To think I’m not obese at these measurements?

[Lis1992]

I think according to BMI I could possibly be in obese category. I know BMI isn’t always a perfect measure though. I’m 5’4 and around 12.5 stone. Would you call this obese or overweight? I know I need to lose weight but it is a struggle

Vanity sizing is very real - As I gained weight I just gradually moved shops. I mysteriously managed to be a size 16 continuously despite having gained 4 stone.

If asked I would just say I was a size 16! Cognitive dissonance helped overcome the fact I wouldn't have got a leg through the waist of where I started shopping.

Now I'm doing the same in reverse - my supposedly size 16 clothes fall off me but I can go back to the brands I left behind.

Have a look at yourself from behind. I've been there and a view from the back is the shock you need to realise where all the timber is being carried.😄

Why would anyone be surprised that a company does things for profit? What are they supposed to do, die on the altar of outdated sizes they can't sell?

If very slim people are finding that they can no longer find things in their sizes, they can do what plus sized people have been doing for 20 years and create and support more lines to suit their needs. A small market is a niche market. Why do people take that personally?

It doesn’t matter if you’re fat or obese. It matters that your vital organs are surrounded by fat. That’s what’ll kill you, not words.

A significant proportion of her clientele will be women suffering the eventual results of undereating, extreme restriction and eating disorders.

Many of those slim people in photos of the 1940s became older and developed humps and broke hips and wrists with a tiny knock. Because they'd not had sufficient nutrition.

Vanity sizing is very real

No it isn't. There are reasons for size inflation but vanity isn't one of them.

More to the point, are you healthy?

I'm obese but am far healthier than most, if not all of my friends who aren't and they visit the GP far more often than I do. In fact, the last time I went my GP said she thought I'd moved out of the area as she hadn't seen me for over 5 years.

By contrast, the friend who tells me I'm obese and it's not healthy is at the surgery around twice per month for various ailments and doesn't see the irony when she's telling me I'm unhealthy due to my weight.

BMI is not the only measure, or the most important one.

I think our idea of obese is skewed. There are so many people who are morbidly obese that we don’t necessarily see ourselves as ‘fat’. I would say at that weight you are medically obese but I would always go with how you feel.
I’n 5’7 and about 12.5 stone . I am really fit and strong and don’t look ‘fat’ but this summer I had awful chub rub on my thighs and most of my clothes are feeling tight. I am definitely overweight and am making changes to lose some weight so I feel more comfortable.
If you feel comfortable at the weight you’re at I wouldn’t worry bit if not maybe look at making some changes to your diet.

It is indeed. I’ve been the same weight all my adult life. I was a M-L or 12-14, now I’m a small, and a 10, sometimes that’s too big.

…. except in a French brand! There, I’m still a
large 😂

5’7 9st 13lb

I think the BMI calculator is very over simplified. People are all sorts of shapes and sizes and health comes in different shapes and forms. If you’re a healthy BMI but smoking and drinking all day are you really healthy? If you’re overweight according to BMI but larger built and taking regular exercise are you really unhealthy?

Health is such a subjective thing. OP do not be shamed by some other posters here. You know how you feel in yourself. Take the BMI with a pinch of salt and concentrate on how you feel.

There's standard obesity with BMI thresholds and there's metabolic obesity.

I've been metabolically super-morbidly obese at a BMI of <22 (>40% body fat in my body composition) with a waist measurement of <26ins.

I reduced my body fat to @ 20% and it meant that I was on the BMI threshold for underweight. However, I felt completely different in my health at these levels.

Everyone says people are getting fatter but when Inwas growing up everyone seemed to have a very well padded grandma and they all wore corsets.

I see fewer fat people.now than I did in the 60s/70s but I think the extremes are greater and there are more very fat people and also more people who are far too thin.

Just to back up what @pitterypattery00 said upthread - when I got online access to my GP records I saw that it was noted on my medical records that my ideal weight for height was 9 stone 11 pounds. At the time I weighed about 10 stone if I remember correctly and I'm 5 foot 7 inches and had been weighed and measured at the consultation where the note was made.

The next time I saw the GP face to face I asked out of curiosity where the figure 9 stone 11 pounds had come from and she said that it was a BMI of 21 which was generally considered to be representative of an ideal weight for the average woman. She was firmly of the opinion that whilst there will always be a few outliers for whom the BMI system isn't representative e.g. the oft mentioned rugby players and body builders, for 99% of Joe Public it was an excellent guide.

This is a fallacy. Being overwieght is unhealthy. I think you may be confising cardiovascular endurance with health. The amount of fat in and around your tissues is a major health concern irrespective of your ability to locomote.

Well the facts are the facts and your BMI means you’re obese. However, some people carry extra weight better and don’t look as big and others cope better with it so are very fit but still obese. I’m heavier and shorter than you and really struggling with my back lately - always been on the heavier side but put a lot of weight on in the last couple of years. I’m restarting my healthier regime from tomorrow because this isn’t where I want to be. I would say that I’m very dense (bodily, not intellectually 😉) so always weigh more than I look - I think if I ever got to the lower end of my BMI normal weight, I’d look like a 10 year old child!

I am your height and weigh a stone less than you and my GP who has never met me mentions my weight every annual check up over the 'phone.

So sorry I would definitely say you are on the obese side.

Fooled myself over the years that I was just overweight but BMI calculator said obese. Looking back at photos of myself I looked awful with belly roll etc. Because I didn’t have high cholesterol or diabetes and exercised I thought I was ok. Six months ago I was diagnosed with a prolapse which is likely to have been caused in part by being overweight. Keep fooling yourself and reap the health problems when you are older.

I'm 5" taller and a stone lighter than you OP and I'm not thin so I would guess so!

I think vanity sizing has a lot to answer for. I'm the same height as you and 4.5 stone lighter, I'm not "skinny", I have a bum still, yet I'm size 8 in most shops. 20 years ago I'd have been a 10-12, I've been the same weight/height since being a teen and wore 10-12 around 2000. The whole "I'm only a 14" and being body positive (aka it's ok to be fat) etc means people are very overweight but can't see it. Also when everyone around you gets bigger you normalise being obese and what is a healthy size/weight becomes very skewed.

The wording doesn’t matter.

Do you want to lose weight? It’s not easy but it’s worth it.

@Refreshmentsanyone: Theres that saying that nothing tastes as good as thin feels. I was my ideal weight for a few years through exercise and not using food as a crutch. It was a revelation. I didn’t have to worry about my heart, my joints, my fitness, what I wore, anything.

I really like that saying as a gentle reminder to ourselves. It's a shame it became so closely associated with super skinny models and eating disorders. It was Kate Moss who became notorious for the 'skinny' version. I bet she wishes she'd said nothing tastes as good as lean and strong feels - which is how I interpret it.

I'm an inch shorter than you, and between 3-3.5 stone lighter than you (bit scared to weigh myself after the past few weeks!). While I do admittedly have a slender frame and basically no boobs or bum, I also most definitely have a lot of central fat at the moment. You might be lucky enough to be way more in proportion so maybe you don't look big, but I would definitely think you need to lose some weight. What clothes size are you?

I am 5'5" and had my annual 360 medical assessment (Nuffield - through my work) in Nov. At almost 11 stone I was told I was overweight and needed to lose at least a stone, ideally 20lb, as my BMI was above 25. This was an unpleasant message and I did think "but I'm not even "fat" - so what do you say to the properly fat people?"

As other posters have said, we live in a society in which the majority are overweight or obese and so our idea of what "obese" looks like is usually someone significantly larger than ourselves, even if objectively, our own weight and measurements indicate that we are overweight or obese.

I was also told I have high cholesterol and raised blood pressure, both of which would be improved by losing weight. I've known I need to shift 1.5-2 stone for almost 4 years, but this was the kick I needed to do something about it. It only gets harder as we get older and I don't want to be an obese middle aged woman with health problems. Time to face a bit of actual discipline around losing the excess pounds.

I'm the same height and am clinically overweight at 11 stone. I look slightly podgy but the thing that makes me unable to deny that I'm unhealthy is that if I try to run after DD I feel like a hefalump as my flab wobbles up and down and I feel as though my knees are under strain taking my weight.

Talk about how people in the past were skinnier isn't great. Back then women were told to diet continuously and do endless cardio.

Now, thankfully, women do strength training and build muscle mass. Bigger doesn't always mean unhealthy, fitness is a better indicator of health than a number on a scale.