To think if we eat and adopted some of the lifestyle of the europeans we would not be the fattest country in Europe.

[WonderWendy1]

I went on a med cruise two weeks ago we stopped in Portugal, Spain, South Of France and Italy.

I think of myself as a fairly fit size 12 (14 in some things). I would say i'm on the slimmer side in the Uk. I go to these european cities and the women (and men) are much slimmer then me and dh.

I was then in Paris for a few nights a week ago and I can only say my gosh nearly everywomen I saw had the legs of Taylor Swift.

Aibu to think we need to be doing what the europeans do to avoid becoming the American country of Europe.

Another thing the government could do is insentivise employers to provide opportunities for exercise/healthy eating within the workplace, with the added benefit of improving employee health and productivity. (Quite often there are threads on here where people who are working want to exercise but struggle to find the time to include it.)

suzanne
The stats for people who drop significant amounts of body fat and keep it off are not good.

I think that's partly down to the method of weightloss. If you use an off the shelf diet, maintaining your target weight requires a different system altogether. Diets tend not to teach people positive long-term healthy eating skills/habits. If more people used the approach of changing their weight/health by making small, doable changes, ultimately resulting in an ability to self regulate without too much thought, there might be a much greater chance of keeping off the weight permanently.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the way that crap eating makes you feel. I went out for lunch yesterday, TGi, had loaded fries and enjoyed every last one... then I wanted to sleep in the afternoon. Today I will eat poached salmon and new potatoes and it won't make me feel like that. Perhaps I'm sensitive to how my body reacts but for me it's a clear choice. I'm happy about yesterday's lunch but won't be repeating it today.

There are some fabulous convenience foods around; M&S at services it a place I haunt. They have boiled eggs with spinach (surprising nice and very easy to do at home) but they have the most amazing chicken tikka salad with rice and lime/peanut sauce. Also my current favourite of Chicken and Kale salad with peanut sauce. All of these convenience foods meet dietary macros and are way better than Greggs, Burger King and even a sandwich that I'd make at home. It IS possible to eat on the hoof and not buy crap that makes you feel crap.

I've been bigger and I've been smaller - not massively so in either direction but for me it's not just about the way I look but the way I feel in myself. Crap food doesn't harm if it's not the norm. I'll probably eat fries again when I meet with my brother but that won't be for about six weeks. On normal days I don't eat breakfast, will often skip lunch or just have a bit of fruit or boiled egg/spinach - but I'll eat a proper dinner before 7pm, nothing after that and that works for me.

I think that a lot of young people particularly - and girls even more particularly - are getting the message of 'Be yourself' and are extrapolating that to mean "Do what you want, it's your body" and the body messages are telling them "Safety in numbers". It's true what is said, the people around you will dictate what you do without ever having to say anything. We are very much peer driven. It's very sad to see young girls stuffed into too small clothes, huffing and puffing back to the car park. They don't need tutting at or derision, they're probably self-aware enough to know that they're fat/curvy/whatever but, as a wealthy people, we don't know how to feed ourselves and it's showing - pound by pound. We're in obesity crisis.

What is the probable outcome of the obesity crisis?

fascicle I agree - if you see upthread, Helena says she's lost an incredible amount of weight with SW (well done Helena!) and still attends meetings despite possibly not "needing" to. The long term changes required for a formerly obese person to maintain a smaller waistline are perhaps harder to live with than a perpetually thin person would think. It's so easy to see fat people and blame them for everything they're doing wrong, but it's entirely possible that many people are being set up to fail in the first instance.

It'd be fantastic if employers could be incentivised to provide healthy opportunities to their employees. Like Suzanne I think it's possible but not probable. They see everything in terms of cost and efficiency. It's a big mental leap for bean counters to make.

Fascicle, I appreciate what you are saying but some (many? ) people are just too far gone

The diet industry has a vested interest in keeping us fat, food industry has a vested interest in keeping us fat and addicted to hyper palatable food.

Who or what has a vested interest in keeping us lean??

Suzanne the NHS.

I don't see the problem with people getting fatter and not living so long.
We can hardly manage to look after the elderly population as it is. If people want to adopt an unhealthy lifestyle and are OK with the consequences then I can't see the problem.

... and that's where Worra's point really hits home - it's up to individuals to take responsibility for what they put in their mouths because the government/employers are not going to afford (or want to pay for) people to take the weight off themselves. They'll pay for it reactively with the NHS though and there are already rumblings that specific conditions caused by obesity and smoking won't be funded.

The only solution is that people take up the challenge themselves and not just wait for a government or employer solution. If one comes then great - take full advantage - but in the meantime, it's in our own hands.

I think the NHS would actually save money if people died younger

Thin is healthy though. Skinny/thin is a long way from too skinny or underweight. Only our warped view of healthy size makes people with a bmi under 19 appear too thin. Or people with low levels of body fat appear as unhealthy. Taking injury out of it, ballerinas, jockeys etc have lean muscle not the bulk of some athletes, and v little fat. Yet nevertheless it's not an unhealthy fat level, but our skewed perception means at first glance they are often labeled too thin and unhealthy.
Dd is a replica of me build wise as a child. In my old group photos I stand out as one of the tall ones, not as part of the thin group, and the chubby child stood out. Dds group photos the chubby kid would fit right in as average and the thin ones stand out. As a child I remember chubby girl and her mum standing out as huge, I'd never seen anyone as fat as her mum. And being fascinated when we went swimming with primary school that the girls thighs touched halfway to her knees. And from photos nowadays both would fit in as normal in the average school class.

Ten percent of NHS drugs budget now spent on diabetic care. Up from six percent 10 years ago.

Oh I agree with Worra's point, personal responsibility is key. That's kind of what I was driving at earlier - the likes of Tess Holliday give people license to call themselves curvy and beautiful, and legitimise people who cause themselves very real damage.

stairway I don't think the consequences of current unhealthy lifestyles have yet been realised on a mass scale. The next ten years are going to prove grim for a lot of families, especially if the NHS can no longer afford to fund treatments for complex health problems caused by obesity.

It'd be cheaper all round if we were encouraged into healthy living from birth. And I'm not talking about the joke that is the NHS Change4Life monstrosity.

Old photos really bring it home don't they, the ones where what was just normal then looks on the verges of emaciated now

Imo there is no 'key' thing, multiple aspects of modern life interact in complex ways to make us fat.

Staying thin can require swimming against so many currents as to be bordering on impossible.

Something may well come along and turn it all around but I don't know what and I don't think it is a something that is currently on the radar ?

Lurked
Thin is healthy though.

Rather depends on the person's lifestyle, medical history etc. 'Thin' isn't necessarily healthy, in and of itself.

Suzanne but the only people who can control what goes in our mouths is us. All of the advertising and tempting promotions - we have no individual control of that - we are the only ones who get to decide what we will eat/drink, so that is key. We have no control of what other people do.

Of course being lean isn't sufficient for optimal health, but it is necessary.

All other things being equal more muscle and less body fat means better health.
(Provided you have a certain amount of 'essential' body fat) ?

Finland is the one country that has reversed it's obesity problem.
This involved massive education programmes and inventing sports - nordic skiing for everyone to do.
They used to drink tea full of butter and drink a lot of alcohol. They still drink a lot of alcohol but their obesity rate has gone down.

One of the big issues we have now is added processed fats and sugars - corn syrup and trans-fats are not natural foods and the body doesn't deal with them well. Also, fruit used to be seasonal, now we eat it constantly - this isn't natural either. Fruit juices and smoothies may be natural but they are packed with sugars - the human body isn't adapted to that level of sugars. Fruit and veg have been bred to be sweeter - compare the taste of heritage carrots and cucumbers to modern supermarket ones - we have been bred to a sweeter palette.

And snacking for kids - that's trains children to constantly eat, as you get older, you gain weight!

That's interesting Miggsie, I wonder why that fact isn't headline news, why are we not looking to Finland to see how we might follow their lead?

suzanne
Staying thin can require swimming against so many currents as to be bordering on impossible.

I agree. But if schools and workplaces have a healthy living culture, then those norms will have an impact. The primary school in Scotland with the daily mile walk/run - what a fantastically easy, simple thing to improve the health of children/staff (and no doubt lots of other benefits, such as improved concentration etc).

When I was in Sicily, the tour guide told us that many women there have an overactive thyroid. She did and was very slim.

I also think sunshine has a lot to do with it - lifting mood, inspiring people to get outdoors and active. Vitamin D deficiency causes lethargy and there will be many in this country who are deficient. I know, I am one of them.

fascicle it is though. It's only our warped view that makes 'thin' appear as 'too thin'. Or to assume 'thin' generally involves illness, bad attitude to food, exercise addiction etc. How often now do you see people that would be within average years ago? You don't regularly. Especially in the media. You just see the likes of famous people following deranged regimes. And then when you get someone like Keira knightley, Natalie Portman etc who were always thin everyone assumes they must also have eating disorders. The general attitude to twiggy wasn't emaciated etc that I've heard of. Someone her size now though is often assumed to be unhealthy purely cos they aren't storing excess fat.