Why are girls here so thin?

[Tammy138]

Hi All,

I just arrived in Singapore, but I can't help not notice how slim the girls are here. They are so thin, they look like then might snap any minute. Are they meant to be that thin or just a fashion thing here so they don't eat? I can't help not feeling really self consciouos and fat being here.

[sundaymorningstaple]

There are plenty of porkers here as well. You can't help but to have seen all the adverts for slimming centre here.

[ksl]

Healthy life style changes! Look at the positive aspect in it, you may lose weight, just to fit in Like SMS says plenty of porkers still around including myself

[trumpet]

Social pressure! People will laugh & call you names in school if you are over weight!!

[sundaymorningstaple]

If you are an overweight young man, you will also incur an additional 3 months of NS from 21 to 24 months as they whip the fat off'n you!

[jpatokal]

I just arrived in Singapore, but I can't help not notice how slim the girls are here. They are so thin, they look like then might snap any minute. Are they meant to be that thin or just a fashion thing here so they don't eat? I can't help not feeling really self consciouos and fat being here.

Go visit Thailand, and Singaporeans will start to look positively obese in comparison

It's half genes and half eating habits, I suspect. The local chow isn't particularly healthy, but the portions tend to be a lot smaller than the feeding troughs you get in the US, and there's less meat, heavy dairy products, etc.

[OogieBoogie]

problem is if you eat like locals, with your western appetite and your genetic heritage, you'll get fat easily! Eating rice 1 or 2 time a day with gravy can't make you fit.
I dropped the rice 2 weeks ago: -4 kilos already and counting...

[sundaymorningstaple]

problem is if you eat like locals, with your western appetite and your genetic heritage, you'll get fat easily! Eating rice 1 or 2 time a day with gravy can't make you fit.
I dropped the rice 2 weeks ago: -4 kilos already and counting...

And you're gonna be dropping a lot more as well!

[shiggins]

According to all the tabloid magazines.
Big and curly is in!
Great news for me

[LoriW]

Lol!! I'd say that, yes, there are plenty of porkers around, but the fashion is thin. There are also plenty of ladies who eat like birds.

The Chinese way of eating is to have a table full of food and you pick from that food into your own bowl. Sit round a table with a group of people and it is quite fascinating!

I have two cousins (sisters) who are in their mid to late 40s, have had 2 and 3 children and look it (for want of a better expression). They both love their food. Their two older sisters look totally different - again these ladies are in their late 40s early 50s have had 3 and 4 children - same genes, one looks normal and healthy, the other looks as though she could do with a good square meal! The extremely thin sister eats virtually nothing!

I would say eating plain boiled rice is great but fried rice, chow kuei teow, roti prata, mee goring, roast pork chinese style is awful - or it is if you eat western style where you order a plateful and eat the lot!

Apart from which - "thin" as seems so fashionable in the far east isn't really attractive is it?? I dance, so weight and food have always been a big part of my life - to the extent where in my late teens I had an eating disorder - but a fit slim physique is a great deal more aesthetically pleasing than one which is simply skin and bone?

[Tammy138]

I have to say...I rather be curvy any day than a bag of bones! Although I guess here, its fashionable and seen as "attractive" to look like bones.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Curvy is nice. I don't particularly like seen hip bones jutting out and shoulder blades & collar bones looking like they are going to poke through the skin any minute. However, I'm not real fond of overly voluptuous Rubenesque type figures. A fit body is where it's at. I like 'em like a sports car not a 'Roller' or pushbike.

Hip, Hip hooray for the woman editor in the UK that said NO to size Zero Clothes!

[OogieBoogie]

what really amaze me is the thighs of local girls. They are incredibly thin. I never saw so many girls with so thin thigh. I even didn't know it was possible to have so thin thigh when you're out of chidlhood. It really gives a strange visual feeling, almost unnatural, like if they don't have muscle, just bone and flesh.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Most of them don't have any muscle tone at all. And most of those with the skinny thighs are also the ones who want to look like cadavers using the silly SK-II whitening products to even look more unhealthy. Thin does not equate to healthy that's for sure.

I blame it all on the advertising industry and fashion houses. They propagate all this nonsense without thinking about the consequences. It's not just here but all over the world. Unfortunately, here in the airconditioned tropics people no longer see the value of exercise + perspiration = fitness = a picture of health. Maybe a hangover of the middle kingdom? Bound feet and such?

[nushk]

ha ha. love this topic.

ok in all seriousness, jpatokal got it spot on. genes and food have got to do with it. most (at least, chinese) local girls have genes that predetermined them to be slim. out of these, some have genes that make them extremely thin - I know several girls like this and they have absolutely healthy appetites, are not bulimic etc, and they *want to put on weight. but they cannot. they have even sought medical advice, but it's their genes. their thinness is, in all honesty, ugly. but this only makes up 1% of the local female population here. or less.

then there is the 'normal' slim girls here, and there are many of them. some of them have genes that gave them that body (they have a *very healthy appetite, but they dont' really put on weight) but I think what goes unnoticed here is that many other local girls without these genes have to deal with this weight issue their entire lives. if you think the pressure to be skinny is bad in the US, try growing up with a average-sized body in singapore. because there are already so many women who are naturally petite and slim, many average sized and curvy women suffer from low self-esteem, go to slimming centres (so many around!), take diet pills, and some, develop eating disorders. this is much more common than many people would suspect.. as taking a stroll along orchard road you only see the pretty and slim young girls, but there are many more women who struggle with their bodies and their self confidence issues tied to it.

there are of course local women who are naturally heavier - their genes locked them in that way. my friend, tried as she might - all sort of diet, exercise, healthy lliving, etc, would not lose weight, and to this day she remains curvy. she, too, went through many self-confidence issues in college where almost all her female classmates were tall and skinny. and yes, she is local chinese.


I'm all for the fashion industry to move towards healthy fit bodies instead of size negative 2 or negative 4 types. but do remember too, that many of these girls are also born 'lucky' in that they are just skinny without having to do much exercise or dieting. can't fault them for that.