Fat/Size Acceptance

I thought clothes sizing had changed a lot garlic? So a size 10 now is the same as a size 14, 50 years ago type thing.

In the 70s people were pretty thin on the whole? That's how I remember it anyway.

I was going to say to gothanne as well that I think the "fat and going on about how great it is" crew aren't such a great thing either. I understand the concept - that it's a response to the popular idea that fat people (especially women) must be miserable and have low self-esteem etc. So to say "Hey I'm big and I love my body" is one in the eye for them. But it's still about women talking about / thinking about being judged on their physical appearance. So still not good. Plus the indisputable fact that if you are very large it is usually not very good for you is kind of a double whammy.

Haven't sizes got bigger due to vanity sizing though gn? So a size 16 then was more equivalent to a 12 now or summat.

Before we start talking about everybody being fat these days, can we please remember that a size 16 was considered ideal until about 40 years ago? It was a different-shaped 16 (smaller waist, bigger hips) but a 16 nonetheless. And people were shorter, much shorter.

So the majority of today's plump women would have been thought quite slim. Victorians would probably have assumed a 5'7" size ten had TB

women whose only concerns are domestic stuff and looks. Ask them why they feel this issue is so important - done that, Xenia, and been much hated for it

Btw, I think that if somebody's too fat to get their knees together and there's no physical reason for that, they're a bit daft. Being that big does impede a normal, healthy life. But I also think they're suffering from psychological-emotional imbalances. Being told they're disgusting, a drain on the national economy, greedy and lazy makes them feel worse. Feeling worse feeds unhealthy habits. Telling someone who feels like that to CONTROL themselves - their diet - their body - is quite abusive, imo. And yet it happens all the time. Particlaurly to women.

I read on another MN thread somewhere that we spend a much lower proportion of our incomes on food than in the past. This results in less careful planning and not seeing food as fuel, and therefore companies increasingly marketing food to women (the food purchasers) as treats, indulgences, not as tasty good value fuel.

It's hard to talk about 'fat acceptance' without accepting that in general if you're fat, you are eating unnecessary food, paid for with extra money.

We need to breed daughters who are independent of thought and not bothered as to what others think. I always thought my ability not to mind much about other people and be my own person is one of the nicest things about being me. Mind you I weigh what I did as a teenager after 5 children which is about 9 stone and don't look too bad.

The bottom line is women and men in the UK are mostly too fat. That's their choice as long as the rest of us don't have to pay for it and I would hope most women are defined by their career, professional reputation, hobbies and private lives as I am. My looks are about 2% of what I am and I hardly ever even look in mirrors.

May be I am helped by not watching television. Perhaps one answer for women is just don't watch television and if a friend starts talking about weight change the subject to interest rates or pensions or something interesting like that. Look with distain on women whose only concerns are domestic stuff and looks. Ask them why they feel this issue is so important. Probe into whether their childhood is the issue and try to get them to change their views.

I just don't think the food and drink industry are to be trusted, basically.

Sorry to have got off the point gothanne.

Timely reminders about topic of thread :)

I am overweight, unfit and ageing. I'm in the 'worst' shape ever. I am however, more content with my shape than at any time except during my Superfit Decade. I worked out every single day; my feeling wasn't so much contentment with my shape, as a feeling of not falling short. I didn't like my body that much, but found it acceptable. I spent humungous amounts of time and money training my muscles, when what I really needed was to retrain my head!

It does take a lot of work to shake off all the received messages about 'wrong' diets, 'wrong' size, 'wrong' shape, etc, etc. In my opinion, obviously, it's worthwhile. Those messages are all about manipulation: Control yourself! Eat this! Don't eat that! People who get it wrong are disgusting!!! Governments and health bodies are vulnerable to manipulation just like everybody else - they have no superior wisdom.

Food is life, not a moral code.

Diet drinks = sure
Fat free yoghurts etc = yes
We were on holiday and my usual squash wasn't there - I thought robinsons would be a safe bet. Apparently not. I was literally horrified. I tasted some (it's for the kids) and my god it was rank.

Another difficulty with sweeteners rather than sugar is that they are much sweeter. So if you have them then your pallette becomes desensitised to "sweet" and you have to have much sweeter things to register as sweet in your brain. Some confectionary has got significantly sweeter over the years to compensate for this effect and then you get in a nasty feedback loop with things getting sweeter and sweeter and people getting desensitised etc.

Plus of course some of them (aspartame?) is banned in some countries but still used here.

Anyway.

I am not thick

And still interested to hear where physics comes into this?

"I said that calories in = calories out = same weight. How on earth is that wrong."

It's not wrong. That's not what DT and I are disputing. We're disputing the idea that you can be (say) size 10, eat and expend 1800 calories a day, and then put on weight, and still only be expending 1800 calories a day. If a size 10 person expends 1800 calories a day, and then goes up to a size 16, they will be expending more calories than that as they are then carrying more weight. So if they are maintaining their new weight, they must therefore be eating more. If they started eating 1800 calories a day again, they would lose weight, until they returned to a size 10.

SQ - you are being quite defensive

Tbh I prefer to get sugar-free squash - for my teeth's sake rather than calories. I would also have thought it was pretty obvious that sugar-free nearly always means sweetened artificially, but it doesn't bother me, better than ruining my already crap teeth.

I am being defensive because 3 or 4 people in a row on this thread said that I am stupid. Of course I'm defensive.

What is physics?

So you dispute that if a person consumes 1800 calories and burns 1800 calories they will stay the same weight?

That is just nuts.

Of course a larger person uses more energy to do things. But I did not say that a smaller person and a larger person doing the same activity would burn the same calories. That is not what I said.

I said that calories in = calories out = same weight. How on earth is that wrong.

You're being overly defensive. I understand what you're saying about calories in / calories out.

But this isn't maths, it's physics.

*"If a person goes up to 16 stone. Then they consume 1800 calories a day and expend 1800 calories a day they will stay the same size.

If a person who is 10 stone consumes 1800 calories a day and expends 1800 calories they will also stay the same size."

Can anyone seriously explain how this is incorrect?*

I did, in my post at 15.10

God I'm really annoyed now sometimes you try to have a nice conversation on here and people come and jump on your head.

Read up about food you can piss off thanks. I am a great cook, I cook from scratch, I love food.

You go away and learn some basic maths.

I'm not having a go at you. You're just wrong about this, I'm afraid. You must see it's more calorie-intensive to carry about an 18 stone frame to an 8 stone frame, surely? Even if you're sat on the sofa, your heart is working harder to pump the blood around you.

To give a real-life example - if you ever joined weightwatchers (which I haven't but a friend did) you are given more points as your allowance when you're bigger, and when your weight drops, you get given less, and then you have a maintenance amount of points which is the amount which keeps you at the same weight.

"If a person goes up to 16 stone. Then they consume 1800 calories a day and expend 1800 calories a day they will stay the same size.

If a person who is 10 stone consumes 1800 calories a day and expends 1800 calories they will also stay the same size."

Can anyone seriously explain how this is incorrect?

I am also well aware of the difficulties with artifical sweeteners which is why I was so shocked to find them in a drink labelled in a way that suggested it was healthy. The problems with artificial sweeteners are much wider than what you have touched on in your post garlic.

And yes I do think you are being rude. I have never had any issues with food nor been on a diet. I am happy with the way I look and try to ignore the media messages that we receive. My credo is generally to try and get things that are as unadulterated as possible, and cook. I like to use things like proper butter and jam rather than low fat/sugar equivalents. I scan labels when something is suspect to see it does not have too many "nasties".

The stunned amazement that anyone would not be aware that a "safe" brand no added sugar fruit drink would be sweetened is a bit baffling. I suppose all of you imagine that teh labelling system we have at the moment is fine then. I think that manufacturers deliberately mislead consumers with labelling and I think it is a bad thing. I am reasonably savvy and I didn't realise. Yet instead of a response of yes the labelling is bad, the response is, oh you must be stupid. Well fair enough, you don't have a problem with labelling and so on, I do, I thin that manufacturers should be brought into line and act fairly, I understand though I am in a minority on this thread.

Nothing like everyone jumping on you and saying you're thick to make a person pull back from what was, earlier, an enjoyable, informative and interesting thread.

I'm not sure why everyone is having a go at me!

We bought a "no added sugar" drink once on holiday. It was a robinson's fruit squash. I thought that the sweetness would be from the fruit. I read the label and saw otherwise. Normally we get a "hi juice" squash for the children which does not have sweeteners and so it did not occur to me that other juice squashes would have them and not say so on the label. Fruit is terribly sweet - hardly a wild assumption to make

Also I don't understand why people are disputing that someone who takes in the same calories as they expend will stay the same weight? That's just basic common sense. How many calories people expend will depend on a range of factors such as their weight (as someone has pointed out), how much exercise they do and so on. It is obviously incorrect to say that a large person will automatically be doing more work than a smaller person as people have such enormously different lifestyles. The idea that a larger person will burn more calories in an average day than a smaller person assumes that they are doing exactly the same things, which is too much of a stretch assumption-wise I'm afraid. A smaller person might run for a bus or take the stairs while a heavier person might not do the run and take the lift. Or vice versa - the slim person might take the lift and not raise a sweat as they feel they don't need to while the larger person takes all opportunities they see for a little exercise. The idea that everyone has exactly the same day in terms of what activities they do is too much of a simplification. The fact that calories in = calories out = maintaining weight is pretty indisputable surely.

Thanks garlic, I'm glad someone else can do maths.

I'm not sure that that's what this thread is about (it appears to be about something different in the beginning, and I skipped the middle), but people often do get upset when it's suggested that a heavier person (who is neither gaining or losing weight) is most likely eating more than a lighter person.