Overweight... The new normal !

Our pediatrician mentioned this to us a few years back when we were discussing our older kid's weight. She was on the very low end of the weight scale and we were concerned. His response was basically, look, your kid is fine, its the percentages that are really out of whack; and the real problem is convincing parents that their kids (and they themselves) are overweight. People are so accustomed to seeing so many overweight children that they have forgotten what kids looked like 20, 30 and 40 years ago. The worst part about it is the extreme anger from people when their doctors tell them they, or their kids, are overweight or obese.

Its like any other problem people have, addiction or otherwise - admitting you have a problem is the first and often hardest step.

I think that's a really interesting story. I have noticed a lot of people get EXTREMELY upset if a doctor tells them they are overweight/obese. There is a disconnect between being called fat as an insult and the medical definition of 'overweight.' I think lots of people can't tell the difference between them. I don't appreciate being called fat either, but it's never bothered me when a doctor has mentioned the need for me to lose. I think a lot of people seriously internalized all the self-esteem boosting "we're all winners", "I'm ok, you're ok, we're all PERFECT JUST THE WAY WE ARE" messages that have been put out there for years and years.

edited to add: I don't mean that overweight/obese people are defective as people, by the way. I know you can be fat and still be an awesome person (my dad struggled all his life). I just mean that the self-esteem boosting messages make it easy sometimes to ignore the very real health risks of continuing the habits that make you fat.

Very well said!! I agree with this :flowerforyou:

There seems to have been a fairly dramatic change in body shapes over the past few decades. I'm not really sure when it happened and it's not only fat people who have the different shape. I don't think that being fat is good and I know that as a society we need to get healthier, but I think there's more going on than just weight change.

I've noticed this as well. I'm right in the middle of my BMI but some people have commented that I looked too thin. Interestingly enough, all those people were overweight. It seems that people forget what a normal size looks like because so many people are larger than what they should be.

Have you noticed how furniture has grown as well? Couches and chairs are much larger than they were years ago. If you look at antique furniture, you can really see the difference! I find it amusing that as a population we have more "padding" than ever and yet mattresses have now have pillow tops to make us comfortable!:laugh:

I have to agree. As a senior in HS in 1980, I was 5'6" and around 120 pounds, which was heavier than many of the girls my age. I wore a size 5/7 jean then, which is now the equivalent of a size 0/2. Women who weighed over 200 pounds were unheard of back then, and they certainly couldn't buy clothes in the regular stores. I would never have imagined myself ever getting that 'huge'. But here I am 30 years later, thrilled to be down to 200 after 3 months on here.
Out in the real world where I live, (Texas) I am actually smaller than the average middle aged woman. The Womens/Plus size sections are the largest department in many stores now. All the 'accommodating' that society has done over the past 20+ years has just made it so much easier to let ourselves get larger and larger.

I remember a McDonalds commercial back in the 70s where you could buy a hamburger, fries and drink for under $1. It showed a grown man ordering the meal and getting change back from his dollar. That meal is now the small Happy meal, meant for 2-3 yr olds.
Our idea of a 'normal' daily calorie amount has been grossly distorted.

A man I used to work with that weighed around 400 pounds at 28 yrs old, broke a stadium seat at a pro basketball game and sued the team for 'emotional distress', and was awarded over $80k. There is something seriously messed up with that.

I am hoping that the obesity epidemic and rise of Type 2 Diabetes hitting younger and younger, will be a wake up call for more people to make a change.

I don't want the media and activists today telling me to 'love myself' the size that I am! I can love myself without loving the unhealthy size of my body.

I too have noticed the sizes are upped in the past decades. I used to shop for a size 14 which would be it. No larger size available. Suddenly about 15 yrs ago, size 16 and 18 began to show up. I would shop for a special occasion dress and find those sizes. Which made my shopping easier for sure. However, this did allow me to size up myself. Get fat in other words. Way too fat. I've lost 44 lbs so far and am only halfway to goal. I have one person call me 'tall and slim' which I have not been called for maybe fifteen years or more. I was flattered. Makes one consider that I am moving downwards on the scale and upwards in self-respect and motivation.

Yep, also a UK size 14 from 20 years ago is now a UK size 12, vanity sizing. Shoe sizes are just as bad.

I still have a pair of Calvin Klein jeans from 1982 that are a size 10. The waist measures 27". I wore them when I weighed 130 pounds. They are the same size as a pair of my daughter's size 4 American Eagle jeans.

You've hit the nail right on the head. Thank you for your post. This is a major reason that I've let myself get very fat. I still can feel fairly comfortable in other's company, as it seems much more acceptable to be fat now. I can still buy 'cute' clothes. Even 10 years ago, it wasn't this way. I want to lose weight. I want to get healthy and feel energetic, but sometimes I let society's acceptance make me lazy. Glad to hear this wierd phenomen voiced out loud.

Wow, more fat-bashing (particularly of women) on MFP. I really wish I could hide the forums on my sidebar and just use the calorie/exercise counter on this thing without witnessing this trainwreck.

This is exactly what I was thinking. It's so sad.

Americans are too fat, no doubt. According to the WHO, I am listed as obese after losing 67 pounds. I think that is incorrect, but I have checked the charts and when I get to "normal weight", it shows that to be at the 32nd percentile. This means that 2/3 of all Americans are overweight and fully a third are obese.

Overall, I might quibble where the dividing lines are, but most adults can and should lose some weight. I don't see much of people ripping people for being underweight, but I do think we see a heavier weight as being normal.

Yeah! The best way to make yourselves feel good is to judge others! TOTALLY SWEET.

Maybe the solution isn't a collective decision about what a "normal" body is and just shutting the hell up about other people's bodies altogether. How others look isn't any of your business and how you look isn't any of theirs.

Totally agree! It's too acceptable to be over weight these days, when people find out I'm trying to lose weight I've been told 'but why, there's nothing to lose' when actually my BMI is 25.7 so I am overweight just not as over weight as the average joe, not good! Grateful to my dad who tells me I could do with losing a few pounds! We all need that person in our lives! I think it's even worse to see young children over weight as they only eat what they're given and exercise when they're given the chance :-$ it's not a good sign for future generations

I completely agree!!!

I remember a cartoon movie a few years ago called "WALL-E." The future people were so fat they had to ride around on vehicles to get around. That was 2008. I took that as a serious sign as to what we're becoming. Not just a laugh fest at the movies.

Had a similar thought this week. I was at my daughter's middle school concert and noticed the same thing (the majority of all the women 35ish-55ish being obese, not just overweight.) It just stood out to me, how few "healthy weight" people I saw. I'm not in that group yet (healthy weight), but working towards it. Just found it odd.

ETA: I don't think the OP was bashing OR judging. Just seemed observational. She isn't the first person to realize that americans ARE too fat. Obviously not saying everyone is, but a large proportion are. That's not judgement, it's fact if you look around.

Men, women, it doesn't matter, and this thread hardly seems like bashing as much as it does observation about societal trends. And let's be honest, men are just as prone to becoming obese as women.

Most of the people commenting on this thread happen to be women, so of course they make comments from a woman's perspective with respect to the size of women. It isn't bashing to view it from the perspective of a woman and notice that women are bigger than in past generations. As for complaining that "average" on a dating site means someone is 20-30 pounds overweight, I don't have to go on any particular site to make an educated guess that men do exactly the same thing. I would be willing to guess that men are even more likely to claim they're athletic when they aren't anywhere close to athletic. It isn't bashing to note this is a trend.

Isn't the whole reason most of us are on this site to better ourselves, lose weight, tone up, get healthier and go against what has become a societal move toward obesity? I'm not obese anymore, but it was hard work....serious hard work....and I've got a long way to go to get to the level of fitness I want. But when I was overweight, I was convinced I wasn't. It wasn't until a doctor told me I was that it really hit home. And even then I didn't do anything about it. Doing something took a couple more years.

How others look isn't any of your business and how you look isn't any of theirs.

Q4T.

The bashing comes from the idea that people who are fat should somehow be excluded from this "Love yourself the way you are" idea because they're fat.

No. Fat people need to love themselves the way they are, or else they won't manage to make any sustainable change. What change they will make will be funneled through forms of self-hate and deprivation and will only makes things worse.

Everyone needs to love themselves. Fat. Skinny. Old. Young. Absolutely everyone. Loving yourself at your body type doesn't mean you don't want to improve - it means you do not hate yourself. And that is GOOD. No one should hate themselves.

Anyone who claims that fat people shouldn't love themselves for who they are (even their bodies) is just promoting unhealthy attitudes about weight, self-love, and being (unintentional as it may be) cruel.