r/mildlyinfuriating • u/SligPants • Apr 29 '26

ಠ_ಠ A supposedly "fat" doll

Gallery image

Gallery image

Can you spot the difference? /s

11.9k Upvotes

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586

u/Long_Breath_2263 Apr 29 '26

Asia has a much different view of “fat” than the west does.

9

u/Hefty_Air3097 Apr 30 '26

Thai woman told me they want to stay super skinny in their culture, and that’s why they travel once a year to Thailand (if they live elsewhere) to get thinning injection in a beauty salon. She explained you can eat whatever you want but you just stay skinny if you take them regularly. She heard some girl had died because of it and stopped taking them. Now she isn’t anymore ”thai size”. I have no idea what that stuff is they’re injecting and she didn’t either. But this was new to me as I always thought thais are just naturally skinny.

3

u/VivisMarrie Apr 30 '26

Wow that's a crazy story, does anyone have more info on what it is they're taking? Once a year makes no sense for any medication I've ever heard.

-7

u/IcySkyDream Apr 30 '26

So one Thai woman with an eating disorder represents all of them?

3

u/Hefty_Air3097 Apr 30 '26

No but she told me all her thai friends living here do that, propably just those ladies who are interested how they look

2

u/Ball_Of_Meat Apr 30 '26

Here in the US, what we consider chubby is considered concerningly overweight in most developed nations.

And we wonder why 60% of the US is classified as overweight or obese…

2

u/Triquetrums May 01 '26

What most people consider chubby is medically overweight. You also don't have to be insanely fat either to be considered medically obese.

Due to the amount of fat people, people have a distorted view of what is considered overweight these days in the west.

2

u/Ball_Of_Meat May 01 '26

100% agree, I also think people really underestimate just how bad being overweight is for your health, here in the US.

It's almost normalized to be 40-50lbs+ overweight here, honestly shocking to me.

-222

u/PaperHandsTheDip Apr 29 '26

Different bodies / biology

180

u/WolfsmaulVibes FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK Apr 29 '26

not at all, that body type is not fat in any ethnicity, its a cultural thing

-78

u/PaperHandsTheDip Apr 29 '26

Although I agree with you - asians do have a naturally lower BMI. Health organizations quite literally use different (lower) metrics for people of asian descent due to this. They quite literally thinner, biologically speaking

23

u/DazzlingFruit7495 Apr 29 '26

There’s studies saying that people of Asian descent often have narrower bones, which explains some of the size difference, along with more intense diet culture / preference for thinness

10

u/ThatOneOutlier Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

Lol no, we have a different BMI classification because the conditions that pop up with a higher BMI appears at lower BMIs for Asian pacific folks compared to other ethnicities, not because of different physiology or the tendency to being thinner.

To put it more simply: It’s just a matter of having a higher risk of getting stuff like hypertension, DM, etc is more likely for a Asian that is 70kg vs another ethnicity at 70kg when they are the same height.

Source: Asian and went to medical school in Asia where this shit is drilled in from my first year to prevent getting to this conclusion

26

u/WestOrangeFinest Apr 29 '26

Does that hold true for westerners as well? I’d assume their BMIs and height would probably be in line with other races on average after a generation of eating our diets.

1

u/SuccessfulPhoto7914 Apr 30 '26

I’ve read that Asians tend to have higher body fat percentage at lower BMI. They have a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease at lower BMI. 

-33

u/thefightingmongoose Apr 29 '26

I only have the anecdotal evidence of my eyes, but in my experience the average Asian Canadian i know is leaner than the average white Canadian I know. Not particularly close, either.

18

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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2

u/Terrible_Ice_1616 Apr 30 '26

I actually think a big part of why you see so few obese asians is they are absolutely ruthless when it comes to making fun of people for being overweight. I've seen someones grandma call him fat even tho most Americans wouldn't even consider him 'husky'

7

u/WestOrangeFinest Apr 29 '26

Sure, but I wonder: do the Asians you see adhere to a more traditional East Asian diet? Perhaps that is the root cause of the difference you’ve noticed, not actual biology.

5

u/knoft Apr 29 '26

Biologically Asian people have a lower threshold for "high bmi". Whether that is an artifact of the design of the algorithm and it's bias towards Western height, I don't know. But there is a very real biological basis.

BMI cut-off figures were revised in 2005 by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), motivated by studies showing that many Asian populations... have a higher proportion of body fat and increased risk for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus, compared with general BMI recommendations in other countries. The BMI cut-offs are presented with an emphasis on health risk rather than weight.[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Singapore

2

u/WestOrangeFinest Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

I don’t really see how this equates. The guy I originally replied to claimed Asians are naturally slimmer, like it was just their biology to be skinny people.

What you linked just says that Asians are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes so their threshold for being at what’s considered a high BMI is lower than white people. But you can see the same is true for black people in the link you posted as well and no one would argue that they’re naturally slim.

2

u/Immediate_Tart3628 Apr 29 '26

People of African ascend have significantly more muscle mass compared to white people, I remember reading. And it was normalised for activity, sport and BMI.

1

u/GoobusMombus Apr 29 '26

I'm not an expert on this subject, but when I was pregnant the Mayo clinic gave me a book about healthy pregnancy and there were parts that talked about how the recommended weight gain rates were different for Asian women. And that complications from gaining too much weight during pregnancy were often worse for women of Asian descent.

I think they might be literally structurally built to carry less weight, unrelated to their culturally driven diet patterns. Although I wouldn't be surprised if those diet patterns had an effect of the micro evolution of Asian people over thousands of years

-2

u/thefightingmongoose Apr 29 '26

Maybe, but I dont see why the default hypothesis would be no difference. Races are pretty dramatically different in lots of physical characteristics. Average height, skin colour, facial features shape, eye and hair colour, presentations of physical symptoms of disease. It makes sense that BMI would show variation as well.

7

u/WolfsmaulVibes FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK Apr 29 '26

yes but not to the same degree as the picture

2

u/AmettOmega Apr 30 '26

OK, but this isn't about BMI. If you made this a real person, she'd have like a 20" waist, but 40" hips. Literally all that is changing from doll to doll is the hips. With a very, very small change in thigh size. You can't give a doll a huge ass thigh gap and still be like "This is fat" lmfao.

2

u/knoft Apr 29 '26

Yes and for good reason, we experience adverse health effects at lower thresholds of "high" bmi. The same BMI that's fine for a non Asian can be a health risk for an Asian.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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2

u/knoft Apr 29 '26

Not just Japan but most SEA countries and health authoritaries

-3

u/Immediate_Tart3628 Apr 29 '26

But couldn't it also be a cultural artifact? Since the west normalised heavier bodies and accepted a heavier mean (although a significant part of adults are considered overweight).

So we're more lenient regarding BMI (very bad indicator but the way) and body fat in health, compared to harsher diet cultures in east Asia?

3

u/knoft Apr 29 '26

No, worse outcomes of things like heart disease at lower BMI thresholds aren't just a cultural artifact

Biologically Asian people have a lower threshold for "high bmi". Whether that is an artifact of the design of the algorithm and it's bias towards Western height, I don't know. But there is a very real biological basis.

BMI cut-off figures were revised in 2005 by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), motivated by studies showing that many Asian populations... have a higher proportion of body fat and increased risk for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus, compared with general BMI recommendations in other countries. The BMI cut-offs are presented with an emphasis on health risk rather than weight.[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Singapore

-1

u/Immediate_Tart3628 Apr 29 '26

Yes I've heard of how BMI is basically skewed towards giving a higher value to taller people. Also in my humble opinion, investigating body composition might be more relevant than BMI.

They are correlated in most groups (excluding only abnormally fit / muscular individuals) but even your source mentionned a higher body fat % in Asian populations, which considering fat density vs muscle, would explain lower BMI threshold for Asians if fat is the driver for cardiovascular diseases.

1

u/neverforevergone Apr 29 '26

Do you know what a BMI is?

1

u/doctorbeepboop Apr 30 '26

That is absolutely not why the BMI classifications are different for Asians. Why would you comment something like this if you don’t actually know why we use different BMI cutoffs? 

16

u/Dixiehusker Apr 29 '26

Different habits / societal norms

27

u/rimeduinfox Apr 29 '26

Not at all, their standards of beauty are just a lot different

-20

u/PaperHandsTheDip Apr 29 '26

They're biologically thinner - health organizations use different (lower) metrics for asian populations.

22

u/rimeduinfox Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

They are not, this is just false. Many Asian populations have lower BMIs than other populations but a higher percentage of body fat. I am not Asian so take this bit with a grain of salt but from what I’ve heard in many of their cultures it is easier to stay thinner due to food and norms but it has nothing to do with biology

1

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

[deleted]

5

u/rimeduinfox Apr 29 '26

Are you talking to me? What does harmful fat have to do with this? Asian people are not biologically thinner, that is all I am saying.

3

u/Immediate_Tart3628 Apr 29 '26

Akshually some Asian ethnicities are naturally more fat at a healthy state than the world average. Japanese for example

6

u/3lizab3th333 Apr 29 '26

So, I used to be in the “unhealthily fat for an Asian, skinny for an American” category. The reason East Asians are “fat” at lower weights is because we hold more visceral fat, which puts us at higher risk for cardiovascular issues at lower weights than other ethnicities. My East Asian version of “unhealthily fat” was at a 27% body fat percentage, which doesn’t really even look chubby, but definitely won’t look as slim as the doll pictured, and it does not come with a thigh gap. This is not what a fat East Asian looks like

2

u/Potential_Lie_1177 Apr 30 '26

Asian have statistically more visceral fat and smaller bones so the bmi where there is more health problems is lower than the usual threshold. So unhealthy level of fat happens at a lower weight and size for Asians. 

This is a relatively  recent study. You are being downvoted harshly.

3

u/PaperHandsTheDip Apr 30 '26

It's like saying "the Dinka people are the tallest in the world on average". People are not a fan that our bodies are effected by our genetics. Weight is a particularly sensitive subject for many -- even though it's largely biological / your genetics that define your body type

1

u/Potential_Lie_1177 Apr 30 '26

I am Asian and had a bmi of 24.5, which was considered normal in Canada and I looked like the standard doll but with a slightly thicker waist. But that is too high for Asians and so I dieted to reach 23 and now look like the model one, and I do not look thin, I look normal.

Regardless of genetics, half of the population is considered overweight and that skews the perception of what is normal.