Calista Flockhart is actually 5'7" and about 95 pounds . . . which does not fall into the healthy range in any way, shape or form. As for BMI, it is fairly accurate for the average human being. However, when it comes to athletes or weight lifters or whatnot -- not so accurate.

Body fat is a better way of testing how "fit" you are, but as mentioned before, the most popular ways of testing it are inaccurate.

For whomever asked, here is an article that highlights the different methods of body fat testing.

http://www.modbee.com/life/healthyli...-2584832c.html

I have no idea how accurate the article is, but it gives you some idea as to what kind of methods are used.

And nope, James is right . . . it's around 10%. Some women can go a little lower, some a little higher, but in general it's around ten. I don't think it's recommended to be under 15%, but it's not going to cause you significant problems until you get down to around 10%.

Having been both fat and skinny, and having gotten crap about both, I know how both sides feel. I'm 5'7". Normally, I don't go off numbers on a scale to judge whether anyone is skinny or fat since there are so many factors - muscle, frame, how you carry the weight, etc. Anyhow, at my heaviest (about a year and a half ago), I was 245 and a size 20-ish. Right now, I'm around 140 and a size 9/10 (8 depending on the cut of any bottoms...I don't have much of a butt). This is the smallest I've been since 6th grade or so (and I'm 22 now).

When I was heavy, I was miserable. Guys and girls both teased me left and right. And I fully believe that women are harder than each other than guys are on us overall, but it's about equal when fat. Both sexes look at you like they're disgusted, both make rude comments, and both are equally bad about saying this stuff to your face. However, I think many girls (myself included) take criticism a lot harder when it comes from guys. When you're heavy and guys make fun of you or call you ugly or jokingly ask you out to make fun of you in front of their peers, it SERIOUSLY messes with your self-image. Not to throw my own pity party, but my best friend for a few years in high school was a guy, and he would hug and flirt with all his other female friends EXCEPT for me. He was embarrassed since I was fat. I ended up telling him off, but that's beside the point. Most if not all people want to date and have romantic relationships and eventually fall in love and find the right person, but when you're overweight and guys have always pointed out how unattractive you are, you start to think you'll never be good enough and never find someone, and that's very depressing. I always assumed I'd never meet anyone because no guy would ever be able to look past my weight, and planning to live the rest of your life alone is never fun. And it harmed some of my friendships since I would've killed to be any of my female friends who was at a normal weight and they had the chance to live the life I could never have.

So, anyhow, I'm now 100 lbs or so lighter, and I'm still pissed off at people. Hopefully this doesn't come across as, "Poor me, I'm skinny now and hate it, *sniff sniff*," because that's not my intent. All these people who knew what I used to weigh treat me so differently, including family members who were supposed to love me no matter what. They all act like I'm a better person now that I'm skinnier, and that's crap. Same with guys I knew from school. Suddenly I'm worthy of their time. And now, I have people telling me I'm too skinny and need to gain weight, which also pisses me off. Guys actually pay attention to me now, and it's weird. People at work ask me all the time why I eat so healthy and complain that it makes them feel bad, but they don't know what it took to get this thin. My friends throw fits if I complain about how I look because I make them feel fat. I know that if I mention to a lot of people that I think I still need to lose weight, they throw FITS (and for the record, it's because I want a flat stomach....the weird thing about losing a lot of weight is when you're close to being done, it's not distributed evenly anymore, so I, for example, have the vast majority of the remaining flab right on my stomach). And all the damage to my self-esteem that was done when I was fat is still there, so now I have the people ragging on me because of how I am now and the leftovers from the ragging on me because I was fat. It got to the point where I completely lost it, and now I'm on anti-depressants to hopefully get rid of some of that crap and start working through all of it.

I've definitely noticed now that girls are a lot harder on each other when you're skinner than guys are. I have yet to talk to a guy who has a problem with my size, and for some reason, they like touching my gut flab. Who knew? However, I know if I was to wear a bikini, all these women would DEFINITELY have something to say about it because I don't have the stomach for it. While it's not the case when you're really heavy, guys tend to be more forgiving as a whole than other women are.

The point is: people can be crappy whether you're fat or skinny or somewhere in between. The only thing you can control is how you treat yourself and others. Take your frustration and use it to try to understand where others are coming from and treat them with kindness and respect, whatever size, race, religion, gender, etc. they are. And you need to love yourself, no matter your size, before you can really love anyone else. When you make peace with your body and give yourself a break, the confidence you gain will come through and other people will be attracted to that.

And if other people have a problem with you, you don't need anyone who brings you down. So tell them to kiss your ass. :)

As for the comments about BMI... I think it is fairly accurate for average body types.

If you really did have so much muscle that BMI wasn't accurate for you, you'd definitely know it because you'd have to be in the gym most days of the week doing some serious weightlifting. So unless you are very athletic (to the point that training and lifting are a big part of your daily life) it is not very likely that BMI just doesn't apply to you.

If your BMI puts you above the healthy range, and you aren't seriously athletic, I think you're kidding yourself to say it's because you're muscular. It's actually really tough to put on pounds of muscle, especially for women. It's not something you do by taking a walk every now and then or by being lightly active in your day to day life.

BMI is a health-risk thing. It's not about looking hot.

Bone size can be a minor issue, but it's not as if some people's skeletons are huge and thick and other people's are light and lanky. Bone structure (small-medium-large) plays a minor role in weight but it can't explain being, say, 30 lbs outside of your healthy range for your height.

First of all, I want to point out that I am not "one of the skinny girls" who kept coming here before and posting obnoxious stuff.

On one hand, I can see where you're coming from -- but on the other hand, I don't think it's a good thing to baby people, even if it is an issue they're sensitive about. And I say this as a person who has struggled with eating disorders for years and therefore is very sensitive about weight issues. There's a difference between being supportive and being unrealistic. And when you're unrealistic, that more unsupportive than supportive because you're building up their hopes too high and setting unrealistic expectations which, when they don't succeed or those ideas are somehow broken, hurt all the more.

First of all, I think some people are failing to make the distinction between "overweight" and "obese." I know very attractive, very athletic, very fit women who are naturally "overweight." I think it's less likely (though not impossible, of course) that you will find obese women who fall into the same category.

Furthermore, I did not say that nobody would ever find a 260 pound woman attractive. I didn't say that she couldn't be pretty, that no one would ever think she's sexy, that no one would ever love her, that she was unworthy, that she was lazy, or that she was a bad person. I simply said that many people would probably find her more attractive if she weighed less. The same goes for a very skinny girl -- somebody who weighs 85 pounds, unless they're very short with small bones, is probably going to look more attractive if she puts on some weight. That's why Calista Flockhart is not a sex symbol, and neither is Starr Jones . . . but Jennifer Lopez is. Let's face it: we all have a weight that we would look ideal at (whether higher or lower than where we're at), and most of us are not at it. But it shouldn't be something that consumes our whole lives, or we will all be miserable. I spent years struggling because I thought I would be gorgeous at 96 pounds. What I couldn't see at the time was that I was already bony by the time I hit 115.

I can see how my post might not have belonged in this thread, and I'm glad you pointed that out -- there are better places for it. Still, I don't think it's "supportive" to be telling someone lies just because you think they can't handle the truth. Because in cases like that, when the truth comes out (and it always will), they will just trust you even less because of it and feel worse about themselves because of it because they couldn't accept themselves the way they are.

Thanks for the link. According to that site: which leads me to believe that under 17% is unhealthy and can cause problems for a woman. That was what my doctor told me when I was very underweight. I will take the word of my doctor over James on this subject. :)

I haven't weighed in on this subject (haha) so far because I haven't really known what to say. I'm not skinny and I'm not overweight, although I used to be a little chubby. I'm definitely on the "curvy" side of things, though, but I have decent muscles and I work out all the time. I've really never experienced comments from anybody about my weight.

Anyway, it really makes me sad to read about all the problems women have as a result of weight, no matter what their weight is. It seems like our society has a terrible effect on women -- it's like we're insecure no matter what we look like. We can never live up to what we think we're supposed to look like and be, so we end up feeling miserable, and it seems that part of our misery is expressed by ripping on others.

This has to stop.

I think that those of us reading this thread are good people who are willing to make an effort to improve things. I think that we all need to take it upon ourselves to do what we can to make things better. We should all vow to never, ever criticize another woman about her weight, or do anything that might make her feel bad about herself. We should speak up if we are with anybody who does -- if you hear someone make fun of a woman by calling her "fat" or "anorexic" or ANYTHING derogatory, SAY SOMETHING. Let her know that it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to judge women on their weight and make fun of them. This is the worst form of expressing one's own insecurity. It's important to remember that if you are secure and happy with yourself, you don't need to make fun of anybody else. Ever.

Yes, I could lose a few pounds, but dammit, I am curvy and sexy and I feel good about myself and I look damn hot most of the time. Anybody who wants to try to make me feel bad about that can KISS MY ASS. I hope that someday ALL women can feel good about themselves.

I am gonna have to cosign on this and add:

Why do people get offended when xomichelle says being fat is ugly? Does xomichelle really matter in the grand scheme of things? Are you really worried that she thinks something is ugly?

I use that example to say this...you know, you can't please everyone. I am aware that not everyone is going to think I am super hot (although I happen to think so, lol). So why worry about things you can't control (i.e. people's perceptions of you)? I mean if YOU think you are ugly/fat/etc. then YOU should work on it. But don't do it because someone ELSE thinks so. Who cares? I am sure if we really wanted to we could find ugly things about everyone (except me, lol). But really, there are more important things to worry about.

A round of applause. :) Excellent post, valkyrie!

I think the article means that 18-25% is ideal . . . I think "healthy" is not necessarily the right term. Although I've heard reports that anything less than 15% can cause health problems.

Women don't usually cease menstruation until they get around 10%, though. Anything near that can cause problems, because we need a decent amount of body fat to live healthily -- but most women aren't going to significantly harm their bodies until they hit about that "about 10 percent" figure and stop menstruating.

I'm trying to find an article that backs this up, but so far, none of the articles on the subject mention a specific body fat percentage that is dangerous. I just remember that, while running cross-country in high school, our coach gave us tons of information and articles to read on this subject because runners are really susceptible to it, and ten percent is the figure that stands out for me. :)

I think the point was that this thread was supposed to be 'Yay to all us girls who are not stick skinny. Yay to us for having curves, and you know what, if we're a little curvy or overweight, whatever we look hot anyway' ......it wasn't really meant to be a discussion about if its hot or not.....and then you get someone in here who's like " I think it's gross." I know she didn't say it like that but it was just kinda...not necessary, I dunno...maybe people do think that but it didn't have to be said. If you want to start a discussion about whether being curvy or overweight is hot or not, it should go in another thread. I know she wasn't the first one to do it and I'm not picking on her...but if people were getting worked up earlier in the thread obviously that would hurt too.

Nah, I totally agree that it shouldn't have been said in the first place (or at least in a more appropriate thread, if at all). But since the thread went there anyway, I meant in general, people shouldn't be more affected by another person's opinion than their own.

Yes I was incredibly confident with myself when I made this thread... and now I feel like shit about myself.

A big thank you to everyone who has done that... I hope you are extremely happy with yourself.

As for the % of body fat...
I had between 14-18% when I took dance classes and during my freshman and sophomore years in college... i had normal periods, I was very healthy and I ate all the time. Some women are naturally that way. And btw... i "developed" when I was 10 so my body is not thin and frail, I have always ALWAYS had curves...