What BMI do you consider to be fat, slim or skinny?

[waschunky]

Nc for this. Inspired by a family chat about size and what is considered the ideal now compared to when I was a teen in the 90s. Teenage Dd was saying how big bums and very chunky thighs are the ideal whereas I'm mentally in the idealised thigh gap era and an arse that's not got its own postcode.

It's obvious from reading threads on here that what is considered obese, overweight, slim, skinny, underweight varies and doesn't necessarily follow the BMI scale. What classes as fat now? When I was a teen fat was probably actually obese and now those obese are often deemed a little chunky or stocky. Normal bmi is seen as skinny by some. I never hear the word plump anymore. Pleasantly plump was how my sister referred to herself and she was at the top end of a healthy bmi maybe half a stone over the top end.

I'm not sure if I could accurately assess someone's size and weight against clinical parameters. There was a programme on tv yonks ago where participants were asked to say which outline they thought was theirs and they always chose the one that was one to two sizes bigger.

Views are probably skewed by the media but to me obese is still very fat, overweight is a little chunky, normal weight I've no idea, slim would be thigh gap, collar bones and cheek bones visible, skinny would be something I'll never be 😁 and probably in my mind is actually clinically underweight.

There can be many debates over BMI, yet are many people general obese and overweight in the UK, yes most likely

I live in a country where BMI > 23 is overweight. I am >23 and so am a L or XL often. It’s noticeable coming back to the UK that many people are not honest with themselves about their health. But I think it’s true that if everyone is getting the same way - you think it’s normal.

I live in a country where BMI > 23 is overweight.

That's interesting, I assumed it was a universal thing, race can impact it though can't it?

Yes I kinda agree with you.

even people with bmis over 25 can have good physiques imo

For me, I start to look a bit gaunt if my BMI is under 22. I have a medium frame - BMI 22.5 to 23 and I feel slim.
I think there are two things being talked about in this thread. BMI, but separate how we perceive weight. You can’t know BMI by looking at someone, there are so many variations in body composition and frame etc.
I do think though our perception of what is healthy or overweight has changed. I gained weight after pregnancy and then lost some, but still had about a stone to lose and people were saying be careful, you are getting so skinny. I wasn’t, I was still overweight at the time. We also are very bad at judging our own shape when looking in a mirror.

Yeah I started losing periods and looking too thin when I got down to 8 stone 4 pounds which is actually still a healthy BMI for me.

My ideal weight is 9-9.5.Stone which is also still within my healthy BMI range. At that weight my naturally rounded face looks less chubby, my waist goes down to around 27 inches and my body fat goes to a normal range too.

However if I went down to 9 stone and my body fat and waist size was too high or low , I’d reassess things and not just say it’s fine because BMI says I’m good.

It’s fine to take it into account but the issue is some people thinking BMI is the be all and end all.

I think each person needs to figure their healthy size out for themselves drawing upon a wide range of metrics.

@Jumell I loosely agree with your post in relation to myself. My BMI is 20 and change but round the middle I have excess fat. Lots of gynae surgery hasn't helped there. My thighs are muscly but plenty of fat too. I lost a fair amount of weight a couple of years ago and have kept it off. My scales tell me my visceral fat is good, bone mass good, muscle mass good yada yada. I could do to lose another half stone. I'm short ish at 5ft 3in. I might lose my boobs if I lose more though 😩 although unlike a pp I don't care if the opposite sex find me attracrive.

My BMI flitters between 25-26. I’m short and very curvy, particularly on my lower half. I usually wear a size 10 in tops and 12-14 in bottoms. Some people look at me and see “fat”, some “slim” and some “normal”. Whatever it is, I love the body I’m in, jiggles, cellulite and all!

I don't care about BMI, this stuff was unknown when I was a teenager/young woman.
I care about being slim and reasonably healthy at 45 yo.

I don't think BMI really directly relates to whether someone is slim/skinny/fat/obese. My BMI has never been below 25 as an adult. When I was 11 stone, I was a loose size 12 and often a 10. In photos I'm clearly slim but not skinny. I wore tight or short clothes and there's no rolls or excess weight on display. But medically my BMI was overweight.

This is me as well. My BMI is 19 and I’m a size 8-10 but weight goes straight to my stomach so I can go up a size and have a flabby stomach even though I am “thin”.

I do agree that perception is off. When most people are overweight the parameters shift as we naturally compare ourselves to those around.
I feel slim in the UK but an absolute heifer in Asia or LA for instance...

I think different people look skinny/slim/fat at different BMIs. I'd also add a category of "normal" between slim and fat which I think a lot of people fall into.

I don't tend to go around judging other women's bodies though - I just don't really think about it at all (despite being fairly judgemental of my own!). I may like their hair or hat or lipstick or outfit, possibly admire an aspect of their body but I don't really think about the size/shape of their body in general.

As everyone else has said, so much depends on build. I’ve got friends who are naturally built very lean, they look great but I have a wider skeleton and I’d look terrible at their BMI. Likewise, I have friends who used to be professional athletes who look “big” — not fat, just stocky with quite clearly a lot of muscle built up over the years and I’m sure they’re extremely healthy but their bodies are larger.

I disagree with this. People from different parts of the world have different body shapes to consider. For example, I’m from a Caribbean background and a lot of African and Afro-Caribbean women carry weight on our bums and thighs. Weight here isn’t linked to health concerns and we can still be fit and healthy with our naturally larger bottom halves. Hip to waist ratio is a far more accurate measure of health concerns linked to weight for us.

I'm officially overweight at a size UK12-14 and 5'4" and even when I was more like a 10-12 I was still slightly overweight, but I was happy with my size then.
Right now I wouldn't describe myself as fat either, maybe a bit plump! I look slimmer than a lot of women my age (43).
I think BMI is just a guideline really because it doesn't take into account age, ethnicity, muscle mass etc

My poor DH is 6ft tall with a BMI of 18 because of his cancer. The Drs are really concerned. It’s so hard getting weight onto a naturally thin person.

Skinny is 13 or below, there's no doubt about that. But people can look slim and have overweight BMI. They can also look quite big with a 'healthy' one. My bones are practically hollow so I think that's why mine is so low. Even though I'm slim but not skinny. My mate is really healthy, not fat, but she's tall and about size 16, so it might make her appear overweight on that scale.

Under 13? I would need to be 5 stone to have a BMI of 13.2....

who cares about what men prefer lol

BMI is a good starting point, but it’s not the be all and end all of a healthy body. I have stayed the same weight for approx 8 years. My shape has changed massively during this time. Pre- menopause, I had a curvy, but healthy hourglass figure. Now all of my weight is around my torso. Any extra fat I’m carrying is around my internal organs. This is really dangerous. So whilst my bmi isn’t too bad ( slightly overweight), my health could be a lot better.

I lived in France for five years and my BMI dropped to 21 while I lived there (very sporty and great diet), and I was still the fattest in my social group. Maybe if I took up smoking to go with my coffee habit I'd have reached French woman slim ness.

Weight came back with a vengeance when I moved back to northern britain. The size of the people around you definitely had an impact, but so did climate and the bombardment of unhealthy food choices.

1850 more like!

Theres a Black American fitness influencer I used to follow on IG. She’s my height - 5ft 3 but weighs around 12 stone.

She is way slimmer than me but weighs almost 2 Stone more and has a tiny waist, slim thighs, very big butt and strong muscular looking arms. According to BMI she’s significantly overweight.

Her body fat is also very low so she rightly pays BMI no attention at all!

Oh! Maybe there's inflation going on here then, like with the clothes sizes! And in 10 years we'll all be told a BMI of 27 is healthy, then 29...!

When I was a teen fat was probably actually obese

Not sure I agree with this @waschunky - I'm thinking of the 90s/early 00s eras of heroin chic and superwaifs, when Kate Winslet was considered fat and shows like America's Next Top Model famously humiliated girls with healthy, slim bodies and called them plus size. Whatever anyone thinks of Kate Winslet's body in Titanic, she didn't have an obese BMI! So being called fat in those days did not equate to obesity; it was actually the other way around - people (well actually let's just say women) were called fat when they were nowhere near it because Size Zero was the beauty ideal at the time.

When people roll out that unbearable clichéd tired old phrase 'we've lost sight of what a healthy weight looks like' I wonder at what point we actually, as a society, had a good handle on what a healthy weight looked like. I'm not sure we ever did - I don't think women's health has ever been at the centre of beauty standards.