for manga that's a WILD amount of variety. not because that's OK, just because the industry is stuffed full of same samey sameness

I think minute differences was the point.

I genuienly don't believe you.

Either you are mistaken, or you likely have some kind of genuinely concerning medical condition.

Like I'm not trying to dox you, but take a picture of yourself, wearing fairly tight clothes, in the same pose as the anime figure, line them up at the shoulders, and overlay them and compare the outlines.

Use a camera that is further away but also zoomed in a good amount, and if you do actually want to post the image, blur out your face and any tattoos or scars... totally fine if you want to just keep such an image to yourself.

What you will likely find is that you are mistaken, you misjudged the proportions, or perhaps you are a skinnier lankier dude, but not literally the same limb thicknesses as the anime figure, or, perhaps you actually are that skinny, in which case, if you are past puberty, you likely have a relatively rare medical condition like chrones or muscular dystrophy, or anorexia, or are malnourished.

I've done a fair amount of karate and met a fair amount of Japanese people, met them as visiting teachers or competitors.

On average, do they maybe have slightly less body fat than other peoples?

Sure, to a noticeable but small degree, but not to the point that they all literally have the proportions of anime characters.

And my 'sample' of such people is of course biased towards those who are athletic, obviously not every Japanese person is a karateka.

Are there skinnier models that tend to be in a lot of magazines, marketing, advertising?

Again yes, but such people are not close to average, normal people, just the same as models in most other cultures with mass marketing, or actors in movies.

No, that's body dysmorphia. An eating disorder is when that dysmorphia causes abnorma, unhealthy eating habits.

Clavicular is a perfect example of this, he looks like a statue not a person

That's a fair point, though some look amazing either way.

I think it depends on where you live too, skinny (as in thinner than average) being a relative measure.

I live somewhere extremely skinny by global standards and she wouldn't be called skinny, people might say, "yeah I guess she's skinny" if asked, but she wouldn't be seen as "a skinny person" because she wouldn't be far off the average. Same way a 5'8 woman wouldn't be a "tall woman" in the Netherlands.

Yeah I'm around that height and I'd lose my adhd meds if I showed up to a doctor weighing that without a damn good reason

Still seems like a definitional problem, with an imprecise meaning behind the word "skinny."

Even according to BMI, she’s bordering on underweight.

Bordering on, but still on the "normal" side of the chart.

Does "skinny" look to broad population averages, or celebrity averages, or even celebrity averages for that particular age, or some kind of ideal? Is "skinny" a pejorative, negatively loaded term?

I wouldn't call Taylor Swift "skinny" if that's intended to mean thinner than ideal. But she is thinner than the American average. Is the American average considered "fat"? How much of a gap is there between skinny and fat, occupied by people who are neither?

BMI is a terrible metric, and even then her BMI is on the lower end of the normal range.

From the photo she would appear to weight more than 130lbs (for 5 10 height). My one daughter is 130 at 5' 8" and looks much skinnier than TS

This is like saying 2 = 3 because 2 != 4.

This yellow firetruck is red because it is not blue.

The aircraft is grounded because it is not flying at above 20k feet.

Etc.

Skinny literally means 'thin or very thin'.

It does not mean 'not plus size'.

Look up any English dictionary's definition.

They way OP from the image used the word was nonsensical.

The only thing that is 'literally skinny' is the drawn-as-skinny figure, based on the picture of Swift, who is herself not skinny.

Right, that's the problem. They were using the word in a way that's inconsistent with the dictionary definition, causing confusion.

that's an effect of the demographic transition. society stopped having a dozen kids each so maybe three or four make it to 20. now they expect all (or nearly all) to survive to adulthood.

Most people's legs will jiggle if you shook them, even thin people.

I really did not intuit how fat people truly are until I lost about 65kg and got fairly toned and muscular.

I hit 73kg at 188cm at that was with so much added muscle vs prior. If you had taken away all the muscle mass that I had added through my journey I'm confident to say I would have been around 65kg. This was with around 11% body fat.

Rediscovering at my own body in the mirror and seeing what actually skinny was... Completely blew my mind and changed my perspective forever

Oh absolutly! In fact… I meant the exact opposite of what I said!

Way too many people interested in litigating absolute definitions of relative terms that have already been thoroughly distorted by marketing and mass media (thank you, 90s and 2000s sitcoms for teaching me that anyone who isn't heroin chic is embarrassingly heavy).

Also a lot of the commenter have never had family, friends, or perfect fucking strangers comment on their bodies and it shows.