Surprised at numbers of overweight adults - surely more needs to be done?

[OrangeSunset]

Fully prepared for this to be fairly controversial but here goes.

We’re on holiday in the South West. I am honestly shocked at the numbers of overweight adults on the beach today. I’d say at least 50% were overweight, across all age ranges. Really it was more like 70%. DH and I are ok but being harsh I’d say we could/should each lose 5kg and be more lean. It’s just miserable and I was shocked - even more so when you see overweight kids too as we all know that sets them up for a lifetime of weight issues.

I’m not sure what my point is, other than to say that Boris cutting some adverts just isn’t good enough. The prevalence of shit food is condemning people to an unhealthy life with medical issues and challenges that us as humans just shouldn’t be subjecting ourselves to.

How do we break this cycle? Anyone who points it is out is seen as judgemental but it’s gone beyond the point of individual choice surely - it doesn’t work and is ruining people’s lives and perpetuating the cycle.

Telling overweight people to eat less is the same as telling a depressed person to cheer up or an anxious person to stop worrying. Or a kid in a dysfunctional family to "just behave". You might get lucky but there is so much more to it in most cases.

Is it my fault I'm overweight? The answer is probably "Not entirely" . If it was just willpower there would be no marketing, consumer behaviour or psychology in the world.
(Eats muffin. It was home made )

But does it really take longer to make an omelette with mushroom and salad (for example) than go for a dinger?

it might not take longer to cook, but you would need to buy eggs, mushrooms, salad.
you would need somewhere to store them. a functioning fridge big enough.
a sharp knife
pots and pans
gas or electric
herbs/spices to make it taste less bland

and then of course the time/energy to wash up

I can make a perfectly good omelette and often do. Personally my downfall is snacks in the afternoon in a stressful meeting or deadline. Or my organisation has gone to pot and no fresh salad left by Friday.

If I had time I would map out the excuses and factors, I'm a firm believer in trying to understand and solve the underlying problem. But it's a case of doing that for a whole society.

@pinkbalconyrailing

But does it really take longer to make an omelette with mushroom and salad (for example) than go for a dinger?

it might not take longer to cook, but you would need to buy eggs, mushrooms, salad.
you would need somewhere to store them. a functioning fridge big enough.
a sharp knife
pots and pans
gas or electric
herbs/spices to make it taste less bland

and then of course the time/energy to wash up

60% of the UK are overweight. I would say that the percentage of people in this country who don't have access to a fridge/sharp knife/frying pan/hob, is a lot less than 60%. I don't think the obesity problem is because most people don't have access to a sharp knife.

I do get that poverty plays a part in obesity but it does get a bit tiresome on these threads every time someone makes a suggestion, someone else comes on and says 'but what about if you can't do x y z because you don't have access to a frying pan' or whatever.

If this crisis is going to be solved (and as I said upthread I think we may have fallen to far down the hole now, in terms of easy availability of food/sedentary lifestyles etc, to come back out) then it is going to take a certain amount of effort from the general population.

I don't think constantly trotting out excuses, which in reality only affect a relatively small percentage of people, is going to help anyone.

But isn’t a lot of life willpower and discipline?

Holding down a job, paying bills instead of frittering money away etc.

I understand the point about being surrounded by it - I can down a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s if it’s in the house, so I don’t buy it.

But given that the government are unlikely to ban junk food, maybe the key is some shock imagery (a la smoking packs) to help people develop that intrinsic motivation. And a whole lot of support with willpower/commitment/discipline?

My personal view is it needs a whole society solution (ban the food, shake up school meals, daily exercise expectations, employers responsibilities), but that’s unrealistic to expect.

Also I agree with @KingFredsTache.

The reality is there are a lot of excuses as it derails the debate time and again.

I made an excuse not to go running this morning (it was raining) but I know I can’t do this every day as my physical and mental health will suffer. I’ll go later, or tomorrow. I won’t give up.

My personal view is it needs a whole society solution (ban the food, shake up school meals, daily exercise expectations, employers responsibilities), but that’s unrealistic to expect.

Then the obesity rate will continue to climb. As long as governments enable the sources of the problem nothing will happen. Shaming does not work.

Society didn't turn against smoking because people shamed them for it, they turned against it because governments started making laws that stopped allowing them to target children and hide health risks.

Governments put in restrictions on public smoking. Not shaming.

Governments put horrid pictures on smoking packets. Not shaming.

Governments taxed the shit out of cigarettes and made them unaffordable. Not shaming.

Governments mandated medical support for people trying to quit smoking. Not shaming.

Absolutely no part of the anti-smoking campaigns was left up to the willpower of addicts.

I agree - treat junk food like cigarettes and obesity like smoking.

• ban adverts, sponsorship etc.
• hike up the price, I wouldn't eat mcdonalds if it was twice the price, I'd prefer to go to an independent restaurant
• band sales of junk food/ crisps/ chocolate anywhere but a supermarket or corner shop and keep it out of sight.
• support to obese people to lose weight, psychological support as well as physical.

Trashtara

I'd tax the hell out of food manufacturers as well. The same as they did Big tobacco. Make them fund health care and anti-obesity programs as part of their corporate commitments.

Your willpower and discipline can get used up just coping with life. I expect a large % of people with weight problems have other difficulties or stress and/or not enough support. It's a double whammy as cortisol pushes weight gain and stress/lack of sleep make you reach for the sugar fix.

If the urge for snacks even when you're busy is the downfall then try a high fat low carb meals. They might keep you fuller for longer. Sorry for unsolicited advice but the drive for snacks through the day was my issue. I can see it wouldn't help emotional or boredom eating , for example.

On a policy level I think dieticians should review their advice on snacking.

I do get that poverty plays a part in obesity but it does get a bit tiresome on these threads every time someone makes a suggestion, someone else comes on and says 'but what about if you can't do x y z because you don't have access to a frying pan' or whatever.

You know what, I look at these threads and I see a post like this about people making excuses and I think FFS. And I think that because it seems like it's such an unkind thing to say. But actually @KingFredsTache, I think you're bang on. Poverty plays a massive part, I don't think anyone can really truthfully deny that (although many people who have not known real poverty, will just not understand what is really like), but there are also a million other reasons. Some are excuses. Others are reasons and they're perfectly understandable ones but that's a different issue.

I will not compare my weight gain through being depressed and having cancer to my weight gain from being greedy. I have been through this cycle and they are not the same.

I get messages on my phone, through Strava (which I use to time my runs). If I haven't been out on a particular day, a message pops up to say 'Run today with Strava!' (or similar). It pokes me into thinking, yep, about time I stopped lounging about and went for a run (plus the dog is usually prodding me in the face too).

So maybe some kind of message could pop up onto TV screens once every three hours, just saying 'pop round the block/get some fresh air/go for a walk'. And then the screen goes blank and won't work again for an hour...

I completely agree about taxing food companies. A lot of it comes down to marketing. For example a cereal ad that advertises about achieving a fit biniki body by eating 2 bowls a day for 2 weeks.

What an absolute pack of sh1tting rubbish that is. You would be starved alive and you would probably more than likely crash your energy levels, you would be reaching for the nearest pack of biscuits.

There's a chocolate spread that likes to advertise a healthy nutritious breakfast with nuts. Its fcuking chocolate. There's nothing healthy about it.

One of the biggest changes I made over the past few months is focusing on breakfast for a proper nutritious meal. It means getting up early to cook it but I love it. I'm not rushing cereals down my mouth any more and I'm cooking meals fit for a king.

So maybe some kind of message could pop up onto TV screens once every three hours, just saying 'pop round the block/get some fresh air/go for a walk'. And then the screen goes blank and won't work again for an hour...

And if you've already exercised that day?

A lot of it comes down to marketing.

It's more than marketing. Like cigarette companies they invest a lot of money into finding our what ratio of transfats and sugars they need to shove into their food to make it the most addictive. The are actively out there trying to make sure people crave their food.

@IamTomHanks

So maybe some kind of message could pop up onto TV screens once every three hours, just saying 'pop round the block/get some fresh air/go for a walk'. And then the screen goes blank and won't work again for an hour...

And if you've already exercised that day?

More exercise won't kill you.

Sitting around in front of the TV continually might.

Food companies absolutely need regulation.

Not only do they work VERY hard to make food addictive:

www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html

The word on the street (from various people who work in FMCG) about how business plans work at the moment in these food manufacturers is that their targets are based not only on proportion of calories consumed but also on the increase of total calories consumed.

This means that entire business models are based on taking a larger proportion of the entire calorie consumption even if their product is unhealthy and actually bad for health, and then on top of this, they are very very very disgustingly working to increase the entire calorie consumption of food in the population. And they do that by the tactics shown in the article above.

I know willpower plays a part, but this problem is way beyond willpower alone.

I haven't worded that very well.

So just to be clearer, food manufacturers (mainly of junk) are doing 2 things to grow their business and profit:

• Get a higher proportion of the total calories consumed by the population. So Findus may want to go from being 3% of all calories consumed to 5% over the next 5 years (these are made up)
• But they also, as a whole industry want to increase the market for food by increasing the total calorie consumption of the whole population. They do this by creating more addictive food.

It's absolute hell.

People saying that exercise is the key, yet evidence also suggests that it only accounts for 10% of weight loss

But that's the wrong statistic to look at - the people saying exercise is key are not talking about weight loss, they're talking about avoiding metabolic disorders. With metabolic disorders your entire ability to self regulate food goes out of the window, hence lack of exercise leads to insulin resistance which leads to being overweight which leads to leptin resistance which leads to obesity. "refuting" that by saying exercise doesn't help with weight loss is nothing to do with the reason why people say exercise is key.

Of course, weight is multi-variate and there is no single cause or solution so we shouldn't be boiling it down to single things, but if you're going to say "it's not exercise" you need to at least address the reasons why people say exercise is relevant.

Lack of education about what's in food. My DH loves to feed our kids chocolate croissants, I say fine once a week but not more and he'll eat a bag of salted peanuts most nights and insists it's good fat.
Hes highly intelligent but I cant persuade him these arent good options.
And I am way too fond of cake but at least understand how bad it is!

@ClearTheDecks

If the urge for snacks even when you're busy is the downfall then try a high fat low carb meals. They might keep you fuller for longer. Sorry for unsolicited advice but the drive for snacks through the day was my issue. I can see it wouldn't help emotional or boredom eating , for example.

On a policy level I think dieticians should review their advice on snacking.

What is the current dietetics advice on snacking?

I know that, for me, snacking is where healthy eating can fall down most easily.

I eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner, but if I have snacks as well I find it hard to keep any level of control because having one makes me want a second, and a third..... Each individual snack is small, but it is hard to keep track of what I've actually eaten and the overall effect is large.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable I agree with what you say about snacks. It took me years to realise that I absolutely cannot snack. I have breakfast, lunch and dinner and nothing but drinks in between. It's absolutely the only way I will lose weight and keep it off. I usually have fruit and yoghurt for pudding most evenings and I wait an hour after my main course before I eat it. If I don't I'm hungry by 9pm and that's my witching hour when I comes to food.

It's like telling a crack addict to quit being addicted to crack that they have to consume just enough crack everyday to stay alive, but not overconsume, while surrounding them with high grade crack.

Are you saying over 60% of the population are 'addicted' to crap food? Seriously? Personal choices don't come it to it? They just can't walk down the street without diving into a fast food shop or buying a large bag of doritos?

@IdblowJonSnow

Lack of education about what's in food. My DH loves to feed our kids chocolate croissants, I say fine once a week but not more and he'll eat a bag of salted peanuts most nights and insists it's good fat. Hes highly intelligent but I cant persuade him these arent good options. And I am way too fond of cake but at least understand how bad it is!

There's no 'lack' of education there though.

Just a lack of him wanting to educate himself. It's all there if he wants to spend a few minutes on the internet.