Maybe not, if they’re really fat…
Anyone whose had the misfortune of glimpsing some of those Caribana costumes didn’t need a “study” to prove this:
But the researchers found that the only sizes they thought were “too fat” were the last two drawings – numbers 8 and 9. So the women were not concerned about being overweight – in their view, it was only serious obesity that could be bad for your health.
And when it came to identifying their own body weight from the drawings, many of them got it wrong. The 56% of overweight women (BMI 25 or greater) and 40% of obese women (BMI 30 or greater) did not classify their body size as either overweight, obese, or too fat. From the perspective of these women, overweight began at a BMI of around 35 – not 25 as the experts say.
What is going on here is that the cultural belief of the women as to what “too fat” looks like and therefore what is unhealthy is at odds with what the medical profession thinks.
