Aibu to think as you get older being a bit fatter looks better?

[ywllowcomercio]

Im 5’6, weighed between 7.5-8stone until I hit mid thirties. Now I’m 40, I think I look awful under 8.5 stone, and actively have to work to keep my weight up to avoid looking gaunt and older.
aibu to think being excessively thin makes you look old and haggard? Also I love having tits again 😂 never had any until I was pregnant the first time ha

I agree!!

Which is weird, because all the men over 50 I know look like shit, and have let themselves go, and all the women over 50 I know look great.

Exactly this. That weight at 5ft 6 sounded too thin.

I’m 5ft 3 and the lowest weight I should be is 7St 11 but I start to look terrible at any less than 8.5 stone. So I aim to be around 9 stone.

I heard it’s better for older women 70+ to be on the upper range of the healthy BMI range, or even maybe slightly above it - as it makes them a bit more robust especially if they have a fall. I am not sure if that’s true but it makes sense.

I have always been very slim but started to put on weight as I approached 50 and it did not look good on me at all.

7.5 stone is very light for someone 5’6” though so perhaps not surprising that a bit of extra weight has improved your looks as you age.

This is so interesting.

I am not old enough to use this but I’ll bear this in mind next time I hear of an older woman desperately trying to stay tiny.

I am late 30s but never thought a low BMI was a good thing or something to aspire to. I’ve always been happy to be right in the middle or in the upper range of healthy BMI.

Yes, I’m 5ft6 and my bmi has always been 19/20. When I was younger I liked being slim, now I’m late 40s I look gaunt and scrawny but I struggle to put on weight. I also saw the research about low bmi linked to poor outcomes in old age so I guess I’m f@ucked!

And there always a post like this too, just to complete the bingo card.

Tbf Barbara Cartland would be 125 years old now and Oscar Wilde could be construed as equally misogynistic yet a better author so the same message with more wit.

Could you try building some more muscle @Rainbowralph? I know it’s harder for some people than others but might be worth trying some strength exercise if you don’t already.

Reading this thread it makes me think how much our upbringings can shape us in terms of body image.

I grew up in the 90s but for some reason the 90s skinny supermodel trend absolutely missed me and my friends 😂 I only heard about it recently. I mean I do recall Kate Moss and the media slagging off celebs for putting on some weight, but for me and my peers it didn’t translate into wanting to be super skinny or thinking that was beautiful.

At the school I traveled to in another city, the goal was not to be super skinny and the same applied to the local friends I had. The most popular girls were mostly slim except a few slightly chubby ones, who were quite proud of their curves. But it wasn’t considered particularly desirable to be super skinny. I don’t remember anyone doing crazy diets or anything like that.

I actually had a childhood friend on my street who was ridiculed a fair bit unfortunately for being so thin and honestly she wasn’t even that skinny.

She actually developed a bit of a complex about it and was delighted when she put on weight after her 3rd kid even though she’s around a stone overweight now.

Er, Its not quite as clear cut as - if you stay slim you'll die.

The reason the BMI figures look different after 65 is that BMI becomes a much less useful measure of health as we age.

It isn't that being heavier suddenly becomes healthier. It's that muscle mass becomes increasingly important, and older people naturally lose muscle as they age. Someone with a BMI of 21 at 30 may have plenty of muscle, whereas someone with the same BMI at 75 could have very little muscle and very little nutritional reserve.

There’s also the issue of reverse causation: illness, frailty and poor appetite can cause people to lose weight, so the low BMI may actually be a consequence of declining health rather than the cause of it.

So in older age, muscle mass, strength, fitness, nutrition and whether someone's weight is stable becomes much more important than solely BMI

Being underweight never looks good regardless of age.

I think 7.5 stone at 5’6” is really quite low and even 8 stone is a little underweight at that height so it does make she as that being within a slightly higher bracket would look better as you age. I thought this thread was going to be saying that you need to be actively slightly plump to have a nice face but you’re still very slim at 8.5 stone.

I was always 8 stone 3 to 6 at 5’3” and have just got back to that from 9 stone post DC, at age 47 and I still look fine. I think you just need to not be underweight/excessively slim as you get older.

For sure OP im 64 and lost 6 stone on mounjaro. My face now looks like an ancient tortoise. Ive booked a facelift in Lithuania.

Surely totally depends on your body composition? I find I look better thinner as excess weight on me seems to go straight to my jowls. 😂

I am not as thin as you though - it's possible that 8st 4 and below would not look good on me either!

I think that being healthy and strong - however that looks - is far better than whether it makes one look younger or older.
We spend that much time concerning ourselves with how we look that we don’t spend enough time thinking about actual wellness.

@CIaudiaWankleman thank you. You’re so right. I’m late 60’s and very underweight due to illness. My physio says I need to work on building muscle.

And to all the pp’s who think we’re playing skinny bingo it is no fun looking like Madge on Benidorm, apologies to the lovely actress, I feel very self conscious about my thin face.

Having seen the effect of osteoporosis from 35 onwards, I'd far rather have any of those conditions which can frequently be treated and/or managed than have my spine and feet crumble and then need my entire hip sawn off and replaced with an implant if I survived tripping over my own feet or stepping on a patch of ice one November morning.

It's science backed that going through menopause and beyond it's better to be going into the overweight category, but be active. The nutrition we need is difficult to get, if we are calorie counting. It's always better to be as active and strong as you can be, size shouldn't be a guiding factor.

On the face/arse dilemma, I am team face.

Toned and strong better than skinny any day, and not worrying about what the scales say.

I think there's a big difference between people who diet to stay slim and those who are naturally slim due to lifestyle/genetics.

Ditto if you've been overweight and have lost weight. Ironically that can make you look terrible.

The people I know who are naturally slim because of lifestyle and genetics look better than those who consistently diet to stay the same weight. The naturally slim people also look younger and fitter. Probably because they are fitter.

How good you look as you age is also to do with attitude, how you dress and your health though imo.

You don't have to choose one, you know. You can take steps to reduce your risk of all of them.

Staying fat is not the only way, or indeed the recommended way, to prevent osteoporosis.

Er, Its not quite as clear cut as - if you stay slim you'll die.

Yeah..I am aware of this. I didn’t say anything like what you suggested.

I was referring to the issue of people - mainly older women - desperately trying to stay as skinny as possible, often to try maintain the weight of their youth. Even when said weight is bordering on or is underweight (like OPs previous weight).

Hence my use of the word “tiny” and not just slim.

Face or figure as the saying goes. Look at how dreadful POW Catherine looks being so underweight. The only times she has looked well in recent years are when pregnant. I know she has battled cancer in recent years but she was stick thin before that. I personally think she has an eating disorder but you will all jump on here saying she is just sporty, naturally slim, her Mum is slim etc... She isn't slim she is thin. Big difference.

I think its very possible she has an ED, but completely unreasonable and untrue to say she looks dreadful

I'm very underweight with a bmi of 16 (due to illness, no ED), I look awful. I know i look far better when I have a healthy bmi.
Two 'friends' even called DH to say they were concerned about me, like I don't have a mirror.