To wonder why we are getting so fat in this country

[Spamspamspam]

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 have also had the same horrible shock going to my husband's home country. Here I am very average size, slightly overweight, but not really large compared with some of the mums at the school gates. There, out of all the wives, I am by far the fattest and when I went to buy clothes in the shops, hardly any of them fitted. It was very humiliating/

Having experimented with trying to keep my weight stable recently, I would say that one of the key problems we now have is having things daily which we used to have weekly. So, when I was young, I had sweets from my pocket money once a week. My children often have a small sweet once a day (e.g. after Halloween). I have had to say no puddings or sweets at home at all in the week, as they have pudding at school.

The second thing is the sheer quantity of carbs, especially things like cereal and bread, where it is hard to stop eating them and you can just keep going. Again, if you had to make your own rather solid wholemeal, this acts as a natural brake, whereas on your own with some soft new white bread, it's easy to binge. Also carbs at every single meal are quick- it's easy to have toast, sandwiches for lunch and pasta for tea, that's too much carb and not enough protein/veggies. I have had to really make a conscious effort to change this, and I don't always succeed.

But, don't imagine they are all very thin on the Continent, a lot of the ladies in Greece, Turkey, Mediterranean countries are very slim when young and then balloon in later life, they are not all sylph-like when older.

Lack of education and interest in food. Many people on the continent still take a serious interest in food and eat as families. I think a lot of people see food as fuel rather than something to be savoured and enjoyed.

We eat as a family 99% of the time and most of the time I cook from scratch, plus we like different foods. I was taught how to cook proper meals from scratch at school, and while we do eat eat the occasional take away or ready meal, we do tend to eat proper balanced meals cooked properly.

Many years ago DD spent a lot of time at the local children's hospital, sometimes for several weeks at a time. I used to take my meals in the dining room. It came as no surprise that most of the overweight parents were the ones who ate chips with their lasagne, for example, while I would have salad. It is nothing to do with being virtuous, but the fact that I couldn't physically manege chips and lasagne, plus I found it just too stodgy to eat all those carbs.

Incidentally, the other day I had a conversation with DD (12) about foods to accompany pizza. She asked for chips and I recoiled in horror. she said it was "normal" to have chips with pizza. Where does she get this from? We had salad BTW.

Lastl,y part of the problem is portion size. When I eat out I tend to find portion sizes ridiculously large. Years ago when we went for an Indian we could eat a starter and a main each. Nowadays we dispense with the starter, have a main each and take a doggy bag home. Portions have increased so much in recent years.

There was a programme on about this a few months ago (Horizon??)

According to cutting edge research, a lot of obesity and large appetites is now thought to be genetic due to the following. If a baby has low nutrition whilst in the womb they are born with an altered gene. This gene has a lot (but not all) to do with control of appetite. 25% of babies who were undernoursished in the womb have this gene. The guy said that this was an unheard of correleation in any other area of medicine. No where else had shown ythis dramatic result IYSWIM.

Anyway, whatit meant was that these babies had an altered gene which made them overeat as compensation for lack of nourishment in vitro. As fast food etc has proliferated these poeople have had more opportunity to overeatwhich has resulted in this explosion of obesity. This wasn't all the answer, but it was saying that susceptible people would find it veryhard tocontrol there appetites, much harder than the average person

G I V E. U P. S U G A R

Seriously, give up sugar and 'white' foods and after two months you won't recognise yourself! I did it in may and after six weeks was back to the figure I had at 20 (am 40) - 5'10" and 9.6 stone with EASE. Everything is easier, yoga is easier, getting up in the morning is easier, my fibromyalgia is gone, my insomnia is gone. Clothes shopping is a joy!

I have recently started eating rice and that's been fine, and have had a piece of cake every sat since term started so obv am now eating a little bit but it's CONSIDERED and it seems fine (am keeping an eye on myself!!).

Best thing I ever I'd bar having ds's and finding dh :)

I forgot to add that none of us is overweight.

Another reason is that as a nation we drink far more alcohol than we used to.

Beautyschool - not every European country is hot, a lot are very much colder than here...also they don't all nap in the afternoon and they work as hard as we do. All of my colleagues across Europe work the same as us if not harder and have worse commutes and lives than we have here - contrary to popular belief

We have it bloody easy in this country with pensions, health service, benefits, working directives etc. Yes there are a few European countries that treat their staff better but not many have anything near the amount of resource thrown at them like we do. And there in probably lies the answer...it's easy here to not take any responsibility for anything because it will always be someone elses issue.

Yeah, I would second giving up sugar and white foods. I have totally lost my cravings for shit since doing this.

I have been living in Paris for 7 years now. When I go back to the UK it hits me that the supermarkets are full of ready meals and packaged, processed food. Instead of fruit, veg, raw meat and other basics that take up more space in French grocery stores.

I think in the UK the reflex is to buy something quick, and spend as little time cooking as possible. People get used to the super-salty or super-sweet processed taste. And warming up a ready meal in the microwave does not burn the calories that food preparation and cooking do.

This is coupled with desk jobs. If we were all hunter-gatherers and farmers I think things would be very different.

That said, obesity is another issue and mainly all in the head. People who overeat (and I am sometimes one of them) do so for many and complex reasons.

That's interesting orangeandlemons.

Why is the reflex to say "in vitro" and not "in vivo", which I think is what you mean?

Yeah I guess I did! Wasn't sure of the correct term!

The main thing that I have noticed is how portion sizes have grown. When I was a kid a standard portion of meat was 4oz for an adult. Last week I went out for a meal and the smallest steak on the menu was 10oz (!), and came with enough chips to feed the whole table. People have begun to believe that this is a normal portion, and eat similar size meals at home.

In France food is more important in that people appreciate quality. Children are taught to enjoy food, and although they may eat rich things, they eat normal portions and fewer sweet things. I stayed with a French family for 3 weeks once, and in that time they only ate a dessert once (a special cake for new year). The rest of the time dessert was a piece of fruit, or a small piece of cheese (no bread or crackers).

Interesting orangeandlemons. I ?ve seen programs about the small babies which put on weight quickly being most at risk often born to obese mothers. I've also seen others about fat thin people - thin people who bodies behave like fats people's and have their disease risks- often associated with malnourishment in utero.

Actually I had large babies - ate well during pg and was very active - they fell down weight charts - the horror and pressure to stop bf - to top up with ff or wean early was unbelievable. It?s continued from adults since then - DGP who insisted on feeding a baby till they were sick as it need to be used up - to lunch ladies insisted all the food must be eaten. It continually undermines the eat till your full then stop message.

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.

Have you Obesity Paradox Spam? Being overweight actually helps beats/ survive certain illnesses.

Losing weight also carries risks - the body stores nasty chemicals in body fat which can be released if the stores go. Its best all round not to put weight on in first - which is what I hope for my DC.

I do find it odd people talk of £2 sacks of potatoes from farm shops - we don't drive and public transport doesn?t go anywhere near them.

So we are stuck with the local shops - can't be that usual. It is easier to eat healthy though since we bought a big enough freezer to batch cook - had to wait till we could afford that though.

It's not always the price of food but transport ? storage time as shoping trips might need to be spaced? and kitchen facilities ? like slow cookers and freezers.

Having said that ? many people could do a lot better.

Farm shops near me are wanky poncey organic lovely food.

Not £2 sacks of potatoes but £2 for a very small amount of hand-somethinged vintage variety potatoes.

I also remember that docu 'The men who made us fat' and was really struck by how much portion size has grown since the 60's

Good to know I'm not missing anything then Trills.

"Have you Obesity Paradox Spam? Being overweight actually helps beats/ survive certain illnesses."

Hasn't the research which highlighted this been discredited for not controlling properly for smoking?

Poisoning you seem to be confused in your arguments - can you decide which way you are going to discuss and stick with it? That would be great and a whole lot easier to follow

stats

I think peer pressure helps in other countries - it is just not acceptable to be chubby in the same way that it is here. I used to live in France. People would be horrified and put themselves on a diet as soon as they put on a couple of kilos. Many people here talk about needing to lose weight in stones. The French women I knew would never have let it get to that point because it just wasn't as socially acceptable.

Another factor is school home economics teaching. Mine was abysmal. I am a reasonable cake cook because I can follow recipes and my mum was quite enthusiastic about it growing up. I am not an instinctive cook though. My husband is and he obviously picked a lot of it up from his mum. I've learned a lot from him - not from active teaching, but just picking things up from being around him cooking.

One of the things I try to do is to only eat things my grandparents would have recognised as food when they were young. So no, sweeteners, spreads and low fat substitutes. We cook as much from scratch as possible as the non-food ingredients tend to hide in ready meals. I think that helps a lot.

I don't get why those stats Fad- disproved the Obesity Paradox - I may well at this time of the day be being dense.

Did have a quick search round and found this article - which goes into many reasons be skeptical like:

"the obesity paradox has been discovered using statistical analyses of large databases. This reveals associations between factors after the fact, but it doesn't demonstrate cause and effect."

science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/human-biology/obesity-paradox1.htm

Which I hadn't come across before - doesn't mention smoking not being acccounted for - but things like nurtrian etc.

Sorry Spam

I'm saying little over weight possibly good - ( see above it?s not conclusive )- very overweight/obese bad.

I'm also saying while many individuals could do better - it?s not a moral failing. There are more obstacles for some people than there are for others.

Reading round there do seem to be many complex reasons for obesity.

From here reasons include:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228441.200-eight-lazy-ways-to-lose-weight.html?full=true

Viruses, everyday stress, house tempertaures, plastic packaging leaching endocrine disrupter chemicals , light cycles.

All stuff affecting the calories put in vs calories used up in exercise equation.

Local availability of cheap, fresh foods is going to clearly limit what people eat. Not all poor people have easy access to cheap, farm-gate produce. IME this varies from city to city. In the three small/medium sized cities I've lived in, the variation has been quite remarkable. In the largest city, poor people were ghettoized off to one part so produce local to them (i.e. not a bus ride away) was appalling. However, local initiatives to bring in affordable fruit and veg failed because....people didn't buy them.

It's one thing to say these things are not available, it's another to say this is the cause of poor eating habits. It's all supply and demand. If the demand in poor estates was higher, somebody would be taking advantage of the market. OTOH, the chippie did booming business.

People overeat when they are stressed, unhappy or feel unloved.

Everyone knows what's healthy food.