I can't go on these threads anymore, they drive me crazy. If you believe the stats, then 50% of women and nearly 60% of adult men are overweight or obese, but mysteriously everyone on the thread slagging off fatter people is always 8 stone 2 pounds and has been for 100 years. I just don't believe it. I'd say that most of the mums at my children's school look lovely, but are carrying a few extra pounds, as am I. I sometimes wonder if people think it's other people that are fat but not them!
Secondly, even if I was slim, I wouldn't go on threads to demonstrate my superb mastery of lifestyle and eating and make everyone else feel bad. I was also once thin. Very slim, used to get comments all the time on my great figure. I didn't go round feeling better than everyone else as I knew it was mostly luck- I just came out thinner than other people, I didn't do much to maintain this (the odd night clubbing, didn't eat hugely) and I had friends who were pretty much similar in lifestyle who were much larger. I am now not so lucky, I'm on medication that makes you fatter, but I'm so darn glad to be not ill I don't mind. I don't want to go round every day beating myself up as I don't look like celebs aged 40. There's a lot to be said for being a self-confident woman in her forties or fifties (or older) and being slightly rotund of middle is really neither here nor there.
Thirdly, shaming people makes no difference to their weight. If fat-blaming and shaming worked, we would all be stick thin.
Finally, very few posters (there are some exceptions) ever want to discuss the obesogenic environment in which we live, but would rather go on about wobbly individuals on the beach. If everyone's pretty much getting to be at least overweight (even if you aren't, there may be people in your extended family or friends who are) then shouldn't that make us reflect on the quality of food we are all eating and start to get angry about that?
My concern isn't with tutting over fat children, its that basic decent standard food is now not available at a reasonable price in the UK- studies have shown for example, that a chicken now is not nearly as nutritious and is far more fatty than a chicken would have been forty years ago when our parents grew up (or we ate as children). Vegetables rot quickly within days instead of drying out, meat is filled with water and sugar, it's so hard to buy good quality protein. If you stored apples like we used to store apples from the tree, they would all rot within about two weeks, not last a winter. Even with super-human will to resist the constant presentation of snacks/chocolate/food every single place you look (and who has that?) it is hard to stay a healthy weight in this environment, eating frankly sub-standard food, and that's why I can't be bothered being judgmental of those that don't.
If a whole nation gets fat, doesn't it make more sense to wonder what it is about that nation that makes us like that, rather than point fingers at individuals?