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How fat is fat?
Topic Started: Jul 16 2005, 03:17 PM (345 Views)
Fizzygirl
Fulla-Carp
What is your idea of a person being fat? 10 pounds overweight? 20 pounds over weight? 40 pounds overweight? 50? 60? ????? Just curious..........
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. ~ Garrison Keillor


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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
The problem with defining overweight is first defining normal weight. Try a BODY MASS INDEX CALCULATOR. I am 5"11" and 182 pounds, which puts me in the 37th percentile (which means that 63% of men are heavier than me) -- yet it lists me as "OVERWEIGHT"!

The "normal" for my height is from 148 pounds (5th percentile) to 179 pounds (33rd percentile). But the difference is 20.5 kg/m2 to 25 kg/m2 whereas I am 25.4 kg/m2.

I don't see how being in the lowest 5th percentile can make anyone "normal", but there you go.

I think it is more important to eat and drink well and exercise regularly, monitor your heart and cholesterol and such, and be comfortable in your own skin, than try to conform to an external standard that is stastically normed. But maybe that is because I am just trying to justify being a fatty. :)
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
Well, muscle weighs a lot. So, if someone is real muscular, and 30 pounds over the "norm", is he fat?


I think it really depends on the person. Sometimes the best indicator is just looking at them. Do they look fat?
Sam
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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
Yikes!!! I used that calculuator, Steve. I'm in the 17th Percentile!

(5'10'', 135 lbs)


"Ideal" weight for me: 148
Medical suggested weight: 132-174
Sam
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
Interesting, I'm one pound under my ideal weight.

BMI - 22.7
Weight - 182
Height 6' 3"

'Ideal' weight - 183 (says this site)


In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Fizzygirl
Fulla-Carp
Society puts so much pressure on women especially to look thin. I have never been a thin person. I was muscular as a teen because I was in gymnastics and I was a diver and swimmer, but I have always had curves. I'm currently losing weight, but I don't think I will ever be "lean." It just doesn't seem to be in my body chemistry. *sigh*
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. ~ Garrison Keillor


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xenon
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Senior Carp
BMI is a very limited way of measuring how "fat" a person is. I think the best way to assess that is to get a body fat percentage analysis. An athlete cousin of mine is six feet tall and a bit over two hundred pounds. The BMI characterizes him as "overweight" but this guy has nary grabbable(?) piece of flab on his body with a body fat percentage around 7%.
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
I don't really care for the word "Normal", or all the value judgement that comes with it.
Normal people eat at McDonalds and watch 4 hours of TV every day.

I believe you should excercise, eat well and your body will be the perfect size, whatever that is.
Don't worry about it.
Play your piano instead.
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dolmansaxlil
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HOLY CARP!!!
When I was in the midst of my weight-loss battles, I ran across a site that had many different "ideal weight" calculators. In one of them, they surveyed people at all different heights and weights. They asked them what their idea of a perfect weight was, then they used the answers to make the calculator. I'm 5'7, 129lbs. If I put my weight into that calculator, it tells me that, according to other women of my weight and height, the ideal weight is 125lbs. If I change the entered weight to 125lbs, it goes to 123lbs. If I change the weight I entered to 123lbs, it goes to 122lbs.

It gave me a good indication about how screwed up women are about their self-image - you can never be thin enough :angry:

I used to be very overweight - I lost it all a couple years ago, had a minor setback where I gained 10lbs, then lost that and a bit more to put me at the weight I am today - well within the "normal" range. Yet I still am very critical about my body, and still look in the mirror and think I could stand to lose another 5-10lbs. I think I'll always feel that way, even though academically I KNOW that any thinner for me would be unhealthy.
"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

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