Living in the city of thin people

intrepidelephant wrote: »

I live in Toronto, which is a city of very thin women. There are a lot of Chinese girls who are absolutely teeny-tiny. The rest of us aren't far behind. Seriously, walking down super-fashionable Queen West, nobody is over a size 8. I'm 5'6 131 lbs, 25 inch waist, and always feel big boned, even though I know I probably look the same as everyone else. I went to London, UK and the girls were much heavier in general than Toronto girls. Does this happen to anyone else?

I am 5'10" so will never look as tiny as a petite woman who is 5' tall.

But on a university campus, where I work, I fit in fine as a thin, tall woman. When I go visit home in Massachusetts, I look emaciated compared to people there. I am in the Netherlands at the moment and am thin for my age, but not outstandingly so and just slightly above average height.

When I travel to Chile, I am 8" too tall and stand out like a sore thumb.

If I go to NYC I am average.

Yes, context is important. I think one of the things that helped me stay thinner even before I lost weight is that I am always surrounded by 18-21 year olds at work.

Cliff Notes:
Chinese people live in Canadia. Not China apparently....and big bones.

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.

Iwishyouwell wrote: »

Do they all live in a Fat Ghetto, sequestered away from all the super thin people? I guess London just likes to let their fats roam free?

This really made me laugh! Seriously OP, google obesity rates in Europe, US, Canada- wherever. There will be some pockets of population where the rate is higher but they probably correlate with overall population size- I think wherever you go, you are going to see people of all shapes and sizes, and if you are noticing certain body types more than others, you might just be seeing them more often because you're actively looking. We see what we want to see.

One thing to keep in mind is that you are not looking at a scientific study when you walk down the street. You probably fixate on certain people and don't even register certain other people. You are probably tending to seek out the thin people and not looking at everyone. So what you probably mean is that the people in your competition pool are really thin.

I opened this with the assumption that it was about Los Angeles (backing out of thread).

Sheesh people...again, it was just an observation. Not a scientific study, not a personal criticism, just a general observation. It's happened to me lots of times. After living in France for several years, I came back to the U.S. and the first thing I noticed was how many fat people there were. Now I live in a big city in the U.S. Granted there are lots of fat people here, but I've noticed that when I go to rural areas, practically everyone is fat, especially children. General observation, no judgement...certainly not based on scientific studies...

FatFreeFrolicking wrote: »

5'6" and 131 lbs IS thin.

Agreed. You mention wearing size 8. Well I'm 5' 6" and 135 lbs and wear a 4 or 6. So you should be "thinner" than those women in 8's....