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.

I think cars are part of it too. Maybe it's just where I live but kids being dropped off when they live less than half a mile away. This is at High School by the way - not little kids.

I’m guessing genetics?

I’m a naturally fat person. Takes massive physical effort not to be.

@Fizbosshoes My Dad (86) has always been obsessed with food. When I was growing up, my Mum used to laugh that he’d come home and tell her exactly what he’d eaten - now he does this to me!

His portions are moderate though and he eats plenty of veg. At his age, he doesn’t worry about having a donut if he feels like it, but through his life, he’s never overeaten or drunk a lot. He definitely suffers from food noise though, no doubt about it. 😂

This probably describes me. I definitely have far too much sugar (that resulted in an expensive trip to a dentist last year) and work shifts (a common cause of unhealthy habits) yet my BMI has always been right on the threshold of being underweight (currently 0.1 above it). I've got a job that does involve being on my feet a lot, and I cycle a 7 mile round trip to work and back which probably helps - not owning a car does discourage a sedentary lifestyle in general. But I'm aware that one cannot out-run a bad diet. So it's probably genetic, my grandfather was always very thin.

In the last year my metabolism has ground to a halt. I’m not overweight but I was definitely teetering on it before I started constantly calorie counting. I’m maintaining at 1200 calories when I would have lost at 1600 calories 8 months ago. Unsure if the gp will test my thyroid based on that alone given I’m not overweight and feel otherwise well but it’s soul destroying. I exercise, drink plenty of water, eat the right things, rarely drink. Sometimes it really is just more difficult as we get older.

You’re lucky those things haven’t caused weight gain in you, many people do have weight gain caused by those factors. There’s a difference between hunger and food noise and never feeling full.

I never appreciated food 'noise' until I hit peri-menopause. It was becoming a real issue and I began to understand what some people experience all their lives. I found using Slimpod hypnosis every night helped as did having a strict rule not to eat between 7pm and 9am and keeping crisps and sweets out of the house. Keeping out of the kitchen as much as possible also helped.

Hello fellow vegan. Been vegetarian for 37 years apart from a small glitch with abusive boyfriend. Went back to being veggie as felt meat was poisoning my body. Ever Sunday in bed ill. Loads better when became veggie again.,now got loads of energy and weight coming off now vegan. Inflammation a lot less, joints lost their arthritic feel

Lol

Accurate username 😂 obviously I’m biased as a carbaholic vegan but what an unhealthy way to eat! Especially after seeing people post their absolutely staggering cholesterol levels on the carnivore subreddit 🤢

This is a lot of generalizations.

Removed from home.
Raised in care.
abused as a child.
Experienced severe sexual violence as a child.
Homeless at 17.
Endometriosis.
Cptsd, ocd, anxiety.

Thin people also get hungry.

If you decide everything is luck then nothing will ever change.

I come from a family or obese drug addicts.

That doesn't define me or my weight.

You just said it's genetics and then listed all the ways you don't overeat.

If it was just genetics, you could eat excess calories a day and not gain weight.

I am overweight and menopausal which has drained me. I don't actually over eat on a day to day basis when written in calories.

However I also grew up in a abusive neglected household. Never enough food and have grown up with a very unhealthy relationship with food and no good habits to learn from. Some of my issues are so unconsciously related to my childhood its scary. I also have a chronic bladder illness - autoimmune based most likely again collected from childhood. This makes exercise sometimes difficult. Its not an excuse its a reason.

Don't understand estimate how detrimental a child's experiences with food shape them. Hence why I am so positive and inclusive with my children

I also get anxious if I'm hungry

I'm in a walking group. We go to a very nice cafe on one of our walks . They do a carrot cake that lots of the group like. One of the members said that they hoped the large lady who worked there( super morbidly obese) would cut the slices because they were always very big when she cut them.
I was a teacher. My TA was very big. Someone had brought cake in and she brought a piece out to me in the playground. She had cut it. It was massive.
Massive portions....massive people.

I agree. Using a calorie counter for the first time was eye opening!

However I am fully aware that I eat too much and that's why I've put weight on but it has not stopped me over eating.

I have an issue where if I don't feel "full" I feel a bit panicky.

I think a lot of slimness is due to caring less about food tbh.

I have managed to lose 1 stone but it's taken me months!

I have been extremely thin, slim, athletic, overweight and extremely obese. If I volunteered to stay at a healthy, unprocessed meals type camp/spa, the weight would drop off me. I choose to eat like a pig. That's why I'm the size of a house. I had a very traumatic childhood, but it doesn't define me. If I ate three home cooked meals a day with no junk I would be slim again.🙃

This!

I was underweight / lowest end of normal until my 20's. I am now a little overweight. I am DEFINITELY healthier now. I bounce back quicker when I'm ill, am ill less often and have less creepy old man attention.

Why aren't we equally worried about the growing number of young people with eating disorders which anecdotally appears to be a side effects of the anti obesity agenda spending so much time on pushing "healthy eating" in schools.

From my experience people with the healthiest weights have a relaxed attitude toward food. Have never been forced to clear their plates or told to not eat "unhealthy" food but eat what they want in moderation and listen to their bodies.

Crisps are my downfall. I could eat them all night. Which is why I only ever buy the small packs and only ever eat one.

Small things like this help you manage your intake.

That is really not what is happening. Why is it okay to make such sweeping statements about people who happen to be slim?

Loving this, a thread for all the skinny people to talk about how amazing they are.

Your bias is showing.

It's clear from the thread that there are many reasons why some people aren't overweight. Some put it down to luck, which they aren't taking credit for.

But yes, I do have to make an effort and if I bought a big bag of Maltesers I could and would eat the lot. The achievement is that I don't buy them, or at least very rarely. If that makes me amazing, fine!

Yeah, I think I'm a normal weight mainly by luck.

If weight loss was as straightforward as lots of people here are making out and congratulating themselves for then there really wouldn't be an obesity epidemic.

I'm a "normal" weight, having been anorexic in my teens/early 20s, my mum was almost always on a diet , throughout my childhood, but remained overweight. She ate home cooked food, and probably ate no more unhealthily than I do now

just wanted to answer the comment from several pages back saying that vegetarians are rarely fat. This isn’t my experience. I was vegetarian in my 20s and definitely on the chubby side. One of the things that helped me to lose weight as I got older was being able to eat more fish and white meat instead of so much cheese and pasta.

I also have a very sweet tooth so if I don’t keep a close eye on it (which I do now) I could easily become seriously overweight just from eating too many cakes, biscuits, chocolates. Plus I could eat virtually unlimited quantities of pasta. Whereas I would never be inclined to eat two burgers or two steaks!

One word - luck

Luck -genes
Luck - no food noise
Luck -your body works to tell your brain it’s full
Luck your vagus nerve doesn’t necessitate the need to chew to dial down fight or flight many times each day
Luck your mental health doesn’t lead to binge/comfort eating
Luck you’re not an adult who was an abused child
Luck you’re not having to use food as a way to south trauma
Luck you’re not on medication that causes weight gain
Luck you can afford to eat healthy
Luck you don’t have a hormone imbalance causing weight gain.

People think things they are doing are preventing weight gain - but all of this is down to luck that it either works or you’re in a position to benefit.

I've always been slim, and so has my husband. It is partly genetics on both sides, but we also don't eat absolutely loads. I remember reading on here about how 'small' Gousto box serving sizes were. We get one occasionally, and find the portions to be more than enough! I love puddings, but don't eat one every night. I enjoy everything in moderation. I am lucky I find that easy though. Not everybody does.