In thinking that a disproportionate number of MNers are overweight/obese?

[anotherfatty]

...according to recent threads and that this is probably because we spend too much time in front of a computer stuffing our faces and not enough time getting off our fat backsides and exercising!

by gawd you'd have to enormous for your ankle to be fatter than your leg is long, and your wrist have a greater diameter than your head. Surely being rather less overweight than that would be lethal?

And we think they're lazy....
As a fat SAHM I feel I have so much in common with Xenia.

PS NOt that it matters, although it really does, I am not overweight at all.

I just love that image duchesse, it made me laugh!!!

My measurements-
head 58cm
wrist 16cm

I can't imagine the combination of events that would lead me to have a wrist four times its current diameter.

Leg length 81cm
ankle diameter 23cm

Likewise. I'd have to have legs like a stumpy elephant's. In fact I'd have to weigh about 40 more stone than I do now. I refuse to believe that anything could possibly be fine at something approaching those... There must be some kind of calulation involved.

I don't really take much notice of BMI-I think it is an absurd way of measuring body fat.
Much more useful is waist to hip ratio.

Duchesse, you do get that I was playing with the fact that someone wrote wrist instead of waist, right and then expanded upon that for good humour??

I stopped reading threads about 20 in, but I am fat (about 3 stone to lose) and I always assume that all other posters are slim yummy mummys. I am always a bit surprised to read other MNers, saying they have a few stone to lose (and to be quite honest, I warm to them because of this). I have no idea what my wrist / ankle measurements are.

Thought some of the initial posts were a bit aggressive, for what was a reasonable question. Perhaps shpould have had a post script - 'skinnyminnies need not respond.'

No, Posie I didn't

Must admit was rather hampered by having images of that hideously enormous Mexican guy stuck in my mind. Now, his wrist measurements are almost certainly bigger than his head.

I'm just imagining a website where everyone is too fat to type and their fingers hit all the keys at the same time so all the threads look like:

"dgjdshdsklh ajklfhkadlfdfh akdjdgjg"
"sdfjkdflaeriovzcn, euhsdhigsgdhl"

But I do have a weird brain me.

[hides sausage fingers from jen]

is that not what cod does? I don't know - is hse fat or just bad at typing?

Chart for world wide average heights at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height
says for UK
(5' 9.6") men and (5' 4.4")

I am therefore average UK height. Therefore 1950 average weight for that height of 8 stone 7 is about right and well within healthy BMI if you can go down to 8 stone and still be healthy BMI of 18.5. I wonder what the average woman of 5 foot 4 or 5 weighs in the UK today?

Going by dress sizes doesn't work because they have changed. A 1950s size 10 is not the same as a 2008 size 10 because clothing companies have wanted to flatter us all as we get fatter and fatter.

yes but I am 5'6" and weigh about 11 stone (I reckon) and my BMI is 24 so within the healthy range as well
so it is a pretty wide range

Xenia you are right about inflation in dress sizes. I was an 8-10 at 18 when I weighed 50kg. I am now still a 10 in some shops even though I now weigh 65kg (which as far as I'm concerned is 5kg over my ideal weight). I am most definitely not the same size I was 20 years. I'm still a lot bigger than I was 5 years ago when I was a 10-12 and 54 kg.

I agree regarding dress sizes. My size has mostly remained the same over the last 15 years, despite my weight fluctuating by almost 2 stone!

When they dressed a model in some of Marilyn Monroe's clothes they had to use Pixie Geldorf who is really a slim teenager, despite this myth that MM was fat. She wasn't - she was my height and fluctuated between 8 stone 7 and at most 10 stone.

I find her interesting not just because she was beautiful and sexy but also because she is my height and average UK height for women too and also her weight changes are similar to how mine have been over the years. She is usually about 8 and a half stone (the average 1950s weight for women) but got up to 10 stone at her heaviest as probably a lot of us have over the years. But this idea she was quite fat and she's an example of a sexy woman men find attractive who was over weight is just not true unless she her very heaviest of 10 stone as fat.

MM:
"Measurements( studio's claim): 37-23-36 (inches)
93.9 - 58.4 - 91.4 (centimeters)

Measurements (dressmaker's claim): 35-22-35 (inches)
88.9 - 55.8 - 88.9 (centimeters)

Hair: Natural Brown, dyed Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Height: 5 feet, 5½ inches 166.62 (centimeters)
Weight: 118 pounds (8 stone 6) 53.5 kilograms At her heaviest she was about 135-140 pounds.
Dress size: 12 (US, UK is 4 lower size 8 which is what someone 8 stone 6 and 5 foot 5 would be today so may be I'm wrong about the sizes all changing)

Well duh, the posters complaining about their weight are of course going to be the ones who are overweight! The normal weighted posters have no reason to talk about it!

You never see threads started saying "Oh GOD I just saw my friend's wedding photos and I looked perfectly normal and healthy, what kind of life change should I not make?" do you? That would be silly!

just want to say not everyone whos "obese" eat loads, i think you will find some have health issue and are far from being greedy, i know my prob was not eating breakfast,skipping meals then eating in the evening was a problem for me,but im doin smethin about it now .eating reg etc and have lost 22lb in 10 weeks.46 to go.lol.if you are happy in your skin fat or thin then thats great.but all up to the indervigule{wink} (i so appolise for my spelling){blush}

Yes, it's much more complicated than eating too much. I suspect it's often also that people eat the wrong foods and at the wrong times too. I probably eat more food than I did when I was heavier but it's not processed.

I used to think that it was more complicated but now, from my own experience and watching my family I beleive that it is largely about eating too much. Not what or when. And then not doing anything to burn it off. I have now rejected the tyranny of set mealtimes - if I'm not hungry I don't eat lunch, or dinner, and if I'm hungry later I'll snack. I eat when I need to, not when the clock says so. And I don't eat when I'm not hungry. It's ignoring signals that cause people to put one weight. And having come off Atkins (or my version of it) and failed to pile on the pounds as I was warned I would, I don't even think it's about what you eat (providing you don't eat a huge amount of processed junk).

I eat what I want, the amount I need, when I want and I take exercise.

DH is getting fat - he's given up smoking again and blames it all on that but TBH he was getting big before that. He gets cross at the DCs when they want to snack and tries to make them finish everything on their plates at meals. But I think they are more in touch with their hunger than he is. They are not overweight, he is. He won't snack in between meals, but eats at least twice what I do at meal times. I can't get him to see that his habits are not doing him any good. And he hates waste, it makes him so angry, and whilst I agree with him it isn't worth ruining your health over.

Firstly I agree with some of the Mumnetters...in asking WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS THREAD?

Secondly, I think it is a worldwide problem in developed countries that people are getting bigger and fatter.

Thirdly and most importantly, this thread is insensitive to the core! Some people are classed as obese by that stupid BMI system - which is totally inaccurate.

When I was a size 12, because I am naturally heavy, my BMI was coming out as 30 - OBESE! STUPID!

Also, I think people fail to recognise that obesity is sometimes made worse by certain conditions. For example I was diagnosed this year with PCOS, after a spell of unexplained severe weight gain. I now know it was because I have a metabolic condition that effects my insulin resistance. So any sugar I eat - converts to fat. So a fruit detox diet would be a disaster for someone like me!

I have since lost 2 stone with an exercise routine and a catered diet for my condition and I aim to lose another stone before the end of the year.

BUT...and this is the big BUT....had I not found out why I was gaining weight, I would just have been labelled as OBESE and people would assume it was because I was lazy and ate too much - NEITHER HAS EVER BEEN THE CASE!

I eat healthy, exercise and have the same food portions as my 3 year old!

BMI is a load of bollocks

athletes would be classed as obese as muscle weighs more

bmi chart thing here

way back when I had a life and time to do things, I joined a gym and put on weight, simply because I gained muscle