Living in the city of thin people
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I can see where that would be a "thing". I live in the Midwest where I was just barely over normal/average for my area when I weighed 270 lb. Now in size 10 I am smaller than probably half of the women my age (late 30's). I guess if you want to feel like a tiny supermodel you could come here. ha0
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I am 5'5" and my mother in law thinks I am tall, she is 5' even. I guess it's all relative0
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ForecasterJason wrote: »
I totally agree with you on this. When I first heard the term, I did think it was only for people who were not overweight but are in the "overfat" category. But now people are just using it to describe people like you said--skinny but without strong muscle definition. I mean, I find it crazy that essentially the author of this article thinks people can be skinny fat at a low body fat percentage! http://www.muscleforlife.com/skinny-fat-solution/Iwishyouwell wrote: »It is hard to live in the land of skinny people. I live in China, and I'm a westerner. I'm skinny now, but I wasn't before and yet I'm still huge compared with the Chinese women. I've had to get over the fact that I have to buy a large when I'd buy a small/medium in the West.
The big thing that has helped me get over it? Realizing that I'm not them, and I'd never want to look like them. For me, being healthy means having muscles. My job can require some physical labor at time so I'd never be able to do it if I looked like them.
Many of the Chinese women are all skinny fat. Skinny as twigs but no muscles/muscle tone. Mostly due to the fact that that's the preference, and more western Chinese have told me that the men prefer their women not to have visible muscles. In fact there's a term for woman who have muscles and aren't afraid to do work that requires using muscles "nu hanzi" (kind of translates to woman-boy). A lot of women are afraid of becoming a nu hanzi. I've seen women at the gym struggle to do a weight exercise with a 1 kg weight and stop as soon as they break a sweat. This is not typical of all Chinese women though. There are a small percentage of Chinese woman (most of my gym friends including one woman who's nothing but abs and muscles) who do enjoy weights. But they're like 1 in 20 women. And it's a bit unfortunate to say that in a way we all have come together because we don't want to be skinny fat.
I may get stared at at the gym, had to work to convince pump instructor at the new gym in the area I moved to that doing weights heavier then the men was my normal and I wouldn't hurt myself. But ultimately, I'd prefer to look healthy and muscled than skinny fat. Let them stare. Maybe I'll inspire somebody that you're not going to get huge and muscled from doing weights.
Plus having an *kitten* is so much nicer than all the women who look awful from behind because they have no butt to hold up their pants. Needless to say, living where I do has made me never want to be skinny fat.
Don't measure yourself to them. Measure yourself against you.
can you say the words "skinny fat" again? i didn't hear you the first 5 times. that's like the most offensive phrase on here. people need to stop. not to mention, your post is extremely offensive and racist against asains who look just fine. you can be happy with your body without putting down others.
^^^^^^
This
There is a term "normal weight-obese" for people with normal bmi but high %bf. or you could just describe what you mean. Skinny-fat has no meaning and is offensive.
I also highly doubt that these asian women are "skinny-fat" or "normal weight-obese". They are just skinny. People have extended the term "skinny-fat" to include all women who don't have muscles and that's completely offensive. Wasn't enough to body shame overweight women. Have to go after skinny women too. ridiculous.
I use to be fine with skinny fat back when it was mostly used to describe "normal weight-obese".
The reason I would love for the entire term to be abolished is that it's become some bastardized. I'm now seeing a lot of people using the term to describe bodies that are perfectly within a healthy, normal bf% range but are lacking that ripped, lean fitness look.
Just because you're not ripped or shredded doesn't mean you're skinny fat. And the person who said most Asian women fit the criteria of "skinny fat" proves how absurd this term has become.
I made a nasty comment on that guy's website and it got deleted real quick.0 -
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Hey, I got a cyber hug . Who says there are "mean" people here? No, she isn't Asian. Thanks0
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0somuchbetter0 wrote: »I think it's interesting that the South Pacific are overweight
cultural. 5'11" 275 lbs is "normal" for Samoans. Even the small ones are big.
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0somuchbetter0 wrote: »I think it's interesting that the South Pacific are overweight
cultural. 5'11" 275 lbs is "normal" for Samoans. Even the small ones are big.
From what I've read, it's genetic. Travel by canoe across the ocean is a risky activity and having a higher metabolism caused by obesity can keep you alive where a thin person would possibly die of hypothermia.0 -
gabrielleelliott90 wrote: »Asian women are practically forced to be teeny tiny by their families, and the media. Ever seen K-pop?
Huh?!?
Well, I don't know what or who K-pop is. But I live in Asia. And first, there's really no uniform "Asian women." There are Indian women and Vietnamese women, Japanese women and Syrian women and Kazakh women and Saudi women ... all of those places are "Asia."
Second, uh, no. Where I live, "you've gotten fat" is a compliment. It's associated with higher socioeconomic status and less need to do physical work. And anyway, like everywhere else in the world, younger women tend to be slim on the whole; older women put on weight. Diabetes, in fact, is a major and growing problems, thanks to a combination of factors, including processed Western-style foods.
It's true that the average weight across Asia tends to be quite low by global standards, but statistical averages can be very misleading. A lot of people are very short; at 5 foot 2, I tower over a lot of women and even a fair number of men. The averages also lump in people who are quite impoverished and/or people who do a lot of farm work with the growing middle class, urban populations, rural folks who now use motorcycles instead of walking and farm with tractors rather than oxen, etc. So if you just read averages or get off a plane and look around without much context, you won't get the real picture.
I live in a city that is "thin" according to statistics, but when I look around, I see a LOT of people ... almost all of them "Asian." A lot of 18-year-olds are wonderfully slim. A lot of married women, people over 30 or so, etc. are overweight. I don't see Western-style obesity, that's true; but I also don't exactly see a world of only thin people. It varies.0 -
LumberJacck wrote: »0somuchbetter0 wrote: »I think it's interesting that the South Pacific are overweight
cultural. 5'11" 275 lbs is "normal" for Samoans. Even the small ones are big.
From what I've read, it's genetic. Travel by canoe across the ocean is a risky activity and having a higher metabolism caused by obesity can keep you alive where a thin person would possibly die of hypothermia.
Genetics is only a small part of the equation when it comes to the Samoans. They historically were nowhere near as big as they are now, even though they have glorified "heft" culturally in the past.
America Samoa has a horrendous food culture. Most of the food is imported, made up largely of the kind of convenience food that westerners often overconsume. Also, because of the price of imported food is a bit higher, fast food there is very prevalent and much cheaper. They have one of the worst food environments in the world.0 -
ViolaLeeBlueberry wrote: »gabrielleelliott90 wrote: »Asian women are practically forced to be teeny tiny by their families, and the media. Ever seen K-pop?
Huh?!?
Well, I don't know what or who K-pop is.
LMAO. Best part of this thread....0 -
IMO you are talking about two different things - build and fat (weight). It also shows that weight is not necessarily a good indicator whether you are a healthy size for your build. PS. There are some serious generalisations going on ;-) I would have said Londoners were much slimmer than most Americans!0
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daybehavior wrote: »ViolaLeeBlueberry wrote: »gabrielleelliott90 wrote: »Asian women are practically forced to be teeny tiny by their families, and the media. Ever seen K-pop?
Huh?!?
Well, I don't know what or who K-pop is.
LMAO. Best part of this thread....
Glad to oblige!
OK, looked it up now. (See? I didn't cheat. I may be ignorant, but I'm honest ignorant!) OK, I guess it's big here too ... don't think it's called that, though. Just called "Korean."
But for real ... EVERY type of pop music has thin people. Saying that Korean pop somehow represents Korea would be like saying TV shows set in Orange County or Beverly Hills or wherever are precisely accurate representations of people in the US. And Bollywood? Yeah, that's practically a documentary about The Lifestyle Of India. LOL.0 -
As someone who lives and works in downtown Toronto the OP is definitely giving a odd description of our City. We have a very diverse population with more visible minorities and immigrants then any other City in the world according to the UN. Yes, of course, this means we have many petite Asian women in our City but we also have every shape, size and colour of the rainbow. This multiculturalism means that any young women would find an appropriate role model that reflects their ethnic background, body shape, and skin colour. It is sad that someone would live in such a rich environment and focus on the type that is the least like them to make themselves feel lacking. The even sadder part is the Asian women who lack confidence probably look at her and think "if only I was as tall as her everything would be better".0
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