Is a size 14 big?

[fattytoadboy]

Just that really. Been somewhere between a size 12-14 for the past 20 years. Even when I lost two stone I still fit into my size 12 clothes. Now I’m about 12 stone at 5,7 and a solid 14.

I definitely feel better around the 10.5 stone mark. I’m really struggling to lose weight. Sometimes I look at myself and can see a roll around my belly or feel like my face looks bloated and neither of these things make me happy or confident.

Equally when I’m dressed well I think I look ok. I know it’s totally subjective but in your opinion is a size 14 what you’d consider large? I don’t think I look obscenely overweight but I definitely would look and feel better with a few stone off.

I think it depends where you buy your size 14 from

I'm a 10/12 but if I buy a 14 from Primark it fits ok. If I buy from M & S its too big

I think sizing is very dependant on how much fabric is used !! And different brands cut their cloth differently imo

It's like bras.....actually don't get me started on bloody bras! I'm a 32F at M & S and they fit me perfectly. I've stopped buying bras elsewhere as I'm not a 32F anywhere else!

Truthfully, I think we know if we're too big. Asking the question doesn't make us any smaller !

I weigh 10 stone 3 and I'm 5 ft 9.

If I put on 7 pounds, I know I'm too big (for me)

Sizes are very variable these days. I have size 14 jeans I can fit in to and size 18 jeans that I can't.

Well as I said happiness matters. So if you increase to a size that signficantly impacts your health and ability to do things independently then most likely your happiness will start to decline, hence it starts to matter.

Also it's ridiculous to say acceptance of fat is toxic. You do realise as we age our metabolism changes, and combined with the increased responsibilities means most people put on weight? Shall we beat ourselves up at this point, or spend the little remaining energy and resources we have trying to strive for a shredded body?

I dont think aiming for a healthy weight means we need to be shredded, does it?

I don’t think it’s possible to attribute a thought process to an entire society. Inevitably some people will have lost sight of it, others won’t. That’s the main reason I find the statement such an irksome cliche.

However, I would also suggest that some people tend to conflate greater acceptance of larger sizes and availability of clothes in those sizes with ‘having lost sight of what a healthy weight is’. To me the concepts are very different because one is about health and the other about social perceptions and stigma.

I really feel this. Exactly the same here. And yes, sometimes I feel ok and other times I think, fucking hell, need to lose weight.

OH joked that I should use the cigarette diet I used as a student, but I’m not overweight enough for the weight to be worse than the fags 😂

I think a 14 is quite big, but only because I am the same height as you and weigh about 58kg and am a size 8. I have been 5kg heavier and a size 10 and I start to look a bit plump. But, I have a tiny frame so don't carry weight well. I can imagine someone with a bigger frame carrying it better.

That's not true at all, I am a size 14 and comfortably in healthy range for BMI. Not everyone is 5'2".

I have friends with young adult daughters and they like to gush about about how they are 'skinny minnies' and size 8, as if they are little sparrows. Themselves being plump menopausal women, I guess it's all relative. But I know these girls and while they are slim compared to so many of their peers who are frankly obese, they're not exactly what you could accurately describe as skinny. 30 years ago they'd have been slightly on the heavier side of average.

You only have to look at photos of people back in the 50s through to the 80s to see that almost everyone looked exceptionally slim compared to now, and the younger they were the more noticable it is. Women getting properly fat before they'd had children was virtually unheard of. As a teen and young adult in the 80s I was always one of the fatter ones in my friendship group, but looking back at photos I know I'd be buying a size 8 today, if I were that age and size now. The difference is, I'd be one of the 'skinny' ones.

Before the nineties, if you needed to buy anything above a size 18 (and remember an old size 18 would be more like a 14 now) you'd have to go to Evans Outsize, as it was called then. It was pretty much the only option available.

Places like Etam, Chelsea Girl, the early days of Next etc, would not stock anything that would fit anyone bigger than today's size 14 because there wasn't enough call for it. That really puts it into perspective, doesn't it, what has happened to us in just 30 years?

I remember getting weighed and measured at the doctors when I was 20 and he wrote 'obese' on my notes. I weighed about 9 to 9.5 stone and I am 5' 3".

At 5'7" for me the difference between a size 14 and size 10 (at which I will be at BMI 23) is a couple of stone in weight and only a few inches in terms of the space you take up in the world.

At a size 14 I take up far less space than the average man on a train or aeroplane and can comfortably sit in a normal seat without spilling over or spreading my shoulders, arms or legs around, and I can easily buy comfortable clothes to fit and look nice in. Yes, I am losing weight for my health and I feel better being lighter, but the actual size I was a few months ago was nothing anyone else should be angry or upset about.

It's totally subjective and depends on height and general shape, how you carry the weight etc. as to whether you look 'big'.

You're a good height so I suspect you'll carry the weight pretty well. My tall friend wears 14-16 and I'd never have guessed she was 14-16 as she doesn't have a noticable tummy, or flabby legs/arms.

For me, I'm only 5ft 2' and I was recently in size 12 clothing, and that had me in the middle overweight BMI category and I did look like I was carrying more weight than I should be. When you're short there's just no where to hide it! I've lost some weight and in size 10 but only just back in healthy category. I really need to lose a bit more, and tend to look a decent size (as in slimish but certainly not skinny) at 8st 10ish.

14 is definitely not large. I wear 14, sometimes stray in to 16 but I'm not large.

I entirely agree. I am someone who gets classed here as 'teeny tiny'. No, I am a normal, healthy weight, albeit finding it harder to maintain it in my 50s., but have always been a 6-8 and a healthy BMI. At a 10-12, I am fat, at a 14, obese.

I have a good appetite, but have always had to put up with people telling me I need a feed and to put on weight. No one likes being called massive, yet it seems to be ok to quite literally belittle people for not being overweight.

Size 16 may be UK average but that does not make it a good average or a healthy one. Especially as vanity sizing makes a 16 what would previously have been at least a 20. I was sorting out clothes for my mother recently. I found jumpers of hers from several decades ago labelled as a 20. She is a modern day 24. Those jumpers looked liked doll's clothes compared to her current wardrobe.

I'm a size 14 at 5 foot 7 and I'm overweight.

I bet your mum would be delighted that you’ve put that on the Internet.

Well, in the old days: 6 XS, 8 S, 10 M, 12 L 14 XL. Don’t know if this still holds but that’s how it is in my head…

Trouble is in that era it made me feel fat for being 10 to 10 and a half stone and a size 10/12 in clothes at 5'7" when actually I was super healthy and fit with great muscle tone had nothing to worry about. Particular when I could never get my legs in Levis as a teenager, it was awful, everything was cut for sparrow legs, not someone healthy and athletic. I felt I had to be thinner in my 20s and had to work very hard and eat very little to get down to 9 and a half stone, and I even went down to 8 and a half at once point (and was a UK size 4/6) because I thought my legs were still too muscular. It probably didn't do my metabolism any favours at all when I then put weight on having kids and have spent the last 20 years trying to get down to even normal BMI.

I'm so glad DDs don't have so many of those super skinny underweight gazelle legged only role models around and are happy being a slim healthy weight and fit and strong, and don't think that ten stone= fat.

I wonder who bought all the corsets, roll-ons and girdles that were around in the 1950s?

When I was a solid size 14, I was obese. It is related to height, I’m 5 foot 1, and at that size, I was simply too big. But I think for taller people, it really isn’t at all big.

That sounds very similar to me. I'd be happy with 9 and half stone, the concept of being 8 stone something is so alien to me that I dare not even imagine it! I don't think my weight has begun with an 8 since I was about 14.

If I could just stay at anything under 10 stone I'll never complain again, but truly I'd love to reach a stage where I am not technically overweight at all, but I'm in my fifties and my face has collapsed so I need to not overdo it.

A friend I haven't seen for a couple of years, since I was 14 stone, kept telling me I looked 'tired' the other week.😭

@SunnySideUK77 my sister is the same height and I look about a stone slimmer at the same weight. I'm a J cup she's a C.
So I'm guessing 7ibs each.
Never had small boobs. However I have no arse just a post operative belly.

Exactly this. I went through my whole teens and twenties (80s/90s) being called fat (mostly by my mum unfortunately), I look back on old photos now, was I fat? Nope. 🤷‍♀️

Personally I’m glad there’s a little more realism around these days when it comes to body size.

I am a size 14 in tops and am in no way overweight. I have swimmers shoulders. An upside down triangle body shape. I am 174cm weigh around 64kg. I cannot get tops over my shoulders if they are any smaller size and I hate to feel constricted by clothing. So no I would not consider it big. On the other hand a much shorter lady with a different body shape could well be overweight or even obese.

Right, and it's actually ok for women to have muscles and be sporty. 💪

All that means is that the average person in society is bigger than they should be. I'm OP's height and 9st 6, size 8 on top and 10 on the bottom. So I'm perfectly normal weight yet I still get called 'skinny'.

OP - at 5'7", you won't look big but, in my opinion, 12st and Size 14 IS fairly big for a woman.