To ask why it is that it is accepted that people can be naturally thin, but not naturally fat?

[MrsShawnHatosy]

Just that really. It seems to me that if one can be true so can the other. But fat is seen as something blameworthy, always.

Can I ask if you'd be willing to PM me with or share more details of the rare insulin issues? I have some insulin issues myself that are so rare nobody knows what's going on. I've been told they don't fit the profile of a healthy person or an unhealthy person - my body is just doing something in response to food that every expert seems baffled by. I have one or two leads but I'm looking for every possible explanation I can find.

No, this isn't entirely true. Yes, Ozempic curbs appetite in some (not everyone) but it also corrects some of the hormonal imbalances that can cause obesity whether an individual is overeating or not. This has been shown from some of the mouse studies already done (and also I think some studies on humans, but wherever humans are involved they always get accused of lying so I prefer the mouse ones - nobody accuses the mice of lying!).

Anyway, when scientists compared mouse groups who ate the same number of calories but where one group was on Ozempic and the other not, the mice on Ozempic still lost more weight. So it is affecting metabolic rate as well as appetite. Both things can lead to weight gain independently of the other.

For many people maybe but not for all. If you look at the Venus of Willendorf and other similar statues (which were made 38000 to 14000 years ago from what I understand, some during times of famine and severe nutritional stress), it's clear ancient populations knew what a grossly obese woman looked like! Maybe not as obese as some people today but obese nonetheless. Hormonal conditions like hypothyroidism and PMOS (formally PCOS) that cause obesity even without overeating have likely existed since the dawn of time. Which isn't to say that processed food isn't making everything worse but people got fat before junk food and cars existed. In times of famine it was an advantage and that's probably why we still have these conditions today.

No this isn't true - Gary Taubes (who has won awards for his investigative journalism on this subject) has devoted whole chapters of several books to studies in which people did not lose weight on low calorie diets.

And I've read other studies where overall the population loses a certain amount of weight on average but there are individuals within the group who lose no weight at all. This is the same in animal studies where we can be sure the animals are not lying. Not everyone loses weight with caloric reduction until you remove food completely and even then, with mice at least (you cannot starve humans to death for a science experiment) some still retain excess body weight after death by starvation (those bread to have "the wrong genes").

@elperosimpatico I can’t explain it more unfortunately as it wasn’t the person herself who told me and I can’t ask her as we are not so close and she is very sensitive about it. It doesn’t sounds like yours tbh as it is rare but not unknown and was easily diagnosed after blood tests.

Ah, thank you anyway - hope your friend gets some help sometime soon. With this new generation of medications it's not out of the question.

Naturally slim/fat looked totally different in the 70s and 80s. People are much bigger today due to high UPF diets, a more natural size would be that of the 1970’s and 80s.

Because its just another way to be shit to fat people.

I am currently slim. I am slim because I eat 800 calories per day. If I eat more than that I gain weight. If I even approached the 1800 per day recommended for my hight I would be the size of a shed.

My body wants to be fat. It tries very hard to be fat. I would say it is naturally fat. I am hungry at all times.

But its much easier to judge heavy people as inferior dissolute creatures lacking in will power.

You sound like you're in a very similar situation to me - there may well be an underlying condition that hasn't been diagnosed. PM me if you ever want to chat. Have you ever had a Kraft test or tried a constant glucose monitor?

In my twenties/thirties I was slim (size 10) I had an active job but only exercised sporadically. I ate crisps and cake everyday, sugary cereal for breakfast and meals with lots of cheese/carbs.

im late forties now and eat 1400 calories a day, (a little higher on a weekend) I weight lift twice a week, swim 20 lengths once a week, do pilates once a week plus stretches/ yoga at home every day and at least 4 x 30-60 minutes walks per week. I’m a size 14 and can not shift any weight. I also have a condition called lipodema in my legs and hips that doesn’t respond to weight loss /diet.

I dont think its ever natural. If you are overweight you over eat, underweight you under eat, if you are just right you probably have to work hard every day.

Are you able to share any peer reviewed studies where humans eating less than 1500 (where this is monitored) calories a day haven't lost weight? I know there are studies where people self report their calorie intake and don't lose weight but when I looked I could find any controlled studies where this was the case.

The focus has now changed to mean slim is regarded as the new norm. Very slim the goal. And naturally heavy the person's own fault.

I don't see this except in mostly higher end clothes adverts, on WAGS, in social media (with thin influencers matched by overweight ones) and on catwalks. And that's been the case all my life and was much, much worse in the 70s

Being overweight has never been less blamed on the individual than it is now. In the Billy Bunter days the only explanation for being fat was greed, nobody talked about genetics, gut biomes or mental health reasons.

The norm out in normal society is around me is split, with half a healthy weight and half unhealthily overweight. There seem to be far fewer people in the middle ground.

So the disadvantages of being healthily *slim that have been identified so far are that you need to make sure you do the muscle strengthening and weight bearing exercises (that are recommended for everyone to stay healthy) if you want to avoid osteoporosis, and you might die if you get a bad disease and it can't be cured before you run out of body fat to keep you going.

It's not a huge list against the health disadvantages of being unhealthily overweight. I accept I said "none" and that was incorrect but it wasn't far off the truth.

*slim does not mean underweight.

MIL and I are of similar height and build. She isn't very active due to an ongoing injury. I exercise every day and am quite active otherwise. I am overweight, she is so thin she's on high-calorie shakes, which are making very little difference. I'd guess she eats about 500 calories more than I do every day. She has had investigations but they can't find anything wrong, she just cannot put on weight. Her son (my BIL) has also had serious issues with weight loss, despite eating a ridiculous amount of food. My DH is also very skinny, though not to the extent that it causes problems thankfully.

The idea that two people who eat and move the same amount will have exactly the same outcome weight wise is obviously nonsense. Bodies work differently in all sorts of ways.

While it's true that there are certain medical conditions that make it easy to put on weight, or hard to lose weight, the vast majority of overweight people eat too much. That is a fact.

I am a pretty hefty chick myself, but I don't try to kid myself that I can't help it, or I've got a slow metabolism. I don't look at a slim woman eating cake and tell myself life is unfair. Realistically, know I probably get through a lot more cake than she does.

I prefer to be honest with myself. That I eat more/exercise less than other women of my age, build and height who are slim.

I also know that if I had the willpower to stick to and maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle, I too could be slim.

I believe one theory of the Venus statue is that it was a self-sculpture of a pregnant woman.

And it couldn't possibly be that anybody thought a well nourished older woman who had safely given birth (going by the overhang) was worthy of being immortalised.

Some people would do anything rather than admit middle-aged women were/are kinda important and worth something, whether aesthetically, practically or emotionally, wont they?

Those conditions definitely make weight management much harder, but that's different from being "naturally fat" (ie. destined to be overweight regardless of energy intake.) Even in the conditions you mentioned like Prader-Willi or hypothalamic obesity, the problem is that people are often much hungrier and may burn fewer calories than average, not that they can gain weight without eating enough to support it.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't any evidence that someone can remain overweight indefinitely while genuinely consuming less than 1000kcal a day.

I remember a programme a few years ago on channel 4 looking at the diets of slim people. They all seemingly ate loads, it seemed like they were just lucky, but then they delved into it all of them were actually eating around the calories they needed for their maintenance, they weren’t over eating.

One woman lived off fast food, but they recorded her over a week and what they found was that she was buying a Big Mac but only eating half of it, she was within her TDEE (and very tall if I remember rightly!)

It was really interesting.

That shows you can be slim by living off unhealthy food, just not too much of it. You won’t necessarily be healthy though, or at least not as healthy as someone who is eating a healthy and nutritious diet but just a bit too much of it.

I've met a lot of people who think they don't over eat but are completely clueless about the calorie content of what is going into their mouths, others who know the calorie content per 100g but haven't a clue what the thing they are eating weighs, and many, many people who don't count drinks as food while they order a speciality coffee with a third of their calorie needs for the day in it.

I'm afraid I'm always very suspicious that people who say "I get fat on more than 800 calories a day" are in that number.

Plenty of people on Mumsnet seem to know the calorific content of everything but the nutritional value of nothing.

Oh absolutely, I think the crux of the show was that people were trying to make out some people are “naturally” slim, eating what they wanted and not overweight, but the reality was just that “what they wanted” actually wasn’t over eating. Their diets looked excessive (certainly not healthy) but they actually weren’t excessive enough to cause weight gain. I suspect they won’t get away with it forever, their appetites might change, activity reduce etc, but it was trying to myth bust this idea that some people are magically thin.

Or there are those of us who were put on their first diet in childhood and have an excellent knowledge of calories and nutrition. As a teenager I had a notebook where I logged every calorie I consumed and made up my own calorie counted recipes. When it came to university, I actually did a food related degree as I thought seeing I had such a good knowledge I may as well use it.

What I actually had was two undiagnosed conditions that meant I could never be really slim. But hey, don't let a thing like the lived experience of many women (and it does tend to be women affected) get in the way of the mumsnet hive mind on fat people!