Did you ever see the episode of AbFab where Eddie loses weight? At the end she goes out with her magazine "friends" to celebrate, and one of them says, "But you know, you're still fat!"

I recently read "Thin Is the New Happy," which tells about the author's overweight childhood. It brought back bad memories. I know sometimes people with more weight to lose think featherweights can't really relate, but there's a lot of cruelty at the low end of the scale.

Even though I'm right in the middle of normal BMI, I'd still be waaaayyyy too intimidated to go into certain stores to shop. And I know there are whole groups of women who'd still call me fat.

Anyone relate?

i can totally relate! i know my bmi is normal, but i also know that i'm 20 lbs heavier than i've ever been and am now the 'fat one' at work AND with all my friends...

I can definitely relate... I am on a rowing team so all of the people are in reaaaally good shape. I am pretty muscular but one of the slower rowers (rhyme hehe) and definitely one of the heaviest (in proportion to height) girls on the team... I feel really self conscious pretty much all of the time.

I am a marathon runner. I hang out with "lithe runnerly types" who think that Deena Kastor has normal body fat.

Yeah, I can relate.

I'm in Japan for the time being and every other girl here is stick-thin. I'm "fat" here. It messes with my head. I keep reminding myself not to compare myself to them, because I'm half-American and have different genes and just cannot get stick-thin even if I tried. I don't even want to be stick-thin. I prefer being athletic-looking.

But I do. I compare.

I am another one who can relate to this. I have a normal bmi but have extra weight around my abdomen that wasn't there a few years ago.
I'm wondering if I can even get rid of this?

I was just talking to a couple coworkers yesterday re the BMI thing. Both ladies are what I would call medium slim and curvy. One is about a size six (very small frame) and the other is probably an 8 or so. They both said their BMIs are borderline for obesity. That seems kind of cattywampus to me.

That doesn't make sense to me either. Maybe they're confusing overweight with obesity. Which would still be strange at size 6 or 8, but not as much as obesity.

I had a skin caliper test done and was told I was obese. I am 129 pounds and this is what I was told. Very confusing.

We had my DH's best friend and his wife over this past weekend, and the wife - who is 8 years younger than I am - offered to lend me a pair of jeans she has that she loves but can only wear when she's pregnant - really? To her credit she's normally very nice and complimentary, but she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer...I know she meant well - the jeans are probably $150 -she's very trendy and spends gobs (of her aunts money, i might add) on her clothes - but I'm nearly a good 6-8 inches taller than she is and maybe 10-12lbs heavier... it's not like she's a toothpick and I'm a hippo - give me a freakin' break!

Amy -- OMG to the head to that girl!!

BMI -- my BMI is high too, overweight/obese range, but I am very muscular because I workout a lot at the gym, so this is why the high BMI. The BMI is not for everyone, athletes and very muscular people are excluded from this list because : «.... people who are unusually muscular may have a high BMI.» Here is the full article

AR4life -- If your waist circumference is less than 35 along with a healthy BMI you're very healthy indeed... Whoever took your caliper test was not well educated!

Maybe the problem with the BMI thing is that it's jsut one more thing where people are trying to do a one size fits all thing and put people in little boxes/categories.

My husband (a rather tall, lanky, lean kinda guy) had his body fat measured and they said it was too low. The man eats like a horse and is healthy. At the time, he was working out heavily and had a lot of muscle but not much body fat. I think it's the same thing- it's just that they have these magic numbers and these criteria and they try to fit people into them.

I completely agree!!

I still DEFINITELY see this in my own world. There is a group of ladies I know that are 0's or 00's even. They all have tiny bones in addition to being thin. They definitely look down on anyone bigger--or at least seem like they do.

That's probably what it is. I'm a size 6-8, depending on the brand with a bmi in the overweight range, because I'm short.