It's obviously a huge subject but obviously a complex one or we wouldn't be at the situation we're at in this country. I had a conversation with a friend I was at school with who has always been thin. Years ago I lost a fair bit of weight and got down to the same size as her and she had a word and said she was worried. I remember saying I was the same weight as her and she pointed out I was a much larger frame and at 5ft 7 to be fitting into clothes that my tiny at the time 5ft 2 in the Mother wore in the 60's wore probably wasn't actually a good thing.
Looking back I was in dangerous territory and was 5lbs off being underweight. I had an abusive arsehole of a boyfriend and my Mum was very controlling I realise now and I think she was right to speak up. After a bit I went the other way and this time last year I was at my GP with near constant gallbladder pain but not eligible to see a consultant as with a BMI of 43 I was morbidly obese . I've lost a lot of weight now and am delighted to be overweight at the moment and this time next year I'll be a healthy weight. Said to friend how much I lost but told her to keep it to herself as I tell most people I've lost half of what I have lost as I've found from experience people can go a bit weird about it . She looked confused at first then said she got it as have a lot of people saying she is too thin and has an eating disorder.
I think there is a big difference between someone like me and some others who are obese and I think I definitely had disordered eating and used to binge . My Mother being alive resulted in me having a low level of nearly constant anxiety that I didn't realise existed until she died last year. DH and I were having a coffee recently . He had a normal one and I had a skimmed milk one. Looked up the calories for both and then some others.
We worked out that if someone had medium Costa Latte (207 cals) and a 175ml glass of red wine (133 cal) so 340 cals total and did this everyday for a year, not allowing for them in their daily calorie intake then that would be surplus calories leading to a potential gain of 2.5 stone in a year and enough to take a 5ft 6 woman from top end of normal bmi just into the obese range. Quite a overnight thought and with things so hectic for a lot of people it's easy to see how it can gradually happen.
There was no help available for me to lose weight. GP said come back when I lost 6kg and that was it so I went off and decided I had to crack it once and for all. I used to work in research so decided I would treat this as I would another medical condition so did some research. I bought a Fitbit and found that I responded well to being able to see my calorie expenditure as I could then balance it against my intake, I use Nutracheck which I find helpful as it suggests small, medium and large portion sizes and I have been reeducating myself and I have introduced more exercise as was shocked to find that on a lazy weekend day I was perfectly capable of only clocking up 1500 steps.
I look as logging and exercise as a medical thing, similar to what DH has to do with carb counting to control the T1 diabetes he had since childhood, I'm done with WW, SW etc and can see that I spent years either being on or off a diet which led to feelings of deprivation and guilt when I did it 'wrong' which led to binging and a viscous circle, I eat anything I want know working in the principle of about 80% nutritious foods and 20% treats in general. Some days I eat more than I burn but that's ok, I just adjust other days to compensate.
Assumably someone who stays a healthy weight does this without thinking about it, I don't think I will ever be able to do this so I will log calories for the rest of my life, it only takes a few minutes a day. I'm down 6 stone with just under 2 to go which I want to get sorted next year as am 48 and perimenopausal so want to get my weight stable before menopause. I know the biggest challenge will be maintainance and am pleased to have managed my first ever month of maintaining in October, having spoke to my friends of a normal weight I realise that they do work at keeping their weight down.
This is quite long, apologies. I guess what I am saying is that obesity can be a symptom of disordered thinking but it isn't the case for everyone. I think big portion sizes and alcohol consumption have become normalised in our society. And I do think we have lost sight of what a healthy weight looks like. I have been very clear with people who started the 'you don't want to lose much more' thing that I was at that point clinically obese and maybe they were being polite but they did a very convincing job of acting genuinely shocked.
What's the answer to all this? Not a clue but I hope we as a society can find one. I don't feel very optimistic about that though. Apologies for the length of the post, it's something quite close to my heart for obvious reasons at the moment.