[Marseille]

Originally Posted by Daimere

I want to be 150 and look great. Everyone says that I would look anerexic at that size but it'd be a normal BMI and all that. My goal of 170 is still in overweight range.

Isn't that peculiar?? When I mentioned to a co-worker that I needed to lose 1/2 of my weight to be a healthy normal person, she thought I was insane. It's true though! 135 would be actually towards the higher end of normal, actually!

Since I think it is now official that more people in the US are overweight than not, I wonder if people are getting so used to seeing all these fat chicks walking around that we are starting to think that it's the normal ones who are sick. I asked my skinniest pal (I thought she was totally underweight) to step on my scale. She is smack in the middle of normal. Not even on the low side.

I have noticed this with children too. My daughter is 4 and perfectly normal weight. At a recent employee event, my coworkers commented on how skinny she is and asked me if she ever ate! Compared with all the other children there, she was definately the thinnest but I couldn't believe that they thought she was the one who wasn't normal when another lady brought her 2 year old twins weighing in at 47 pounds each!! Those gigantic boys could barely move but they were described as "adorable" and "healthy" while my daughter was "skinny" and "scrawny".

I wonder how this happened, since models and movie stars are so painfully thin..

[hellokitty81668]

I think alot of people in the USA have a distorted body image view. Media makes pretty women out to be sticks, and men to be chubby. I don't know about everyone's school, but my daughter has come home upset because she has been called fat.. I don't think she is fat, she does have some extra weight around the stomach, but has thin long legs, but because she isn't a stick, she is considered fat. Now men can be very big, and considered cute.
I would like to go down to about 167, for my height this is considered over weight, but I will be fine with it, I am big boned, and anything less then 160 makes me look bad. While I agree that we have become accostomed to seeing so many over weight people, , I don't think this is a reason to say that all people who are healthy are thin as sticks. I think every person is different, and some people will be skinny some a little bigger.
I know it seems that I have 2 conflicting opinions, it is just that there are alot of different issues we need to consdier when we talk about what a healthy person looks like, and it can't be based just on one thing.
cheryl

[RoyalAthena]

You know the same thing has happened to me! I think I have been fat for so long that I look "skinny" to people. I have alot more to lose...ideally, I would like to lose another 85 pounds.....I'll see when I get down to the 180. I wouldnt look good any smaller than a size 10/12. I have a pretty accurate "view" on people's sizes. Usually the people that inspire me are those that I later find out are a size 12 or 14. I can tell "healthy" when I see it.