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.

[Teal99]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-crucial-variable-with-covid-19-isn-t-ethnicity-it-s-fat/amp?twitterr_impression=true
This covers some of the points about poverty mentioned already in the thread.

[fellrunner85]

exercise burn dissapointingly little extra calories

Not if you do enough of it. I burned 1100 calories on my run this morning, which means I can be a lot more laid back with what I eat. But yes, half an hour won't do much.

[Heygirlheyboy]

Wow, how long were you running? It's hard to allow for a lot of exercise in the day but for me, even with a small calorie burn, I'm getting out, getting the steps in and it helps me feel so much better and this then knocks on to my food choices.

[fellrunner85]

It was around 13 miles - I got up very early! But yes, I find exercising also spurs me on to make far better food choices. If I'm getting up at 5am for a long run then I can't have had a greasy or heavy meal the night before; and it makes me less hungry afterwards too. Alcohol, too, is out of the window for me. Even one glass of wine the night before a hard session was affecting my running and making me feel shocking.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

I usually reckon on about 100 calories per mile - so my normal 5 mile run burns the equivalent of my breakfast and coffee during the day. As long as I'm not sitting on the couch for the entire rest of the day, then movement during the remaining hours accounts for my evening meal (I don't eat lunch).

Once you're up and moving you are more likely to keep moving. So getting up and out, although it may not burn a curry and cheesecake off, it will help you feel better, and it's better than not burning off any calories at all!

[KatherineJaneway]

Once you're up and moving you are more likely to keep moving. So getting up and out, although it may not burn a curry and cheesecake off, it will help you feel better, and it's better than not burning off any calories at all!

Agree.

[DillonPanthersTexas]

I burned 1100 calories on my run this morning, which means I can be a lot more laid back with what I eat.

Yep, I burn about 850 calories for a typical rowing outing which means I can not obsess over how much I am eating

[SaltyLou]

There is no "one size fits all" approach to this (pardon pun) because the causes and solutions won't be the same for everyone. It is about finding out what.works for each obese individual

[KatherineJaneway]

@SaltyLou

There is no "one size fits all" approach to this (pardon pun) because the causes and solutions won't be the same for everyone. It is about finding out what.works for each obese individual

Agree. It's what suits a person and what they can stick to.

[Isthisit22]

There has definitely been a cultural shift. We eat out with our children a lot more than I remember eating out with my parents. We are forever in cafes or getting ice creams etc. However, I try to balance that by mine only drinking water and lots of other healthy food and exercise.
It's become very normal to see people buying children things like milk shakes or freakshakes and a piece of cake. I don't think people realise the calories in that alone will be almost a day's worth.
I have always been slim as my parents are slim and we ate healthily, small portions often and dieting etc was never mentioned. Did/do lots of sports too.
My husband's parents were and are the opposite and he's always struggled with his weight.
With our children we ensure they are very active and eat the way I am used to.
I'm shocked when I see people giving their children full share packs of sweets, etc sometimes on the way to school. Seeing so many overweight kids makes me so sad as its our job to set them on a better path.
I know how much I appreciate what my parents did for me and how much my husband wishes he hadn't been big from young childhood

[justchecking1]

Exercise is better for maintenance than losing weight. I run 5k every day which gives me about 10,000 calories a month to play with. This means I can have a couple of take aways, wine on the weekends, and the odd bar of chocolate or birthday cake without even thinking about my weight. If I were using those 10,000 calories to lose weight, it would equate to about 3lb a month, which if you've got 4 or 5 stone to lose is a disappointingly small amount and wouldn't seem worth the effort I would think.

[fellrunner85]

Yes, but if you did more exercise you'd lose weight @justchecking1 ... I lost 2 stone pretty much from just running. Stopping drinking helped, too. But if you create enough of a calorie deficit it has a huge effect - even more so when you take into account the fact you don't want to eat heavy, stodgy meals when you're running a lot.

[MsTSwift]

I cut out a meal a day (in my case breakfast) cut out all bad snacks and booze but only mon - Friday ate normal meals on smaller plates and do an hours cardio a day. Lost the 2 stone I needed and it’s staying off it’s all about changing your habits so it’s your normal. A temporary “diet” can’t work longterm.

[justchecking1]

Oh definitely, @fellrunner, I was just thinking that people massively underestimate the amount of exercise they'd need to do.

Running for 5k-10k every day would have seemed like a monumental amount of exercise to me not so long ago, and to think that it would have only lost me 3lb ish a month (if I'd been using it to lose weight) would have definitely made me feel it wasn't worth the effort! As it is, I was using it to improve my fitness, which it's definitely done, so was very much worth it.

[Newgirls]

BBC news today saying that a vaccine might be less effective if obese.

[Newgirls]

Coronavirus: Obesity 'increases risks from Covid-19' www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53921141

[BogRollBOGOF]

@justchecking1

Exercise is better for maintenance than losing weight. I run 5k every day which gives me about 10,000 calories a month to play with. This means I can have a couple of take aways, wine on the weekends, and the odd bar of chocolate or birthday cake without even thinking about my weight. If I were using those 10,000 calories to lose weight, it would equate to about 3lb a month, which if you've got 4 or 5 stone to lose is a disappointingly small amount and wouldn't seem worth the effort I would think.

I did RED January, doing outdoor exercise, mainly running with a few quality walks as rest days. Some of it longer runs training for a HM, some shorter and easier. My average daily calorie burn was 2114 per day. In June with still no school runs, bored of walking (crap weather) and injuries preventing running due to not going to the osteopath for months, and my average daily burn was down to 1724. Not surprisingly I'm now several lbs heavier now than at the end of January.

It's going to take care of my diet to resolve. Exercise is important for metabolism, general health and to allow more flexibility in diet. Spending a couple of hours running 10 miles to burn 1000 calories is helpful but not very efficient for most, so ideally exercise and diet need to balance together.

I've got short legs and it often surprises me that I tend to be one of the fastest people walking around. Even when I'm not purposefully walking briskly, I tend to be faster than most people strolling around. Any movement is a good thing, but strolling slowly does little to boost metabolism and for cardiac health. A lot of people massively overestimate the benefits they get from very gentle activity.

[fellrunner85]

I was just thinking that people massively underestimate the amount of exercise they'd need to do

Oh absolutely, @justchecking1 - completely agree. Back when I did c25k I genuinely thought I was doing a lot of exercise and wondered why I wasn't losing weight. Running 5k each day would have seemed insane

These days I call a 5k a short recovery run, and wonder how I ended up here!

[Notcontent]

There is huge demand for cheap food and companies have responded to that demand. That’s not really going to change unless people change their shopping and eating habits - which in turn will only happen if there is a massive education campaign around this.

[Teal99]

People already know about nutrition and the benefits of eating well and exercise. They don't need educating. Very few people don't get it. It is a lack of will to do the things that will keep you healthy. You can't teach that. You can lead a horse to water etc....

[Zaphodsotherhead]

@fellrunner85

I was just thinking that people massively underestimate the amount of exercise they'd need to do

Oh absolutely, *@justchecking1* - completely agree. Back when I did c25k I genuinely thought I was doing a lot of exercise and wondered why I wasn't losing weight. Running 5k each day would have seemed insane

These days I call a 5k a short recovery run, and wonder how I ended up here!

This is so true. But it's the attitude of people that surprises me.

I lost four stone last year, taking up running. I've dialled back the running a little at the moment (I run with my dog and it's been a bit warm!) but aim to run around 30 miles a week.

SO MANY people are agog at how 'much' I run. It's five miles a day, six days a week (as I said, dog...) which hardly seems like extreme running. But most of them are saying to me 'I don't know how you do it, I can barely run to the end of the road'.

And I look at their waistlines and think 'yep, I can see that.' They genuinely think that running for half an hour twice a week means that they can eat biscuits all day. I don't like to break it to them that it probably means they can eat two chocolate digestives and then they've undone all their hard work!

[KatherineJaneway]

It wasn't until I started st the gym many years ago I realised how much you have to exercise to burn off significant calories.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

But then exercise can tone you up, so even if you don't lose any weight, you can look better with the weight you are carrying.

Plus also get fitter. And it's about the fitness really. You can be heavier than you'd like and still able to run 10k, or at your goal weight and barely able to walk up the stairs.

[MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously]

I think exercise should be viewed more as a method of toning and therefore an aid to metabolism, rather than a means of burning enough calories to eat whatever you want. People who exercise do tend to look better than people who don't. And it's about feeling better, isn't it? Not just about appearance

[fellrunner85]

SO MANY people are agog at how 'much' I run. It's five miles a day, six days a week (as I said, dog...) which hardly seems like extreme running

Absolutely. I run 40-50ish miles a week and I've had people call me "obsessed", people wondering how I fit it in, people suggesting I must be neglecting my children... whereas apparently watching 1-2 hours of tv each say is "normal", if you do that amount of running people think you're quite mad.

High levels of exercise are what our bodies were built to do. We were born to run. We're hunter-gatherers! But somehow we've ended up in a place where running even 5k is seen as a massive achievement..and people wonder why, as a society, we're so overweight.