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.

Madmouse's cakes look scrummy. I'm not helping, am I?

The reason is SUGAR! It is the most addictive drug out there.

soverylucky I've lived in the UK for 13 years now and I still cycle everywhere up to about 5 miles, in cities, towns and rural areas (have moved around a fair bit). Not always with my child as he is disabled and needs his walking frame/buggy etc at our destination, but I do have a weehoo for him and it's great fun. And I've yet to have an accident in the UK despite having had a few in the Netherlands. It is also easy to walk the dog here because of all the wonderful rights of ways. So to say it's harder to exercise in the UK, I'm not sure I buy it. Too much infatuation with expensive gym membership while niot actually enjoying the gym is more of a problem.

I am overweight by the way. Eating disorder since age 7. Loads of therapy later I've now joined slimmingworld and the weight is flying off because of my active lifestyle.

What a load of rubbish soverylucky, The climate is perfect for exercise here in hot countries its exhausting. The roads are safer in the UK than any other country I have ever been too. Health food is expencive? since when? Fruit and vegetables are super cheap. I am not surprised you are overweight with your attitude

oblomov they are scrummy. Not every day but every now and again mmm. Now liquorice is another matter. If there was a shop near me that actually sold a few varieties of real liquorice I would never touch chocolate again and spend all my naughty calories on that...

The question surrounding this modern obesity problem has puzzled researchers for a long time....and nothing definitive ever comes out of it. Probably all of the things people post above. The full answer is not going to be straightforward.

As an ex-pat in France, it's quite interesting to return to the UK. I'm always surprised how tall everyone is in the UK and they feel 'big' to stand next to (OK - I'm short, but I'm surrounded by similar statures - perhaps this is why OP felt the Spaniards were so small, she was deceived by height). Some things I know find really striking in the UK:

• people walk in the streets and eat at the same time!!!
• people eat meals at any old time. Lunch can be anywhere between 11.30 and 3pm
• supermarkets are great! Tons of choice including lots of cheap, fresh fruit and veg. The variety is striking. For example, I cannot buy: fresh chilli, coriander, green veg like kale or soft fruits like blueberries
• people eat a lot more take-outs. Really nice choices too (here, we get pizza with pizza)

As an aside, I think the only thing I disagree with in this thread are posters saying how expensive eating healthily is. I really, really disagree. 15 years ago, as a vegetarian at uni I lived on 10 quid a week for food. Bought pasta in cheap scoop-and-weigh places, really large bags of vegetables, espcially potatoes. I did buy tinned tomatoes. But what I saved there, I spent on cheese, cream and eggs. I cooked everything from scratch. Things I cooked in bulk I froze.

Poisoning - yes very ironic about the diabetes medication!!

Interesting what you say about there being a upper limit % of people becoming obese. I have copied a piece from the NHS and if this report is true then having 50% of the population obese by 2030 is staggering - I am assuming when they say obese they include morbidly and super obese in this number....however they haven't commented on just the "overweight" i.e. those with a BMI of 25-30 which also adds a great cost to NHS resources.

"Many newspapers have reported that half of UK men could be obese by 2030 if trends continue.
The Guardian said that ?governments around the world need to make immediate and dramatic policy changes to reverse a pandemic of obesity?. The Independent reported that by 2030 there will be 26 million people in the UK who are obese - a rise of 73% from the current 15 million. The Daily Mail reported that women will be close behind, ?with four in ten similarly overweight? by that year.

These news stories and others are based on a series of papers in The Lancet examining issues surrounding the current worldwide obesity ?pandemic?. The predictions come from one of these studies, which looked at obesity data from the US and UK, which have had the highest obesity levels in the world over the past 20 years. The researchers predict that if the current trend continues, up to 48% of men and 43% of women in the UK could be obese by 2030, adding an additional £1.9-2 billion per year in medical costs for obesity-related diseases"

An people ask my why I care

The National Obesity Forum has identified a new class of super-obese Brits who will die young. A fast-growing group of ?super-fat? Brits are set to eat their way through nearly £500million a year of NHS resources.
Obesity rates are already at epidemic levels and latest estimates predict half of us will be obese by 2050.
A quarter already are and experts warn the true cost to the NHS is likely to hit £50bn through prescriptions, appointments, hospital admissions, benefits and reduced productivity ? far more than was previously thought.
According to figures released last week by the UK?s National Obesity Forum at a parliamentary reception called ?Obesity: The Real Costs?, more than a million people in the UK have a body mass index of between 40 and 50 ? double the 18.5 to 24.9 BMI considered to be healthy.
But it?s the new class of super-obese that really has experts worried.
There are a staggering 100,000 of them with a BMI of 50 or more. To put it in context, that means a 5ft 3in woman would weigh 21 stone.

Sorry, I was really rude { blush}

I do wonder if diet drinks and low fat foods which are a massive industry actually make people fatter?

Fast food, eating early (so not taking a whole evening to cook something wholesome) good food is expensive, too much TV, snacks with high sugar, shit fruit, etc etc.

My take on it:

People eat too much. And eat constantly. Food is available 24/7 and eating on the go, between meals etc has become acceptable and encouraged.

People are much more sedentary; driving everywhere, doing more sedentary jobs, using technology as entertainment.

Fat has crept in and become normalised; our perspective of a healthy weight has become skewed. Fat kids become fat adults.

The multimillion pound diet industry has really fucked up food, nutrition and eating. Diet food makes many people fatter. Diets don't work (generally) and low fat high carb high sugar diets can lead to insulin resistance.

I live in a deprived inner city area but there is a decent supermarket 10mins away on the bus. It is also ethnically diverse and loads of African/Pakistani/polish grocers selling fruit & veg.
People are fatter than 30 yrs ago but not ridiculously so.

Next dodgy area along is mostly white, only has an Iceland and B&M. In Iceland a little packet of grapes is £2 but you can get 40 pkts of crisps for that! There are a lot of huge people.

I think there's an environmental factor (hormones in water/food?) too as teenage girls are fat in a different way than they were when I was the only size 16 girl in my year group.

Its all about what food goes in, compared to what is burned off. But there are many contributing factors that determin where the balance lies:

Low fat/high sugar 'healthy food'
High fat, easy to cook/collect from the take-away food
Portion size
Snacking
More sedentary life style

it isn't difficult to tip the balance in the direction that results in weight gain, by just not being conscious of exactly how much/what you are eating and doing, and that takes effort and self awareness.

I have a low income. I work from home part time and study part time. I have 3 kids, all of us are well within our healthy BMI's. My weekly food budget for the 4 of us is around £50. I cook from scratch all of the time with the exception of a very occasional chippy supper. The majority of the meals I cook are on the table within 30mins, or quickly prepared but slow cooked in the oven type dishes, not as quick and easy as chuck in the oven food, not quite as cheap as the cheapest Iceland specials but cheaper than ready meals and a damn site healthier, and easier to bulk up to keep tummies full.

I have a small veg garden and fruit trees and bushes that supplement what I have to buy, which helps keep the food bill down during the summer and autumn mainly, although it would do much better if I looked after it more! I always use full fat milk and proper butter.

We are all active (I am probably the least physically active of us all) but none of us are exercise mad, and i limit screen time for the younger two (4&7), though not for the eldest who is 16. If I have to put things back out of my on-line shopping basket when I spend too much -sadly a common occurance- the crisps, juice, biscuits and snacks are the first to go (much to DS's disgust) so often if we snack, it is on fruit. I am also conscious of portion sizes, and we only have pudding (that isn't fruit or a yogurt) maybe once a week, and meat 3-4 times a week. I do like baking, but as I have to fit it in around everything else there is only an intermittent supply of yummy cakes.

It totally is possible to eat well on a limited budget, however, to do so you have to cut out a lot of the luxuries and it is more hassle. The benefits I have noticed in my kids are not just that don't have weight problems, but also they rarely get ill, and if they are ill they all shake it off quickly, also there is only 1 tiny filling between the lot of them (DS, earlier this year after his braces were removed).

Man, that's a long post! Sorry

Goralka, It?s a known fact that manufacturers can put the label ?sugar-free? on their products even if it contains sugar, and it is perfectly legal to do so. How is it legal, you say? According to government guidelines, a product can be considered sugar-free if it contains less than 0.5 grams of sugar per serving. And sugar is defined in the guidelines as sucrose.
Why is the distinction ?sucrose? important? Simple. Identifying the limits of the sucrose content in a product means the exact amounts of sucrose will be monitored to earn the right to say a product is ?sugar-free?, but these same guidelines do not specify the limits for other nutritive sweeteners like fructose. In other words, food manufacturers can say a product is ?sugar-free? even if it is laden with fructose or any other type of sweetener that has calories just as long as the sucrose level is below 0.5 grams per serving.
The sad thing about this is situation is that it has a really bad ramifications. For example, do you know that sometimes a so-called fat-free product may contain more carbohydrates compared to the same product that uses sugar? This is bad news for diabetics because the sugar-free product will raise their blood sugar levels more than the product with sugar ? and we know that diabetics are more likely to buy sugar-free products than any other group because they think they are making a healthy choice by getting a sugar free product. What they don?t know is that they may actually be endangering their health more.
That huge bar of sugar-free sweets doesn?t look so appetizing anymore, does it?
Copied and pasted

Its soooo easy to be slim. Eat lots of veg, salads,lean meats and slow release carbs. DONT EAT ready made food, take aways, sodas or anything man made or pre prepared. Winter is a great time for home made soups or stews theyre so easy to make, cheap to buy and so good for you.

DRINK LOADS OF WATER !

I'm 2 stone overweight but following bowel resection can't eat a lot of "healthy" foods because of their unfortunate side effects

I was referred to a dietician and she says the main reason so many people are fat is because our plates have got bigger. Dinner plates used to be smaller, but people got used to eating out and American sized portions and plates got bigger. So what we see as a normal sized dinner (because of how much of the plate it fills) is actually too much.

Portion sizes in general are just too big. I remember how exciting and different the first few American styled restaurants were in the 1980s and how huge the meals were, but now we think that is normal.

I wish I could 'like' your post froggies.

I think many people do not give food the priority it deserves.

In a large family with teenagers, buying poor quailty cheap processed convenience food is not a money saver. It does not fill you up properly, and there is not much nutrition in it.

I think good food is a basic pleasure, which need not be expensive, but it does take time and effort to plan and cook it. I think it's worth spending time on my family's nutrition, with all the health benefits that brings in the short and long term. Cooking need not be a chore, if you listen to the radio/tv or have someone to chat to or help you. I honestly enjoy thinking about food and planning what we're going to eat. Mumsnet has loads of healthy and cheap recipes.

To keep our food budget at the same level over the last few years despite rising prices, I buy less and less junksnack type foods (biscuits,bakery,sweets,soft drinks, crisps,ready meal,pizza) and more staple foods to cook from scratch. If you add lentils, beans and extra veg to things like stews,curries and pies the amount of meat can be cut down, which is healthier and cheaper. Pizzas can be cheap to make, one bag of flour (£1 if on offer)will make 6-7 large pizzas, tinned toms, onion and garlic aren't expensive for the sauce and basics mozzarella is very reasonable. Fruit is cheap at aldi, frozen and tinned is particularly good value. Same with veg.

Saying all that, I do understand that the obesity epidemic is not due to individuals lacking self control, but bigger issues about food production, politics and advertising.

Xpost with Froggies, we are obv on the same wavelength!

Antipodeans call it a Heathrow injection. I suppose it helps to keep trim if you spend a lot of time semi-dressed on a beach.

Asinine, indeed.

Homemade pizza is a favourite here too. I never used to give much thought to food, but then I moved into the country and attempted 'the good life', I can however totally understand how difficult it can be to summon the enthusiasm to cook (and clean up) after both adults have worked a full day, and the kids are hungry RIGHT NOW.

It's not just this country, obesity levels are going up worldwide, including Europe.

The biggest problem is going to be in middle income countries where the increase is more rapid than anything seen in the west. For example, egypt has higher obesity rates among women than we do - and the increase has been very fast, especially among the poor. Among European orign people, genetics are a little bit in their favor in handling obesity. Among people of Asian or middle eastern origin, the detrimental effects of obesity start at much lower levels of obesity. It's going to be a huge public health problem.