You know another advantage skinny people have?
Gravity.
Yeah, basically. It’s cool if you prefer pie, though.
The point was that all too often this sort of fat health defense thread devolves into a skinny people hate-fest as evidenced by the woman in the article who couldn’t resist pointing out how jealous she is of 100 lb. waifs.
My doctor, and most health professionals I’ve worked with, use it exclusively to argue that you are at an unhealthy weight.
In minor defense of the woman who mocked the “100 lb waifs” (to use another poster’s term), there’s a major bias in the equestrian world against people that are over weight (ok, that bias is everywhere, but it seems even worse there).
It’s really frustrating to work so hard and do so much physical work taking care of horses only to be told that you’re “out of shape” and not good enough. I’ve met plenty of horse people who were happy to trash talk someone over their body but reluctant to pitch in with barn chores. I guess I can just see her point of “hey, if I’m so out of shape how come I’m the one doing the hard work around here!?”
To bring your comment back to comparing apples to apples again, are you thin because you starve yourself? Because that’s what the original commenter was talking about. If it doesn’t apply to you, then don’t apply it to yourself.
Absolutely. But if I am guessing where you’re coming from with this, given the same activity, for the same amount of time, a bigger person will expend more calories and effort. So there. 
I hate to tell you guys, but a healthy bodyweight is not just “not quadruple-chinned, geriatric bed-owning, wheezing and jiggling enormously fat.” A healthy body weight is actually pretty actively slim, give or take a couple soft spots. Those of you who are not cartoonishly fat but not slim- guess what? You are overweight! You would be healthier if you ate less or exercised more!
We’ve got so many crazy-overweight people that we’ve lost track of what “normal” is. The free space between “unhealthily stick skinny” and “starting to get overweight” is not some huge open expanse. It’s actually a pretty limited range. And, from our distorted point of view, it is pretty slim. Yeah it’s not fair. And it’s not easy. But that’s how it is. We can’t redefine “healthy” just because everyone got fatter.
Of course you can be active and fat. That simply means the problem lies with eating too much, instead of exercising too little. Still, adipose tissue on it’s own poses a problem. You’d be better off without it.
Unless you are a weightlifter- in which case you know your special concerns well- the BMI is a reasonable indicator of if you are carrying potentially unhealthy amounts of body fat. It shouldn’t be the only indicator, but it is a good way to know if you are in the ballpark. And I doubt your doctor would be impressed with the idea that somehow you are one of those special cases where it’s just completely off.
Thanks for sharing this SecondJudith. It moved me. 'Cause it’s true.
Bullshit. That’s completely disingenuous and you know it. The implication is clearly that all skinny people simply must be anorexic.
Read it again:
First is the implication that skinny people are simply not active or do no work at all.
Second is the implication that 100-pound women are necessarily starved.
Third is that they do it to be “beautiful.”
Fourth is the completely retarded conclusion that a 100 pound person is inferior and incapable because she cannot lift 80 pounds of hay.
News to the self-righteous fatties [not directed at anyone in this thread]: some people are small, some people are thin, most of them don’t starve themselves to be that way. For as much as we rail against the “she’s fat therefore she must eat constantly” stereotype, it seems to remain OK to denigrate people on the other end of the scale. It’s exactly as ignorant an argument, just in the opposite direction.
You’re wasting your time, honestly. You’re discussing this with someone who routinely spouts ideas that if you’re not overweight then you’re boyishly built. In her world, real women have fat. Engage her much more and she’ll sick her husband in to deal with you.
You know what else sucks? I love* basketball but I can’t dunk for shit.
*I hate basketball. The point was that I can’t deny physics because I really really want to.
You speak much truth.
That’s cool with me. I’m sure I can out-run him.
I think I love you. It’s probably just because you obviously starve yourself to fit into my completely unrealistic image of female beauty though.
Not that I couldn’t stand to lose 25-30 pounds, but I feel a tad better with the latest research showing that people in the ‘overweight’ category tend to live longer than those in the ‘normal’ category. (normal being a BMI of 18.5-24.9 and overweight being 25-29.9) In order from longest to shortest life expectancy, overweight, normal weight, obese, extremely obese, underweight.
This isn’t the article I read previously, but it references the same study.
To be fair, that article demonstrates that it’s actually pretty darn difficult to determine how active a person is based solely on their weight and size.
I’m a great supporter of the HAES (Health At Every Size) concept, which focuses on eating well and getting regular exercise, without the focus on the numbers on the scales.
As an obese person, I sometimes get second looks when I’m out and about exercising with my (slim) husband. I sometimes get scornful looks. My favourite part is when we’re walking up our local hill, and I pass the people who have previously given me a judgemental look. 
My BMI says I’m overweight by quite a large margin. I’m 6’4" and 230 pounds. A doctor has never told me I have to lose weight. I can wear tight shirts, and I get double-takes from attractive people when I’m at the pool. BMI is worthless. Doctors might use it as a way to put a person’s perspective in the right place when they’re denying they have a weight issue, but as an actual medical measurement it’s not worth much more than that.
I really don’t know. My husband is obese here. Well into the obese range, actually. He is not a weightlifter, though he is quite fit, a very fast runner with good endurance, and very strong. He is short and stocky, but I personally do not consider him overweight.
I am overweight here. I had my body fat measured at the gym, and it was 22%. I, too, am pretty fit. I walk about 3 miles a day, and eat an extremely healthy diet (we both do), and can easily do 20 “men’s” pushups in a row. But I’m not a bodybuilder or even an athlete. I’ve been within a few pounds of this weight since highschool.
Maybe my perspective of what’s normal is skewed. Or maybe the BMI thing is a crock. Neither of us have ever been advised to lose weight by doctors, but the BMI chart tells us we’re fat and extremely fat. I guess I’m just not sure how helpful that is, particularly in light of the evidence that “overweight” people have the highest life expectancy.
There’s something really cute about the hangdog expression of your dog in that photo! 
I’m really not sure how you’re getting “I think thin people are weak and unhealthy” from “I’m fat and I do [activity], [activity] and [activity]”. Did you read the rest of the quotes? Each person said something to the effect of “I’m [weight/size] and I do [activity]”. They were partial biographies.
It was poorly worded, but I’m pretty sure Nicole is setting up a conditional with “100-pound starve-yourself-to-be-beautiful woman.” She’s saying, IF the only reason you weigh 100 pounds is that you don’t eat well, THEN you are unhealthy. Nothing about 100-pound women who don’t starve themselves, because they’re not relevant to what she’s saying.
That’s what I’m talking about! Right on!
And shut their mouths with an audible snap when I point out that being at less than 5 kg above what they consider my maximum acceptable weight makes me lose my periods.
I do want to avoid getting my mother’s size, but it would be a lot easier if the people who are supposed to help me with that worked with me, with my body, with my tastes, instead of against me, or instead of talking to the Generic Average Patient. Newsflash: telling someone who never eats pastries and doesn’t drink alcohol “do not eat pastries or drink alcohol” is not going to help!
Renee, if you’re overweight I must be a whale even when my periods go MIA 