Why are characters so commonly skinny or short and not tall or fat or athletic?

I make a lot of my POV characters short because they must be shorter than me and I'm like 5'4". That's a requirement I made in my head to make myself feel taller. Otherwise, I do try to do a variety by having the other main characters represent other body types. But not the POV character, never them.

Good point, and good job for varying your body types!

Your profile pic has the same energy as my computer's homescreen
I try to have a variety of body types in my stories, or I at least do my best

I think the phrasing is better put as “rooting for the little guy” than “rooting for the underdog.”
(But also just notice how often fat people ARE in literature but they’re treated as the bully or something equally as unsavory)

(I really just want someone in a book who looks like me though)

I think the phrasing is better put as “rooting for the little guy” than “rooting for the underdog.”
(But also just notice how often fat people ARE in literature but they’re treated as the bully or something equally as unsavory)

From what I've read, fat characters, especially fat men, are either portrayed as villains, bullies, slobs, gross, or creepy, and the fact that the character is fat is usually mentioned in an uncomfortably close context to those (looking at you, JKR)

It is pretty offensive though… I feel basically secondhand offense because some of the best guys I know are on the overweight side and would probably be portrayed negatively in literature based on their body type alone, while these individuals I’m talking about are actually hella soft and caring.
(Also off topic a little bit, but let fat people have love interests! Love interests who love their bodies too and don’t say stuff like “it doesn’t matter what you look like”)

It is pretty offensive though… I feel basically secondhand offense because some of the best guys I know are on the overweight side and would probably be portrayed negatively in literature based on their body type alone, while these individuals I’m talking about are actually hella soft and caring.
(Also off topic a little bit, but let fat people have love interests! Love interests who love their bodies too and don’t say stuff like “it doesn’t matter what you look like”)

I agree, I think it's becoming less of a thing now (Six of Crows has Nina, books like Dumplin' and There's Something About Sweetie exist, etc.) but reading old YA books is just cringe.

Also off topic a little bit, but let fat people have love interests! Love interests who love their bodies too and don’t say stuff like “it doesn’t matter what you look like"

Yeah, we need to put more emphasis on the fact that sometimes fat people actually do not give a damn about how they look/care about how other people's opinions on their weight!

From what I've read, fat characters, especially fat men, are either portrayed as villains, bullies, slobs, gross, or creepy, and the fact that the character is fat is usually mentioned in an uncomfortably close context to those.

Another thing I notice is that fat people in books always love to eat? And I don't think people realize that eating is not always the main cause of obesity? And they are always teased about their love of food? I just think that it's really damaging to people, fat or not, who are reading those things and then don't want to eat anything anymore IRL because they are afraid of being bullied.

The exception is, as @MontJyn said, Nina from Six of Crows because she is literally a heavenly beam of light and I would die for her.

@Selcoeurl Yes, they sound very distinct! You did miss the Short N' Chubby Bean™ but hey, it's just a nitpick because it's one of my favorite body types in characters, after all it's impossible to make a character with every body type ever, lol.

About the question in the post, well, maybe it's a way for the author to either vent about their insecurities, or, in the other and far more probable extreme, to represent how the author themselves wanted to be and/or what body type they are attracted to (it's usually the same body type for these 2, and most of the time they do this totally unconsciously). I myself have mostly very tall, very very skinny OCs, specially those that come the closest to me in personality (NO THEY'RE NOT SELF INSERTS, let's just start with how they're mostly dudes while I'm, well, female), because I wish I was like that (stares at my very petite goblin self, then stares at that one 7 ft tall, underweight OC I share personality and interests with yep. seems about right.). Fun fact, I only realized this after having more than 60 OCs, so I swear it wasn't intentional a t a l l . The short and skinny one is most commonly used in female characters, usually written either by guys who like this kind of girl (I'm looking at you, middle aged men in their 40s who work as teenage movie directors in Netflix coughcoughkissingboothcoughtcough) or girls who, usually, want to be like this because yay, sociatal beauty standards, who doesn't love 'em?

Although I never understood why short because like… dude. why. it ain't fun. it sucks. like. a lot. stop. get some help.

I'm working on this with my OCs and trying to be more diverse, so so far I've got:

• very petite, very Short 'N' Skinny™ Henka (in fact, as tall and as heavy as me lmao)
• Menacingly Tall And Strong™ rectangular looking Jack
• my fat, strong and tall curvy lady, a Very Large Framed™ Amadrya in my collection
• super tiny but fairly strong, the Less Than Five Feet Tall Flat Chested Strong Goblin™ Inoue, a, in fact, rare specimen
• Marilyn Monroe Build™ , "slim thick", curvy and average height Marylinn (and yes, that's exactly why her name is Marylinn)
• Lanky Man™, tall and skinny Seiji
• the average height, Dad Bod™ Inasuk
• short, quite chubby Mom Bod™ Aleessa
• Superhero Style Athletic Young Man™ Kainu, with a muscular/fit body, average height and broad shoulders+small hips

I could keep going but I have 84 children so it'll take just a tiiiiiny little while. At a certain point I'd get to my oldest characters so they would be pretty average in all ways. Well, Anywa-