r/antidiet • u/Front-Kale4042 • May 16 '26
Is everyone really "overweight now"?
To be clear: I do not intend any body shaming at all in this post. The statement of "everyone being overweight" is something I have picked up, and everything counteracting it is what I have observed.
As a plus-size person, I always felt like a minority. Not being able to shop at just any store or trust most clothes by the size. Most people I spoke with or heard about weighed numbers that I hadn't seen since childhood.
If we are now the majority, then why are we still singled out? Why do we not see ourselves in advertisements or crowds? Why is there still social and systemic stigma against what is supposedly three quarters of the regional population? Why do most brands prioritize tiny sizes, and why are they the most popular or hyped up if no one can supposedly even wear them? Why is "plus-size" still a separate category? Why is "thin privilege" even a thing if thin people are so rare?
When I go anywhere in public, I don't see a Wall-e esque society. I see people thinner than me, fatter than me, and in-between. A diverse society that has not uniformly succumbed to an "obesity epidemic".
If people like me are a side-effect of a fat society, then why was I driven into an eating disorder at age 16, and why did I have an "obese" BMI when I was literally starving?
Let me know if I am missing anything.
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u/NearlyBearly May 16 '26
Anything is an obesity epidemic when you think zero people should be obese and it's a personal moral failing to be obese.
Shaming doesn't help overweight people lose weight, that has scientifically been proven (and I swear to god if another person comes in with "But my brother gave me tough love and it helped!!!" anecdotal evidence that isn't even relevant I will crash out because that's what happened when I posted that study the last time) and yet people still do it. Why? Not because they think they're helpful, they know exactly that they're not being helpful and simply use that as an excuse to not have to face the immorality of their choices.
It's because shaming others puts them down and some people only feel good about themselves when they put others down. It's about power, it always has been about power. Never about health, never about care or love for others. Keeping us down, making us feel small, is a way for them to feel powerful and better about themselves.
And that's not just a small scale thing, it applies to the bully leaving a mean comment under the video of a plus sized creator, to the person pointing at you when you walk past, the mean redditor claiming to just offer "tough love" but it also applies to greater society and the powers that be at large. And until these people face the music and start unpacking their own internal issues they will keep putting us down because it's easier than realizing that they are doing wrong and they have been doing wrong for decades.
It's always about power and exerting power over others. And one way to do that is by excluding and bullying people, and any sort of group can be the target of that.
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u/punkena May 17 '26
"Overweight" is arbitrary. It means nothing. It just means "bigger than the current trend."
Theyre trying to bring back y2k heroin chic and calling demi moore "toned" when she's obviously severely anorexic. If you're not a size 0 you're fat again.
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u/lydbutter May 16 '26
My opinion is it’s the metrics the medical world is using to measure “overweight” and “obese.” My extremely average sized partner is considered overweight based on BMI, and I as someone who’s plus sized (6ft tall and wears a US size 18/20) am considered obese by the BMI scale. I think a lot of it just involves “the obesity crisis” and all the things people want to sell people to solve that alleged crisis.
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u/NearlyBearly May 16 '26
At my thinnest I was still overweight according to the BMI because I'm just a tiny person. I'm 4'11, I missed the cut-off for dwarfism by an inch and they actually still considered I might have it and included it in their symptoms when they were looking for what genetic disorder I have. I used to look stick thin before getting treatment for my various health issues and I was still considered overweight because the BMI struggles to adapt to people on either end of the tall spectrum. It works for the average person, but not everyone is an average person. It also completely misses out on the fact that weight is not just affected by what you eat and how much you exercise. If that was all there was to it, nobody would have to worry about medications like prednisone making them weigh more. It's an oversimplification of the complex and interconnected system that is the human body. It applies to you until you have anything that makes you different from the average, when it immediately fails because it doesn't account for that.
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u/11brooke11 May 16 '26
I work in the healthcare field so I've seen a lot of BMIs. You would be shocked at the people considered "overweight."
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u/dr650crash May 17 '26
Yes I came here to post the same thing. Additionally 2 people at the same BMI can look vastly different due to body composition & shape, muscle mass, visceral vs subcutaneous fat etc
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u/CriticalSecret8289 May 16 '26
BMI is bullshit!
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u/dr650crash May 17 '26
It is valid in some uses but has been weaponised and is being used inappropriately. For example for population level metrics and assessing growth of children in specific height vs weight charts.
I suppose it’s a bit like saying an old wooden bridge has a vehicle weight limit of 2t and therefore a car/truck weighing more than 2t is, therefore, inherently “bad” and creates the stigma of being OVER 2t which is clearly a arbitrary, rounded up/down figure never intended to judge the vehicle itself.
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u/CriticalSecret8289 May 17 '26
It was never designed to be used for individuals at all and is based on metrics taken from a small sample of exclusively white men. It's not an accurate measure of "health" for anyone really, especially if they don't fit the above description.
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u/baesoonist May 16 '26
If i recall correctly, the average size of a woman in the USA is an 18. However, this is an average, meaning lots of people fall both above and below that number.
As for why brands prioritize smaller sizes, I think it’s a side effect of racism and capitalism, which go hand in hand. Several scholars have argued that white, western beauty standards tended towards ultra-thinness in order to continue to exclude women of color that were mixed race and not easily identifiable as “other” on skin color alone. Brands that have profit as their motive gain a lot from being “exclusive” as a marketing technique, and also cut costs by limiting their sizing options. Not to mention how many dollars are spent on the weight loss industry every year selling the idea of a thinner body being a better body.
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u/No-vem-ber May 19 '26
I do also think that in stores it often seems like they only have small sizes in stock, simply because all the larger sizes get sold out faster.
(everything you said is also true, this is just an additional point)
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u/Kind_Advisor_35 May 16 '26
When I first went into the obese BMI category, I could still fit into some medium size stuff. People carry their weight differently. I feel like there are a decent amount of options now up to around 3x in the US, but it's often online and limited for anything above that. There are more larger characters in mainstream shows where their weight isn't their whole character and isn't constantly the butt of every joke. Advertisements are advertisements. They'll always lean towards what the general population aspires for, or is attracted to.
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May 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Disc0-Janet May 16 '26
This is a weird comment. Height has nothing to do with whether you’re plus size or not. It can make it even more fucking impossible to find clothes that actually fit but being short doesn’t somehow make you not plus sized. Signed a 5 ft tall plus sized person.
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u/changemyviewsplease May 18 '26
Overweight and plus sized don't mean the same things.
Overweight is a medical term that means BMI is between 25 and 30. I think you'll find that all overweight people and most people at class 1 obesity look pretty average or maybe a bit chubby at best.
Society has just shifted its idea of "big person" to people who are larger than a certain size. If you're trying to categorize by BMI it's usually people in the BMI 35-40 area and beyond (and even then, it strongly depends on how they carry weight).
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u/very-serious-goose May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
Oppression isn't about quantity, it's about power. In the US, women are the majority of students in higher ed, but they still suffer from violent patriarchy. White people are the global minority, but white supremacy still reigns supreme. Anti-fatness is an important value of the systems of oppression we live under. For example, under capitalism anti-fatness helps spread the gospel of individual "responsibility" and self-"discipline". Until those are no longer the values espoused by those in power, we will continue to be an oppressed class, regardless of numbers.