Vivian Vance was contractually obligated to always be at least 15 lbs heavier than Lucille Ball, so that her character would be considered fat in comparison. Lucille Ball was a size 10 (which would probably be about a size 6 these days), although right before they started filming the first season of I Love Lucy, she found out she was pregnant, and she was definitely showing a much thicker waistline in some of the first season episodes, before the episode where they finally revealed that she was "expecting". She was already about 6-7 months along at that point in the season though.



At any rate, back on topic, there does seem to be the two weight extremes these days, either bone thin, or overweight, not very many people in between those two extremes, at least after you're well into adulthood and have been eating LF/HC for a decade or three. I know 50-70+ year olds who are bone thin while eating LF/HC, and those in the same age range who are obese while trying to stick religiously to LF/HC. There seem to be very few women these days who look like the average sized woman from back in the 50's-60's.



I can't recall where I read it (may have been something Taubes wrote?), but sticking to the official HC/LF diet seems to affect many people one of two ways - they either are very thin, or gain excessive amounts of weight, both because of an inability to metabolize all that carb content "normally". (then again, who is to say what exactly is the normal way to metabolize a carb heavy diet, if so few are able to maintain a normal weight by eating that way?)