When looking at pictures from people's games, I don't often see plus sized sims. I was just wondering how many some of you have in your game.

When I click 'fat' on the sims I am creating in CAF... they are usually plump, at best.
For truly fat ones I think you have to download a mesh.

I almost exclusively play non-fat Sims. Not because I think women only come in one shape, or because I find skinny more beautiful than other shapes. No, it's simply that I think EAs idea of "fat" is dumb, and I rather not look at it much.

One could go all out and download custom meshes that are more realistic, but to me that is too much work. My Sims change their clothing every other day, and live at least double their intended life time. It's too much work to find that many outfits I like for a custom mesh, and might not even be possible. So I settle for having Sims of normal or fit shape, and keep the realism for shapes in real life.

I don't go out of my way to make my sims skinny. If they put on weight, I don't care. That said, the fat mesh really... isn't. And if a sim's wearing a custom outfit, there's always a chance the creator never made the morphs for it. Morphs can be a bit of a pain to make, so many people don't bother.

I don't know why but I really don't have many overweight sims. Even if I did, overweight sims aren't even that overweight. My neighborhood has 11 households and only one of my Sims is truly overweight. That's Destiny Cerise. Her OTH is Cuisine and she owns a bakery, so that's why she's overweight even though she does go to the gym quite often. She mainly goes there only to see if she can meet up with her daughter's father Jack Carroll.
My other Sims that are close to being overweight are siblings Samson Ferry and Flora Lightyear. Samson just doesn't care about his appearance anymore. He lives with his other sister Fauna and she's a good cook, so he eats. Flora has four children and loves spending time with her family. She gives them three meals a day just so they can all talk together at once. So her, her husband James, and her four kids are all skinny currently but are at risk of becoming overweight, and I'm not concerned about it.
I just use the normal mesh the game provides and it doesn't matter to me, since I really only have one overweight sim.

I never make fat sims, and there aren't a lot of premade ones; the ones that are, I usually have lose weight

I have quite a few "fat" sims. Especially female because va-va-voom! The female fat shape should be called "bodacious!" I don't let as many male sims get fat because the male fat shape is silly-looking and hard to dress, but the fit one is - yum.

If you want accurate representations of different bodyshapes, you'll have to go on a CC hunt. Ask in WCIF.

In a vanilla game, the "fat" shape for females is more on the desirable curvy side, with only a little stomach bump and some extra booty. Even as someone who prefers girls on the skinny side, I don't even consider it as "fat", especially when compared to how more accurate the male version of "fat" is in the game. Just look at that pot belly! The girls on the other hand can still look good even after filling up on lobster and turkey all day.

There are custom plus-sized clothes for females on here and in Insimenator. Though, I'd recommend paying attention to where they mention 'meshes', you'll need to download them as well otherwise they won't show up properly in game.

Yeah, maxis fat is...not fat. At all. I use a couple custom plus-sized outfits, because I have characters that are decidedly much larger than what the game considers "fat", unfortunately there tends to be not much content for some of them.
(pretty much the whole reason I'm excited for TS4 is because it looks like they finally got the weight sliders right)

Since I play "nothing is free" hoods with almost no ability to order groceries, my sims eat fresh food and fish, which tend to nourish them beyond filling the hunger need. I don't mind at all, though, I think it fits in with the feeling of the hood, jolly, plump Heimlichbourgers that work hard and eat hearty

I find it would be more accurate to call the default meshes "toned fit/not toned fit"* rather than "fat/thin", since they seem to differ more in terms of presence/absence of certain muscles than of fat. There are plenty of Sims in my game of all the different default mesh types, all of which have a place in the neighbourhood as far as I'm concerned.

I do not have any meshes that would enable what I would call "fat" because my computer is relatively low-spec and there's a limit as to how much CC I can put in without the whole thing going to the speed of a snail.

* - By "toned fit" I mean the sort of fit a Sim can get if they do lots of aerobic exercise and eat healthily, as opposed to the sort of fit bodybuilders or people training for sports with specific fitness requirements get.

The problem is with custom meshes for plus-sized ladies and gents (and yes, there are a few shapes, such as the Momma Lisa) is that you also have to download large files of custom clothes and meshes, unless you like your Sims to run around in only a couple of outfits. And those files can be HUGE, even with compressorizing. I got rid of the Slim Body Builder for a couple of reasons (including the file size for his attire), and lost 50 mB minimum right there. And I later found other outfits in other folders. (I was far more disorganized then than now.)

Also, as with the Momma Lisa, these shapes may not be so popular after a while, or the creator might retire from Sims 2, or the sites hosting these clothes may disappear and the files do not make it to the Graveyard. That limits clothing choices even more.

My Sims might be a little smaller or larger around the chest, waist and hips, but I avoid meshes now that dramatically alter arms and legs so I can use looser Maxis or custom clothes, and will not download any shape that requires only custom clothing. That way, my Sims that still have different body shapes can save a little space and enjoy a little more variety with their clothing.

I do confess that this is one advantage Sims 3 players have over us.

I use a ridiculous amount of custom shapes in my game. I use five custom shapes for males and easily over thirty for females. That's mostly Warlokk's fault , but Pierre N.C. and BobbytheHacker are at least partially to blame as well The only shape I use that just really emphasizes weightiness is Martaxl's. I use that for both males and females.
http://modthesims.info/browse.php?gs=0&u=119840&f=342

I like a lot of diversity , of all sorts , in my sim's appearances.

Yeah. I'd love to have more diversity in terms of bodyshapes but... CC bodyshapes are a pain. You have to remember which one x sim uses, download a -huge- amount of CC if you want anything like choice, and then you have skintones to think about and... blah. I could go on a spree and convert my favourite skintones and clothes for bodyshapes, since most of the retextures for custom bodyshapes that are available don't appeal to me, but it's so much work and I have so many other more important modding projects.

My Sims rarely become overweight in game, but if they do I look at their personality to decide what to do afterwards. Very active (7+) Sims will be straight on the treadmill, lazy ones (3-) will stay that way and those inbetween will maybe work out if they have some spare time or if they need body skill for work.

I don't understand working out to keep a sim fit. Yoga and swimming and the CC trampoline all have additional benefits, whereas working out just wears them out and makes them stinky.

I don't know the source of this for sure, but I do find that different sims carry their fitness state differently. Probably it stems from my unconscious guidance + projection and such difference as is really there stems from the choices I make when I dress them. Fat Hawkinses look blowsier and more earthy than fat sims from other families. I've got a small number of fat men who really make the potbelly work for them - not all Hawkinses, but all Fortune sims, who don't look fat so much as they look solid and reliable. And there seem to be subtle differences between the shapes of fat sims who are only a little below the thin line and those who are at maximum fatness, though I suspect that's entirely a matter of projection on my part because I don't see how single fat morphs could exist on a gradient.

Sorry really sorry, I see plenty more than plenty of over- weight and not so healthy people in the "Real World". I do know that just because you are kind of on the fat side it sometime do not always mean that you are not healthy ( some doctors have said that it depend on your body numbers like blood pressure and other factors. ) or that a Slim person do not always mean they are healthy. I do not play over- weight Sims in my game I make exercise a "life style" for them. I do not want any elephants around I see enough of those mammal right in my own family aunties, uncles, cousins. The only exercise they do is walking to Kentucky Fried Chicken, and back and to the TV.

To be "clear" every player have the right to play their Sims as they please Short, Tall, or Fat, or even Slimmer than Maxis in game slim for a Sims. ( They have mods for that ) or skins. We all have choices with the Sims 2 if it make you happy then do it.

Thanks for the warning. Since I no longer have any slim body builders (it was just a whim, once long ago), after reading your post I went looking for those meshes, and dragged out all the ju_beos files into a folder on my desktop. When I looked at its Properties, it contained 102 mB.

No, not really.

I don't go out of my way to not play overweight Sims (Eaxis version of overweight), but must admit that since my own lifestyle is so health/fitness oriented, that generally translates to my style of gameplay. So, my Sims lives are full of fitness activities and eating light.

To me, it depends on aspiration. Sims who have Grilled Cheese as primary (or secondary, though not always) will tend to become fat and stay fat. I like the diversity, escpeially since we're limited here.

I'd love to have plus sized sims as I am plus sized myself. It's just that EA games doesn't want to make it look realistic so I don't bother. The option to chunk up your sim comes one way. The body shapes aren't realistic enough for me to want to even bother setting my sims up as such.

Sometimes my sims get fat just from overeating but if they don't roll a want to get fit they are staying chubby. I don't have many but the majority are my which elders are pleasantly plump because of their lack of exercise their adult life .

I don't assign a bodyshape to personality or aspiration. Actually, I roll dice.

Yes. Really. A roll of the bones often determines skin color, bodyshape, hair color, facial template, aspiration and/or zodiac sign for me. I find it saves time, too, trying to figure out the personality, appearance and aspiration of my new pixel person.

That way, a Fortune Sim could very well have a little weight on him or her. Or a slim Sim can be lazy (not all plumper Sims are couch potatoes). Sometimes, my larger-sized Sims work out and get fit right away. Sometimes, they take their time. Sometimes, they stay the way they are. Sometimes, a slim Sim will put on weight and keep it on. Or not.

So beware to all Sims in my CAS. Probability is the key in my Sim world.

Same for me, only the other way around. As long as the overweight isn´t alarming/terribly uncomfortable I don´t mind it, so I don´t mind my sims getting fat either. Let´s face it, to them their shape it´s purely cosmetical, a mere turn on/turn off like hair color.
It annoys me a little that the game promotes a "fat is bad, slim is good"-attitude where overweight sims roll wishes for becoming slim instead of normal and where building body skill makes sims loose weight. Not all weight is neccessarily fat, muscles aren´t exactly weightless! That differentiation was one of the changes I really I valued in Sims 3.

On a side note, in a historical 'hood overweight should be considered a sign of wealth and slim sims would look like starving/poor.

In my game, fatness is now a distinction. When Merry and Pippin were at university together, I had difficulty telling them apart. They were both handsome young men. Since then, Pippin has become a soldier of Gondor, and has become superfit; whereas Merry wants to become a game designer. (How well-paid that job is! Designed of course by a game designer.) So Merry spends all his free time at the keyboard, and his paunch is swelling. Not hard to tell them apart now.