To wonder why we are getting so fat in this country

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I know it's been done before but lately I am really struggling to come to terms with the amount of overweight people there are. I have been really observant of late and can honestly say that even in the last 4 or 5 years people seem to be getting bigger and bigger. Why is this?

I have been to two different European cities in the last few weeks and can honestly say I struggled to find an overweight person walking about, I stayed in both cities for 3 days and got around a fair bit and really kept my eyes peeled and bar the odd person who might also have been travelling, I just couldn't see what I see in this country.

One interesting thing I noticed was the supermarkets and how different they are to ours. The fruit and vegetable sections are double in size in a supermarket smaller than ours over here. There are massive sections on fresh meat, fish, cheese etc and I couldn't find a "ready meal" or pre-packed sandwich anywhere. Crisps, biscuits are all very limited with limited flavours and styles and when you stand behind people in queues and observe their trolleys it's a completely different scenario to what you see in a local supermarket here.

I know a lot of people will come on and say there are plenty of overweight French, Italians, Spanish etc but I think this is delusional. I spent two weeks in Spain in the summer and was about 11 stone at 5' 7" so not exactly twiggy but felt huge in comparison to the European women and both myself and my friends really noticed that if there was an overweight woman/man/family about they were generally English.

I personally find it quite worrying.

I blame the internet after all we wouldn't be wasting time on here we would be out jogging or some shit...

I don't think the internet has stopped me jogging since I've never jogged
I must be too busy typing to use my hands to hold biscuits I therefore conclude that Mumsnet is a slimming aid.

It's here if anyone has a subscription

Last paragraph (probably OK to reproduce under fair usage)

I suppose my point is that, growing up, I thought, say, shepherd?s pie was the best food ever. And then gradually these other temptations ? even tastier, and much more calorific ? arrived or became affordable. So, all told, when I read about the current plague of obesity, I don?t think: why are so many people so enormously fat? Rather, I think: shouldn?t the majority of us who aren?t enormously fat be heartily congratulated on our phenomenal self-control?

Because people only get taught to make Swiss rolls at school.

There was a series on BBC2 a few months ago (I can't remember the name - hopefully someone can) that investigated why we're becoming fat. It went back to the sixties and looked at the increase in corn syrup that went into the US (but then UK) diet (hidden in numerous products) as the agriculture sector had all this corn that needed to be used. It also looked at the decision to focus on "low fat" - ignoring the fact that the food industry then added more sugar to keep the flavour. It looked at a number of different areas - all of which are making us (and other countries) fatter. Anyway it was very interesting and worth watching (if someone can remember the name).

We eat more often during the day.

It used to be that you had breakfast, lunch and dinner (or breakfast dinner and tea if you were Oop North!), with few snacks between. Possibly the odd biscuit or two.

Now, we routinely expect to snack.

Look at any high street now, and count how many of the shops are now food places or coffee shops - endless opportunities to put something in our faces at any time of day.

And most of what people is eating is refined, over-processed carbohydrates.

Because Tunnocks caramel wafers are sooooooo delicious?

We are getting because.... I can't be arsed to cook and then wash up so we are having turkey burgers and curly chips so I will only have 3 plates to wash up plus tray that had foil keeping it clean anyway.

We used to eat much more actually. If you go back in time they ate tons of meals through out the day, but then they had servants to cook and clean!

65p for 4 in home bargains, proper ones!

may have just eaten two

Because I can get shit but gorgeous food delivered to my door.

Social status and personal wealth (or the lack thereof) seem to correlate with weight. The poorer you are, the lower your social status, the more likely you are to be overweight. Likewise, wealthier people tend to be skinner, on average, than lower class people.

Why that is so is still up for debate. Perhaps stress (e.g., due to money problems) has something to do with it?

In our area (admittedly, a highly-educated and relatively prosperous area), skinny parents are the norm; hardly anyone has an extra pound on him/her. In fact, it's more common around here to see underweight or anorexic mums than it is to see overweight mums.

Forester it was Horizon or something like that and I think it was called "The Men Who Made Us Fat". And that programme also made the point that it is surprising that even more of us aren't obese.

Two things I've noticed..

1 - we are all apparently so hard up, yet as a charity collector who spends hours at supermarket entrances (!) I am left wondering about this hard-up-ness as I see overweight families pushing loaded trolleys full of junk food past me. Is it really cheaper - when you can buy a bunch of bananas for the same price as a couple of packets of crisps?

2 - was in my local M & S yesterday (a small branch) and really noticed how, even in this reasonably upmarket store, the ready made meals are taking over more and more shelf space from the fresh food counters. As an oldie I'm tempted to ask if any families cook meals from scratch now? And I don't buy the argument of busy lives. Until I retired I worked long hours, commuted etc. had a family but never had to recourse to the ready meal easy option.

The third thing is, that sports enthusiasts apart, it's the computer games culture, the drive everywhere habit that is adding to it.

Excess calories in over calories out - obesity. Simple.

I wonder if the human race is still around in a few millennia and we have not blown ourselves up or drowned in a sea of cholesterol we will evolve to have wheels instead of feet.....

There was an article recently in The Times or The Guardian saying how we actually eat less fat now than ever before but levels of obesity are rising alarmingly. We actually need fat, low fat products are bad for us as the fat is replaced by sugar. I guess we need to go back to how we ate decades ago; food cooked from scratch but plenty of fats including butter, full fat milk etc.

I'm 5'9 and a size 14 and last time I weighed myself I was just over 12 stone so I guess I'm around the obese category. I've been much bigger than I am now after each of my pregnancies and managed to lose everything I put in.

I'll never be a size 10. I don't care I'll never be a size 10. Why? Because I like GOOD food and eating. When I feel I've had a "bad" few days or week I stay on track the following weeks.

I think too many people are far too obsessed with other people's apearances and its really rather strange. One day we'll be dead, so why not spend your precious time here worrying about things that directly affect your life not other people's?

If the argument comes down to obese people getting operations on the NHS to have their stomachs stapled and costing tax payers ££££'s you'd be better off just being angry about paying £2k a year to have your bin emptied once a fortnight because that probably has more bearing on your life!

Fatty food is filled with chemicals to make it addictive. Its also cheaper and more convenient. Alot of people don't have set hours of work like they used to and so they grab things 'on the go' which is often the wrong choice of food, also there aren't as many 1950s housewives anymore who stand around cooking everything from scratch. People have much less labouring jobs now too.

Lots of reasons really, the world has changed. I know a lot of obese Italian's, are you mad? They're like renowned for being overweight.

I would imagine (throwing a bun in the works) that wealthier people are generally more inclined to feel a need to conform to pressure to look skinny as for some reason especially amongst the middle to upper classes being skinny especially as a woman seems to be associated with being successful (possibly I suspect due to being perceived to have self control etc).

In working classes people are more stressed out by simply trying to survive on lower incomes so it's a cheap but pleasant thing to have a cake or a biscuit and not care so much about the odd bit of chub.

I am sort of working to middle class so I suppose I can see both sides. And yes that's very stereotypical of me... I fancy a bun fight. I like a good bun.

I think the trend towards two-income families hasn't helped. When I was a child hardly any of the mothers worked. They shopped at supermarkets (a fraction of the size of modern ones) for cupboard goods and then went to the baker, butcher and greengrocer, and then they cooked from scratch, mostly. It was certainly like this in the 80s when I was young. I think now that it is more common for both in a couple to work, there is less time for all this and people rely on convenience foods more and more.

You look at the number of coffee shops now, serving high calorie drinks..christ knows how many calories are in those syrupy lattes in costa!
People just didn't do that 30 years ago...

It's laziness and processed food.

People don't take the stairs much anymore and would rather stand still on an escalator or take the option of a lift. I'm often astounded when shoppers just abandon their trolley in the car park rather than return it or when they drive around and around until they can park as near to the entrance of the store as possible. That sort of behaviour is cumulative.

I don't think our bodies can deal well with processed food and I wonder about how accurate the information on the packaging actually is.

I think the biggest misconception about it all is that it's down to a lack of education. Every tv channel is full of how to cook, how fat we are getting, how many calories there are in everything... every supermarket is stacked with clearly labelled stuff. It's not a lack of knowing what to eat or how to live healthily it's just that people are actively choosing not to. I don't know how anyone attempts to solve that one.

Can't quite work out if this is a genuine fatty bashing thread or a stealth boast about how well travelled you are.

I would not trouble yourself too much about other peoples weight, worry more about how judgemental you are. After all I could go on a diet (if I wanted to, not to please you) but you will always have your attitude.

A recent article said that by 2050, 246,000 people will reach 100 due to better diet and medical advances. Sadly 1/4 of them won't know they are 100 due to dementia. For me anything over 80 ain't going to be great so I'd rather carry on eating thanks.