Ideal, losing weight and Japanese mums

At 53kg and 165cm, I am not fat by clinical standards, but would be happier and more confident about myself if I lose a little weight. I always feel envious whenever I see a girl around my height weighing about 5kg lighter than me. What do Japanese teenagers in Japan consider an ideal weight for a 17 yr old girl of my height? Maybe 50kg?

I am an Asian of half Japanese descent. My Japanese mum thinks I don’t need to lose weight, and gets angry when I say I want to go on diet. I find it weird because she was slimmer than me when she was my age. Also I am slightly fatter than my sister. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t feel happy for me that I want to be as slim as she was. I don’t know many Japanese mums. But I am guessing unlike my mum, most Japanese mums want their daughters to be slim? I can’t wait to go to Japan where I can lose weight!

For a teenager your height 53kg is good, 50kg is better, 48kg is best IMHO.

If you are unhappy with your weight, lose some and don't listen to your mum. It's your body.
Japan is the perfect place to lose weight. You will find many girls on the same boat, competing with one another

For your height, 53kg is already quite on the healthy AND slim side, I must say. If you want the "model" weight, well, then maybe 50kg, "supermodel" weight might be 48kg, but at that weight, you could look unhealthy if you don't exercise and eat well to maintain not just the weight but shape - right volume in the right place :)

Going by a weight calculator site I've found, your good weight (not just for health but for looks) is just around 53 - 54kg. Exercise well to keep good body shape!

Most Japanese mum want their daughters to be healthy, above anything else :)

My skinny 17 year old is a son and not a daughter, but frankly, I would be concerned if he says he wants to "go on a diet," and he says that all the time even though he looks like David Bowie when he was singing Ziggy Stardust! (Sorry for the dated example.)

I myself is a female moving back and forth between 47kg and 49 kg at 158cm, so I KNOW how skinny you'd be if you were to be 50kg at 165cm. At the same time, I KNOW how much you as well as my son want to loose weight at age 17, because I was 17 once myself.

The reason I would be concerned is (A) teenagers tend to go over the top when they focus on a certain goal such as diet and (B) taking a wrong turn in diet can affect your health especially decreasing the possibility of giving birth to a healthy child in your future. So in other words, you may end up happy being skinny now, but may regret it later when you're over with all these teenage phenomenon and decide you need to be healthier rather than skinnier.

What I do though is what our parents used to do to us when we were diet-freak teenagers. I encourage teenagers to eat a BALANCED meal while avoiding too much sugar or fat.

For example, I try to make sure that my son at least eats (1) dark-colored vegetables, (2) light-colored vegetables, (3) either meat, fish or beans, and (4) carbohydrate such as bread or rice, all in one meal, and that he takes 3 meals a day. Fortunately he does, and when he doesn't I encourage him to take a bite of whatever he lacks, and he actually comes back to the table to take that one bite. He can cut down on sweats and junk food, but he's not cutting down on homemade cooking in front of me.

Also, if you feel you don't look good, do some excersize instead of cutting down on your meals. Build your muscles so that you won't look fluffy, and make sure you stretch then so that you'd look more like a ballerina than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For most mother's, her best wish is to have a healthy child. That probably goes the same whether the mother is Japanese or not. Sure, I wouldn't appreciate my child having a heart attack for being overweight, but I wouldn't be happy about him looking like a pop idol but ending up having sick organs. If that should happen, I would feel greatly responsible for not looking after his diet well enough, and what worse could it be than to feel responsible for not raising your child properly!

When my best (Japanese) friend went on a diet when she was 18, her mother even used to lie to her telling fause calories just so that my friend would take the necessary calories she needs per day. She also made her believe that excersize is fun, and my friend actually enjoyed sports in her youth.

This friend became an alcoholic much later in her life and recently threw up loads of blood and was hospitalized. Her doctor said she could have died. But she's back out from the hospital now and is as healthy as ever. All her friends think she owes it all to her mum for controling her healthy weight in her youth. She admits that herself, too.

Great post Uco! you are so right! it is quite depressing to see that teenagers of today are still as clueless as they were in my days (and I am older than you, Uco), although it is so easy today to get lot of goof info. Eating properly and exercising are the only ways to be healthy and to have a nice body, neither fat nor skinny.
The original poster should also understand that several people that have the same height will have different weight yet all look fine.

Incidentally many if not most bodybuilders stretch during and after a work out. I have seen huge bodybuilders (around 250 lbs) that can easily do the splits.
I am a bodybuilder (not a big one mind you) and am more flexible now, at 60 year old, than I was before I started lifting weights, many years ago.

Thanks for the feedback Miyuki, AK, Uco, Red Frog.

I am sure you looked great at 47kg and 158cm back then Uco. I am not even close to fat by Asian standards, but do feel a little fat as my dad is slim (172cm, 57kg) and my mum used to be slim. My mum disapproves my desire to lose a few kgs, but my dad approves. My dad even told me that now is the best time to go on diet as I have reached my adult height and if I wait until my 20s, it will be harder. Have you been on diet Uco?

I can barely zip size 9 pants from Japan and I am only a teenager. I am scared to be a size 11 before I am 20 because if that’s the case, I wonder what size I will be at 25? After I have kids? My mum is 159cm and was 45kg at the heaviest before she had kids. She went from a size 7 (before kids) to a size 11 now. If I am a size 11 even before I have kids, I may be a size 15 or even 17 after kids! I feel it’s good to be slim now as gaining weight is inevitable during pregnancy.

Right...it's you body, and you are "responsible" to it. I understand how weight conscious a tennager can be. But if you are not able to make the right (meaning healthy) decision for your body, you will need to rely on your mom, a dietician, or a doctor. You might end up having a life long problem.

To Yoshimi,

I used to be a bit chubby as a teenager. After I entered college, I started losing weight without doing anything. Now it is even difficult for me to gain weights as a middle aged woman. If your parents are fit, you have good genes. Try to stay healthy and you will be just fine without any dietting. (I am not even sure why your dad encourages you to go on a diet while you are in a perfect shape.)

My Japanese husband is a little taller than your father, but weighs about 8 kg more. He hates it when he weighs any less (for example, he lost several kilos while we were travelling in India) because he thinks he starts to look scrawny at that weight and he would rather look healthy.

I think most guys would rather not be as thin as your father, so that shows you that different people have very different views of what is a "good weight", which is why you should not ask what Japanese girls consider to be the perfect weight for your height and then look at that as a goal, as it may well be unrealistic and unhealthy.

Your mother has probably heard of the huge increase in the last couple of decades of girls, usually around your age, who damage their health through extreme dieting- while you might start off that way, it can be easy to get sucked into losing more, and more, and more.

And all mothers want their chlidren to be healthy, not just Japanese mothers!

Yoshimi, thanks for the feedback, but I have to say that, like many 17 year olds, you seem to be missing the point.

You should read Pattie Boyd's biography "Wonderful Today" (or "Wonderful Tonight" which is the American version of the book with basically the same content). She began modeling at age 17, and later became Mrs. George Harrison of the Beatles and then Mrs. Eric Clapton.

She went on a hard diet in her modeling days, and although she doesn't actually mention that there is a link, she ended up having kidney problems and also was not able to have a child. From the book, you can sense that she regrets the diet (although she's very happy with her life now).

Your father is a guy. He seems to put his priorities on "height" which sounds reasonable if you were a male. But even though you don't need to grow "taller" any more, you're a female and you need to maintain your organs healthy. In particular, having a hip too slim is not the best idea for having babies, because if your pelvis is too slim you may end up having a Cesarean like me.

Also a lot of young girls end up having no periods once they go on a diet. Now, this may sound nice considering how annoying periods are, but believe me, when it's not coming you'll miss it a lot. This has happened to me too. At age 18 I went on a diet. I was eating properly, calculating calories and making sure I eat balanced meals, but as soon as I noticed myself "looking good" my periods were gone. I had to go to the hospital to have some medicine prescribed.

Btw, excuse me but I still look great now at 47kg/158cm! Like Ikuyo-Kuruyo, for the first time in my life I'm having very little trouble keeping this figure, and I'm also comfortable with this weight health-wise now. But teenagers are supposed to be chubby. That's how your hormones work, and that's the fat you need. I was hardly unable to go under 49kg in my youth. Then as you get a few years older, you become a bit slender. I have to say I can't agree at all when your dad says that if you wait until your 20s, it will be harder to loose weight. That's quite the contrary, my best-looking days figure-wise was during my late 20s to my early 30s, and I had my child at age 30.

Surely, once you get pregnant, your waist skin expands and it will be harder to get a slender waist. But this has nothing to do with your waist measurement of age 17. 17 is not at all your last chance to loose waist measurements nor your last chance to loose weight. Even if you were to have babies at 19, since you'd be still young, you'll still have the chance to become slender in your 20s.

I can also think of many examples of slender mothers. The current Empress Michiko right after she had 3 children, Jerry Hall after she had 4 or 5 children between Mick Jagger, and many more. Especially, Empress Michiko was slender as a mother than she was as a teen.

And Japanese size 9 pants are quite normal. A lot of fashion designers try to "keep their figure so that they could wear their own size 9." Size 11 can be a bit big, but as long as you're slim on the top, you'll look slim as a whole even when your bottom is big.

Again, try to do excersize that make your waist and legs "tight". Even if your hips are big, as long as those hips are "shaped" good, you'll look great. Look at all the James Bond girls. Have you actually been doing excersize? I hope you are at least working on your muscles before you ever think about cutting down on your nutrition.

Btw, I didn't mean that mucho men don't stretch their muscles. I was just trying to say that the way to prevent yourself from being a muscular girl and yet making yourself turn into a girl in good shape is to stretch. That's what Chisa from Girl Next Door said on TV last week.
http://girlnextdoor.jp/index.html

She says that almost all she ever wants to do is muscle training, but that she makes sure she stretches them well at the end of her excersizes.

Thanks for the very detailed replies Uco, Sira, Ikuyo. I will elaborate more as my situation is different.

Uco said: I was eating properly, calculating calories and making sure I eat balanced meals, but as soon as I noticed myself "looking good" my periods were gone.

I eat more than most girls my age to begin with. I say I probably consume near 2000 calories/day. My plan is to cut my intake a little. Considering my parents are slimmer than me, I could have been slimmer if I haven’t been eating this much. From a little research, I found that 1600-1700 calories/day is enough for me. I doubt I will lose my periods eating 1600 calories/day.

Then as you get a few years older, you become a bit slender.
Most people I know get fatter and fatter. I know some mothers actually get slimmer after kids, but most of them get fatter. As my mum increased 2 dress sizes after kids, I am expecting the same to hold for me.

Have you actually been doing excersize?
Yes, I swim around 3x a month and play badminton once a week. Exercise can only do so much to make one’s body look good. My legs are short for my height. Exercising wouldn’t make them look longer, but slimming them down would.

Ikuyo Kuruyo said Try to stay healthy and you will be just fine without any dietting. (I am not even sure why your dad encourages you to go on a diet while you are in a perfect shape.)

He didn’t encourage me. He was simply indifferent… more like do whatever makes you happy. I eat more than my dad does so he doesn’t object me eating less.

But if you are not able to make the right (meaning healthy) decision for your body, you will need to rely on your mom, a dietician, or a doctor. You might end up having a life long problem.

I am now in usa. Doctors will probably think I am crazy if I wanna lose weight as young females here are more like 70kg. I think it’s best to ask opinions of asian fobs who weigh no more than 105lbs (47kg). I want to be judged by asian standard, not American standard.

Sira said different people have very different views of what is a "good weight", which is why you should not ask what Japanese girls consider to be the perfect weight for your height and then look at that as a goal, as it may well be unrealistic and unhealthy.

That’s true. I usually ask it in reverse to get a more honest answer. I always ask “What weight will you be happy with at 165cm?” I get a lot of 110lbs (50kg) from teenage asian fobs. Now I have set it as my ideal. Losing 3kg seems doable and reasonable.

Yoshimi, which ever way around you aks the question you are still asking people who may have unrealistic ideas of what is a healthy weight! Body types vary quite widely anyway- some people may look healthy at a particular height and weight, but for someone with a different build, that may be too thin.

You know that exercising also helps burn calories, resulting in possible weight loss, right? You seem to think that exercise has no effect on one's weight, just the shape of one's body. Exercise is how you burn more calories than you take in each day, and is far better for you than restricting food intake, which may cause you to develop nutritional deficiencies.

Well, I don't know about "Asian" but so far everyone on this thread has been answering your question based on very Japanese standards. The following is a Japanese website that proves AK's very early post was based totally on Japanese adult standards.
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/crystallization/check.html

Note also that according to the above site, even if you aim for the most slim figure which is the "supermodel figure," you still need to take 1706 kcal a day at 165cm.

When I lost my period I was taking 1600 kcal a day for 3 months. That's what a Japanese teen magazine article recommended, so I made precise calculations for each meal I ate and I was trying to loose weight slowly. I suppose they realized later on that it was a risky figure. In the recent years, I can't recall seeing diet articles recommending calories as low as that.

If you're taking 2000 kcal a day and weigh only 53kg, maybe you can start by reducing it to 1800 kcal a day.

Hi there~! I'm Kira! I'm 14 years old... so kinda close to your age :)

I am 5' and .5 of an inch. I used to weigh 110 lbs, but I still looked okay because I exercise a lot (like I'm a competitive tennis player, but not as much back then). So most of it was muscle. But it also turns out that I'm a VERY unhealthy eater (like as junk foods and snacks and stuff). I thought I was safe because I lost so many calories through tennis, ya know? But I was thinking, "i wonder how much i would weigh if I ate healthy..."

So I decided to eat more healthy and less calories... 1000 K. I have a SUPER small stomach, and it turns out that's all I need. Breakfast = 200 (cup of cereal and milk), snack - 100, lunch = 300, snack =100 , dinner = 300. I was probably off with my calculations by 200 or 300 though. But it made me realize how unhealthy I used to eat.

Now I'm 97-99 lbs, but it took 8 months. So I guess it wasn't a diet, but a change of lifestyle.

97-99 is about the size of a Japanese model (I read that somewhere on this site), for my size (5' 0"). But I also read the average girl is around 104-106. I want to become an actress and model in Japan one day, so I thought I'd go for a double digit weight. Sometimes, I'm 101 or 103, and that's fine. Because I know that's added water weight. So I don't get freaked out at all. Just eat healthy and work out, and let it be :)

If you really want to do something about your eating habits, please consult a licensed dietitian. She/He will probably ask you to write down everything you eat and suggest you how to improve. Don't follow any eye and ear catching diets out there.

By the way! Average girl I meant average 5' 0" girl who lives in Japan... Not all girls!

Just clarifying that!

Kira, 1,000 calories isn't enough for anyone over the age of about 2 years old, ever. It doesn't matter how small your stomach was, you were basically starving yourself, and were either borderline or fully-fledged eating disordered. You might have thought you were eating healthily, but you were not providing your body with anything like the nutrition it requires- protein, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, you would have been (still are?) deficient in all of them, even if you were taking supplements.

Even if you are not growing taller any more at 14, there is a lot of brain and bone development still going on at that age, which you put in great jeopardy by eating so little, as well as the health of your organs, especially heart, kidneys and reproductive organs, and possibly weakening your bones.

These are all things where the effects may potentially not be noticed until later in life, but the damage could already be done. I hope you are eating more sensibly now.

Girls, please don't ruin your future health to achieve some ridiculous ideal like ''I have to have a weight in double digits'' or ''I have to weigh the same as this Japanese model''. It is NOT worth it. I personally knew more than one person who died young due to restricting their food intake severely at a young age- if you want to live a long, happy and healthy life, eat properly. 1,000 calories is just not enough, nowhere near.

I think at first I was underestimating all the food.

I'd usually eat a pancake w/ milk for breakfast, 100 cal. pretzel for snack, eat a bowl of pasta or something with carrots and such for lunch, snack for after school, then eat a normal dinner.

My meals didn't change at all, just eating healthier (my diet used to be so bad... like I'd eat 2 bags of chex mix (which were serving sizes themselves for snack) with candy and maybe something else. So that was 1000+ calories itself. I only eat 100-200 snacks now...

If I play tennis that day, I'd eat a bagel/banana/milk for breakfast, chicken cheese quesadilla with bacon + french fries for lunch, 100 cal. pretzel bag for a snack, and whatever my parents made for dinner, then a dessert. I don't drink soda though (because of braces). I took out most of the unhealthy stuff from my diet and replaced it with bananas, carrots, corn, etc.

Like, today for example, I ate a bagel with milk for breakfast, pizza (leftover) for lunch with milk and banana, pears/apples for snack throughout the day, grilled cheese sandwich + fries for dinner. Then I got a ice cream from mcdonalds.

And about the double digit thing, I didn't have too. If I stopped losing weight at 102 or 106 then that was okay, because I knew I couldn't loose any weight. I never starved myself or anything, I was always either content or satisfied (unless it was sushi... then I was full xD that stuff is good). But yeah, see a licensed dietitian. I just knew my diet was sooo bad, and I didn't need a licensed dietitian to tell me. I bet a 5 year old could've told you -.- yeah... that bad. But it's changed!

(oh! and my vitamin levels seem okay. my health class (this week) had a project on recording what you eat on a website, and it tells says if you don't have enough vitamins and stuff. I seem okay)

thanks for being worried, sira.

Well, that's good to hear. I hope it was considerably more than 1,000 cals. Keep taking care of your health, it's worth it.

Sira said You know that exercising also helps burn calories, resulting in possible weight loss, right?

For me, it has a cancelling out effect because when I exercise, the more I tend to eat afterwards.

Uco said Well, I don't know about "Asian" but so far everyone on this thread has been answering your question based on very Japanese standards. The following is a Japanese website that proves AK's very early post was based totally on Japanese adult standards.
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/crystallization/check.html

美容体型理想体重: I came up with 54-57kg (gradually increases with age) for adult women 20-60yrs old, 53kg for a 17 yr old. Thank you! The website you gave me is much better as it includes measurements too. I exceed some of those measurements so needles to say I need to slim down to get those measurements smaller. I guess "asian" is too broad. I am half Japanese and half Southern Chinese so I am going by the lower of the 2 for ideal weight and each measurement. Interestingly, I found that Southern Chinese and Japanese have similar average and ideal weights, but measurements differ. Japanese have slimmer waists while So. Chinese have slimmer thighs.

Thanks a lot for sharing your dieting experience with me Kira. Your story is very encouraging. I don't plan on eating 1000cal/day (I am sure I will collapse if I do), but will start cutting down on my lunch portion when I start uni in a few weeks time (as I will not be eating lunch around my mum). I am not really cutting down on breakfast and dinner as I don't want my mum to get mad at me. I know I am 17, going 18 this year & shouldn't be afraid of my mum but I still am.

Correct me if I am wrong. My educated guess is Sira and Kira are non-asians. Sira focuses on exercise to lose weight (which most asians are not likely to recommend) and Kira seems non-Asian from her diet. The reason I ask is because I am not sure if Sira & Kira are aware that asians tend to look fatter than say caucasians at the same weight and height. I would say all caucasians standing at 165cm and 53kg look slimmer than me.