Right, I don't know if this is the right place to ask but hey,

Checking my BMI I am classed as obese, I'm 5'6" and 210 however I don't know whether I look it. I accept that I am overweight but obese sounds like more.

I fit average UK 14 clothes, no-one has made weight comments, including my doctor? My waist to hip ratio is 0.77.

I nurse in A&E therefore I am very active, my arms and legs have a fair bit of muscle on them due to the nature of the job.

Just want to ask others if I look obese?

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You look good to me but, yes, your BMI classifies you as obese - not to be confused with 'morbidly obese'. I'm the same height as you and when I was 170lb I was borderline obese and none of my friends or my doctor commented on my weight either. I wish they had, as I might have done something about it sooner. As it was, I didn't get motivated until I got rotten blood test results. I do think that is probably a better indicator of overall health and hopefully all of yours are in the 'normal' range. I suggest you shrug off the label 'obese' if it's upsetting you and just concentrate on eating clean low carb until the only label anyone can pin on you is "gorgeous"! Good luck and great success to you.

I'm not sure what obese looks like. I kinda think "obese" is just a number someone pulled out of a hat. I can say that you certainly don't match up with the connotations I have in my head.

How did you get your BMI? Cuz I don't think these online guesstimators are terribly meaningful.

Thank you, I don't know really! I know I'm overweight but I obese sounds like I'd be quite unhealthy but I don't feel it and I'm very active. However 210 sounds like so much! I don't know

I wouldn't worry about the label, and you probably are healthy. Unhealthy eating is something that wears away at your body over decades.

there are two different ways to measure "obese", using BMI or percent bodyfat. Don't use the BMI one.

BMI is inaccurate for active athletic people because it doesn't account for more muscle and bone.

The other way is by bodyfat percent. If you got yours measured I bet you would simply be overweight.

you don't look obese, you are very curvy, but the weight is putting strain on your body. At your height you should be aiming to lose about 60 pounds for a healthy weight, but aiming that high is scary. Start just by trying to get under 200 first, then go on from there. And the younger you start, the better your body and your skin can handle the change, and losing slowly is better than quick, it lasts longer.

Good luck on your journey, enjoy Atkins, I know I do!

The BMI is imperfect; they don't account for age, sex, were changed to make everyone "fatter" in 1998, especially tall people, don't account for heavily muscled and healthy people, and blah, blah, the complaints go on.
However, there is no getting around the fact that doctors, insurance companies, and other health entities will consider you "unhealthy" until you weight 150 pounds. Many research studies use the BMI ranges as well, and there are links to increased risks in the overweight and obese ranges for various diseases.

It was seeing that word obese on my medical chart, and knowing that obesity has a strong link to breast cancer recurrences, that spurred me to research what I had been doing (high grain vegetarian) and find a healthy diet that would work for me. Thank goodness I read Gary Taubes, understand that this is actually a better way to eat for cancer protection and can now stay at least near or in a healthy weight range. Just getting to Overweight was my first mini-goal, knowing that nasty word obese would be removed from my chart.

Thanks for your replies,

also I'm 21 if that helps.

So in the long run I should be aiming to lose 60lb?

Yes, right around 150, a person 5'6" enters the "healthy weight" range, and at 185 enters "Overweight". Set mini-goals for weight if you wish, but focus also on how you feel, energy levels, improvements in skin, inches lost or clothing sizes. That darn scale can lie, but it's the first stop during any doctor visit.

Well, I guess I will through this out...

Does it matter how you are classifying yourself? The question is are you happy with your weight?

As far as to what you should loose to, has there ever been a good weight that you were able to maintain and enjoy yourself more?

I am supposed to be between 150-165 for 5'7 for a large frame. I am shooting for 175 a weight I was in high school where i was slightly over weight according to them. of course this is a lofty goal for me since that was when I was 16-18 and now I am 44.

Lowest i ever gotten in High school was 163 and I was starving myself to do so and highly active in atheltics.

I would use the weight charts as a guideline. And figure it out what is best for your build and body type.

For example, when I hit 175 I will see how i feel and if I want to try and go below that. But for now I feel that is more attainable.

But it is just a label (obese), you just need to accept whether or not you desire to loose weight and how much you want to.

I do want to lose weight, and have recently began low carbing, however I just want to know whether I appear to look obese to others or whether I'm just telling myself I don't look that big, currently thinking I must do though due to 210 being a high weight.

My neighbors daughter is considered obese by BMI standards - she's a professional athlete and has less than 10% body fat. Her and her parents are continuously fighting health care and insurance because according to them, she's obese but if you actually see her, she looks skinny/slim - makes no bloody sense

I don't think you look obese for what it's worth. don't worry about scale weight either if you are a person whose bones are as heavy as gold! it really can mess up the BMI guideline. Our family is like that too.

So even when your inches and bodyfat are GREAT you might weigh more pounds than other people at the same leanness. something to wrap your head around.

I fall under the same category. I look at myself in the mirror and get confused because I know I can lose a good bit of weight but I don't consider myself to be big. :/

Have you given thought to creating a journal on here? If you do i can follow along and we can keep one another motivated!