I’ve heard older family members say “I weighed 93 pounds on my wedding day”, and then you see a picture of them and they were slim but healthy looking (meanwhile, if you plug in their BMI, it shows that the number is so dangerously underweight).
Are those family members exaggerating, or has there been a significant change to body composition/muscle mass in people over the past 50+ years (based on diet, lifestyle)?
Semi related: could this be the origin of some men thinking that all “thin” women weigh 120 pounds (regardless of height)?
Edit: NOT talking about obesity, more like how can a person have been 93 pounds in 1960 but have an identical looking body to someone who is 130 pounds today?
In: Biology
Yes, average weights have increased pretty steadily over the last 50 years. However, this is mostly due to people carrying more fat. You seem to be asking whether two people who “look the same” from different eras had different weights. In this case, the shift of body composition towards fat works against your theory. Fat is the least dense of materials that compose a body. Someone with a similar size but lower fat percentage would be heavier due to being made more of dense materials like muscle and bone.
Overall, it seems like people in your family just like to say numbers, and when those numbers apply to women (especially themselves) to shade them lower. Probably not a good idea to tell your grandma you think she actually weighed more than she claims.
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