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.

I think we need to look at our relationship with food and the quality of food we eat. Food is fuel and as you would not put diesel in a petrol car you also need to put the right fuel in your body. We do not need mountains of sugary snacks. We are being conned by marketing people and getting fatter and fatter. We do not need all these 'healthy' quick fix cereal breakfast bars or sugar filled fruit bears as one of your 5 a day - just eat some bloody fruit. The European countries seem to value quality fresh food and mealtimes while here the emphasis is on quick fixes and snacks.

I'm currently somewhere hot surrounded by lots if slim women.

They are not healthy. They smoke like troopers and eat tiny portions of crap.

That said, the DC are fat! Presumably they feed them up until they can start smoking .

that is ALL dieting isn't it, weight falls (or trickles) off and comes back usually with interest

the really frustrating thing is when people say 'I'm going to 5:2/low carb/slimming world/whatever because it worked for me before' and you don't know how to say 'but you've put that weight back on, therefore by definition that diet didn't work did it?'

The diet did work Poppy. The problem is that the person came off it.
People can follow those diets for life if they choose.

then it doesn't work for them if it's not something they can adhere to longer term - the goal isn't tempoary weight loss is it but maintaining a weight you are happy with, it's only delivering a tiny part of it

the national weight control registry is as far I know the only organisation collecting information from successful dieters (weight loss maintained over ten years) and it seems there are just a handful of very simple things these people have in common - such as eating more or less the same things each day, not eating out very often, keeping a food diary - regardless of their original weight loss plan

oh and checking their weight fairly frequently either weighing themselves once a week or measuring waist for example

not eating out very often?
Eating out seems to have changed from a very occasional luxury to an everyday thing? ?

well I think this is a mainly or wholly US thing so eating out not only more usual but also more devastating !

but it's not terrifically far removed from things in the UK is it

I guess it's just part of the trend from home food preparation to commercially prepared food
Instant gratification
Compulsion and addiction ?

The message on food labels that women can eat 2000 kcal a day is not helping. Anyone short and sedentary should eat a lot less.

For example at 5ft2 and lightly active my TDEE is around 1600 to maintain my weight. If I ate an extra 400 kcal every day, I would very quickly pile on the weight. But I don't think most people know what their TDEE is and what it means.

If there could be a huge sea change and the whole western world collectively stuck two fingers up at Big Food and stopped buying all processed food.... that would work impossible though

Seriously though, I get angry at these giant food companies, they peddle addictive fast food and at the same time crappy "diet" food, they exert huge control through advertising and they are able to make it all far too cheap to compete with healthier alternatives.

The whole situation makes me pretty depressed.

Since I followed the I Quit Sugar programme I feel liberated from the whole set-up - I simply no longer crave or even desire biscuits, cakes, ice cream...

I think we need to get angry

The bmi measurements in primary are a joke too. I can think of many kids at dds school who were fine reception age and still in the healthy range y6. Yet being aware of the lifestyles and eating habits of them and their families, and looking at parents, older siblings etc it's obvious they too are already heading for weight problems. An unfit child with no muscle and a physiche perfect for a 2yr old won't show up on any chart as at risk. All it does is pick up the very worst which is a drop in the ocean. Or like dds friend who by y6 had an adult womans figure ( think Jessica rabbit) and despite being a perfect weight got treated as having a weight issue, because they used childs bmi to measure an adult womans body. Meanwhile, many kids at risk of future obesity come in as ok.

I'm quite a small person at 1.6m and still eat a lot more than 2000 cals a day on greatly reduced exercise but am dealing with an overactive thyroid among other things and steadily gaining weight which is ok now I can train with weights again. Am happy with my body composition, ratio of muscle to fat, but there was a horrible period of rapid muscle loss and fat gain to get through first.

someone mentioned overactive thyroids earlier and I don't understand how that can keep anyone slim, everyone I know with it has gained lots and lots of weight with treatment before levelling out a year or two later - untreated it's potentially but rarely fatal

if anyone else says I'm lucky to have it I will kick them in the clunge

I think we are used to being big and seeing more big people around us. I have said this in MN before, but I am a flight attendant and its not that many years ago when big people who needed seatbelt extensions would look embarrassed about it when asking and whispering it to me. These days there are an increasing number of people who need them and they often complain about the belts being short, the seats small and generally just he plane being tiny when they struggle to squeeze themselves down the aisles. They don't see that it's them who are big and not the seats small

littlebook, the plane must have to carry extra supplies of seat belt extensions as it's now so common to be asked for one.

And not only that, many passengers these days carry their own seatbelt extender!You should only use extenders certified for the plane you are flying, but sometimes the crew is too busy boarding to notice.

Tall people have trouble with leg room too on planes and many other places unless you pay more. Yet most of us just accept flying economy is just that, and aimed at average size.

These days there are an increasing number of people who need them and they often complain about the belts being short, the seats small and generally just he plane being tiny when they struggle to squeeze themselves down the aisles. They don't see that it's them who are big and not the seats small

I totally get what you are saying Thelittlebook, but I suppose that if larger is the predominant body shape then we cant really treat large people as an inconvenience because they are the norm.
Business have to serve the customers that they have rather than the customers that they would like to have.

I'm not trying to be an obesity advocate, but the more it becomes normal, well...the more it becomes normal.

Perhaps we will come to view obesity differently in 10 or 20 years when many more of us have personal experience of the longer term health consequences?

Poppy i lost ten stone in 18 months between 2002 and 2004.

Gave up smoking in 2005. Husband had heart attack in 2006 which left him with permanent disabilities. He was clinically dead for a minute and a half. We also ended up living in £40 a week after things like council tax/rent were paid. A combination of the stress of this life change a little bit of comfort eating and the giving up smoking caused me to regain four stone.

Its that 4 stone regain that i have lost over the past two years at a steady rate of a pound and a half a fortnight.

It wasnt just a case of "oh fuck it I will give up now"

did I say that it was? Sorry! I should know better than that!

I think what I meant to say is that diets that people return to over and over by definition do not work, I was actually locating the problem away from the individual onto the whole diet industry

no I didn't say anything along those 'oh fuck this I will give up' lines, you are confusing me with someone else or projecting something

I didnt get anything like that from your posts either Poppy, so I'm also a bit confused about what you said Helena...sorry if you're feeling criticized or offended

Oh i see I agree the diet industry does depend on ppl returning again and again On paper and in theory it looks ridiculous but in practice they have got a failsafe business model.