Are people still getting 'fatter'?

[NiceSausage]

Or has it plateaued?
I've done a bit of mooching for studies but only find conflicting articles. I am used to hearing people say we are all getting fatter as time goes by, but wonder what the real stats are for this.

I then thought, since we are all more aware of nutrition that we used to be, with so much info available online, etc, it seems strange that we would be getting fatter if more and more of us are cutting out carbs, bread, sugars, sat fats and so on. If knee jerk articles are to be believed It seems as if the more we exclude the worse it gets?
Simple dietary moderation rarely creates a buzz, unlike exclusion diets and fads (at least in the popular media), but if any of these contemporary/popular diets work, surely we would all be getting thinner?

Or is it something else? I understand that there are obviously strong connections between unhealthy diets and poverty, but taking a good look around me both online and in real life, people across all social strata appear to be as concerned with dieting as ever.

Are there any good sources for info on this? The tabloids and media will always over hype such issues so I would appreciate some unbiased, up to date news, if possible.

I can't help with sources but I now find a lot of people are fatter than I am.

I can't see how it will plateau when we are following trends of countries with higher obesity levels than ours and tbh, looking around, I can't see it is either

I definitely think people are getting fatter. People who 20 years ago would have been seen as fat, are now seen as normal sized. Just because it’s average to be a size 16, does not mean it is normal or healthy. A size 16 is very likely to be obese.

Couple that with the fact that sizes are just larger in general - a size 8 now is not what a size 8 used to be - you can infer that yes, as a nation we are very fat

It would be interesting to know, there is certainly a lot more awareness but whether that translates to changes in lifestyle.

I think it's also important to consider activity levels. The world is continually evolving to simplify things so we have to do as little as possible, the big things are obvious; fewer children walk to school, people to work etc children spend more time on games consoles or watching tv. But think of all the little things too. Online shopping means you don't walk round shops or to shops or services. Where you might have once walked upstairs for a meeting on the floor above, people now just email or meet online. You go to a petrol station and pay at the pump. You don5 walk round the house turning on and off lights Alexa does it instead. Tiny little things that all add up.

This is an interesting map that sums it up.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/this-map-shows-the-rapid-increase-in-global-obesity/

It won't go the other way. Yes there is a big gym movement, low carb etc but in general people are getting fatter. It won't reverse or plateau, there is too much unhealthy food around and most can afford it.

I am, if that's any help!

I think so and on a more global level.

I've been to Slimming World tonight and the people there are definitely getting slimmer.

One thing I noticed recently, and I say this as an overweight person myself, is that in the 1990’s I used to watch ‘Roseanne’ and thought she was huge. I’ve seen some clips of it lately on social media and she doesn’t look as big now which I assume is because more and more people are bigger now and seems more normal.

Similarly, if you look at all sorts of people on TV in the 70s and 80s, it really was very normal to be considerably smaller than the population as a whole are now.
I don't just mean actors or singers, I mean any clips you see of the public.

I have lots of photos of my grandfather during the war, and also of my dad in the 1950s. Both they, and all the people in the photos, look half-starved by modern standards. It’s really striking. There is one of my uncle swimming in a lake in 1949. He is standing with a group of friends (all in their 20s, all stripped to the waist). Not one of them has a belly. Their skin is so tight to the bone they look ill.

It baffles me when people blame obesity on poverty. I thought poor people were supposed to be thin (?). People are fat because they eat too much and don’t move around enough. It’s as simple as that. God, everyone is a victim these days. You don’t have to be rich to buy a box of weetabix, or a tin of low sugar baked beans. Carrots, baked potatoes, tins of tuna and sardines, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast…none of these things are expensive. And if you can’t afford a gym membership, go for a walk or a job, then lift some weights at home.

The stuff some people buy is ridiculous. Stand outside Tesco and observe the customers as they leave the shop. Within five minutes you’ll see someone tear open a box of donuts or a bag of crisps and eat them as they walk to their car. It’s disgusting. We’re one of the fattest nations in Europe. And it’s wrecking the NHS.

Jog…not job. Bloody autocorrect.

If you watch a 70s or 80s TV show or news clip a lot of people look practically concave. You don't see people built like that (which is probably a good thing, nutritionally) but there can be no doubt that people are getting fatter.

You don’t have to be rich to buy a box of weetabix, or a tin of low sugar baked beans. Carrots, baked potatoes, tins of tuna and sardines, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast

If the average person needs around 2000 calories a day, it us much cheaper to get tem from unhealthy carbs than the things you list

When I was at uni in 2001 an American student from ohio came to live with us for the year.
He was ginormous, he complained constantly about our portion sizes being too small, we were self catering, this was mainly fast food he was eating.

The rest of us housemates could not believe that such a person could exist let alone move.

Recently some.of us found photos of that year and passed them round the WhatsApp group, he looks like a fat, OK very fat but normal guy, walk into any street and you'd find someone just like him within 2 minutes. It was shocking how bewildered we were by him 20 years ago is just normal now.

I also witnessed him eat a whole large cooked chicken from the sainsburys hot deli counter (you know back when they were huge chicken's) plus a lb of Mexicana.cheese in one sitting with no Cutlery. It was disgusting but one of those things you just can't stop watching.

it depends what you mean as well

Are we getting fatter overall, as in is the average size going up
Or is a larger proportion of the population moving from 'healthy weight' to 'overweight?
probably both tbh!

The main thing I've noticed is that people are getting bigger younger. I'm in my 30s, when I was a kid in the 90s the majority of children were fairly slim, even though we probably didn't eat the healthiest diets (turkey twizzlers and smiley faces!) Even 10-15 years ago when I was in uni, the majority of us were slim/normal sized. A 16 was definitely seen as big rather than average. I was a size 10/12 and considered myself to be chubby compared to most of my housemates (and vanity sizing is definitely still a thing, I'm still a 12 in lots of places now but couldn't get anywhere near my old dresses whenever I've tried them on!)
It seemed to be more normal to put on weight after your 30s, when your metabolism slowed down, possibly put on weight after pregnancy, less time to go to the gym etc.

Now I see so many kids and teens that are really overweight. Knowing how hard it is to lose weight as an adult it must be much harder if you've been bigger pretty much your entire life.

The other thing I notice is that even though they are bigger they seem much more confident. The bigger kids/teens when I was younger used to cover up a lot in baggy clothes, and even when I was fairly average size I thought the really tight/sexy clothes were only for the properly thin. Now I see loads of really very big girls/women happily walking around in belly jobs, hot pants etc.

Overweight myself so not judging any of this!

Well it seems that severe obesity is increasing, particularly in women

It baffles me when people blame obesity on poverty. I thought poor people were supposed to be thin

Cheap UPF are what many poor people are having to eat. That s contributing to obesity. Your uncle and friends didn’t look I’ll, they will have looked lithe and trim. We are just not used to seeing it now!

That moving chart up thread is fascinating

I am 8-10 but a stone heavier than the days when I wore a 12.

Eight and a half stone and five foot two now.

DH and I were having a similar conversation only the other day. We were talking about being bigger people. I am size 20-22, he is also large (but losing) and back in say as recently as 15 years ago, to be that size was not as acceptable as it is today.

People are definitely getting bigger, more clothing shops are catering for plus sizes above size 24, unhealthy food is cheaper to buy and often easier to prepare and eat than healthier choices.

Plus size models normalising obesity - e.g. Tess Holliday - have also made it ok to be big.

As an overweight person I try not to judge others on their appearance - what's inside is more important - but yes, people are getting bigger.

People are absolutely getting fatter, but you can't say that without howls of indignation and claims of shaming!

It's strange how we are constantly bombarded with nutritional information, people are increasingly cutting out entire food groups, and it's normal to go to the gym 3-5 times per week, yet we're all (generally) putting on weight.

Calorific food is cheaper. It just is.