Sometimes this is true. But I have a friend who literally has to be forced vegetables...only eats cheese, bread, pasta, pepperoni, more bread and cheese. She doesn't eat much meat (almost none), but she definitely doesn't eat healthy. And I could probably pick her up with one hand, lolol.

I'm sure there are many skinny people with skinny habits, but not all of them.

LOVE this thread. Totally agree with the OP.

My Wheat Thins box will be gone in a day. My roommate's will stay there for 3 weeks. THAT'S why she's skinny.

I just had a friend do that to me a couple weeks ago. We went out to eat and I had half my burger and mentioned I'd be eating the other half for lunch the next day. My (very thin) friend had half hers as well, then asked if I wanted to take the rest, claiming she never took leftovers home because it was bad enough that she ate that kind of food once, she didn't want to do it twice in a row.

Which leaves me wondering...why is it okay for me?

My thin younger sister gets the whole "you eat so much, yet you're so skinny" comments quiet a lot, including from her friend who lived with her for a year. From what I've seen, she doesn't actually eat that much overall. She'll have a day where she'll eat lots of chocolate, then go out to a barbeque and have three hamburgers followed by two sliced of cake. People see this, and assume that she just has fast metabolism. The thing is, she'll also have days where she doesn't eat much, and sometimes even forgets to have meals.

I also think that many people underestimate the amount of calories a thin person needs to eat to maintain. For example, a 20 year old girl who is 5'6 and weighs 110 pounds who doesn't do much excercise would have to eat roughly 1600 calories a day to maintain that. If she skips breakfast, and she could have two 800 calorie meals or one 1000 meal and a 600 calorie meal. If you go out to lunch with her most days, and she could consume a burger and fries each time, and it would look like she eats a lot.

If my friends and family judge what I eat by what I eat in front of them they would probably wonder why I'm not 80lbs by now. I prefer to eat alone or just with my husband (maybe good friends too). I don't eat a lot in the company of others. I also tend not to be able to eat a lot in social situations because I cannot have gluten, don't eat much meat and keep kosher. So...I end up picking at a few things and that's it. Doesn't mean I don't eat at home.

I'm not saying thin people don't have "thin habits". I'm just saying we have no idea what people do if we dont' live with them and spend a lot of time with them. I just this week learned my husband has a caffeine addiction. I didn't know because he doesn't get it it our home but apparently he's been drinking a lot of pop (soda) again.

JossFit...amazing story! Very inspirational for me. I am going to print it and refer to it when I need the extra encouragement :)

I think there are two sides to this. If you take my mother, she doesn't seem like she eats a lot at all; she also doesn't eat meat or that many carbs, her portions look tiny. And yet she's 150 lbs overweight but her sugar, cholesterol, and other blood numbers are amazing. The thing is if you really know her, you'll see that behind the scenes she grazes- dry roasted nuts, dark chocolate, plain crackers, little pieces of cheese- things that you'd think are "healthy." But they add up. I'm sure she eats over 1000 calories of nuts a day easily (not all in one go, but over the course of the day) and that's aside from the other nibbles and small meals and other "healthy" things she eats. So people who've had meals with her wonder, she doesn't eat much and yet she's overweight, but everything does add up.

Then conversely, I have a co-worker who's really skinny. She always has a hefty lunch brought in and the rest of the time is popping Maltesers (chocolate malt balls) all day long, going through what seems to be multiple bags. I went on a work trip with her and realized that her one hefty meal at lunch is usually her only meal for the day. She doesn't have a car, and she has a pretty long communte, so many times, instead of waiting in long queues for one of her numerous buses, she walks. Basically she lives off lunch and chocolate.

She made me think of some of my other skinny friends (I don't have a sample size of a 1000 but I'm talking of at least 10 I can think of) who may appear not to have the best habits but when I really think about it, have some balance. Yes they may go hog crazy at a restaurant or at a dinner or barbecue, but in their normal everyday lives, they're not consumed by thinking of their next meal. Food is something they enjoy a lot but not like an obsession. Obviously I'm sure they're exceptions in all cases and we're all unique so different rules may apply but I definitely think there are "skinny habits" in general that exist.