Is a female size 16 fat?

I don't even know what size 16 looks like...do they fit through a door? Can someone link to a piccie of a specimen for me to examine?
 
The initial question: Is a female size 16 fat?

If I was a size 16 I'd be very fat.
One of my best friend is a size 18 and knows she's so unhealthy because of her weight so she's doing her best to lose it - so yes, she's fat.
My mother is a size 12-14 and thinks she's fat so she's going to weight watchers, I think she's just overweight.

We're all short (or should that be vertically challenged so as not to offend others of my height!).

If we were tall (or vertically enchanced?!?), and size 16, we would probably not be fat.
 
"For instance, I have a male friend who is very short. Does this mean I cannot use the word 'short' to describe his appearance in case he takes offence to this."

If he is offended by it then he finds the remark offensive. It's up to you whether you decide to continue to use the word or not. If he is not offended, then it is not offensive. If he finds it offensive and you continue to use it, then it is not possible for you to use it with him in a "non offensive" manner". As far as I understand, although it's true I could do with consulting a grammar book, this is not debatable; it's simply a fact of syntax.

By the way, I thought the original poster was asking if we had opinions on whether or not her friend was "narrow-minded", which is why I didn't come in on the conversation until quite a while later. So it wasn't quite as clear as you suggest.

If I was asked to describe someone to the police, I know I wouldn't use the word "fat". They never use it on Crimeline or any of those types of programmes.

Myers and my mother are not quite redherrings, although I admit my mother doesn't actually use "tinkers" but I couldn't resist the temptation of throwing that in . You said "IMO a term is offensive only if its intent can be reasonably interpreted as offensive" which implies that if the intention is not to offend, then it is fine. My "mother" and Myers both claim no offense is intended. Interpretation of a word changes when enough people using offensive words listen to the protestations of those that are offended and decide to be come "reasonable" and use less offensive words!

Rebecca

PS This is great stuff OhPinchy
 
Even clothes manufacturers realise people are getting fatter and accomodate them accordingly, so that a size 16 will probably become the norm but it still is unheaslthy and people are only fooling themselves thinking that size 16 is a helathy weight.


"The standards for women's dress sizes have not remained constant over the years; they have changed as the size and shape of the average woman has changed. (Clothing manufacturers assume most women don't want to wear clothing of a size identified as "Large," for example, so they adjust their sizing so that the average-sized woman takes a "Medium." If the size of the average woman has increased a bit over the years, then the very same size that was a "Large" fifty years ago might be a "Medium" today. This is sort of what has happened to women's dress sizes since the 1940s: a woman who weighs more now than she did twenty years ago might actually be wearing a smaller dress size today."
http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.htm
 


Sorry but you are way off there with your figures. I'm 5'8" and 10 and 1/2 stone with a bmi of 23 but my clothes size would be 12-14 (not sure were you're getting size 8 from).

People can't just generalise and say that clothes size 16 is fat/overweight and 8 - 10 is right there are too many other factors involved. What height is the person, do they exercise etc... People should be looking at their bmi and not dress size.
 
sully said:
but there is an edict in the BMI scale and fat analysis, I sincerely doubt any woman that is a size 16of having a BMI less than 25 which means that when height and weigth are taken into account that the person is overweight(or fat).
Click to expand...

Would you go away out of that sully! The BMI scale or body fat percentage analysis gives no basis whatsoever to your sincere doubts that a woman of size 16 can have a BMI (body mass index) of over 25. The classifications I've seen for BMI are underweight, within range, overweight, obese, morbidly obese and not thin, ok and fat.

Rebecca
 
yes my calculations were completely wrong there, tyhat should have been 8 and a half stone.

But anyway the thing is a girl that is size 16 and above is fat/overweight/horizontally challenged whatever way you want to put it.

as i said before if there is a girl out there a size 16 with a BMI of less than 25, then i will stand corrected....
 
Sorry Sully but if you are 5' 7" and 8 and 1/2 stone then your bmi would be 18.6 which is very close to underweight (18.5 and below) which I believe can be just as unhealthy.

I know if I was to put on a stone in weight my clothes size would move to 14-16 but my bmi would be 24.5 which is still within the normal weight range. So it would be possible for someone to be a size 16 and classified as normal weight based on bmi.
 

its a misnomer to consider BMI of under 19 to be unhealthy. The only reason why BMI under 18.5 is considered unhealthy is that there is a an awful lot of diseases that causes severe weight loss before death which skews the stats severely and thereby people come out with it being just as unhealthy to have a low BMI ( or whatever they want to say to make themselves feel better about themselves).

An yes i know people can have eating disorders and have a bmi under 19 and i aint advocating this but all i am saying is it is healthier and more beneficial(in most cases) to have as low a BMI as possible to prevent a world of health problems.

and i ain't convinced that a person can be a size 16 or more and have a healthy BMI.
 
Sully, can you back up any of that with trustworthy medical references?

[Oh my god, I'm turning into rainyday ]
 
MissRibena said:
Sully, can you back up any of that with trustworthy medical references?

[Oh my god, I'm turning into rainyday ]
Click to expand...

Ok Here you are

http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/av.htm

http://www.halls.md/bmi/older.htm

A few extracts to back up what i have been saying. Please note i am not trying to cause offence but the truth sometimes hurts people, and i think that its this that causing the offence here.

"This article thinks that a BMI of 30.0 is too high, for defining "obese" in older women over 60 years old. It thinks that a BMI of 25.5 is a better obesity threshold. It defines "true obesity" as having a body fat percentage over 35%. That's a common definition, but it is arbitrary nevertheless."


"If your BMI is between 17 to 22, your life span might be longer than average. Men are usually satisfied with a BMI of 23 to 25 and women tend to believe they look their best at values between 20 to 22.
If your BMI is between 23 and 25, most people wouldn't consider you to be overweight. If your BMI is 26 or more, you are considered overweight and are statistically likely to have a lower life expectancy."
 
Rebecca - with regards the following:

"My "mother" and Myers both claim no offense is intended. Interpretation of a word changes when enough people using offensive words listen to the protestations of those that are offended and decide to be come "reasonable" and use less offensive words!".....I phrased my view on it very specifically to counter this argument - 99% of the population felt that Myer's use of the B word was intended to be offensive and that he, in his pure arrogance, thought that he could take an intellectual high ground on it to justify its use. Describing a child with a lone parent as a B****** or a member of the travelling community as a "tinker" is reasonably interpreted by 99% of the population as being offensive. I am asked to describe a 5ft 6" woman who is a size 16 and I use the word 'fat' in the descriptive, not derogratory sense, i do not feel it is reasonable to interpret my intent as offensive.

I don't agree with the 'if offence is taken it is offensive' line as there is a fine line between protecting ones feelings and curtailing the freedom of speech so its not as clear-cut as that. There are some words (e.g. the B word above) which are clearly regarded as unacceptable by the majority in society and then there are words, such as ‘fat’ which have a legitimate place when used correctly, and I don’t feel that the PC brigade should be allowed to declare that the use of such words in any circumstance is unacceptable.
 
But sully, who are halls.md? How do we know that they are right? Are you sure you're not just scaremongering rather than helping people face the painful "truth"? According to the World Health Organisation, there is evidence that obesity (BMI of 30+) has plenty of negative health effects, full BMI statistics are not yet available for the kind of results you claim. [broken link removed]

Rebecca
 
Oh Pinchy, 99%; where does that come from and how do you know it applies in your listed cases and not in mine? These kinds of things change over time. The B word and "tinker" were both once acceptable statements of "fact" when presumably 99% of people were happy with them.

There is no question of curtailing the freedom of speech. Nobody can stop you using words that are offensive to some but they can protest that they find them offensive and thereby exercise their right to freedom of speech.

As an aside, and maybe I'm in a small minority here, is it just not plain bad manners and a sign of great insensitivity to draw attention to someone's physical characteristics unless it's a genuine compliment or for a Crimeline description?

Rebecca
 
People seem to certainly have very fixed ideas about something which is really a fairly arbitrary measurement i.e. dress size. I don't think anyone is disputing that a high BMI is unhealthy. Stating that anyone who is a size 16 is fat (and therefore unhealthy) is actually a pretty random thought. I am fat/overweight/obese, choose your term. I could probably squeeze into a size 16 in Evans (it wouldn't look good, but I'd most likely be able to close a skirt/trousers) but in Pennys need to head for size 24 before I get anything on. These are the two extremes but I feel they do prove the point that you can't really say such and such a size is a size 16. I consider myself to be hovering between size 20 and 22 - but still need to take three or four different sizes into a dressing room in any shop to check each time. Even the difference between the sizes of clothes in the same shop is amazing sometimes.
 
I wear a size 16 (Dunnes), am 5 foot 3 with a BMI of 24.6. It's quite possible to be this size and not apple shaped-my biggest problem is that the waists of skirts/trousers usually need taking in. It is also quite possible to be pear shaped without being flat chested-I definitely am not!

In my younger years I felt I should be thinner and dieted down to a BMI of 21.8. At that stage I could just about have squeezed into a large 12. Unfortunately my torso became so emaciated that my friends and GP were quite worried that I was becoming anorexic. In truth I was probably close to doing so-I still saw myself as 'too big' even though my bones stuck out painfully. It took a long time to accept that I simply have a broad build even though I'm not very tall. Of course I'm not saying that it isn't possible to be overweight and a size 16-however it is a healthy size for me.
 
Give it a decade or so of using the term 'overwieght' to describe someone who is rotund and it will become an offensive word too.
Then what will we do?!
 
I am 6' tall and 14 stone and when last I wore a skirt and top I was a size 14 on the bottom and 16 on top. I thought my bum looked big but some female friends said my legs looked great. Admittedly it was a once off for a Halloween party 3 years ago since I am a man (my wife had mixed feelings about the whole thing, I think she was just jealous)....sorry, I just felt left out.
 
Hmmmmm...after my early involvement, I have managed to miss most of this thread unfortunately.

Sully!!! I am not a complete cynic ...and I happen to think that when my ex said that he liked my 12 top and 14 bottom he meant it! Although it could just have been that I bear more than a passing resemblance to Angelina Jolie and have a good sense of humour. I'm curvy, but toned, and proud of it

viva la revolucion estectica !!!
 
Remember when discussing BMI's that muscle is heavier than fat and therefore you can be deemed to have be obese if your BIM is checked in isolation. Example in the press a while ago now - a man turned down by the British Army as his BM
I indicated he was obese. It was checked on a form - when he appealed and went to the press it became clear that he was a bodybuilder who was not particularly tall!!
 
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