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.

@Phineyj

Have you really never had a friend or family member react negatively to different/changed food choices? There are threads about it on here every day. I wasn't talking about total strangers. Who cares about people you don't even know?

My friends and family don't do this, but if they were rude enough to comment or react to what I ordered I'd just ignore it!

I think obesity is one of the symptoms of a society that’s lost it’s way somewhat. As someone commented up thread we are trained to be massive consumers - of the Internet, of food and alcohol, of anything that will keep us repeat spending. It makes us miserable and messes up our health and the health of the planet.
It takes a huge, very conscious effort to break the cycle and to live with the awareness and discipline that present choices have future consequences and to care enough so the future informs the present moment choices.

I found myself watching a tv programme last night with Gok Wan about Curvy Brides. They weren't curvy, they were morbidly obese and looked hideous in a wedding dress. I'm sorry but you can't put lipstick on a pig and it shouldn't be smoothed over by saying curvy. It really upset me that these girls were hating themselves because of their weight but didn't seem to want to deaI with it. I say this as someone who was 15 stone at my heaviest, who ran, swam and went to the gym but just couldn't lose any weight. It took a serious illness and 10 weeks of no food for me to lose 4.5 stone but I've put 1.5 back on since being given Thyroxin - so yes, I guess there can be some medical reasons for being overweight, but just a few pounds overweight, not the morbidly obese overweight surely ? I feel so much better thinner (and look better). It made me wonder whether there isn't something in our gut that causes this issue if not being able to lose weight by simple eating less, moving more, and by not eating at all it resets your system - hence why the Cambridge diet has such good results if done correctly maybe.
And you can slate me all you like for being fattist, not kind, hateful, I don't care. Fat is hideous, I was hideous - yes, you, girl in your car who absolutely filled the drivers space in her car to the point she could hardly fit behind the wheel. You WILL die early if you don't deal with it.

You're right purpleice.

In March and April, it was difficult to find flour and yeast to buy. People were making bread, cakes and biscuits. Home baking was regarded as a good thing to do, showing children how to bake from scratch and provide delicious treats for the family.

A couple of months later and everyone is talking about losing the weight they gained in those months. Of course, being very restricted to local walks and mostly staying in didn’t help, but no one made people bake cakes, pizza, biscuits, bread.

My exercise classes have been on Zoom, rather than face to face. It’s clear that some people have put on weight whilst being at home. I think they’ll probably try to redress the balance now.

We need to stop celebrating food that is high in fat and sugar. Recent adverts gushing over the return of fast food outlets should be stopped, or at least, restricted. Food is used as a treat, as a celebration, as a social occasion. Nothing wrong with that occasionally, but it should be possible to enjoy food without it being high in calories, sugar and fat. It’s also true that if you stop eating those sort of foods you lose the taste for them.

Reduce portion size, increase vegetables and protein, reduce fat and sugar, reduce alcohol and include an occasional treat.

The government could make it illegal for entertainment venues to sell any food other than ‘meals’ - although that would be hard to define. Food could be banned from being prizes in raffles etc.

I work in a vet practice and every so often I think we could put some chocolate on the front desk and make a fortune. But it would be inappropriate and taking advantage of our clients and make them more unhealthy so we don’t. Why is it different for cinemas and petrol stations?

Fat is not the enemy FoxyLoxy I eat everything full fat and am losing fat. The issue is far when combined with high carb/high sugar. That is a lethal combination not found outside a factory. There is not one food in nature that combines fat with sugar and carbs. Fat and carbs - yes. Sugar and carbs - yes. Fat, sugar and carbs - doesn’t exist.

Prevalence and availability of junk food. There are so many more shops now and they all sell many brands of crisps, chocolate, pop, they're much cheaper than they used to be years ago and no longer occasional treats.
If chocolate was twice the price I would definitely stop buying it. 4 bars for £1 is cheaper than 25 years ago, crazy.

Phiney- what a loud if rubbish. You are now making excuses. It is very easy to make healthy choices in a restaurant. I often chose salad with my meal, don't order the extra chips, sometimes I have a couple of starters for a main meal or share a big main or dessert with someone. It's easy.

I think exercise has a place with leading a healthy lifestyle and loosing weight but ultimately it comes down to food choices. Most people can't out exercise a bad diet. It's about installing healthy choices at an early age. When my children want a snack I give them oatcakes or a piece of fruit. When they want something sweet they might get an ice cream or a sweet brioche, very occasionally they get a small chocolate bar or some sweets but not every day. These are seen as treats not snacks.
That becomes the norm to them and now they choose a piece of fruit for a snack or pudding rather then crisps or chocolate.

just - you do know that sugar is a carbohydrate, yes?

Carbohydrates are either simple (sugar - glucose, fructose, lactose etc) or complex (starches). Starches are broken down into sugars as part of the process of digestion. That's why sugar is seen as a more immediate source of energy than starch.

(oh, and the 500-calorie choices in Wetherspoons are decidedly unappetising)

You're brave OP, on MN it's often seen as outrageous to expect anyone to take any self responsibility for their weight. Aside from where it is an actual medical or social issue, people seem to blame everything except for themselves. And yes, it is sad to see overweight children. I was one, and school was absolute hell, and losing the weight when older was so much harder. It's cruel, but many people have no idea what a healthy weight and an adequate amount of food looks like these days.

And proper government commitment to supporting change.
Eat out to help out' flies in the face of obese people being more of a risk of death/complications from COVID but BJ wants to put money back into the hospitality industry.

Money off gym memberships, sports equipment, money to put cycle lanes in place would have been a much better way to kick start a healthy economy.
Long term there needs to be a whole change of ethos. Rules around housing developers having to build sports facilities, leave green space and include sustainable modes of transport would be much more helpful in longer term changes. (But that would upset BJ's cronies).

@Heygirlheyboy

EstuaryBird I didn't mean to suggest easy at all, believe me, I have a massive issue with sugar binges, it weighs very heavily on me and is a massive burden despite being in a good place right now. It is something I can always fall back into, similar to any addiction. But I'm trying to see how I can eat as much as I can to avoid hunger, restriction by packing lots of good stuff into my meals. Of course you can have your glass of wine, just not every night..

And the idea that I can't say dressing on the side or burger in a bowl because I'll shame my dinner companions?! That's a really strange way of thinking tbh, everyone is responsible for their own decisions.

I have no problem with 1400 calories, been doing it for a couple of years now and am used to it, for me it’s sustainable...which it has to be because my metabolism is so messed up after 54 years of diets . But I do think it’s a huge step for anyone starting out on a diet and the diet industry needs to stop telling them that it’s easy.

I don’t think I said anything about upsetting dinner companions?...maybe that was someone else

EstuaryBird

I am one of 5 sisters and 1 brother we range in age from 48 to 68. Our Mother gave us all issues with food due to her behaviour. All these years later we had four that over ate and two that had a tendency to starve when stressed. Three of the obese ones developed type 2 diabetes.weight indicator lowest known weight 7st highest 16st, the sisters are all around 5ft 4 give or take an inch either way.

However both myself and one other sister have had therapy. Not for disordered eating by the way. What we now have is two of us both around 5ft 4 weighing around 9st 8. That’s one from both sides of our disordered eating patterns.

Diets, punishing yourself, exercise plans aren’t the way forward for emotional eaters it’s unpicking the past that could really help you. Consider it, my sister that lost 7 stone lost it over two years when she was just over 60.

My Mother went through a period of actually not feeding the three that are or were obese at all, social services were involved at one point and one sister was removed. My Mother moved around a lot and changed her name and as pre databases they lost track of her I guess. My younger sister and I who were never starved like the others but her behaviours were shocking. As an indicator she forced my brother who was her favourite by far to drown baby kittens when he was 10. He died a couple of years ago still haunted by what he was forced to do. She also allowed both myself and my younger sister to be sexually abused when she knew full well what was happening, we are the ones that starved ourselves often.

Good luck with your journey. I’m sure people may feel disgusted looking at my sisters but what they went through was hell. I have had a lifetime of being picked on for being slim though I do admit being underweight in some periods.

@QueenCT

I doubt OP was talking about people with medical issues such as yourself. I don’t think 70% of the people on the beach have medical reasons for being overweight though.

Eat out to help out' flies in the face of obese people

No one is being forced to go, even if they are, they can make the decision to not go everyday, and to make healthier choices off of the menu. I have never been anywhere that won't swap chips for a salad, even fast food places now have an iteration of this. It's also possible to have say, a big Mac meal but none of the extras like a mcflurry, some nuggets, and it still fall within your daily calories if you're mindful at other times. At somewhere like spoons you can get a 5 bean chili baked potato and salad for under 500 calories. Of course people don't do that as many are greedy and have zero self control, but that is up to them. It's when that behaviour is passed onto their children that it's sad.

Most educated, overweight adults with decent income have emotional issues around food. Caitlin Moran wrote an excellent piece about this - food is the self-medication of choice for the copers and carers - the ones too responsible to get shit faced and let everyone down.

Mental health services are shit even for people in acute crisis. What hope do you think there is for treatment for people who are working, parenting, mostly doing things that functional adults do? Much easier to ignore all the mental distress of people bingeing every night as long as they show up for work the next day and live in a house not a cardboard box on a street corner.

And then the added bonus that their addictive behaviour is so visible and risible! I've met women who prefer excessive drinking / smoking / coke because God forbid they get fat. Because who would want to be fat when it's the last socially acceptable prejudice?

So what do you think the solutions are?

Possible Solutions:
-more fun PE lessons in school in every year group
-more lessons on ‘healthy eating’ at school

• better free school lunches, kid at our school can get pizza slice for lunch every single day!!!
• better ‘cooking’ lessons at school
• higher tax on fizzy drinks and sweets etc
• cheaper gym memberships
• Can GPs refer those of lower income families to paid clubs like weight watchers etc?
• stopping buy one get one free on unhealthy food
• removing sweets/choc etc from by the tills

Imagine if we could have one of these threads where just overweight people were able to discuss the problem and what they think would help them? Instead of lots of spiteful skinny (by nature rather than nurture) people telling us to order salad instead of chips and just stop being such fat pigs.

@TooExtraImmatureCheddar

Ideas for politicians:

Takeaways and restaurants to limit portion sizes.

Offer exercise points - if you have a Fitbit or smart phone with pedometer, sign up to an app that gives some sort of reward when you do enough exercise. I was going to say that supermarkets could offer that too but it would maybe be counter-productive!

Increased taxes on all snack food.

More cycle/walking paths.

People will just buy two portions.

There's tons of incentive to exercise through apps.

There is free access to gym equipment, nature reserves, public footpaths, playgrounds, splash pools, pump tracks, cycle networks, skate parks, recreation grounds, basketball courts, football pitches etc etc etc
There literally are thousands of miles of cycle tracks and public footpaths.
Poorer families are given activity vouchers for kids to join clubs for free/a subsidy.

Lack of access to places to exercise is not an issue.

Increased taxes in snack food....won't stop people buying them. Has sugar tax stopped people buying smaller bottles of Pepsi for the same price? No.

All the info is already out there. Outside of medical reasons, people must take responsibility for their health. It's not easy, but it is simple. There are many groups for support, there are countless diet regimes available (though it is not hard to write your own), apps like MyFitnessPal which are free. Thousands of online exercise routines.

Oh I’m really not skinny by any means... I’ve struggled a lot with my weight but was just thinking what might have helped me

Imagine if we could have one of these threads where just overweight people were able to discuss the problem and what they think would help them? Instead of lots of spiteful skinny (by nature rather than nurture) people telling us to order salad instead of chips and just stop being such fat pigs.

I've been 18 stone, some of my overeating was wrapped in emotion, the rest was by making bad choices; mainly as I didn't give a crap about myself, so did not care how I looked or what damage it was doing to my body. When I reached the point I could barely walk up the stairs, I was honest with myself and started logging my calories, it was disgusting and so much mindless eating. So yes, now I choose the salad and not the chips, there will always be the greedy me thinking well a few calorific things won't hurt, but I don't want my children to grow up with the same attitude to food I did. I want them to see food as food, eat a reasonable amount and although no food is 'forbidden', not to see it as a reward or have it everyday out of habit. If they want chocolate they can have it, but they aren't centred around that as I was brought up to be. The truth is a lot of people don't want to hear the truth, that they eat too much, and assume that everyone who points it out is being spiteful, not true. They're being honest. Does that mean everyone can simply cut down their cals? No, of course not. It's bloody hard. But also living in denial doesn't really help.