. Holding down a high-paying job requires the same sort of planning, discipline, and constant effort that maintaining a healthy BMI does

Not so sure about that one. I have good friends who are both doctors, one nurse, a lawyer, a PA in London, and they're all very overweight

Stressful jobs leads to just eating the wrong things a lot of the time

There is a general discussion about health and obesity. Nobody has said it's better to be thin for any other reason than it is generally healthier to be slim. Diversely to be considerably underweight is not healthy, but that is not such a major issue in that it affects far fewer people.

I think you are the only person to have mentioned beauty . . .

. . . and cunts . . .

Well...no. Because who do you think she was trying to be superior to?
As far as I recall (and I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong) that poster merely said positive things about herself, not negative things about slim people. Pointing out that as an overweight woman she too can be active and sexy is not trying to be superior to slim women.
But I think by reading that into it, you've inadvertently proved my point about how threatening some people find it when overweight people are happy with themselves.

I'm 5ft 8, anything over a size 12 puts my BMI in the overweight category. So yes to me a size 18 sounds very overweight.

On the comments on the original post, a lot of people seem to say that some people are just this size because of their frame. I'm not sure if that can be true.

I wouldn't say the majority of women are over a 16... That sounds high.

When people say average is a 16, which average metric are they using? The mean?

I would say the median is probably a 14 but that's just a guess

And, again, one more time…

What you are saying here is no different to someone arguing that smoking is not bad for you, as they know someone who smoked heavily yet lived to a ripe old age.

You surely understand that a causative factor is not the same as a 1:1 relationship, don’t you? You must, so why post something like this?

Here’s one paper on gratification delay and weight;

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19349558/

And here’s an article relating gratification delay and earnings;

sciencetrends.com/study-suggests-ability-to-delay-gratification-one-of-the-most-powerful-predictors-of-success/

There are many other factors in-play in each situation, but it makes no sense to pretend that propensity to delay gratification can’t have effects in several areas.