Is this considered obese?

[Potterhead113]

I am 5ft6.5 and 93kg and my BMI puts me at obese but I'm a size 12/14 in clothes which I didn't think would be seen as obese. I know I'm a little overweight but I don't have a double chin or a purtruding gut or anything that I would consider to be features of obesity.
It's making me really upset when I go to the doctors because they keep saying I'm obese and at risk of health problems and should lose 4 stone but I think I'd be way to thin at that weight. What do you think? Am I just deluded and I am actually obese :(

I am genuinely fascinated at how women can be such different clothes sizes at different weights. I mean that; I'm not having a dig, OP.

I am 5ft 6.5 and at my heaviest I was 14st 3lbs. I was bursting out of size 16 top and bottom - across many different shops. I've lost 2.5 stone now and comfortably a 12.

oooopnorth ahaha yeh I get you it is so strange to me too, female bodies are odd

If you are over 50 years old, 29% is just acceptable. Otherwise it is too high.

I'd love a thread with people's stats and an accompanying body picture (tasteful obvs in gym kit etc and without faces) just for comparison.

most sports people are morbidly obese

Really? Come on. MOST sports stars/elite athletes are far from being morbidly obese.

How many are overweight/obese?

www.runnersworld.com/run-the-numbers/bmis-of-champions-womens-edition

And this is fun:
m.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/36984887

Love that bbc one unavita

3 women with my stats, who look...very normal to slim

unavita I did the BBC thing and all 3 of my matches looked a lot bigger than me my body is confusing

Sorry to compare but I'm 10st 13lb and 5ft 4" and I'm a comfortable 12/14 in all of the shops that you've mentioned.

I definitely look overweight and feel podgy. I would love to see a picture of your silhouette as you're 20kg heavier than I am but you're the same clothing size. It's amazing how we have such a vast difference but fit into the same sizes. I'm still the same size when 7lbs lighter.

Update, weighed myself this morning and I weigh 90.4kg 🎉🎉 finally out of the 200lb bracket

Okay... I always find weight/clothes size soooo confusing and baffling! I'm 5 ft 6 and weigh 164 pounds. This puts me at about 10lbs overweight which I think is fair. I have wobbly bits but I do run a lot and have a fair bit of muscle. I'm a size 12.

However on mn I've also seen threads where someone of the same height and weight is a size 16.

It's all relative to your muscle ratio/where you hold your weight etc. I think. If you genuinely are at that fat ratio and size then no I don't think you're obese BUT having said that it's a lot of weight to be carrying around at that height.

I'm the same height as you and I weigh 10st 10. I am a size 10/12. At that weight I'm at the top end of ideal I think I can go to 11st 2 before I'd be overweight. However I have quite a high body fat percentage. My friend is a pt and he said that it's not always what you weigh that you should worry about like a pp said a lot of people who have next to no fat can be considered overweight because of muscle. My friend told me to work on what you can see rather than what you weigh so if somewhere look flabby work on toning it.

Doesn't mean you look fat but you could have a high body fat percentage

TBH don't get how you are a size 12-14, I am the same height as you and weigh just under 9sy and usually need a size 12 now, feel pretty horrible tbh and alternate between wondering whether to give Slimmimh World a final back and eomdeth if I should try and accept myself as I don't have the energy anymore

Sorry just under 9 and a half stone

Octopus37 I am a size 12 top and size 14 jeans. I just have a lot of muscle mass so maybe that is contributing to my weight and I am just a lot more toned than you. Remember skinny fat is a thing in which case you wouldn't need slimming world you would just need a gym membership and a few months doing weight training or HIIT workouts :) good luck

In your op you say your doctor keeps going on at you to lose four stone, then you say the doctor always comments on how healthy you are.

Which is it, and do you mind me asking why you visit the doctor so often? Or are these private health care checks or something.

They did an experiment on bbc, but cant remember programme.
Excercise did tone up the stomach but it didnt get rid of visceral fat, only diet got rid of visceral fat.
Im like the op high muscle, but according to bodytrax my visceral fat is ok even though my weight is obese.

MorrisZapp I visit the doctor often because I have a thyroid disorder and require frequent blood tests, it is an NHS GP. He had never taken my BMI before and had just looked at my blood work and blood pressure and commented on how healthy I am but then he took my BMI and said how I need to lose weight when he had never mentioned weight to me before and it wasnt something I had considered too much prior to this.

bruffin I too have had my visceral fat done and mine is very low too despite being classed as 'obese'

The BBC athletes comparison just throws up sinister 'shooters' when I input my height and weight!

There used to be a fun one which compared your weight with celebrities or things - eg 1.5 Kylies, a labrador etc - well, so long as you didn't take it too seriously

Can't find the comparison thingie referred to above - but have found this - www.bbc.com/news/health-18770328

So I am overweight - but BMI below 65% of females in the UK in broadly my age group!

Puts it a bit into perspective - ie 'healthy' -v- 'average'....

Goodness me - have now put in my BMI as it was about 5 years ago (when 5'2" and 8 stone 3lbs) - my BMI was an excellent 21 but this BMI was below 92% of females in the UK in my age group. Wow!

I think part of the confusion here is using clothing size as a benchmark. It would be better to post accurately-taken measurements. I am a standard UK 12 according to the tape measure (35.5, 29/30, 38), but most of my clothes have a size 10 label owing to vanity sizing, and I wear my clothes comfortably loose. If I wore stretchy clothes, like leggings, I could easily convince myself (and post on here) that I was a size 8.

I am regularly described as "slim" or occasionally "skinny", but I know I'm not; my BMI is just under 22, which is a good average and I do have some spare flesh which, for cosmetic reasons, I could do without. I think our perception of what a healthy weight ought to look like has skewed, as average sizes have increased over the years.

And just to add, IME, many women overestimate their height. I recently attended a fitness camp and I reckon the vast majority of the women there added an inch or two onto their height at the weigh in. People tend to say, "Well, if you say you're 5'6", I must be 5'8" (and they never do this "adjustment" downwards).

I just put in my stats and was told I had a BMI of 0 which was lower than 100% of women in my age group. I thought the widget must be broken, before I realised I'd entered a height of 167 metres

It's possible OP has a very large frame I guess. I have a tiny frame and am also an apple, so carry weight appallingly badly. My friend is a broad hourglass and carries it much better. You don't tend to get short broad people though. (Comparatively broad, obviously, but not objectively broad). Another friend is tall and doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, runs everywhere and obsessed with pilates and boxercise and stuff, but wears a 12 because she has wide shoulders and ribs. I'm a pudgy size 8 and think I sometimes look "bigger" than her because I'm flabby.

Clothing size is weird though, as a PP said. I know someone who suddenly went on an absolute weight loss and exercise rampage though, looks fantastic and has lost 4 stone, but said that after 3 stone she was still the same clothing size, and that they must have been way too small. To see her before, she was large but I'd have said 4 stone was a huge amount for her to lose, but now it's gone you can really see the difference.

Fozzley Mmm, I always say I'm 5ft 6, but having used the BMI machines in Boots a lot lately I am actually 5ft 5 and a half, which surprised me - I thought I was taller than that, between 5ft6 and 5ft7. Only an inch but it makes a difference.