If two thirds of adults in the UK are overweight...

[heynori]

Then how is everyone on MN a skinny rake? Because in the 'what have you eaten today' threads people are listing an apple and gasp of fresh air as a whole days worth of food, and when talking about clothes sizes everyone seems to say they're a size 8

FWIW I'm a healthy size 10. Always have been, and probably always will be as I've already had my DC, but I eat like a normal person!

Also, I wouldn't say two thirds of my friends are overweight at all. They're my size or slightly smaller/larger but not by much. Where are all these two thirds of overweight adults hiding?!

Have you never seen Secret Eaters? They all claim to eat 1200 calories a day whilst actually consuming about 4000.

There are quite a few big people I know that have no idea why they are big because apparently they live off salads and only eat fruit for breakfast. Then they sink a couple of bottles of Pinot every night. I can't think why they put weight on.

I'm a size 18. Dieting, but still fat.
I'm not ashamed to admit it.

The MN demographic is (to my perception) biased towards the middle class and those living in certain regions. Both of those things can be linked to weight imo - some areas have higher proportions of overweight people than others.

I’m overweight. I don’t particularly look it but until recently I was obese. I weigh about 12 stone and am 5 foot 4. I might not think I looked overweight if I saw myself Iyswim so you might see overweight people and not realise?

I am currently dieting and exercising and have been losing weight so far - hopefully will continue

Decades ago, clothes for larger women were described as 'for the queenly woman' which I think is lovely!

I am Rubenesque, myself

People on here lie

People in real life delude themselves.

A good proportion of overweight people are older and the Mumsnet demographic is generally younger.

I like that TwentyViginti I suppose Queen Vic was quite portly!

@heynori

I'm in London, and I really don't see many overweight people. I wonder why there's geographical disparities?

Apparently people who take public transport are less likely to be overweight than people who drive. Most Londoners take the tube which means you have to walk to the station, walk when changing lines etc.

I live in a rural area where there's a culture of outdoor sport/activity and a high proportion of people I know are pretty fit and aren't overweight so I guess there might be local differences.

People often have friends with similar interests as them so if all your mates are runners or cyclists then they're less likely to be overweight.

I can be overweight and still wearing size 10 clothes. It doesn’t always look how you think it might.

It's socio economic and not evenly spread geographically. I live in SW London and it's unusual to see obese adults and children here.

Size 8-10 and a BMI of 20. So I know I’m in the one third. 🤷🏻‍♀️

www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/0/englands-obesity-hotspots-does-area-compare/ - it varies across the country.

I’m a size 16-18 and need to lose some weight. I also love food and hate exercising. And I have a lot of health issues. I’m not interested in the whole what people ate today thing. I ate a fuckload.

@TheYellowOfTheEgg I'm also SW London!

People on here are often really nasty about fat people too. I've seen a lot of threads which end up basically "fat people are stupid and lazy and shouldn't be allowed to use up NHS resources." It's not really surprising people keep it to themselves.

I think the "what have you eaten today" threads are just for people who want to gloat about how skinny and disciplined they are. No one really wants to know what other people have eaten, they just want to let you know what they haven't eaten.

Some people kid themselves, sure, but the comments on each thread aren't randomly selected. In a population of 66 million, even if the majority are overweight, that still leaves around 25 million that aren't. So it's not too hard to find a few hundred of them to post on a thread.

I wonder why there's geographical disparities?

Really, you wonder? So you've thought about this issue, but you've never noticed or read about relationship between socio economic status (which relates to where you live) and obesity? Have you been under a rock by any chance?

It's also a case of self-selection bias. People who are embarrassed about how much they ate for the day are not going to post on that thread about what they ate.

It’s the same as all the people on £100k salaries who display bizarre and untypical opinions on the functioning of the modern day workplace

The 'skinny rake' MNers comment on the 'what did you eat today' threads and the 'if you're this tall, what do you weigh' threads. The overweight and obese MNers comment on the weight loss/losing weight threads.

To be fair London isn't exactly a good representation in the UK as an 'average' of anything. Its way too big a cultural/social economic mixing pot to ever be perceived as anything like a demographic to take standard figures from. So yes, there will be plenty of thin/bigger people due to affordability of gyms/nutritional eating habits, too poor to sustain eating enough calories, those who ascribe to a 'fitness way of life', and those who are 1st/2nd/3rd gen immigrants whose native gene pool/eating habits led to thin/thicker body shape. The world has never been a 'one size fits all', based on individual country of origin disparities. So London should never expect to be anything more than an outlier for any kind of reference to anything as a standard within the UK.

I live in a commuter town and i see barely any overweight people locally. In fact (nearly) everyone seems to be into fitness, gym, horse riding or triathlons. (I've had an ED so think I probably judge quite harshly fairly and dont have a warped perception of what's overweight)
I am constantly surprised when I read about the obesity crisis because within my local town, circle of friends, workmates and family I see very little evidence of it. However I've really noticed the difference when I've visited other towns with a different age/socio economic demographic, and when I've been on holiday in the uk.

I'm 5'7" & size 14. I should probably be size 12. But no thanks - I look far better at this size. I exercise. I eat sensibly although not all the time. I won't obsess about food. MN is nasty about overweight people generally I find so I don't even bother looking at those threads.

Also from a socio/economic aspect its very rare you'd have that many people a gen or two outside the South of the UK who would have been classed as obese. Mining, fishing, and industrial communities don't tend to lend themselves to sitting on your arse 'growing fat', when you're grafting that said arse every day doing extreme manual labour. High cal diets were often the norm due to a combo of needing it to sustain energy/carbs, and they also tend to be filling and cheap. It's only natural that it's then been passed on to further generations where high carb diets are the norm/staple, and high carb foods tend to be cheaper. Plus finances/high energy jobs for the majority have decreased.