I am 5’6″

at 110lbs I decided to get my Body Fat measured. And guess what? I was in the Obese category!!!
[my body fat % was high because I had virtually no muscle tone, but I was thin as a rail]

then a few years later after putting on 20lbs of muscle, I was considered obese by BMI and I was in the best shape I had ever been in.

In terms of clothes the change has been quick and dramatic. In 2001 at age 14 I was a size 0 or 2 in regular stores (Gap, etc). Now I am in the new size ’00′ (soon to be -1?) in the straight stores that carry it – not many. ‘Size 0′ Gap jeans gape so much at the waistband I can’t wear them, even with a belt. And I’ve gone from a size 14 in girls clothes as a teenager to a size 12 now as a grown-ass woman. Unfortunately I am too tall and my arms and legs are too long for most kids clothes.

During this time I’ve always had 33-34″ hips – I know because I’ve measured myself often hoping for weight gain, heh. Still haven’t gone up more than 5 lbs, with high calorie, high carb, or low carb – guess I am just your typical hardgainer. I would love to grow some curves some day.

I think we’re bigger in a lot of ways. High-school football players are bigger and more muscular than they were in my day. College players now look like the pros from the 1950s. I’ve seen photos of WWII recruits in boot camp, exercising with no shirts on, and yes, there’s hardly a fat guy among them — but most of them are downright skinny by today’s standards. By contrast, when my son was in boot camp, many of his classmates were beefy, but not fat.

There are people who are heathy that are slightly abgove their BMI requirement but when they visit their local hospital the doctors immediately assume they’re not eating healthy and need to lose weight. That’s really unfair.

I live in South and I know I might south silly to some, but I DO NOT see as many overweight people as I did in the past. Also there has been studies under radar studies because you know the health industry wouldn’tdare let those studies get out. But there has been studies that showed Americans have not gotten any fatter, the numbers amongst overweight children have gradually stayed the same. So there’s no definite “Obesity Epidemic”.

It’s a scare tactic to increase the profit of the diet and weightloss industry by the CDC. They all teamed with the health care industry in order to push this agenda as well as big money hospitals.

It’s not so much weight that’s causing health problems it’s the stuff going on inside that’s causing ruckus. The lack of exercise and the lack of vitamin enriched foods will cause your body to malfunction and weaken. Your immune system needs it’s natural vitamin which fruits and veggies provide naturally. The more healthy your immune system is the more the ability of it fighting illness increases.

Instead of promoting “Small is good, normal is bad or a little bigger is bad” if they want to profit from this “Obesity Epidemic” agenda then they need to start promoting “solely” healthy habits and exercise instead “You must weight exactly this much to be considered healthy”. That’s why Americans rebel and revert back to bad habits because they feel no matter how hard they work out and eat correctly they’re still somehow someway overweight.

It’s ridiculous, whereas unhealthy underweight people are not mentioned in the health discussion at all, there is a bias.

Yup. The real epidemic is high blood sugar, which makes many people (but not all) gain weight.

In other words, I should be more concerned about eating low carb to keep blood sugar and insulin down vs. worrying about my actual weight.

And I do know that skinny doesn’t mean healthy.

So pre-diabetic apples like me have to stick close to low carb, whereas people with normal metabolism can be looser about diet to achieve the same goal-normal blood sugar and low insulin levels.

That’s exactly right. Some people can tolerate a lot of carbs without becoming overweight or insulin resistant. Others aren’t so lucky.

Another bit of evidence that I’ll put forward on the side of “people are heavier” argument is the clothing at WalMart. What is more Average Jane than Walmart? In the Misses section, the smallest pair of jeans is a size 6. To put this in perspective, a size 8 has a 29-30″ waist, so a 6 is for 27-28″ waist. The jeans go up in size to an 18 or 20. There’s also been some size inflation over time. The last time I weighed this much, I was a bigger size than I am now, and the sizes went down to a 2 or 4. What I don’t know is if my waist was the same size at this weight before or not.

The last time I checked, I was around 27% bodyfat, and now I can find clothing on the sales racks at Penney’s. Basically, the larger sizes are all sold out, and the smaller stuff ends up on super clearance.

Based on this completely non controlled nor scientific survey of retail sizing, I conclude that people are bigger than they used to be, at least in this area.

We just returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Illinois. They’re bigger in my old hometown than they used to be as well. Strange thing is, we stopped at a Wendy’s about 1 1/2 hours south on the drive home, and hardly anyone in the place was noticeably overweight.

It is confusing. People with the “normal” BMI tend to be skinny and don’t seem (statistically) as likely to survive cancer. Lots of skinny people also have high blood sugar, by the way.

Bottom line: get your blood sugar normalized, keep your insulin in check, and let your weight fall where it may.

I recently joined a new gym and had to take my mandatory “fitness test” which was comprised of taking my shoes off, standing on a scale and an employee reading off my weight and BMI score. She told me I was “out of shape” and needed to lose “a few pounds”. I giggled thinking she was joking but she was dead serious. I packed up my stuff and cancelled my membership immediately. It’s unfortunate that people who are untrained only have false information to go by. Could you imagine all the bodybuilders in that gym being told they are obese?

Sounds like she’s been properly brainwashed.

I’m with you. We won’t let you graduate until you take a class and learn the bogus advice we’ve been giving out for three decades. It’s nonsense.