To have come back from Lanzarote feeling geuinely shocked at how fat the British tourists were?

[Illgetmycoat]

I'm not talking slightly plump, I mean seriously, morbidly obese. A whole different race to the German, French and Spanish tourists.

What is going on? When did our country become like this? Whenever you heard a british accent, it would be accompanied by a 3ft wide backside. And whole families, too, all swollen to gargantuan size, with the poor kids unable to put their feet together because of the rolls of fat on their legs.

How has this happened? What the heck are the Brits feeding their children to get them so large? How can you feed an eight year old you love so much food that they become morbidly obese?

It can't just be blamed on poverty, because it's not cheap going to Lanzarote.

I was shocked.

I will ask my admin asst about shift work, as her husband is a long distance lorry driver, which must be pretty hard to schedule life around.

Knowing Switzerland there's probably an efficient system in place!

I moved back to Sydney, after seven years in another Australian city, and was struck by how many overweight children and adults of south east Asian background that I was seeing. It made me do a double take at first, because I didn't remember ever seeing that before. It seems that plenty and sugar are hard to say no to for everyone, unless there is a lot of social pressure not to put on weight. I have Asian friends who say that their relatives will make horrible comments about their weight when they go back to Asia and say that they can't get any clothes to fit in the shops there. Meanwhile, our local shopping centre has become filled with (very tempting) Asian desert and ice cream shops and Chinese bakeries, which produce very soft, sweet, cheap white bread and buns full of custard etc.

I agree worra. A lot of it is habit. Or boredom.

@binfull I think that sahp is a huge factor actually. So the swiss have more sahps and TWO HOURS for lunch. That is far more time to walk around, shop properly, prepare food properly etc.

I cook from scratch all the time. However, two evenings this week I have been over 90mins late home (my commute normally takes me 50mins) due to train screwups. I admit frozen garlic baguettes and pasta featured quite prominently on those evenings.

Last night I decided to catch up, made a very veg heavy meal from scratch (and one for the freezer) and by the time I had made, cooked, cleaned up and sorted out tomorrows lunches (hm salads and soups) I had been stood infront of the stove for over two hours. Not everyone has that as an option due to our long working hours, high living costs and commutes.

Yes, oldbaglady, I realise saying no is an option! But until more people find a way to deal with constant, constant wearing whining, it will remain a problem.

Thinking back, in the 80s my brother and sister and I used to come home and eat lots of rubbish while our mum was at work. Perhaps the difference is we all did loads of sport.

I think it is about teaching our dcs to stop eating when they are full. My bil was practically in tears the other day when he saw ds tucking into some crisps - he said they couldn't even have crisps in the house (dns are both fat and have been since they were babies). My dcs are both stick thin. The difference (in my non-expert opinion) is that my dns have always been praised for being "good eaters" and encouraged to clear their plates (all "good" home cooked food, prepared from scratch) whereas I've never been fussed on that and let my dcs stop eating when they are full. As a result my dcs do eat some "rubbish" - sweets, chocolate, fizzy drinks - but are perfectly capable of leaving a half-eaten bag of Maltesers (something I would be unable to do!) on the basis that they have eaten enough. I return my point that I don't think it is so much what we eat as how much. curiousuze I know exactly what you mean about one glass of wine - all my friends fall into this category and as a result I am starting to fall into it myself - it is because French women know how many calories there are in a glass of wine and a calorie is a calorie whether it comes from a cream bun, a glass or wine or a satsuma - they all count.

I also think it is about how you are brought up in terms of being able to cook, and knowing how to make cheap meals.
There are always threads on here about how you can eat properly if you meal plan, and make big stews etc, but if you haven't been brought up doing that it would be hard to know where to start, so it's not as simple as it sounds.
I grew up in a big family, both my parents could cook (especially my Dad) and they knew how to buy meat in a butchers or at the market, how to get big bags of dried pulses and soak them overnight, how to make chicken soup with the leftover bird, what quantities to cook. All that stuff is second nature to me, and I do it because I am skint.
I have an actual planner in my kitchen with the meals I am going to make, and how much it all costs.
This is not due to my amazing housekeeping. It is just the way I was raised, that's all.
If I hadn't had that education I wouldn't know where to start and might not bother.
I was also brought up with meal times, and there were no snack foods. I mean, we had bread and if hungry we made a jam sandwich.
No-one was waving "organix" or innocent smoothies under our noses all day long. Plus, I remember waiting for my dinner after my parents had got home from work and being really hungry until it was ready. It's OK to be hungry sometimes. In fact it's a good thing to actually know what real hunger feels like, rather than " I might as well eat something".
We also had a black and white telly and no computer, so boredom forced us outdoors.
My childhood sounds like summat out of the 1940's but this was the 80's!

I find it hard to eat well on nightshift. You try not to eat during the night but by night number 3, you are usually very tired. Your body craves calories at about 4/5am. Many people get chips or macdonalds. I wi eat a ready meal with some protein - lasagne or soup.

I find the real weight gain comes in the days after nightshifts when you are forcing your body back into a normal routine: you crave carbs as you are so exhausted.

I have taken control and now restrict my calories and have lost a stone.

Oh, yes, and BOOZE! I reckon booze is a major culprit.
Until I had ds I NEVER drank at home on my own. I always loved wine, but it would be a social thing, not a "oh good, it's 8 pm, time to fill my bucket extra large wine glass with half a bottle of Rioja.
Everytime I have periods of not drinking I drop pounds without doing anything else. Especially around the middle. Booze makes you really flabby.
I still love wine though, and I am sorry, but one glass is just not acceptable. I would rather have 2 glasses or nothing. It's my only outlet.

Lillian I totally agree.....I hate this "finish your dinner" shit that DC get. My DC have always been allowed to stop when they're full.

If they misjudge that and are hungry half an hour later well they can have a snack...not a problem. As a result they, like yours will stop at a point.

and I am sorry, but one glass is just not acceptable Bottoms up!

I think the booze thing is true - my parents never kept drink in the house really when we were growing up. It was much more expensive then and my folks would have a cup of tea instead! Now everyone seems to have a drink almost every night, including my dad who has got a wee bit portly!

I'd also never had a takeaway until I left home and went to uni - it just wasn't something you did in my family, so old fashioned to think about it now. We had three meals a day and one snack at about 4pm - kind of like the Swiss it seems!

God yes, booze is a killer. A glass is a treat and a mega-glass a mega-treat at 6 pm the end of the day. Sometimes making some really expensive tea works as a way of fooling myself into feeling that there, I've had my treat. Another trick is to have something to do later in the evening that demands sobriety. DH plays poker for too much money; that brings its own problems, but it stops him from drinking, at least on poker nights.

"My childhood sounds like summat out of the 1940's but this was the 80's!"

It has changed very quickly. I grew up late 80s early 90s and my v middle class parents (and friends parents) didn't bat an eyelash over the occasional fish finger, frozen pizza, birds eye burger etc but the rest of the time it was food from scratch as you couldn't get a lot of the ready meals you can now. And we played 'out' in the evenings. Lots of pavement football and we grew up in central london. A couple fatties but not many.

Fast forward 10 years to when my younger sister was the same age, and it was all orgnaic butternut squash for dinner BUT also posh ready meals which had recently become available. (I remember that Tesco finest gratin dauphinous was quite a frequent addition to some fish on Friday night). And now one plays 'out' anymore either. There were quite a few fatties in her class.

Cheers Lillian roll on 8 pm...

We have such an odd attitude to food and eating in the UK, it's no wonder we have an obesity problem. All this talk of 'good' foods and 'naughty' foods and the peculiar diets that we are encouraged to undertake to lose weight quickly and easily (5:2 seems to be the current favourite) makes me so angry. We should be teaching our children to prepare and enjoy good food and to eat it in sensible amounts. Simple as that, I reckon. No fads, no diets, nothing demonised, no 'superfoods'.

There's nothing wrong with fish fingers - as long as you don't eat the whole packet! In fact for some people ready meals could be the way to go - especially if you choose something calorie counted. At least that way you can see what a normal portion looks like. My sil is a great cook and always cooks from scratch, but portions are massive (much more than you'd get in a ready meal). It's like all you can eat buffets where people don't feel they are getting value for money unless they pile their plate as high as possible.

I've been doing 5:2 and it's great. And the health benefits are great too. It costs nothing, there are no special foods, nothing is demonised - but it does regulate your appetite.

ethelb- so do you think that somewhere in the mid 90's is when things started to change then?
That seems to exactly coincide with the advent of the internet and the sudden mass rise in mobile phones, and also cable TV.
There are definitely so many more ways for kids to entertain themselves without moving. And they HAVE so MUCH STUFF.
I would love ds to grow up really active, but his friends already, at 6/7, have nintendos and by ten they all have phones they can spend all day playing games on.
There is no boredom for kids anymore. All these gadgets make people inactive and insular. When I get on the bus, no-one looks out of the window, every single person under 50 is staring at their phone.
Soon we will all be just giant larvae shaped blobs with giant pointy fingers.
I sound like a right old fart, I know!

Another vote for 5:2 from me. Easy to keep slim now. It also makes you eat healthily on these days at least, because you only have 500 calories so need to make the most of them: lots and lots of vegetables in a fish stir fry, for instance. A slice or two of very nutritious wholegrain bread, eaten slowly. Lots of glasses of water.

LillianG, Birds Eye battered fish fingers are 14.5% fat by weight. That means that 50% of their calorific value comes from the fat in them. That is high; "The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that 20 to 35 percent of your daily calorie intake come from fats."

The nineties was also when a lot of well-meaning but hysterical child safety precautions came in, meaning that children were discouraged from playing out by themselves in perfectly safe conditions, because their parents were subjected to social pressure. My children played out in our rural little village, surrounded by friendly neighbours. But I still had a lot of comments about the danger they were in.

People eat too much. That's the simple fact of it.

We used to eat these boxes of Cheesy Pasta at lunch (don't think you get it in England but basically pasta and sauce) when I was little. We would eat one box between the three of us. I went to my friend's house and they had a box each. She was obese then and as an adult still is.

And people are so inactive. Everyone's obsessed with their telly/iphone/laptop.

@IfNotNow I think food became more fetishised by the middle classes in the mid-90s. Jamie Oliver/Nigella Lawson et al.

Previously there was a lot less choice. I remember y dad making pesto from scratch for a dinner party once (about 1995/6), and it was the main event!

And despite my family having always been good cooks who generally cooked from scratch (or as much as two people working full time with three children can be expected to) I think yummier food just appeared from the mid-90s and people got more obsessed with it.

TBF I came from a gadgety household and always had access to computers due to my dad's work so I think that is a bit of a misnomer tbh. I think it was the fact that we were allowed to walk up to the corner shop, allowed to play out in the street and allowed to go to the park alone from a far younger age than people are today.

Though children may have access to gadgety things and enjoy them I would imagine they would far rather be romping with their mates out in the street than playing angry birds imo.

I am a stone overweight and need to lose 2 stone to get back to a size 8-10 which I was before having children. Where I live most people are very slim and it encourages you
to maintain a healthy weight because you feel fat if you are just a few pounds overweight.

I went to a British seaside resort in the summer and I was shocked at how overweight the Brits have become. I felt slim for the first time in years!

I think we have become fat because we have lost the ability to cook, it is cheaper to eat unhealthy food, fruit can be very expensive. We lead stressful lives and turn to food for comfort, we don't exercise enough. We are influenced by those around us if you live in a "fat" area you don't feel the pressure to get slim.