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 food. it puts itself in front of you, flirting with you, tempting you, hoiking up its beautifully iced skirt and showing you its crisp, tasty underbelly. its no wonder people give in to temptation...

People are too busy writing "Cyclists are evil and I hate them" and "Real women are a size 14 and over" threads to diet and exercise?

But a bunch of bananas costing £1 (for the basics bag) wont feed 4 children a complete meal. And when you can buy 42 chicken nuggets, a pack of oven chips and some frozen peas for under 3 quid its not hard to see why some people go for the latter!

Eating and cooking fresh produce "from scratch" daily is not cheaper.

Personally I am in the midst of losing weight and I would kill for a high carb, high fat, high sugar meal right now

Exactly fill up your fruit bowl for £3 or buy 4 or 5 days main meals for £3.

I think people all over europe are getting bigger because of issues with food. My dh is from southern italy and I'm horrified by amount of obese (not overweight) kids. Italy is famed for it's cuisine but I see these very large children with their very slim (talking dieting and underweight) mums.

I've not seen an overweight kid in my ds's year at his school. But I do see some porky mums (but few overweight ones) at the school.

I'm getting big now I'm in my mid 40's but not overweight. For me it's down to not having time to be active as I was before I became a parent. I think for our kids it's a case of less exercise/increased technology as recreation.

Too much heat, too much sex and too much smoking in S.Europe .

I read somewhere that every sex session burns on average 200 calories.

Now if I could just find my libido underneath the rolo wrappers I'd be well away.

But not for the s.european kids laquitar!

Not read whole thread, but my (probably shite) theory is that life in UK is so bloody restricted and controlled and tedious that food is the only bloody pleasure left. Well that and binge drinking

I vote for spanish siesta and mid-day sex in uk Fairy

Oh and cheap Marlboro!

Yy give.

An interesting topic. I lived for a year in Brussels last year and hardly saw any obese people. So I see your point of view.

I put on five stones since 2007, however I eat healthy an exercise but have been diagnosed with PCOS recently and the only way I lose weight is to follow a low carb (No wheat, no sugar etc.) lifestyle. I come from a country that has one of the lowest obesity % in Europe and for me the biggest difference between my native country and the UK is the 'high acceptance' of obesity. You are not overweight, you are curvy or anything else that makes the word overweight look more attractive. I am fed up of people trying to make obesity look good in any way and I hate overweight people that dress themselves thinking they are skinny .

I could go on and on but dinner is ready...

I totally agree with Fairylea. I'm overweight and live in an affluent area for work and all the women are skinny and it isn't acceptable to them to be overweight. Extreme thinness is the desirable look.

I think the line between what is normal and what is overweight has been blurred, there is a habit formed of describing a size 14-16 woman as curvy, when the truth is that she is probably overweight.

Equally, a size 8 woman who has a BMI right in the middle of the healthy range (me!) is constantly told she is skinny, too thin etc because the 'normal' accepted bodyweight is more than it used to be people at the other end of the range are accused of being skinny and underweight when they really aren't and 50 years ago would have been very average sized.

When I was overweight it was because fattening treats were too readily available and all around me seemed to be eating them too. Meet a friend for a coffee? Have a latte and a muffin. Out for lunch? Have something with chips and then a piece of choc fudge cake, a massive slice of course. After dinner a sit down with a few biscuits and a glass or two of wine. I could eat 4000 calories in a day without it even being a heavy eating day.
Its harder to eat out if you are trying to eat healthily, you have to make an effort to choose well because menus are designed to be tempting, not to be healthy.

I don't have any self control, if I want to eat chocolate I eat chocolate.

Today I felt like milky bar chocolate. The small bag of buttons was 65p, the big buttons was a pound for 850grams, then the chunky chocolate slab was 100grams yet also a pound. So I had the 100gram bar obviously .

In Tesco I was looking for some microwave meals, you can buy them from their healthy range for about £1.50-£2 each or you can buy the cheaper ones for £1 each. I take one with me if I am hospital visiting to avoid having to use the canteen.
The 'healthy' ones were about 300-330 calories each, with about 4g fat in each, the cheap ones were 600+ calories each and had 10g+ of fat in them. Its a no brainer that people end up buying the least healthy option.

I am overweight and I know why. I eat too much and move too little. Snacking is a relatively new phenomenon as is eating junk food. Both those changes match the increase in being overweight. Lightning-Well done for losing weight. How did you do it?

I'm getting fat because food is too good

I don't know what anyone else's excuse is.

Crisps.

I think you will find that Britain is the only country in the world that thinks Crisps has any place in a healthy diet, or any diet for that matter.

Where else do most children get used to eating a pack of crisps a day? Where else do children eat pudding, or a sweet treat with every lunch/school dinner?

Where else in the world are children fed a diet of artificial jelly, bars, raisins, biscuits, coupled with nuggests/fishfingers and chips, washed down with sugary squash?

The fat grown ups you see today, are our children of tomorrow, as long as people stuff themselves with so much junk and crap foods.

Megan Thanks, its taken a long time but I started with WeightWatchers, lost about 1 stone but was constantly starving and didn't like it. Switched to Slimming World and lost another 3 stone, it suited me much better and was easy to cook balance, healthy meals for the whole family following the whole plan. I just couldn't shift the last stone though so a friend suggested myfitnesspal and that worked great and I lost the last stone. I've lost 5st4 in total but its been slow and steady and taken nearly 2 years to do it, so no quick fix. Feel bloody fabulous now though, so much happier and healthier than I did before. I just wish I'd done it earlier instead of wasting years feeling unhappy with myself.

I'm not overweight and never have been.
I have a small appetite, so I don't eat much.
However, I smoke like a chimney.
That's my vice, and can totally understand those that prefer to eat yummy food, that's theirs.
Unless you're totally obese and risking your health, what the fuck does it matter?

OOh that's brilliant. Well done. Have some . I need to lose 2-2.5 stone so not too much but I am very close to 40 and have noticed the weight going up and up this year. I am weighing it up (excuse the pun) between SW, My fitness pal (already a member but never log ) or going it alone and just cutting out snacks to start with.

One reason is that bad food is cheap, when you can get a multi pack of crisps on buy 1 get 2 (yes2!) free at about £2.00 and when a pack of 4 pears is £2.00 people make the wrong choices. It's much easier on the purse strings to fill your trolley with crap!

Oh yes since I gave up smoking I have a huge appetite. Years ago everyone puffed on em like walking chimneys so didn't feel so hungry. Fags are an appetite suprescent (however you spell that have a mental block).