Being overweight 'seen as the norm'.

[cromwell]

I come at this from a slightly different angle and question the medical profession's whole concept and approach to overweight. Several years ago, I was given a target weight to achieve that, frankly, was a stone less than anything I'd been since I was a teenager. This was no figure plucked out of thin air, this is what they medically said I should be.

Os, a few years ago I was told that these ideal weights are what people were weighing in the days of the great US depression in the 1930's. People are much taller these days, for a starter.

[Workingman]

I am glad you brought that up Cromwell, because the Body-Mass Index (BMI) method often used to calculate such things is often discredited for being based on an "ideal" average. There are at least three different body types/builds, and probably five, but they are not taken into account at the personal level, nor are the different rates of metabolism.