"a gap you could drive a truck through." It was not complementary, as I recall, though I think many of us were jealous. Of course then it was more genetics than starvation and over-exercise.

Even when I got to a 18.3 BMI and jeans at Goodwill labeled 00 didn't fit me right, my thighs still touched.

I'm back up to a comfortable 21.2 now, btw.

the girls who really are naturally that thin are often just as self-conscious about their bodies as the ones who are curvier.

I never thought that look was the least bit attractive.

like a cowpoke

In my case, wide hips and short legs! And a BMI of 19! And I thought I was overweight!

reddit for "thigh gap", there's a whole community. Pretty sad..

It's not really something to strive to have, and it doesn't measure how skinny you are. It's just a leg type.

Teenagers have to deal with a lot of junk information.

embarrassing that my thighs didn't touch. Still don't.

Anybody remember the song Skinny Legs and All by Joe Tex?

A lot of that is genetics. Last year when my then-15 year old and 12 year old weighed roughly the same and were the same height and wore the same clothes, my 12 year old's thighs touched and my 15 year old's didn't. It's just how their fat was distributed genetically - even as a baby dd#2 had the little roll in her inner thighs as a newborn that dd#1 didn't have. Not much they can do about THAT.

All of this is so sad. Luckily my kids seem to be fairly comfortable with their bodies (the now-13 year old is now 2 inches taller and several sizes larger than her 'older' sister, lol) because I've made a point to not concentrate on it.

I grew up in a house where that's ALL my parents talked about. What they were eating. Who was gaining weight. How much they exercised that day. What celebrities could use a diet or plastic surgery. What models on fashion tv were too fat, too flat, too ugly, too round, too angular, too top heavy, too bottom heavy. What the latest fat diet was. How much I ate. How pudgy I looked (at 7 years old). Oh, and let's not forget the fat shaming...how ugly fat people were, how lazy fat people were, how disgusting fat people were, how so-and-so was SO fat how could her husband stay with her, how so-and-so was SO fat he was a walking heart attack and wasn't he gross, how fat people were pigs...Every family reunion was all about what everyone had gained or lost over the year. My parents could not run into someone without coming home to gossip about what they looked like and if their weight had changed. I grew up with a sense that the only thing that mattered in life, the only way you could be valued as a person, was if you were the perfect weight.

I'd wager a guess that a lot of girls with eating disorders grew up in similar types of households. I didn't develop an eating disorder, but I did eventually become obese over many years (and 4 kids) and I ended up marrying a sociopath and staying with him, dealing with emotional abuse because for years I thought he was the only person in the whole world who would love me at the weight I was at. I had no self worth and thought I deserved this treatment because, after all, fat people like me didn't deserve any better.

I hope those girls with eating disorders find peace. I'm still looking - that kind of pressure (from my family no less) damages you in so many ways.

diabetes in old age - who knows?

But - because she was so focused on weight, I responded by not paying attention to my body - I just figured i was barely OK but never realized I had a good figure. I dressed in very simple, very plain clothes. Later on, when I did gain weight in my 40's, I was resigned to it because in my mind, it wasn't that I was getting fat, it was that I was getting fatter.