By society's standards I am obese. My BMI is 31. I weight around 200 pounds. I am a woman. I am 5'8".

Yet I don't even have to shop in the plus sizes. I am just a very largely structured woman of German heritage. And yes, I'm overweight by about twenty pounds. But I carry it well. I just think it's funny how we can label people as obese without regard to body structure.

My husband is obese. He is a large man. He's lost a good deal of weight in recent months. How, I don't know. I don't even think he's tried. Sometimes it just happens. He and his friends, who are mostly all obese, joke about being fat. I think as a defense mechanism. I know he's sensitive about it, so I don't talk about it. I think all in all, though, they're pretty ok with themselves.