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.

But this isn't true. Exercise, although very good for you, does little to shift weight.

A healthy weight is achieved 80% by diet, and this isn't an easy thing to do in today's climate.

It's easy to suggest that people cook from scratch using healthy ingredients but if you're a single parent working 2 or 3 jobs you really don't have the energy for it even if you can afford it.

And the more UPF and crap that you eat, the more your gut microbiome is negatively affected, often leaving you craving more junk. Add to that the rise in home delivery, the constant barrage of adverts and proliferation of fast food outlets and it's not surprising we're getting fatter.

It's very easy to blame individuals for their increased weight but it's a societal problem, and one that needs to have some government intervention.

I'm not sure we have seen news articles of emaciated, skeletal, starving children in the UK.
I hear about 'starving UK families' it's certainly not borne out as literal.

I teach in a primary school on a deprived area. We have a few overweight kids but we also have a few of our poorest families where the children are worryingly thin. We give them free breakfast, lunch and snack and issue food vouchers but there are more obviously underweight children around these days than there were a decade or so ago.

They do my DH and my MIL is from that culture but it goes both ways. They will say you look fat but then you look too skinny there's no in-between haha!

Exercise definitely helps, of course it does! Diet AND exercise.

And the gut biome thing is just the latest fad. Even Michael Moseley, who pushes the idea of gut biome, recommends eating 800 cals a day to lose weight. I mean - duh.

Isnt that because we are used to fatter children? Ds was skeletal at 9, all ribs and knees. He ate lots. It's a normal part of some children's development to be thin.

That George Orwell quote is fantastic @CanadianJohn, it says exactly what I wanted to say.

Making 'poor' food choices is about so much more than cost. I'm fortunate in that I have time, energy and inclination to shop and cook healthy, fresh food (and even then, I certainly don't always make healthy choices). It would be so easy to be smug, and look at obesity as a moral failing... but it's so much more complicated than that. I know from experience that when I'm struggling, stressed or depressed my food choices and ability to faff about cooking and shopping healthily are completely different. Life is hard, sometimes our food choices reflect that.

Being overweight says nothing about someones morals, values or worth as a person. It often reflects their emotional state, stress levels, lack of support, financial struggles etc etc etc.

And all of that 'people used to be thin in the olden days, and times were hard then' - yes, but that was before the food industry had made cheap, addictive, ultra processed foods available. I agree that the regulation, pricing and availability of UPFs needs to be addressed - but I don't think that people dying of malnutrition was preferable to people being overweight.

And yet if everyone did walk 10000 steps a day rather than driving or getting the bus, I suspect we would have much less of an obesity endemic.

I think the fetishisation of exercise is a large part of the problem. Very few people on the 70s or 80s went to gyms or lifted weights. Walking is free and can be done by just about everyone, whereas exercise classes or gyms cost money.

I do both gym and aim to reach 10k steps a day, plus parkrun for cardio. I'm still a bit overweight because I eat and drink just a little bit too much every day.

Its undeniable we are getting bigger. I think it is a lack of movement. I eat healthily - but I am 2 stone overweight. I am middle aged, it makes it harder, but not unachievable to lose weight. A few years ago I decided to take a long term view and lost that two stone over the course of a year and a half by moving more. It was slow but sustainable weightloss with very little change to my eating. I felt revived. Lots of niggly health issues went.

Since then covid happened. I moved less and then wfh happened since then. My eating has not changed, but all the little movements have which came with getting up and out to the office have gone. Even if I exercise before work I literally do not move for the day. Its bloody unhealthy and I need to add in some more exercise at the end of the day.

People are obese because they make excuses. Poor diet and too much inactivity are the main cause but everything under the sun gets rolled out menopause (yet most obese women are well below the normal age), childbirth, genetics, money/poverty, no time to exercise or cook properly, underlying health conditions and medication (true for some, an excuse for the others) and now some people are claiming that being obese is a disability in itself.

No one dare challenge any of it and say forbidden words like greedy or lazy because of MH or offending. It's always been rude to call someone fat but ok to call people skinny. Fat people must be called jolly or bubbly. I think having different sized models is good to a point but not so much when it's actually normalising obesity.

Everyone I know who decided to do something about their size by eating better and exercising have managed to lose weight no matter what their issues.

Agree! My kids take themselves to school I don’t have that walk so when I’m WFH, I’ll do 15 mins twice a day. I force myself to walk at least 20 mins at lunch. Little and often does the trick.

Excellent post

There is a whole range of sizes, including some naturally very thin but we have some families we know are really struggling for money and their kids are extremely thin. I've been teaching for many years and am used to all the sizes children come in but there are some that we are very concerned about.

We have overweight kids too that we are also concerned about. They also are often from families with little money.

Sorry meant to quote this. Great points.

This is the problem.

Strange that so many people got dogs during covid and yet don’t do physical exercise.
Surely dog owners should be walking at least 30 minutes daily.
Having said that I have a work colleague who is obese. She sits in the car whilst her dh walks their dogs!
She also told me I should get a blue badge for my back problems. I told her that walking is good for my back.

For those that don’t know this, walking also strengthens the muscles around your bladder so if you don’t want to be incontinent in old age lose weight and get moving.

I live rurally. There's a woman who drives to a field near me and parks her car in the entrance and let's her dogs run around while she sits in the car on her phone. Despite being really anti social, she's huge.

How do you know if they are skinny or underfed?
My dd was told by a nurse at school that she was underweight and quizzed on her diet. Asked what do your parents feed you.
Fortunately dd is confident and told the nurse that her parents and brother are all small and slim. Dd has a ds now who is small compared to his baby friends.

Bizarre, Isn’t it?

Good point about the 'fetishisation' of exercise. I see it so often on social media, people begin an intense and time consuming exercise regime, post loads about it...then it's all too much and they stop.

I have always exercised and made sure it's part of my routine. I don't do anything major, a bad back means I'm limited with how far I can run, but I keep going and find regular exercise really helps. Some days I'm up at 530am to fit it in, it's hard but that's the only way I can make it happen.

I find the rhetoric about '80% diet 20% exercise' is dangerous too, yes it's true but exercise makes you healthier and much more motivated to eat healthier foods. And it can really help with toning and maintaining a healthy weight. It should be an essential part of any weight loss regime unless not possible.

Also, I've seen no evidence of fat shaming or posters taking enjoyment in insulting fat people on this thread. So please let's not derail what it a very sensible and much needed discussion.

This is a ridiculous comparison

If you are feeding a family, you have to fill them up, you have to give them some calories to eat - news flash, fat people still need to eat calories, fat, protein and some carbs

A lettuce is not going to cut it as a snack, it doesnt provide hardly any nutrients or calories and while biscuits are not the most effective nutrients or calorie to nutrient ratio, its more satiating than a lettuce, both psychologically and physically.

How many lettuces, apples, carrot sticks, etc do you think it would take to fill up someones calorie requirements a day, for a whole family? How much does that then cost?

It's just so easy to be fat these days. Plentiful supplies of cheap, processed, high carb food, sedentary jobs, driving everywhere. It's become the norm not to cook from scratch. I remember a conversation in the office where several colleagues were wide eyed about another colleague who cooks from scratch every day. Kids playing video games instead of playing outside, kids being driven to school. Also the increased intake of alcohol which is highly calorific. My mum was born in the 40s and she said for a working class girl like her it just wasn't the norm to drink frequently. Now it's very common for people to drink several bottles of wine a week, have cocktails etc. I'm not overweight but I have to make an effort every day to maintain my weight.

Yes. I'm sure if she just did even one lap of the field every time she'd lose some weight. I mean, perhaps she can't walk for some reason.

I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about calories as well. Women don’t all need 2000 calories a day, for example - some may need more, many will need fewer than that - and calorie information is legally allowed to be wrong! It can be up to 20% wrong I believe. So if you’re calorie counting with a view to watching your weight you could still be on a hiding to nothing. There needs to be more emphasis on what we eat I think.

Just an anecdote but I thought it was interesting, as someone with an awful history of disordered eating. I’ve just finished breast cancer treatment and I’m sure it’s triggered the menopause early (I’m 37). I have a 13 month old as well so my body changed a lot from pregnancy/c section. I’m not overweight but I’m bigger than I used to be before all this happened. We just went to Greece for a week on holiday and I did far less exercise than I usually would, and I ate without the “mental logging” I do at home; I just let myself have what I wanted. I ate a lot more than I would at home (probably because someone else was making it for me 😂) but it was all lovely salads, olive oil, good quality meat, local fish, homemade bread, my body weight in feta and olives etc. I’m home now - not only have I not put on a single pound, my tummy is far less bloated. I couldn’t believe it, and I assume it’s because of the types of food I was eating. That quantity at home would definitely make me put on weight, especially now.

Actually, the UK's rationing system during the war was extremely well thought out from a nutritional point of view. It wasn't popular because lots of foods were only available in tiny quantities or not at all, but it was well balanced and the health of the nation was considered to have improved because people's diets were so much healthier than in the pre-war era. Bread was wholemeal or had a higher percentage of bran and wheatgerm than pre-war bread, and bread wasn't rationed during the war (I believe it was rationed for a while later - in some ways rationing after the war was worse than during the war, while the economy was being rebuilt). People were encouraged to grow fruit and veg to supplement what they could buy, and the diet had to be pretty high in veg because everything else was scarce. Consumption of sugar was minimal because that was very strictly rationed. Not much fat or meat. Extra milk, cheese etc for babies and expectant/nursing mothers. Lots of advice given on recipes and making the most of what was available.

DS said it's wrong to be "body positive", we should be telling people they are fat and to get the weight off or they will die of a heart attack at 35. From a 16yo' s perspective. 😬

He is very thin.

Definitely does feel like everyone is fatter. You see anywhere you go in town. I am slightly overweight and doing something about it at the moment. It's not easy with tempting food everywhere 🤷