You’re in charge of the Gov policy on tackling obesity. Give me your five point plan...

[MrsGrindah]

I’m sick of reading lots of vague pledges . What , in your experience , would work? NB I’m not Michael or Boris just interested having struggled with weight all my life. You don’t have to cost it etc..just what do you think would work if it could be done.

Mine would be:

1. Sugar fines or levies not taxes on producers of core foods eg processed food and drink manufacturing. Fines have a completely different association than taxes
2. Weight management education running through a variety of classes eg home Ed, biology, PE etc. at school and also part of any childcare classes
3. School meals to have complete overhaul. No pizza, chips etc. More expensive yes but cheaper than the cost of obesity
4. Zero tolerance on fat shaming in schools.
5. Doctors to have more rights to refuse treatment for weight related health problems ( unless life threatening) until patients agree to a weight loss plan of action that is supported by suitably trained healthcare professionals.

"Our bodies are complex and how we process food differs depending on the type of food, the sleep we have had, our gut flora"

So why are there whole countries who don't seem to suffer from this horrendous gut flora issue? You'd be hard pushed to find anyone the size of some of the overweight people in Japan.

It's the parents that need educating. I don't believe a ban on advertising 'unhealthy' foods are going to stop an overweight, unhealthy family buying it or going to McDonald's 3 times a week. It's the parents who buy the food, not the chiildrw.

1. EDUCATE THE PARENTS. Both on healthy eating and the potential problems caused by obesity. Also educate them on the importance of exercise. Education sessions are mandatory

2.Teach parents how to cook. Again through cookery sessions, giving them enough good meal ideas for a couple of weeks that they can rotate.

1. Provide free afterschool exercise sessions for children.
2. Free gym membership for all

adults.

1. Free weight loss clubs

thought this was interesting take on things: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/28/britain-obesity-strategy-ignore-science-dieting-calories-stigmatising-fat

"You'd be hard pushed to find anyone in Japan the size of some of the overweight people in the UK" is what I wanted to say.

Ultimately, yes, some people might need to work harder to lose weight or stay fit but I don't know anyone who eats healthily and exercises who is morbidly obese.

I'm reading a psychotherapy book at the moment that says that most people that have been through childhood trauma go on to develop issues with food ( also possibly later on with drink/drugs) because if love and affection is denied to you or inconsistent through your childhood then you go on to form a relationship to food as the next constant in your life. We all eat every single day to survive. Some children eat 3-4 times a day and don't even get a cuddle once. So of course they are going to grow up with food addiction issues that lead to obesity.

Also, it's no good taxing sugar and swapping people to artificial or even any sweetener. Some early studies show that sweeteners trick the brain into thinking that sugar/calories is in the food item. Artificial sweeteners are going to be the margarine of the 2040s..... everybody switched from butter as saturated fat is bad to margarine and then we had the horrific discovery about hydrogenated fat being so terrible for us. I think sweeteners are going to be the same. I get a shocking head ache, worse than as hangover , if I drink aspartame based drinks.

I think all school meals should be free and strictly meat free. Breakfast clubs should provide muesli, porridge scrambled egg and veggies and lunches should be lentil curry, veg lasagne, mushroom risotto, salads , baked potato etc. All kids should be taught cooking/home ec every week. Not just food but also budgeting etc.

Sports centres should offer free swimming for all school kids, subsidised by the government or council owned pools.

Our local community centres all have free to use food banks ( not referral) and just ask for a as donation. They do LOADS of veg and I get 2-3 carrier bags a week of stuff that is a bit past its best for my guinea pigs ( saves landfill). These are great for people on low incomes but it's only 2-3 pm daily, no good for full time workers etc. So a wider accessibility could be great for encouraging people to get not veg and save a few quid.

More outdoor gyms on parks would be brilliant. We have two gyms in our town, a serco one that smells like piss and misery and another branded gym that costs 60% more! So nothing for the poorest and nothing mid rage.

Totally agree with banning chocolate and junk food adverts. Ultimately we need to normalise healthy eating so it's the norm but that's never going to be easy. It's al to easy to stock up on junk and eat your feelings.

It’s the money of cheap food full of crap but oh so convenient that’s the issue

Community vegetable and herb gardens. Perhaps at primary schools and then children get sent home with say a courgette, a handful of basil, some tomatoes and a small pot of pesto (made at school divided up as part of a class) plus a recipe card as homework. Knowing where food comes from is hugely important I think. Plus peas straight from the pod or strawberries straight from the pot are delicious.

My mum grew up very poor (her df was an immigrant who died when she was 3 leaving my gran with 3 kids under 4) but they ate home cooked healthy meals every night with vegetables from the allotment with limited meat. Neither she or her brothers have ever been overweight.

@jewel1968

It really isn't as simple as move more eat less. And if it were that simple why do you think more people don't do that? Our bodies are complex and how we process food differs depending on the type of food, the sleep we have had, our gut flora etc..... I posted this on a thread recently:

I saw an experiment on BBC once with I think Dr Mosley. It was based on an unethical experiment done on prisoners in the US in the 50s or 60s.

Basically they took a group of slim people and increased their calorie intake significantly for a few weeks. They were not allowed to exercise. They did detailed tests on them to monitor impact. They all put on weight but it varied with some increasing fat a lot and others not so much. The really interesting case was one man did put on a lot of weight but it was ALL muscle. Scientists had no explanation for that.

In the unethical experiment the prisoners were all fed huge amount of calories and their weight monitored. They all gained huge amount of weight but a strange thing happened they all plateaued and didn't gain additional weight when the scientists expected them to. I think they were all confined too as you might imagine. As I said unethical.

Your post is contradictory. You say gaining weight is not as simple as eating more and moving less. Then you write about a prison experiment where the inmates were fed huge amount of calories and they restricted their physical exercise and you say they all gained weight. So at the end of the day it IS about eating and physical exercise ratio.

1. address the price of healthy food vs frozen crap via a multi prong approach including fruit and veg vouchers for low income families, encourage allotment use and allow and encourage allotment users to sell their products, "veg Co ops" to be set up locally where volunteers can use green space to grow veg to sell, cut Vat on cooking products like slow cookers etc, cheaper gas and power for families on low incomes. Stop supermarkets demand pretty veg to enable farmers to make a living - if it looks like a carrot and smells like carrot the supermarkets have to accept it regardless of how bendy or short it is.

1. Address poverty with universal basic income giving single parents a higher allowance to allow them to work pt. I'm far because I work 7 days a week but am still skint.

1. Cookery lessons for all and a grant low income families can apply to for cooking utensils and white goods

1. Encourage takeaways to sell real, home cooked food.

1. A complete ban on the diet industry I clouding low sugar, low fat crap being allowed to be passed off as a healthy alternative to fullfat natural produce

Abandon the ‘healthy plate’ and kick the “low fat = good” rubbish out altogether. As a nation we all eat far too many refined carbs and sugar. That’s what causes weight gain.

1)free NHS fitness tracker and help with analysing stats (& they could use the data)
2) as our government are doing more cycle lanes and footpaths
3) as our government are doing nutritional info on restaurant menus (if restaurant over a certain size)
4) a NHS website with meal ideas
5) NHS exercise videos on YouTube (some already exist)
6) make sports/exercise kit tax free

Fines for companies found binning healthy food. counter productive - minimising wastage is already the reason they don’t stock enough fruit and veg so that by around 3pm each day most of its sold! Because it’s highly perishable they order in less to avoid wastage, the policy you propose would simply mean they had even more incentive to stock less. Instead how about subsidising their fresh food wastage?

One thing I would change is the addition of sweeteners in everything I’ve said before on here and been ridiculed for it - I strongly feel research will show in a few years maybe sadly decades that actually artificial sweeteners contribute to obesity don’t prevent it. Artificial food is NOT healthy. Way back when I was doing my nurse training everyone was switching to “healthier” spreads rather than real butter, the nurses and dietitians I was training alongside at that time did not agree and were telling patients not to eat artificial spreads but to have real butter - just not loads of it! Just a few years later the truth about trans fats became public and widespread and it was clear they’d been right all along. I fully expect a similar revelation with artificial sweeteners.

Replacing something natural (albeit bad in large quantities) with chemicals is a terrible idea, we've no idea what effect they have on our health. exactly

Basically, make big business start treating their employees as human beings rather than economic units. YES but sadly not just big businesses that do this

50% of the population is made to feel so bad about themselves, they’ve learned to loath physical activity before puberty. There has to be another way. totally agree! I was skinny at school but badly unco-ordinated and as a result bullied and picked last in PE every time. And not just by other pupils! We need to get rid of bully PE teachers too! Dd is slim, fit and healthy but also unco-ordinated due to a disability - which was dx just before she started high school. School also IGNORED advice from CONSULTANTS that she WASN’T supposed to push herself and it took me taking in a photo of her severely swollen and bruised joints as a result of such treatment in PE lessons and my threatening to take legal action before they stopped pressuring her to do more than she could cope with. Also because most of the activities were high impact which simply weren’t suitable for her. She is and was a very active person more than happy to walk miles, swim, cycle, use weights but bloody running on the spot on poor flooring is bad for her!

Healthy eating has been pushed in schools for decades, but it hasn't worked the THEORY has been pushed, the practicalities have not. Having a lesson expounding the theory of healthy eating and then sending kids off to a school canteen that only serves “chips with everything” is contradictory and undermining. The theory HAS to be backed up with action.

@mamapearl I googled “exercises for wheelchair users” and got loads of videos! I’m also disabled though not (yet!) a wheelchair user but at times have been unable to exercise standing and was directed to chair based exercises by physio. When I wasn’t housebound I used to attend a support group for something else and they did chair based exercises at the end of every session.

Massive drive to encourage intermittent fasting for adults. completely disagree with this. Faddy and unnatural weight loss practice is NOT helpful. This is not sustainable long term and fucks up metabolism.

its very telling only one person has suggested counselling actually quite a few of us have said the mh aspect needs addressed/supported

Quoting myself here

5 Free 1 hour a week therapy for all

As for “where do you put cookery in the curriculum” I had a good rounded education that included maths, English (which inc drama), at least 1 modern language, biology, chemistry, physics, IT, history, geography, pshe, PE AND cookery lessons. If it could be done in the past it can be done now!

Cycle racks in schools and workplaces YES! Every school I went to had this (army brat went to several urban and rural) and dad and ex’s workplaces (also army) all had them too. Cycling was very normalised and common on bases and for getting to school. Kids are driven far too much these days. At one point I lived on same street as a school a few years ago, I saw NEIGHBOURS of mine driving their dc to school - literally 4 doors away in one case - every day regardless of weather and then they’d drive home again! So they weren’t going on to work etc

Ludicrous!

There were several horrific accidents too due to parents desperately trying to park right at the gate! This only stopped for a few months when one accident was fatal for the child!

BAN parking within 1/2 mile of schools for all but the most severely disabled.

Ban the phrase 'eat less, move more'. Its over simplistic bollocks generally trotted out by people who have never struggled with their weight YES! It’s also fucking insulting!

Pregnancy is a major trigger for weight gain and one of the reasons for that is pregnancy can fuck your thyroid! This is massively ignored in this country, I suspect there are 100,000’s of women who think they are solely to blame for their weight gain during/immediately post pregnancy who actually need treatment for pregnancy induced thyroid disease

@Wolfgirrl men’s bodies are different! They have higher muscle mass, are generally taller and higher metabolisms.



@Graphista but even the shorter men & the ones that hate sport seem to be an okay weight until middle age. I could understand a small difference but it really is enormous.

I have been lucky enough to be a naturally skinny minnie most of my life, but since having my daughter last year it has crept on - I've put on about a stone and a half, now a size 10/12. Which is fine as I'm 5'9, but I'm going to keep an eye on it and once I hit 11st it will be time to cut the treats & really pay attention to my eating.

It was interesting that years of warnings about heart attacks & strokes have not been enough to put obese people off eating, but when coronavirus hit they were all panicking & worried sick.

For the sake of being devils advocate. Does stopping pc language actually help? In countries were they are a bit more blunt about these thing and don’t pussyfoot around with euphemisms for fat such as curvy they tend to be slimmer don’t they. Why not call a spade a spade?

Mine would be

Main thing - take the personal aspect away. You HAVE fat, you are not fat. Excess fat is not a good thing to have, therefore you should try and get rid of it.
Then

1. Education on calories in V calories out
2. emphasis on importance of walking/being generally active
3. Free pedometer for everyone,
4. Calorie labels on everything

@JSW642 What's the difference between being told you have fat, to being told you are fat?

Yes, and people mock us for that too, rather than being pleased that the virus made some people start taking more care of themselves. It isn't that surprising that an immediate danger is more effective at making people take action than an uncertain future one. People still mocked that it was so funny it took this to make people wise up; people were annoyed at us trying to exercise and getting in their way.

People who say it is just individual responsibility, are missing the point of the question. In an ideal world, yes, obviously it is. But people don't/can't/won't take that responsibility, and for whatever reason, there needs to be societal encouragement and policies. Saying "well there shouldn't be any need for that" isn't going to solve things. It's a bit like saying 'look at all these young people disengaged from education; they should just get motivated to work harder at school as it's their own lives their screwing up; they should know that they won't get a good job if they don't work, it's not the teacher's responsibility to get them through it". All true, but also, unhelpful on a society level if what you actually want is change. You might have to grit your teeth and think 'ok, they should be taking responsibility, but they aren't, so what can be done to get the right outcomes'. You end up having to look at various solutions, from root causes, to surface incentives for doing the right things. And it's worth doing, because ultimately, it does end up affecting other people by having higher drug use, for example, or more people out of work. So saying 'yeah, they should have taken more responsibility and then they'd have a good job' just doesn't end up solving the problem, because the world isn't the way you want it to be. You have to look at what the reality is.

And the same with weight. However much you think it is people's responsibility and they should just choose to look after themselves and get slim, they aren't. There are all sorts of reasons for it, as people have articulated well. And there's no point just ignoring all of that and saying 'well they should take responsibility'. It doesn't happen, and if you want to change society, you have to figure out why and what might help. Perhaps that shouldn't be needed, but regardless, it is. And people involved in policy-making have accepted that and will be looking for things that do end up promoting society-level changes.

and my number 7, if I can have a further one is

1. Good quality physio available easily, quickly, and cheaply. Not just once you are in so much pain you can't do anything. But early on. I can't run. I have tried couch to 5K thousands of times, and end up in pain. I have had gait analysis. I have orthotics. I know some of the reasons for it (hypermobile). But i still don't really know why, or what to do about the pain. I've had my NHS phone physio session that was useless. I've had an NHS podiatry appointment that was also useless. No follow-up. I've paid as much as I can for private podiatry, and private physio. It helped, but was just too little - I needed something ongoing, with follow-ups, to sort the problem out. Instead, their best advice was just "don't run". Fine, except that I get similar injuries with pretty much any sport I do. All of it is seen as too trivial, individually, to get any help with. Really good quality, plentiful physio, with follow-ups, would help so much.

Well, I've never had more than half a stone of excess fat aside from pregnancies so cant speak for me personally. But saw @esgfitness on instagram share some interesting research about "you have fat, you are not fat". Rephrasing it in that way apparently makes it seem more manageable and takes away some of the shame for people who shy away from public exercise or feel as though they are fat and always will be. If you have something, this means you can lose it, it is separate from you as a person. If you are fat, it is implied that it is part of your personality, something that defines you.

As a side note, all the discussions on men and women, pcos, thyroid, pregnancy, medication etc. It really is all just calories in V calories out. Your appetite (hormones leptin and ghrellin) can be mucked up by the above. Your ability to walk can be limited. But you just need to adjust calories to account for this.

and for the pc language question - yes, I think it does help. Fat people already know they are fat, and call themselves that, and much worse.

Using less emotional language is a very small start to helping them realise that they are still worthwhile underneath, that they are still a person that matters. It gives them a slightly more positive view of the world. There's a big difference between saying 'being fat is OK', and saying that 'you are OK, you are worthwhile, fat or not'. Nobody is being fooled into believing it's healthy or good for you, even if they deny they have a problem. They know. But saying that 'it doesn't matter if you're fat' tells them that they are acceptable people, despite being fat and NOT that fat isn't bad for their health. They know perfectly well that it's unhealthy. But they don't know or believe that they matter.

Fat loss gets over complicated, I bet it's really overwhelming for someone starting out. So many ridiculous diets, plans, expensive ones at that. Gym membership may seem expensive and intimidating. An awareness of calories and daily activity (walking - steps) is all that's needed to get you started.

"People who say it is just individual responsibility, are missing the point of the question"

Personally I'd rather see us get back to a society where taking personal responsibility for yourself is a norm. But I don't think society is set up that way.

yes, it's a nice idea, and I wish the world were different too - but I think there's something to be said for accepting where we are, and working to get things better from here. Working to get people to take more individual responsibility might also be a very desirable goal, though! I just don't think that saying it should be like that, is actually going to solve any immediate problems.

Get radical. Remove the aisles & aisles of junk food from shops

@AldiAisleofCrap

No sugar fines taxes etc they just punish poor people. Increase benefits, abolish the 2 child rule, bring back home economics. Government subsidies on fruit and veg.

How would abolishing 2 child rule reduce obesity?

A lot of shops ID kids for energy drinks. Maybe time to include all the high fat and sugar food too.

My DS school is right behind a supermarket. After school the kids are buying massive bottles of fizzy drinks, crisps and cakes. I saw one lad who was tucking into an entire family sized fruit pie from the bakery. Just nuts.