Teenagers naturally gain weight?!

I am a teen, and I am freaking out. I went to get fitted for a high school choir dress, which I will be keeping for the next two years (I am a sophomore) . I was in between sizes, and the mothers taking measurements advised me to size up in order to allow for weight gain. They said that all the girls who ordered down regretted it and eventually had to buy new dresses. WHAT??!!?!!! Does everyone gain a bunch of weight in high school?! I don't plan to let myself go! I eat healthy foods and track my calories religiously. How could I gain weight? I am already fairly "mature", if you get my drift. Why would I gain weight?

Well, considering that teenagers are still growing and maturing, it's definitely likely that they'll gain weight. Even if you don't "let yourself go", what if you grow taller? Also, a lot of times, teens may be a bit underweight, and as they get older, they're weight starts to balance out more.

Growing taller makes sense, but you would think that the gain in height would negate the gain in weight to give you the same clothing size. I am by no means underweight!

Also, I'm a junior and my chest and hips still expand. Even when I don't gain weight, it still goes to curvier different places, making me go up a size.

Your bone structure will still be growing, so your frame might get a little bigger. Nothing to do with what fat you have - you just might need the size up to accomdate, as other have said, slightly wider hip bones etc. I wouldn't worry too much about it :) It's a natural thing and like I said certainly has nothing to do with the actual amount of FAT. Good luck with your choice!

Original Post by tealpenguin326:

Growing taller makes sense, but you would think that the gain in height would negate the gain in weight to give you the same clothing size. 

No.  Growing taller will make you look slimmer at a higher weight, but it won't make you the same clothing size.  Consider two girls with 28" waists - one is 5'10 and the other is 5'0.  They'll both wear the same size clothes, but the 5'10 girl will look much slimmer than the 5'0 girl simply because her waist/height ratio is smaller (though, in my opinion, both will look slim).

Dont get scared.  They are probably referring to overall changes in your body where you can grow, bones, muscle, height ect...  Teenagers bodies are just different, it does not mean you will be overweight or not height/weight/proportional.

My ideal weight at 15, and my ideal weight at 27 (not just in my head but from a nutritionist) are about 20lbs apart.  My body changed over the years.  Lots of teen girls still have little girlish bodies and have more growing to do, same with teen boys.  Trust me when you are in your 20's all your friends will look different.  Not fat, they just grew more.

I would definitely count on your weight at least shifting a bit as your bone structure widens and starts to look more like that of an adult - it's a good thing! Look around, no matter how mature your body and your friends' bodies seem, they do not look like bodies of 20-somethings.

Personally, I gained about 20 lbs throughout high school, but I went in looking like a boy my age and came out with curves... a few sizes bigger, yes, but also keep in mind that I was underweight to begin with.

Tealpenguin - you say you've already got a pretty mature body, which I take to mean that you have post-pubescent curves.  Ok, good.  Myself, I was a C-cup by the time I started high school.  I understand completely.

What you probably don't have, as many of the other commenters have pointed out, is adult bone structure, which typically develops *after* adolescent fat redistribution.  Take hips, for example: the way archaeologists tell a female skeleton from a male skeleton is the widening of the pelvis/how far the hips are spread apart (wide enough, that is, for a baby to fit through).  This pretty much sets in, if your body progresses normally, after you have enough body fat/breast tissue that you'd be able to carry a baby to term and feed it afterwards. (Not to mention after you've started ovulating.)  Developmentally, it wouldn't make sense for us to be scheduled to have our hips widen *before* we'd gotten set up for baby-making in other ways first.

What this means in non-evolutionary-bio terms is that you don't have to "let yourself go" to gain a pants size (for example) in high school; in fact, it's a sign that you're developing normally.  Besides, you're talking half a dress size here, not four or five sizes up; what if you have a choir performance during TTOM and you're too bloated to fit into a dress that's sized smaller than your normal measurements?

Most young women experience weight gain around the hip and bust area as they head towards their mid- late teens. This is perfectly natural.  If you haven't been eating more than usual I would say it isn't anything to worry about.

I was a straight up and down kind of girl until I hit 18, then I got hips :)