To not understand why people think size 16 is healthy?

[SerenaCat93]

Disclaimer, I am not skinny, I never have been. I have PCOS and have struggled with my weight my whole life so I'm not an armchair Kate Moss judging overweight people, I am overweight myself!

I used to be a lot bigger than I am now but I am currently a size 12/14 depending where I shop. I am still a stone overweight at size 12/14 and I am not a small woman, I am 5ft 8 with broad shoulders. If I got into to my healthy weight range I would be a size 10 on bottom and 12 on top probably. So I can't understand for the life of my why people think a size 16 is healthy? Even for tall/broad women it is still very overweight. It usually correlates to a BMI of about 30.

I used to be one of those people that thought BMI was bullshit because some of us have a lot of muscle/dense bones bla bla but actually it's not. My BMI is 27 and i have a lot of muscle, I'm athletic with huge quads and calves, strong core muscles but being brutally honest about it, I do still have a belly (apple shape) that shouldn't be there and if I lost it I would be in the healthy BMI range. Even with all my muscle mass and dense bones (My body composition scales tell me I have above average bone and muscle mass for a woman my size/age so I'm not imagining it) I would still be in the healthy weight range if I lost my belly.

I saw a post on FB where a woman showed a picture of a model wearing an outfit and then a picture of her wearing it and she's a size 16. She looked fantastic in it, she was beautiful and I'm not for one minute saying that being a size 16 makes someone look huge or that they shouldn't be wearing certain things because that's not true at all. Lots of larger women look incredible and wear fashionable clothes, as they should. This is purely about health. Lots of comments about how the clothes look better on a "healthy size 16" and when anyone pointed out that while the lady looked fabulous, a size 16 is NOT HEALTHY and is actually overweight/bordering obesity for many they were met with lots of laughing emojis and told they were being ridiculous/stupid. Conversely posters were calling the healthy weight model a stick/coat hanger etc. and saying how she looked half starved and was unhealthy, which she absolutely wasn't. She was a size 8, which is healthy and definitely not starved.

I know that size 16 is average in the UK. I thought people understood that average and healthy were different things though. The whole thing just baffled me to be honest so I'm interested in hearing other women's thoughts on it!

I wear size 16 clothes. I could squeeze into a 14 in tops (not bottoms as I have always had a round, muscular arse) but I hate wearing clothes that feel too small.

I am 55 and my BMI is 32. But I am very healthy. I have a job that requires me to be able to negotiate rough terrain, clamber around building sites, climb scaffolding, explore attics and nooks and crannies of old buildings, all of which I do with ease.

I have just been fully assessed for my fitness for surgery (not because I am ill, but because I have a gynaecology problem that will only be solved by a hysterectomy). I am completely fit and well, I have the blood pressure of a 20 year old and my heart is in perfect working order. No issues with cholesterol, iron, clotting, vitamins, blood count. I eat a great diet, don’t drink, have never smoked and apart from GERD, I have nothing wrong with me, even at my age.

It’s very sweet of you to be worried about my health, OP, but I’m fine, really. You might not like looking at me, because you fear one day looking like me (younger than my years and nowhere near as fat as my numbers make me sound!) but dressing it up as concern for health when you don’t know people’s true health position is very disingenuous. You have just learned that it’s okay to fat-shame people for not being healthy, rather than than how they look. Well, we are on to you!

Dress size isn't the best way to think about what's a healthy size and what isn't, but I agree that most women who are a size 16 are very likely to be overweight. This is especially clear when you think about how different today's 16 is from that of, say, 40 years ago. Judging from my own experience, I'd say that today's 10 is the 14 of the 80s. So 16 is probably something like a size 20 of that time

Very large framed and large-breasted women may be an exception. But I can't see that muscularity would have a more-than-minimal effect on dress size, unless you are going for the bulky, unnatural kind of muscularity favoured by body builders.

And I really disagree with the posters who decry this as a fat bashing thread. Expressing concern about the normalisation of obesity isn't attacking overweight people. It is an objective concern about a public health emergency. I think the idea that society is full of 'fat bashers' must surely be a projection of the unfairly harsh judgements we place on ourselves when we are concerned about being overweight.

Is that a fact? People who do cocaine can also be fat....

So does taking cocaine. But hey at least they’re skinny!

There is some criticism of reserch using BMI in that is bundles outcomes for obese with outcomes for overweight whereas actually it might be that outcomes for overweight are similar to low end of healthy weight.

BMI is a blunt tool

X-post!

I know that not everyone who takes cocaine is skinny and vice Versa, but it’s funny how people who DO take it still think they have the moral high ground if they don’t overeat.

Oh ffs. YOU CANNOT JUDGE HEALTH ON SOMEONES LOOKS OR WEIGHT. Educated yourself and stop shaming women for being in the bodies they’re in.

Are you busy writing posts about all the other things people do which actually ARE unhealthy? Or just focusing on shaming women for having more body fat than society deems acceptable.

AND even if someone is overweight and not healthy - it’s none of your business. Stigmatising them, shaming them, is not going to help. No one owes you health: and people are still worthy even if they are unhealthy, unwell, disabled etc.

This post is so ignorant and offensive

I'm going to preface that I'm usually underweight through no control and I hate it. But that's so you understand I'm not coming here to defend obesity as healthy....

The BMI system is flawed. I don't buy into it entirely.

Size 16 in one is healthy, maybe not in another. I look at many size 16 and think they look gorgeous, i would love that curve and little padding. I don't see health issues there but we will.never know what happens in each body by looking.

I don't like normalising obesity with some weird adverts and marketing on TV. That's a separate issue about obviously obese bodies.

Each case is therefore different.

Picking 16 as the cut off is odd. It is all dependant. I didn't ever look at a size 16 and focus attention there. Maybe on myself o would when younger, knowing I felt I looked best at size 12. I don't known of that correlates with healthy for me. Maybe it didn't.

This thread is odd and what's the real issue at hand OP?

I'm size 14 with a BMI of 21.5, I occasionally wear a 16 in coats

I’m 5’9. When i was size 16, my BMI was 30.

If it really is about health then stop going by dress size at all. Go by BMI and other health measures such as body fat percentage, resting heart rate and so on. Basing it all on dress sizes belies the claim that it's all about health because dress sizes are not a health measure; these days they're barely a size measure. If you're doing it all on dress sizes, it's about aesthetics, whatever you claim.

I'm size 16, I'm fat. BMI 30.

I've lost very nearly 4 stone over the last two years, so I'm healthier than I was.

I walk up to ten miles every day.

I can run without being out of breath. I eat very well. Always did, I'm a cook, I just ate too much of it.

I'm 5 feet 9 inches, I look decent enough in my clothes, I've got good skin, nice hair, no health conditions other than I had my thyroid removed a few years back.

When I was thin I was on cocaine, crack, heroin and an alcoholic, so I'm far healthier now than I was! I'm not under any illusions that I'm perfectly healthy but I'd say I'm actually doing ok all things considered.

But would it be reasonable to say, @TeaWithASplashOfMilkPlease , that the health info that you mention indicates that you are very healthy in many respects, but unhealthy in respect of your weight? Just the same as someone who, say, has a BMI of 24 but elevated blood pressure -- healthy in some ways, unhealthy in others.

Each of these measures of health (weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc) have their part to play in calculating a person's risk of adverse health events. Because you are healthy in other repspects, your overall risk is probably low, But that isn't the same as saying that the BMI of 32 is completely irrelevant to assessing health, particularly given that some conditions may be more closely developed with weight, eg some forms of arthrisis.

No one is claiming that weight is the only measure of health.

I was a size 14/16 and 5'7" when my BMI was 28/29, so in the overweight range but not obese. My waist to height ratio was still in the healthy range though, blood pressure on the low side of normal, no issue with blood sugar/pre-diabetic, cholesterol perfect, I did plenty of exercise, very strong and my cardio fitness was pretty good too, and I hardly ever got colds. The over 40s NHS check said I had zero chance of heart problems in the next ten years. My diet was very good, I just wasn't eating small enough amounts to lose weight consistently.

So to all intents and purposes, I was pretty healthy. I have now actually lost weight, a couple of stone, now though as I started to get joint pain with exercise and knew there extra weight meant higher risks as I got older. Am now size 10/12 and BMI 25. I don't think I was "unhealthy" by all reasonable measures before though, but there were more long term risks to my health perhaps by being overweight.

Define healthy.
Are all woman of the same size a homogeneous group? Is every woman who is a size 10 healthy?

Maybe people of all sizes can be healthy, and this might depend partly on fitness and activity levels, stress levels, genetics, as well as diet. Imagine that.

Health outcomes in some studies have been shown to be better for overweight individuals than healthy BMI ones. Being overweight is not the same as being obese.

But are overweight women very much more likely to have a heart attack in the first place? I would assume that to be the case, happy to be proven wrong.

I’d encourage you to stop looking at BMI and think about waist circumference.

A healthy number would be under half your height

We should all care. Unhealthy citizens means lower productivity, and higher healthcare costs, which affects everyone.

Exactly

Perspnally I can be both overweight or obese at size 16, depending on fitness levels and current body shape.

At size 10-12 most people tell me i dont look healthy. Including my fitness buff personal trainer, so its not just people who have normalised obesity

Also fat and fit can in some cases be healthier than thin and unfit.

Well being on mumsnet is bad for your health as sedentary and a form of social media. So now, in the interests of productivity and healthcare costs I order you off mumsnet, as it's apparently my business what you do with your own life.

Get off this site @VestibuleWeaver , go for a run and pick up some litter on the way 👋

Browsing the internet from time to time is not unhealthy, per se. Being overweight places additional strain on the body, which certainly is unhealthy, long term. But, I think you know that.

I am currently around 9st. 5'6" and wearing a size 8/XS in most shops.
Im mid 40s

I am straight up and down, no boobs, hips or bum. When I put on weight it goes first to my arms and chin (sss)
Last year I was about a stone lighter and I'm still wearing the same clothes.

My mum who is the same height, early 70s is 9lbs heavier than me. Just under 10st
She has big boobs, big hips and stick thin arms and legs.
Shes a size 16

My sister is in the very overweight BMI range. Shes a classic apple shape, a size 16 and looks perhaps fatter than she actually is.
She is 5'2 though so 4" shorter than me and my mum.

But ranges of weight and body shape varies massively.

We can only identify risk factors and yes, weight is one.

https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2099

@SerenaCat93 its better to judge on lifestyle not on size.

A better measure would be looking at someone's activity levels.

Do they walk 10k+ steps a day?
Do they do 2 x 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise a week?
Can they run up two flights of stairs without having to stop or being out of breath at the top?

You can have very healthy size 16 people who can do all of the above. You have people who are a size 10 who may look slim but are fat on the inside.

I think if people focused more in getting the right amount of exercise rather than their diet then there would be more healthy people.