Two thirds of adults in England are obese or overweight. It would make as much sense to ask what is different about the other one third.

They eat the same amount that they burn off each day.

I think the nipping in the bud is another very valid point.

I've been a fairly consistent weight my entire adult life. As a result I only have one size of clothes.

If they start to get tight I make sure I eat better.

I was talking about this to someone at work and she said 'oh I've got clothes in every size from 10 to 20'.

Basically I'm too tight to have to go and buy new things and gaining a few pounds is a logistical problem most easily solved by walking a bit more and cutting out the evening biscuit.

I live in a country where people are not hugely overweight generally, although the rate is rising like everywhere else.

I think there are multiple factors at play but shorter working hours, more public holidays, longer annual holidays allows time for proper shopping and home-cooking and to lead a more "ordered" life for want of a better description.

People don't generally commute a long distance to work. They work intensively when there but you are not expected to be in the office late, and work is balanced with proper holidays

There's time to sleep properly, to be with your DC, cook for them and with
them, time for family meals, time to exercise and properly relax and get your headspace in order.

Many people eat their main meal of the day at lunch time and eat vegetable soup in the evening.

Some people can also have really different metabolisms too so it can often be luck not willpower

I don't have food chatter. Occasionally in winter I feel the need for too many carbs, but not all the time.

I think it’s both environmental and genetics, you can’t change your genetics and for some people it is much harder to keep weight down. I read ‘ultra proceed people’ and for me this was a life changing book. I find processed food addictive, I couldn’t understand how some people can open a pack of biscuits and not scoff the lot. for me I released that this ‘food’ is awful and I went cold turkey on processed food, I no longer have cravings and have a take it or leave it approach. The first month was hard work but now it’s a revelation! I have also noticed a host of upsides, heartburn gone, more energy, more concentration. I really believe that our food industry has a lot to answer for and it is so badly regulated, companies can put whatever chemicals they like in food with no testing (our drug industry has much higher standards of what we can actually put in our bodies). Those ‘diet’ foods also are a complete scam and actually contribute to weight gain.

How do you know slim people aren’t battling constant food noise too? Judgy much? I know I’d be a pudding if I gave into every craving so I work hard not to. DH prioritises treats over being slim.

I've always been slim/size 8. I think the fact my DM was very into fitness and healthy eating did play a role. My parents did let us eat way too much crap growing up but we were very active kids so I guess we burned it off. Both of my sisters have fluctuated with their weight.

There was never any waste in our home growing up. DM cooked appropriate amounts of food according to your age/size so you had what was necessary for healthy growth - very little in the form of processed foods. I’ve always been slim and if my clothes start to feel a bit tight then I just watch what I eat until they feel normal again. So self discipline.

A former colleague was clinically obese and would always be on a diet but would often be spotted in the kitchen if there were cakes/treats available eating several and then wonder why the diet wasn’t working!

I know I will get lots of 'fuck offs' etc, but these people have a self discipline.

My DH is slim and he does not think about food. He does not need to make any efforts to stay slim. He eats when he wants, what he wants - and it's not that often. Rest of the time, he does not want to eat.

Me, I think about food constantly. I want to eat all the time. I need to put so so much effort into not eating myself huge and I've been able to stay slim or sligtly overweight most of my life even though I fight myself every minute of every day.

But according to you, DH is the one with willpower and self discipline. Got it.

It’s the UK Climate and the U.K. culture especially education and work.

weather isn’t good so not a lot of outdoor activities/ sports unless you’re really driven. Even dog owners now aren’t the outdoors types walking dogs daily as everywhere is ‘dog friendly’ so they go shopping or sit in cafes with their dogs.
Kids are put in nurseries very young as Parents either have to work to maintain a lifestyle or are forced to work by UC and the nurseries are sometimes not good and don’t promote a healthy lifestyle or diet.

We just aren’t an active nation. We tend to lean towards convenience as we are too busy and it can be so grey and depesssing here that we look to food to cheer us up but often the wrong type.

Weight loss injections will hopefully help and it will give that push we need and help people to feel better when slimmer and cause positive change . It’s difficult though with the cost of food so high and reliance on food banks as that’s not the healthiest sort of food sadly.

I came on here to say its the food chatter in your head. Some people have it, some don't.

I am very overweight, but working on it by taking mounjaro. I was chatting with some friends, over a few different occasions about how it helps quieten the food noise in your head. A few of my friends nodded in understanding and 2 were baffled and didn't know what I meant. Those friends are naturally slim and just don't have that voice in their heads. Its been enlightening being on mounjaro tbh, at how little food I can eat and still feel satisfied. It gives me shame though that I've gone so many years overeating and gotten myself into such a state

Confused. If you think that what your cousin said is distasteful why are you repeating it?

I'm finally starting to lose weight after years of failing. For me the difference is eating smaller meals, more frequently. This stabilises blood sugar and turns off the food noise.

My family has a genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes, so I have done a lot of reading about it to try and avoid getting it myself. One theory was that the gene that causes type 2 diabetes is the one that causes people to hold onto fat and cause it more efficiently in times when they have no food available. Our bodies were not designed to live in times of constant good availability, and the people who survived were the ones who stored fat most efficiently, and also were more likely to pass on those genes because they held fat around their organs in order to feed babies even if the mothers hadn't eaten for days.
Now we live in a place where there is easy access to food all the time, those genes are working against us. So willpower is far easier for some than others, and as I said above, food companies spend millions trying to make food mire and more palatable and addictive, and they know exactly how to do it.

I think the culture around finishing your plate as a child is huge. Babies are born able to stop when full and regulate their appetites.

As a culture we lose this ability by forcing children to finish their plate either through you can't get down until you are finished or you need to finish to get pudding. Children need to be trusted to follow their body ques so that we retain the ability to listen to our bodies.

Naturally there are other factors but I think this is a huge influence in the overeating.

I haven't RTWT because I can guess what some posters are saying.

I was never fat, couldn't keep weight on, I was incredibly fit and healthy. Then a chronic illness reared it's ugly head. I was still exercising and eating healthily but nothing could stop it. The sheer prejudice people who are overweight face even from medical professionals is utterly astonishing and disgusting, the advice on weight loss is truely shite and the attitudes of others are wholly unhelpful.

You have no idea it it will ever happen to you - I didn't carry an extra lb for over 30 years. Belly could well be going to get you however healthy you think you are.

I came across this article that makes far more sense than anything the WHO or my GPs or anyone else claiming to be an expert. Such a shame people and especially those who could do the research or set the policies are so fucking blinkered to suit their own nasty personal little bigotries about obesity.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/13/how-a-fatally-tragically-flawed-paradigm-has-derailed-the-science-of-obesity/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

Some were fatter than others in unequal societies because they had greater access to food. There’s absolutely no evidence if we look at e.g. the different tribes lesser contacted peoples around the world who by and large have the same access to the same diet that two thirds of them within the tribe will just be fat and a third of them will just be slim.

Sport and physical activity regularly and from a young age, home cooked meals, moderation and, undoubtedly, genetics.

I love good food and I love to eat. When I was growing up we had a very good diet at home, living in London we walked everywhere, and dad encouraged each of us to play a sport etc. Thankfully neither I nor my sisters ever had any hang ups about food or weight etc, and I think our environment had a lot to do with that. Genetics too of course. These are two things that people can’t really change (at least not easily).

On a really good day according to my Fitbit I walk about 8 miles or so but it can fluctuate. I walk about 2 miles to the office each day from the train station and the same again at the end of the day, plus I go for a run twice a week. I don’t go near a gym or any kind of work out, nor am I much interested in fast food or ultra processed foods. I’m 5’4” and weigh consistently just under 9 stone which is perfect for me.

I’ve always been very slim. I’m not as slim as I was but I expect I would still be very slim to most.

Part of it is absolutely genetic. I take after my dad’s side. His sisters and mum were all really slim. Even for people brought up in wartime.

I can never eat a lot in one go. I’ve almost never eaten a 3 course meal. Usually I can only manage one course even if I would like a desert.

I exercise a lot - through work, hobbies etc - just generally an active lifestyle. It’s still harder as I’ve got older. I’m bigger than I was.

It was never the done thing in my family to eat loads of shite. No take aways except fish and chips. Pretty simple - even boring - meals. so I very rarely have take out as an adult.

I prefer savoury to sweet so will happily turn down cake.

Now I’m older I have to make more effort and watch what I eat. I eat small portions. Usually chicken or fish. I also like being slim more than I want to eat.

I don’t know if I have less food noise than others - I don’t think so. I love food. I think about food a lot.

This is yet another scientifically illiterate point. If you go back hundreds of years people in any given population were not uniformly "nourished". Some were fatter than others because broadly the same genetics were in play. It is probable that it is only when food became cheap that those genetics had the opportunity to cause greater variations and the expression of weight gain in more people.

I'm not saying it is genetics, by the way, just that your point doesn't tell us anything about whether or not it is.

If it was genetics then there would have always been 2/3s of obese people.

This is an over simplification of genetics. Firstly, obese people tend to have more children than slim people. So if there is an genetic proponant you already have it increasing in populations through Darwin's evolution.

Secondly, genetics do not exist in isolation. For example, if you have genetics that respond strongly the UPF then you would have been fine in 1800 when there were none, but you are fucked now when they are everywhere.

Genetics aren't independent of environment though. A change in environment will affect people differently due to their genetics.

Yes I should have written partly due to. I found the book Why We Eat (Too Much) interesting.

I imagine a good proportion of them find the normalisation of obesity abhorrent.