Why are the British so comfortable being overweight?

[lookforthespace]

When it seems there is a lot of chit chat about now 'oh, you've lost weight!' People obviously want to be slim. But they can't do it?

Yet so many people, including myself,
seem to fluctuate and remain overweight

Is there a psychological difference between us and Japan/South Korea? It is it just because those countries will outright tell you 'You are fat'. And it isn't seen as rude or impolite to say so

Do the countries where it’s normal to point out weight gain do so for both men and women or is it more about how men luck to fcuk very slender women?

@CrimbleCrumble1 My aunt told my DH that he had lost weight and that is good because he was fat before. This is in Singapore.

Yes it applies to men too. But women care more because they care more about how they look. I have found that Chinese men care less about how they look than western men as status/wealth/education can be more important in getting a girlfriend. Google Jho Low- at the height of his excesses, he got to be with Miranda Kerr (and would probably have his pick of Chinese girls if he wanted them).

@Mifacagare your daily menu is awesome!

It seems to me that the worst of the problem is in the UK and in the last 30 years. It must be snacks, portion sizes and pre-prepared/processed/manufactured food, because that's what we have changed. Simple decent carbs like porridge, natural bread and potatoes (in moderation) have been part of everyones diet for centuries, I really feel they can't be the problem.

Joanna Blythman's books e..g Bad Food Britain are an interesting (if forceful) viewpoint on this.
It's hard to stay slim when you are paddling against the tide in terms of food culture and availabillity.

@ Mifacagare thank you - really appreciated and so interesting. Am going to take a leaf out of your book and try and eat Italian style for a few days! Sounds delicious and much healthier.

I don't think 'the British' are comfortable with it. Slimming World/WW do a roaring trade in the UK.

Am getting on in years and it is true that we were definitely thinner in the past.
I don't know about cause and effect, but - and this echoes what several previous posters have said - throughout my childhood , and in some cases, for longer :

• three meals a day only - NO snacks
• for children, plus possibly a slice of bread and jam or a slice of plain cake for tea; perhaps with very dilute squash or a glass of milk. BUT if that, then no main evening meal, perhaps a hot milky drink with a digestive biscuit at bedtime.
• no fizzy drinks or even fruit juice
• crisps etc for birthday parties only; ditto fancy cake
• for adults, much less drinking at home; no supermarket alcohol
• no takeaways, except fish and chips on occasional Fridays (a treat)
• no pizza, pasta, curry, chinese etc. In their home countries, these foods can be dleicious and healthy, but what we so often get over here now - especially at the cheaper end of the scale - are bastardised and unhealthy versions - or larger portions than would 'properly' be eaten by people who know/undertand the cuisine
• no crisps with sandwiches. I still don't get this. Just why?
• no ready to eat meals - and very little processed stuff. No microwaves to heat ready meals up in!
• Food was often very unexciting by today's standards, but it was natural and 'wholesome' and not full of hidden sugars/fats/additives/ultra processed ingredients.
• as a child, my mother had a tin and we could choose a square of chocolate or 2 boiled sweets after lunch. That was it.
• school lunch (teenager) A simple sandwich, a small chocolate biscuit and an apple or orange.
• more bugs. I can regularly remember milk going sour in summer, and my mother making soft cheese from it. And hard cheese could get really stale. We would eat apples from the tree etc, without washing them. And raw peas from the garden etc. Someone up thread said that gut microbes have quite a bit to do with weight. I wonder?
• We did play out of doors and walk to and from primary school. And rode our bikes. But there was not a great deal of organised sport of gym unless that was your particular interest. Compared with today, however, I think we were on the move an awful lot more - we just had to move around, to get from A to B . I walked to piano lessons, to Brownies, to spend Saturday afternoons with my best friend, to catch the bus to ssecondary school ( with a walk the other end) etc etc.
• one other point; no central heating. Houses were really cold (ice inside bedroom windows etc). School classromms could be really, really chilly. I wonder whether we used more energy just keeping warm?

It really wasn't perfect and the food could be rather boring. But I don't remember being hungry. And - also as someone up thread said - almost all our classmates were slim. It was somehow just expected. No-one talked much about food and there was no diet industry - except, perhaps, for really hard-core old-fashioned wholefood vegetarians. And that was to do with health or ethics, rather than weight control.

Sorry for typos - more haste, less speed.

One other point; years ago, while people enjoyed food and looked forward to special occasion meals, people were not constantly talking about it, seeing it on televison, reading about it on screen, sharing photos of it etc. It was not a form of entertainment. Today, it's extremely hard to get away from food - words and images. Often, they are very tempting; they provoke cravings and stimulate appetite. They make it much more difficult to forget about food and concentrate on other things.
There was the famous old phrase, pointing out the difference betwen 'eating to live' and 'living to eat'.

That was the case in my childhood too @scottishnames.

Our posture is bad too which makes us look bigger in the belly. I include myself in this.
On Mn someone said we are called the broadbacks (or something like that) on the continent thanks to hunched posture. Could partly be extra weight means bigger boobs so more weight on shoulders from bra straps.

We had medicals at my work place that found that more than half of us were overweight and also that most people were happy with their weight. I couldn't figure out if that was most of everyone or most of the overweight ones, but it's clear that many people are happy to be fat. The person at work who gave us these results was an overweight man who told us he was happy about that.

@CrimbleCrumble1

Do the countries where it’s normal to point out weight gain do so for both men and women or is it more about how men luck to fcuk very slender women?

Men and women I would think. I would say that in the UK we are more likely to mention a man's weight because they're not generally believed to be as sensitive about it.

"You always hear that eat when hungry and stop when full"

But also "finish your plate" and "waste is bad". Can't have it both ways.

@Gwenhwyfar I am fat and dont want to be. No way am I telling work I am not happy to be fat. None of their business.

I am always amazed at the sheer amount that kids eat now. And most of them look fat to me.

[quote julieca]@Gwenhwyfar I am fat and dont want to be. No way am I telling work I am not happy to be fat. None of their business.[/quote]
Then you would just refuse to answer wouldn't you? Why would you lie about it?

@Gwenhwyfar

"You always hear that eat when hungry and stop when full"

But also "finish your plate" and "waste is bad". Can't have it both ways.

Oh yes. Definitely!

I remember reading a book in my teens that explained 'the food was already wasted when you chose to buy it'

@Mifacagare Do you eat cheese with your Ragu? An important question I think

I'm surprised to see you say that Italians eat so well. Similar sort of diet I would've thought to my own family (Gibraltar)

Lots of things like olives, but very salty. Lots of fish, but a lot of oil. Lots of meat too. Fruit. Can't think of much veg really, it's there but not prominent

My grandmother makes a biscuit called Manyecados they're made with lard

@Mif

@Mifacagare what would vegetarians eat for protein? I try hard to stay away from processed veggie food but feel limited to pulses.

There's a real attitude that food= treat in the UK. It's not the same abroad.

Always worth pointing out when people talk about fish being healthy, that large predator fish are full of toxins like mercury and PCB accumulation. The Med is a very polluted sea.

Not particularly healthy

[quote lookforthespace]@Mifacagare Do you eat cheese with your Ragu? An important question I think

I'm surprised to see you say that Italians eat so well. Similar sort of diet I would've thought to my own family (Gibraltar)

Lots of things like olives, but very salty. Lots of fish, but a lot of oil. Lots of meat too. Fruit. Can't think of much veg really, it's there but not prominent

My grandmother makes a biscuit called Manyecados they're made with lard

[/quote]
Yes, but not too much, just a teaspoon of Parmigiano sprinkled on top of it. I think most people think of Italians eating pasta and pizza every day but it's really nothing like that. The diet is a lot of veg, fruit and fish in reality plus meat but I can see it's changing with the introduction of fast food and the current trend for gourmet burgers. The Italians are big fans of Sushi, I think because it's also based on simple flavours with top quality ingredients, very much like Italian food.

I Googled the Lard biscuits, they look good! There's a speciality here called Lardo, which is basically like the fat you get on the edge of a slice of ham. It's usually got herbs in it and then served on warm bread so it melts. I'm not a fan but plenty of people are.

@scottishnames Great list. People walked more and drove less. Many people smoked, it reduces your appetite (with very unhealthy side-effects). How many people had a black coffee and a cigarette on their morning break rather than a latte and a pastry? Some of the countries mentioned here like Japan still have high rates of smoking.

Clothes sizing was different, I was a size 14 then and before pregnancy I was a present day size 8 at the same weight. And clothes rarely went above an old size 14 and the ones that did were not fashionable. It's difficult as you don't want to stigmatise people for being overweight, but the lack of vanity sizing and less available nice clothes in larger sizes did have the effect of giving you more incentive to lose weight.

[quote OatALot]@Mifacagare what would vegetarians eat for protein? I try hard to stay away from processed veggie food but feel limited to pulses.[/quote]
lentils which are big here in the north, but also grains and legumes which I guess you already eat, It's a question I can't answer well as I'm not vegetarian and I don't know anyone who is. I guess all the nut eating we do is protein too though. You've got me thinking though, although I do make lentil ragu quite often and just substitute the mince with lentils.