The other day at the grocery store checkout line, I got to watch the thin woman in front of me place her items on the conveyor belt. She was dressed in white shorts and an aqua blue top. All of her clothes were form fitting.

Although she had an attractive figure for an exceptionally thin woman, something struck me as odd. I did a quick glance up and down and realized what it was. This woman did not have a hint of a muscle anywhere on her body (at least from what I could see).

Her arms and her legs lacked muscle tone. Yes, she was thin, but she probably had a high percentage of body fat. When she walked, her thin little calves jiggled.

You Are What You Eat (Or Don’t Eat)

I then looked at what she was purchasing. It gave me a clue as to how she developed such a physique. She had in her cart 4 cases of Diet Pepsi, two packs of gum and 3 boxes of something that I couldn’t figure out what it was.

If she had on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, I probably would have thought her to be a fit individual. However, by exposing her toneless arms and legs I quickly came to a different conclusion.

Thin at What Cost?

We live in a weird society that glorifies being thin. There’s no doubt that too much extra weight can tax the heart and other organs and systems in the human body, but being an unhealthy thin is no better. The type of thin the grocery store woman displayed made me wonder how long her bones were going to be able to carry her small frame without breaking.

Although she was very thin, I would bet that her body fat percentage was high. After all, she barely had any muscle. Muscular calves don’t jiggle, fatty ones do. Check out this article about being fat even when you’re not overweight .

Is there a purpose to this post?

Yeah, there is a purpose to this post somewhere in all the verbiage. What I’m getting at is that being thin isn’t the be all and end all. Being healthy is. If you’re packing a few extra pounds but you have healthy bones and muscle tone, I’d take that any day over being artificially thin (living on diet soda and cigarettes) and jiggly.

Just my opinion.