JapanNewbie

Yeah. Not just Japan. :( So apparently, since I’m 5’2″, my ideal weight according to certain Taiwanese is 100 lbs. Bleh.

Intersting observation harvey!
Here is my theory:-)
Working Hard(WH) is inversely proportional to gaining weight(WG) and directly proportional to GDP(GDP).
So WH=k*(GDP/WH) where is k is karth’s constant :-)
So for JP, K is a postive value not equal to zero while for other countries is less than 1!! :-))
So work harder, lose weight, increase your GDP!

Interesting stuff. Thanks!

Only in the mind of a few beasts of nature are skinny girls out. Really… Skinny girls look a lot better than, using the PC termonology, “Average American Women”. You know what femanazi’s label as average are really repugnant samples of the gene pull. Grant it.. there are some hefty girls that have a pretty smiles and good facial features but at the end of the day they still eclipse out a light source. It is a very disgusting thought to cuddle next to a voluptuous woman and being engulfed in her flappy skin tissue. Now, this doesn’t mean that skinny women needs to be firm and grossly butch-like but just a pich or two of soft silky skin to complement the fine figures that youth and genetics have blessed them with. A lady should look like a classical art work and not a modern blob of coloured paint.

Most of the women one sees vilifying skinny girls are themselves overweight, uncomely and bitter women. If these accursed women spent half the energy they use-up complaining about the current standard of beauty “as the media instills in the population”, and focus it on a stair master than they too might enjoy the wondering eye of the male species.

In the end… do not be bitter becuase they are what you were or what you never can be… just find solace in the fact that some men dig fat girls or the voluptous, self-deluding “Average American Woman”.

“Skinny” = shit. It looks like shit, always, feels like shit, & isn’t “average” it’s horrible & freakish. Women who spit on that are the hotter ones, FAR from “jealous of the anorexic skanks” like jackass males with the brains of a 12 year old think (and the dick size to match).

The WHO criteria is historically derived from US population statistics which are somewhat lax for overweight people but paradoxically very stringent for underweightness. It reflects a lot of cultural biases on what is considered “NORMAL” by Americans–who have never really been known for being slim. Also, when they originally devised the cut-offs, they simply lopped off the top 15% of the American population at the time and defined that BMI as being fat– with little consideration of the health effects of that cut-off. For most people, a BMI of 19-22 is optimal.

Currently, a BMI of 24 is considered “normal” weight in America– even though one’s optimal BMI is below 22 (assuming that you have an unusual body composition or are some sort of athelete) and starts to take a downturn for diseases such as diabetes around a BMI of 22. By contrast, a BMI of 17.5 (102 lbs on a 5’4″ frame) is used as one diagnostic criteria for anorexia in the West. Being a skinny girl doesn’t constitute “anorexia”–and cut-offs used should accurately screen people with weight distortion issues from some skinny girl. A significant proportion of SE Asian women would be classified as “anorexic” based on Western-imposed standards.

BMI of around 18 is quite common in Asia and is does not mean that it is an “unhealthy” weight—As a researcher, I would much, MUCH rather have a BMI of 18 (technically classified as underweight) than 24 (currently classified as normal) from a health standpoint for most chronic diseases (with the exception of osteoporosis).

In Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore– large percentages of the population are “underweight” but note that these countries also have the longest life expectancies in the world. Most lay people in these countries would consider a BMI of 18.5 as “slim” for a woman (108 lbs on a 5’4″ frame) and 17.5 as somewhat underweight (102 lbs or less) and anything over a BMI of 21.5 would be considered “fat” (125 lbs) and BMI>27.5 would be seen as extremely fat (160 lbs)– (comparable to what Americans would perceive a 220 lbs woman to be).

One argument that is generally put forth about Asians versus Westerners is that Asian a smaller boned. This argument doesn’t really hold much water.

One bone mass does not account for the enormous BMI differences between Asians and Westerners– bones account for less than 15% of your body weight, and fat people’s bones will always be grow heavier to support the extra load and shrink when they lose weight. Even so, a ‘large-boned’ woman versus a ‘small-boned’ woman, if you were scrape off all their meat and weigh their respectives skeletons, the difference would be less than 10 lbs on a standard 5’4″ woman– assuming that the small-boned woman doesn’t have advanced osteoporosis. Take a look at old photos of Auschwitz survivors, famine victims– there is little visual difference in bone mass between people of similar height. One’s bones shrink with starvation as does one’s musculature.

I believe that the WHO and the American Dietetic Association should revise their BMI standards to get away from the Western cultural biases. But they won’t because millions of Americans will scream bloody murder. ADA doesn’t want millions of people blaming their self-esteem issues on them. Moreover, they won’t want to have to live up the stringent standards that they set up for themselves.

If you don’t believe me, try attending a conference of the American Public Health Association– you will note that quite a large percentages of the members have BMI>30 and a noticeable % are morbidly obese (I mean nearly as wide as they are tall). Most of the non-obese people are foreigners.

Anyway, regarding the graph. The problem with it is that it doesn’t discriminate well between people who are at a BMI, say 18-ish which isn’t much of a health problem versus the % who have a BMI of <15– which is a big health problem (organ failure, infections etc). I suspect that the majority of those Japanese people shown have a BMI from 17-18. From a clinical standpoint, they can stand to gain some weight but are not in danger or having scurvy or beri beri or dying of starvation.

I’m sorry vespers, I couldn’t really get what you were trying to say. Could you be a little more specific?

You women worry to much about your weight. Love who you are.

Agree with quishan , to harveay and separately to all ppl advocating “avg women”(I dont evn get the term)
I just dont quite get it
hmm ok for exaple this girl , is she not perfection?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gT7Xkr0V-4&feature=related
she looks like some disney princess
if she wasnt skinny she wouldnt be
see the thing is not her being skinny, but skinny girls are just prettier in the face and everything ,I dont even know how to explain , In other words if I see a real pretty face I can tell that a girl is skinny w/o seeing her body
I have never seen an exception to that

I actually have a theory that a face is a certain function of a body (Im into math , so my explanation may be weird)
ie , two girls with same body cannot have a different face , or only a barely visible difference

“Japanese women know how not to make fools or sluts of themselves.”

Other than the teenage ones whoring themselves out in exchange for designer handbags. Even other than those, there are plenty of foolish and/or slutty women ( and men, for that matter, I’m not trying to be sexist here ) in Japan, just as there are in any other country. And keeping on topic, no matter how reliable any information from WHO may be, Japan ( especially Tokyo ) has plenty of unhealthy, unfit, overly skinny women. It seems like when Japanese women are healthy and attractive, they’re REALLY attractive, but when they’re not, they usually look like hideous skeletons with way too much makeup.