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.

Excellent post. YYY to poor sleep and stress as contributors to weight gain.

I agree it's the food noise. Looking at my mum who has always been overweight, taking my kids out for example. Buying sugary snacks for the car trip as a priority. Eat while at the destination. Food on the way home. Being confused why she's overweight but it's like she doesn't take the snack calories into consideration at all?
For me the priority is the destination. We eat if we are hungry, not just because we can. We often eat something healthy before we go out and nothing while there- which is something she would never do.
I don't have that food noise like she does.

Having previously been grossly overweight for most of my life, I finally turned things around approx 15 years ago and have so far lost over 10 stones. I was in denial and blamed "big bones", "metabolism", etc.

But the reality of it is that I ate too much and moved too little.

"Eat less and move more" really can help the vast majority of overweight people.

But it takes time, as I say, in my case, 15 years and counting.

I make sure I am active, most of the day, every day. That may mean using a standing desk if I know I'm going to be stuck in my office most of the day (bad weather etc), or making sure I go for 2 or 3 walks a day if I can, or using a treadmill for walking in my garage when I'm home on wet weekends etc.

Alongside that, being realistic about the type and quantity of food I eat, i.e. being aware of what contains sugars, fats, carbs, etc., and reducing the quantity of those, whilst increasing quantities of fruit and veg and lean meats. I can, and do, eat the occasional chocolate bar, bag of crisps, even the occasional McDonalds, but it's all in moderation and balanced - if I have something high in calories, then I balance it out at a different meal that day with something very low in calories. I'd never have McDonalds for lunch and fish & chips for tea, for example. A bit of advance planning goes a long way, i.e. if you know you're having McDonalds for lunch, then have a light breakfast beforehand and a light evening meal afterwards.

I've also got into the habit of avoiding buying larger portions or multi-buys "just because" they seem cheaper, i.e. a bigger bag of crisps in a meal deal or a 4 pack of kit kats - I just ended up eating more, and at the height of my food addiction, rather than a single kit kat, I'd buy a 4-pack multipack and eat them all in one go. Now I buy a single kit kat and eat it on it's own!

I've managed to reverse T2 diabetes, which is something I'd been diagnosed with over 30 years ago! Cutting out excess carbs and sugar from my diet caused my blood sugar levels to come back within normal ranges, even after decades of abuse.

The thing is health wise there is a huge difference between being a bit overweight, and being obese. Being just a little overweight often doesn't actually have impact on your health, it's the risk of obesity coming later that's the worry.
I don't think it's particularly rational to lump overweight and obese together in one category when they are very different things with very different health outcomes.

I was a healthy weight as a kid, then underweight and anorexic for about 6 or 7 years, now I am a healthy weight (bmi 21) and have been for 20+ years, but I think it's mainly luck. I eat chocolate every day, and carbs.
I deliberately don't read "what do you eat in a day" because I know I would feel guilty and greedy. I'm.sure I eat a lot more than the average MN, from what I glean from any thread mentioning food.

If you compare a few UK population pyramids from 1970 to today, you'll see a bulge (no pun intended) developing in the over 50 cohort. Since this is traditionally the time for people to pack on a few pounds for various reasons, and since this cohort is growing, it's inevitable that the proportion of the population that can be classified as obese is also growing.

More informative would be figures on childhood or teen obesity or obesity in young men.

It's also worth noting that the definition of obesity (based on BMI) has come under fire lately, with more nuanced assessment of problematic weight proposed.

@SilenceInside I have to forcibly tell myself no. It's not just a case of not wanting to eat it, it's telling myself no and why and the desired outcome of not eating it being greater than the outcome of eating it. I don't want to feel like I've eaten too much and feel physically uncomfortable and I don't want to get fat so those two factors are the drivers to not eating something I probably shouldn't. I don't have good or bad foods. Nothing is forbidden or deemed "naughty" 🙄 because it's just food and has no moral value. I eat whatever I want but I don't eat too much of it and I try to aim for balance throughout the week. Is that willpower? I don't know.

I’m slim. It’s genetics for sure. All those in my family who are slim, just don’t really care that much about food. Yes I enjoy chocolate and cake but I’d never eat more than a little bit at a time or I feel sick.
I couldn’t eat more than two biscuits for example.
Portion sizes are tiny and we eat little and often. I think nothing of skipping lunch and often get dizzy and then realise I’ve forgotten to eat. Just not all that bothered or fixated on food.

I avoid UPF, don't drink sweet drinks and cook at home. Home bake if i want something sweet

I don't like the taste of a lot of ready made food anymore, including a lot of chocolates and crisps now. They've ruined the taste and made them taste weird, so there's no chance of me getting fat.

Is it a case of time and opportunity?
Opportunity meaning the junk food is easily available and you choose to buy it (sugary food and drinks, chocolate, crumb coated nuggets or fish, chips, etc), so it's there in the house calling your name; and time meaning you have hours of leisure or boredom to raid the kitchen a few times during the day or evening and eat.

I think its often socially conditioned.

Biologically speaking we've evolved to seek out easy calories, fat & carbs, because food has not always been in good supply and having extra weight in reserve helps you through a famine etc.

The people i know who stay very slim mostly all share one thing in common - being raised to think its very important that you look slim, thinking being even a little overweight is disgusting. Having grown up constantly told its lazy and shameful to be anything other than slim. They tend to think its absolutely normal and necessary for women in particular to refrain from eating sweet or fatty food, even if they enjoy it.

There are also another subset i know who genuinely love intense exercise, those people who really do get an endorphin rush from things like running, who maintain a slim physique for this reason. Some people just don't get this feeling.

I used to run a lot, did half marathons etc, and never got to a stage where it really felt good. Even after years of regular running, i had to force myself to go for every single run and it was hard and felt it.

Daft comment. He didn't name her or take a photograph, so patient confidentiality was most definitely maintained.

I don’t eat sugar, when I eat any I crave it badly so I just don’t eat it. Most food cooked from scratch. Rarely drink alcohol. When I didn’t do the above I was a stone heavier.

i think genetics plays a huge role…I have 8 year old non identical twin boys. They eat the same food and do football 4 times a week, one is overweight and the other is skinny as a rake.

Leptin resistance also accounts for "food noise" and is crucial in the workings of weight-loss meds (GLP-1 and leptin feed back to each other).

The implications are far-reaching. Leptin, GLP-1 and their little pals influence blood clotting, atherosclerosis, inflammatory response as well as a bunch of other stuff. The CV health benefits of the injections are not all due to the weight loss although the whole thing is a complex feedback mechanism.

In a living body, chemistry wins over physics every time.

Same here - and having been overweight, and having felt the hunger you feel, with the hunger I feel now I have lost the weight and retrained myself not to panic at any hunger response, I believe that these types of hunger are different. I understand completely that there is a hesitation to say 'you need to learn to be hungry' because of how easily people can slip into restrictive eating disorders, but habitual 'hunger' can be just as strong, if not stronger, than real actual hunger and I just wish it was talked about more because it's changed the game for me and I would say it's at least 75% of the reason I've been able to keep the weight off. It's been life changing to understand that its not real hunger. And when I was overweight, I would have swore blind it was real hunger. I would have told you I had food noise. I recognise my old self in every description of food noise. I NEVER would have been able to envision not obsessing over food 24/7.
I've trained myself out of it with a combination of luck and privilege - i came across comments talking about sugar addiction, retraining your hunger cues - i wfh and have time energy and resources to learn to cook and an environment where I could control my meals myself - i don't spent a lot of time or money cooking now, but that's because I've learnt to add in, experimented with reducing carbs, adding in veg, protein, etc etc. But what you eat is so individual and it takes time and trial and effort to find something that works for you and be able to stick to it long enough for it to be a new lifestyle. People don't have that luxury.
And I do, as someone who was overweight, unfortunately do have to make the observation that every overweight person that I know well enough to have any kind of idea about their diet, eats too much. That was the biggest thing to accept when learning about hunger. It all adds up, it just does. I ate too much. That's why I was overweight. I know there are people out there, like some on this thread, who are low calorie due to medical reasons and still struggle to lose weight, and I just feel absolutely awful for them to have another barrier in their way. Because it's so fucking hard anyway, without additional blockers in your way.

There isn't anything new to be said.
Genes, diet, portion size, exercise ( for some) hormones, insulin resistance.

What would you like people to say?

Research on mutant mice is illuminating. They aggressively conserve fat stores in preference to releasing them as glycogen into the blood stream, even in a famine situation. They compensate by becoming lethargic, lowering their temperature, and food-seeking. Its possible that some obese humans are similar, hence the food noise (it must have been useful to their ancestors, but not so much now).

At least some slim people may lack these genes, so they readily release glycogen from fat stores in response to an energy demand, and don't experience food noise (although they'd be doomed in a famine, I suppose).

I've known at least one slim person who did experience food noise (though we didn't call it that then). She could only stay slim by eating very little, and was hungry all the time.

I don't think there are any new answers.

People who weigh less typically eat less.

Generally though that's not the answer people want.

For most people losing weight involves less food and more sacrifice.

It doesn't mean orthorexia. When the majority of the population is unhealthy, I don't think orthorexia is the biggest issue any ways.

I don't know how I'm not obese.

I eat too fast and so I end up over eating because my brain can't send signals to step eating in time.

I'm in high end of healthy.

I think AuDHD helps because I move around a lot. I eat good, scratch made food but do love a dessert!

No idea.

Nail on the head with all that.

Yes, and those who keep smiling don't get depressed.

Simples!

I believe it is all the fast food outlets. When I was a child we only had a Wimpy or Fish n Chips. Also crisps were an occasional treat unlike today

The availability of fast food around the clock, and peoples ability to afford it, is not going to help the problem of obesity. Some people don't even have to leave their homes as Uber eats will oblige.

How nice of him to share that hilarious anecdote about his fatty patient with you. Nothing like a bit of confidentiality from your doctor eh.

15 pages and virtually nobody has said anything remotely new, interesting, or useful. Just pages & pages of people spaffing their height and weight stats, seeking pats on the back, and telling us they only eat once a day. Orthorexics paradise this place.

I believe it is all the fast food outlets. When I was a child we only had a Wimpy or Fish n Chips. Also crisps were an occasional treat unlike today