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’m 52 and been a size 16 since I was a teenager. Dieting on and off since I was 13 and never been smaller than size 14 bottoms. Occasional size 12 top. I’ve lost 10kg in the last 9 months or so and now absolutely stuck yet again. I’m sure I’d be healthier if I lost more weight but I’ve recently had a health screening and I have no risk factors at all. Clean bill of health across the board. I’m very active and eat a broad range of whole foods and vegetables. BMI is 27 so overweight. I’d love to lose more weight but at this stage it would be more for appearance than health, haven’t had a day off sick in 3/4 years. So I think yes, you can be a size 16 and healthy.

I'm quite tall and if my waist was half my height it would be massive, maybe that works better if you are short

You might find that it’s the size 16 women who actually keep the country running, working as nurses, teachers, doctors etc.

Lots of things are unhealthy.

Drinking ANY alcohol is unhealthy, causes cancer and affects productivity. Do you judge anyone who drinks any alcohol? How much do you drink? Do you go out in the sun? Ever sunbathed? Eat red meat? Do you use cleaning sprays and burn candles? Do you think it's anyone else's business if you make healthy or unhealthy choices? Or do you think they are just people with low self esteem who like to feel superior by judging others, because they themselves are a bit pathetic.

The problem is that the studies use weight at death... but a lot of people lose weight due to illness before death. Also things like smoking lowers weight due to appetite suppression. It makes it look like low weight = high mortality but its not as straightforward as that.

Maybe the waist being less than half your height is for men because that would make more sense, DH is a bit overweight, BMI about 26 and his waist is an inch or two more than half his height.

Maybe just stop obsessing over other people's bodies and whether other people are 'healthy' or not. Other people's bodies or what they personally consider 'healthy' aren't your problem or, to be honest, your business. Just focus on how you want to look and feel yourself and stop making judgements about other people.

And yes, people can sit there saying 'Well it is my business because fat people cost the NHS more money' but it really, really isn't anything like as simple as that. There are plenty of slim people who will cost the NHS a lot of money and there are plenty of fat people who will rarely need to set foot in a doctor's surgery. I've known thin people who can barely walk up a hill and are constantly ill, and I've known women who run marathons, play rugby, swim miles or regularly hike 20 miles at size 16 or bigger.

There are a zillion other things that affect health and the need for medical intervention, and getting your pants in a pickle about someone being a size 16 (which depending on their height and body composition, could mean anything from a very lean muscular woman to a somewhat overweight one but is fairly unlikely to mean morbid obesity) is ridiculous.

What is "size 16" a measure of exactly and how is the fact I own some size 16 clothes mean I am unhealthy?

I am 5ft 8in, a healthy weight (although admittedly at the top end of acceptable), I get a health check every year and have perfect blood pressure and cholesterol (and in fact higher rates of HDL cholesterol), zero health conditions and a resting heart rate of 58 bpm.

I have clothes from different shops and times in a range of sizes that all fit me. Today I am wearing size 14 cami top, a size 12 t shirt and a size 16 skirt.

I'm 61, post menopausal and have had two kids and two grandchildren and I full admit to being overweight. Yes, I would like to be slimmer but frankly I don't think anyone not medically trained has the right to berate anyone else for their weight.

Once you get older you start to develop illnesses, many times, like mine, nothing to do with weight and then you have to follow particular and specific diets so as not to be ill. I could be a bit overweight or I could be quite ill most of the time by trying to eat the best "healthy food". I cycle 12-15 km a day, I can walk a good healthy 5/6 miles a day and while I follow this lifestyle I remain well.

Don't judge before you know people's stories.

The OP is entirely predicated on size 16 = unhealthy. So people are, in fact, saying precisely that weight is the only measure of health.

I think what annoys me about these type of threads are you said yourself you have lost weight. You are obviously doing well on that journey. This post just smacks of someone kicking others down - sorry. Its not enough to say you are still overweight. Plenty of people will read this and feel shit who are size 16 and are doing well or had a bad week. Would you be writing this if you were size 16? And why didn't you?

What do you mean by "healthy"?

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course size 16 is exceptionally large for someone who is 5’.

When i was a size 16 I was unhealthy, depressed and had out of control PCOS. When i look back at photos, I cant believe nobody told me to stop killing myself and lose weight, I didnt look good at all. I hate all this embrace your fatness bullshit, most people want to be thin and healthy. I no longer have PCOS and wish I had got a gastric sleeve 10 years earlier. I love being thin and happy.

If people hate being fat, do something about it! If they are happy, then don't. Its as simple as that.

I think it is if you’re 5 foot tall personally.

I didn't write this at size 16 because I thought I was healthy and looked fine. Just like all the people here posting "it's not about size it's about how fit you are" I thought because I was really active and fit I was healthy even though I was overweight. I believed BMI was bullshit and I was just really muscly so it didn't apply to me like lots of people are saying here. I am muscly but that doesn't mean BMI doesn't apply to me, my friend is a power lifter and JACKED, her BMI doesn't say she's overweight because she has lots of muscle. It's a lie almost everyone is telling themselves. I was 4 stone overweight and didn't believe I had 4 stone to lose, I didn't see where it would come from because I wasn't that big. I believed what others are posting here "if I lost 4 stone I'd look ill!" But here I am 3 stone lighter and I don't look ill, I look the best over ever looked. And moreover I can still see some fat on my body that shouldn't be there from a health perspective and now I understand that if I lose another stone I won't look ill, I will look fit and healthy because I will be the right weight. I believed all the big boned stuff people are posting here because I'm tall, broad shouldered and have big feet. I'm built like an Amazonian and I still needed to be overweight to fill a size 16. So I wasn't posting this when I was size 16 because I believed all the lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, and now I'm less overweight, I understand that they were all lies. Telling ourselves and everyone else these lies might make us feel better but it doesn't do our health any good. I was fat and fit but now I feel so much better, I get less joint ache, I have more energy and I just don't get tired like I used to, I feel stronger. Now I realise that what I thought healthy felt like wasn't actually truly healthy because now I have a comparison.

I literally said to my husband last week I knew I was overweight but I didn't realise just HOW MUCH overweight because I was average sized and felt fine. And even as someone who bought into the lies above and didn't think I was that bad I still knew that size 16 wasn't a healthy size to be so I am shocked other people think it is. So no, not kicking people down, trying to open their eyes because I'm honestly shocked people think being overweight is healthy. If someone who is a size 16 reads this after having a bad week of weight loss and feels shit then they understand that their weight is unhealthy and are trying to change it so this thread doesn't apply to them at all. It's not about people trying to lose weight and struggling, it's about people not trying to lose weight because they think being overweight is a healthy which are two completely different issues. You've just done the knee jerk thing of getting offended because someone mentioned women's weight without actually thinking about it.

You’re still not talking about weight. You’re fixated on “size 16” as if it means something in terms of weight or BMI. Which it absolutely doesn’t.

Do you really think, @SerenaCat93 , that most/many/a lot of women who are overweight or obese don’t realise that they are? Or that they don’t know that being overweight or obese is less healthy than being in the healthy weight range??

You think this thread is some kind of public service to those poor women who don’t know these things??

Agree. Especially Ms “I’m size 4 and size 16 is just absolutely enormous” 🥱 🥱 🥱

I am 5ft4 and size 12/14 is definitely overweight for me by a lot, I am a really small build and look chubby at BMI 24/25 though. Clothes size varies so much but even so a size 16 is likely to be overweight for most women. My DIL is 5ft 7 and when she was a size 16 she was well over BMI 30.

I am so, so glad I never did this when I lost weight. I think I'd rather have stayed fat than have to read this stuff back to myself.

It really is, my mum is 5ft and a size 12-14 is obese for her, she would be incredibly unhealthy and huge at a size 16. I am 5ft 4 and dieted when BMI 28, about 12 lbs off obese at that point and wasnt close to a size 16 then. I lost 4 stone and still within a healthy BMI.

People have just lost sight on what normal looks like. So many people told me that they didnt think I needed to lose weight before.

@SexyFrenchDepression sure, peoples builds are different. That’s the point really. A clothes size is a shit way to try to judge someone’s weight, BMI, health and fitness.

I just don’t get these posts that pop up all the time, saying that anyone that’s a size 16 needs to be told, firmly and repeatedly, that they are in the wrong and that they are being judged as failing. They are judged to be unhealthy, regardless of any other factor in their lives or any other context. Just that they are unacceptable as they are. And, according to this OP, most of those women are too stupid to know that they are unhealthy and therefore unacceptable. Even some posters on this thread think that size 14 or even 12 are probably unacceptable too, as they aren’t what they used to be 40 years ago. The only acceptable sizes for women seem to be a 10 or below!

YABU
It depends on your height, and so many other factors. Big boobs can means someone is a 16, but they could be rake thin elsewhere.
Also, clothing sizes are bullshit anyway. They vary between brands and between moments in time.

Im not obese. Im 5ft 7, i weigh 78kg. I wear a size 14 or 16 because ive got big boobs & a tummy (thanks perimenopause).

I dont look huge huge if i dress well in flattering styles.