To wonder what exactly middle class and upper class Mums do to be skinny

[Humpy84]

I am a Mum of a two year old turning three July. Not an age that he can be packed up for long walks in buggy.

I have gained weight and feeling overwhelmed by everything.

I have noticed and I think it is obvious that middle and upper class Mums tend to be slimmer.

I want to know if you identify this and if so what is your weekly shopping routine, meal plan, how do you exercise with or without toddler/s, tips and tricks etc, diet plans, etc etc.

Oh and it is surprising how quick you get used to a new eating regime - just stick to it for a week whatever you decide and it will get easier.

I don't like being hungry and don't feel hungry on current diet despite not eating till lunchtime, I'm used to it. I make sure I get balanced nutrients, carbs, fat, high protein, fibre and vitamins across the day's intake. So few calories are precious and can't waste them on unhealthy food (you will feel hungrier too!).

It is very boring but you need to keep track of what you are eating. And try to walk more, and get the baby into a sleep routine.

I think some people want to put their heads in the sand and pretend class doesn’t exist
Of course exist but it's not a case of being born into working class and be doomed to be fat and vice versa.

This thread is evidence that some people will desperately look for reasons outside of their control to justify their situation abd therefore think there is little they can do about it. Others will focus on what they can do to make a change.

The latter are more liky to apy this to various aspects of their lives, including their jobs, hence warming more.

All those posts about how healthy food is more expensive is the perfect example. Healthy food is not more expensive and if you cut down portions will actually be likely to be cheaper. Boring? Maybe, but that's the thing whrn it comes to food, what is more tasting to the mouth and soul is more fatning, that's just how it goes, so you need to decide whether to for boring or healthy.

But more expensive? No, but it is so much easier to believe it is to justify why we can't so anything about something.

"Also, lots of people talking about the majority of people in their social group being size 6 or 8. Is that even healthy unless they are all really short as well?"

Please don't be confused... dress sizes are so vanity huge now they are meaningless. My bmi is in overweight category (I'm not excessively muscular either) and I'm a size 8 in most shops. I know I'm overweight, over 1-1.5st compared to pre pregnant me. Then I used to have to wear size 6 or even 4. Unless you shop at teenage stores like HM or Topshop where the sizes are more accurate.

Middle/upper class women are also more likely to have jobs that support breastfeeding, family support for breastfeeding and live in areas that don't bat an eyelid when you whip out a boon.
I'm middle class. I lost all my baby weight by eating loads of crap but breastfeeding my son until he was two.

*boob

Eek, think my last post sounds like I'm saying a size 8 is fat I'm not .. I just think when you hear people say I'm a size 8 that's not actually tiny given vanity sizing

Most of the people I know who are slim are also the ones most interested in food and will experiment and try new things, watch cookery shows, talk about eating etc.

They watch their diets and what they eat and have lovely clean gyms to go to

f you're upper or upper middle class you will have horses and dogs

I’ve never met anyone who rides let alone owns a horse, they’re generally in short supply in zone 2

Back to the Op...

My DH also started going to the gym and looking after himself. For some reason this made me eat even more, almost out of protest!

I’m MC, but even though I eat a lot of fruit and veg, I don’t like cooking. I really recommend Slimming World, although some on MN don’t recommend it. In January I left my gym and joined SW, and I’ve lost a stone since then. I go for a few walks a week, but I’ve lost the weight due to eating really healthily with a balanced diet. I don’t like Low Carb at all, and yes, the occasional muller light and mug shot does help keep my calorie intake low.

I haven’t felt hungry at all, and the main positive outcome is that now I am slimmer I feel more in control, happier and more able to deal with other things in my life in a positive way. I wish you luck....

Yes, I definitely have horses and dogs. Ours are kept at home so I suppose lobbing flaps of hay over the fence and grooming them and mending fences counts as exercise even if you're not riding them!

There are more opportunities just to be outside of you are in the countryside if you have animals to look after so even if you don't have your own, pretending you do just as an excuse to go for a walk would be a good idea

Even when I was single I would head off to a park where there were dogs about or a place where there was a few horses in a field just for the sheer pleasure of seeing their lovely faces, exercise was secondary!

I just think when you hear people say I'm a size 8 that's not actually tiny given vanity sizing

It is if you are 6ft. Size x or y means sweet fa

Class aside as that's been covered, it is hard to lose weight and get fit when you have a child with you all the time. I am slim but was pretty wobbly around the middle and up a stone after my kids. I shifted it by eating low carb - no sugar, low carb bread, only berries for fruit, and less carby veg like broccoli, meat, fish, cheese etc. I put on dance videos and got the kids to dance with me and got a kettlebell and did a few squats/crunches whilst cooking tea here and there. It certainly helped. I didn't have the energy to do a lot but the kettlebell was good with only short bursts here and there

Interesting thread. You might be onto something OP.

Coming at this from a slightly different angle...

I have to say I've had the competitive non-eating thing with female friends across a range of social classes. Also the thing where everyone sits back and watches the kids eat "Don't worry about me, I'll just pick/make do with the kids scraps." It's exhausting. I do not miss this aspect of the early Primary years.

Yet they're a range of sizes nonetheless.

Food issues aren't confined to isolated segments of the female population... I guess it's that which has struck me over the years rather than individual sizes of people.

Definitely true about supermarkets adjusting stock for area. The Asda in the area I used to live has a much smaller choice of fresh fruit and veg, worse quality too, than some in more affluent areas I've been to. No fresh fish either. It's not that the fresh produce isn't there, so yes if there's a 20p bag of carrots it's still going to be cheaper than a McDonalds or whatever, but when it's less reliable in presence and quality, that makes people less likely to eat it.

Meanwhile you can get a great deal of junky food for a cheap price at the pound shops next door. One bag of Cadbury's dairy milks or whatever isn't going to rot before it goes ripe, as the fruit did with unfortunate regularity, and the pound shop ran out of lines much less frequently than the fruit and veg section at Asda. If you wanted to go and buy a certain flavour of crisps, they'd be more likely to be there than the bananas.

So it's not that people living in that area categorically can't buy healthy food more cheaply than sweets etc. In fact they often can. But they're experiencing push and pull factors towards the junk and away from the fresh stuff that people in more affluent areas with different shopping facilities probably don't. Not all people in low income areas have this experience by any means, but those who are having it are probably low income. Naturally, this is going to have an impact on behaviour when looked at collectively.

My thin rich friends will eat for example a tuna steak with salad

Frozen tuna steaks cost a pound each in Aldi and take a couple of minutes to cook. Still far cheaper than McDonald's. Why is it always the assumption that poorer working class areas only have endless takeaways, which and expensive, and no cheap supermarkets because that's not my experience at all. In many cases the cheap food is there.

Of course exist but it's not a case of being born into working class and be doomed to be fat and vice versa

This.

What swingofthings said. Totally on the money.

"I’ve never met anyone who rides let alone owns a horse, they’re generally in short supply in zone 2"

Well, if properly posh then the horses live at the country place. Or are stabled at ruinous expense in the outer suburbs. Or riding is at one of the (few, but known) zone 1 clubs or commercial stables. Or it is much lamented but temporary exile from equines. Horsiness will out, even for those stranded in cities.

Most of zone 2 isn't particularly posh even though you have to be quite rich for swathes of it. Of course rich and posh (meaning upper or upper middle class) aren't synonyms, and London has areas of all sorts of types absolutely cheek by jowl with each other. And the nearest thing to a no-go area for many years was the notorious Heygate in zone 1 (another example of how TfL zonng isn't really a proxy for either income or class).

But as OP said she's in Australia, the ingrained hardiness of the British upper and upper middles probably won't apply

It's about early education too - upper classes simply wouldn't stuff their faces with junk in their infancy. It's learned behaviour.

Yes it totally is a class issue actually! The poor tend to be fatter, the rich skinnier! I'm sure there's been studies?
(disclaimer: I'm common and chubby)

Whereas I live on a council estate on the outskirts of Leeds and you can't move for horses round here - seriously.

I can see two riding schools out of my back window and think of at least three more within less than a mile.

I've been sat in the garden most of the afternoon and there's been dozens of riders go past, it's like that all the time, our roads are literally paved in horse shit.

There are some middle class people around but they're in the minority. I have a couple of friends who rides, one from a very similar background to me, she earns a decent wage, but I know her horse takes a big chunk of her disposable income.

Family member who works in relevant health area once told me that the biggest indicator for health (inc weight) of families is the education level of the mother.

I've always assumed that I understood correctly (not least because it's so plausible in so many ways), but also it's totally consistent with the class variations (at a population level, not as predictor for individuals)

That sounds reasonable Edith. My experiences as a working class person bear little resemblence to how many on here say it should be.

Education, healthy food, worthy outdoor activities etc have always been a thing in our family. My DM passed the 11 plus and went to grammar school in the 1960s despite being the daughter of a barmaid and a miner.

I’m 5’5”, 9 stone, size 10, 40 years old so probably what you’d consider slim. I also have an under active thyroid but I certainly don’t use it as an ‘excuse’ to be overweight. My mum is size 18 and her sister is size 20 so I’m definitely not slim solely due to skinny genes.

I never diet. I always have decent breakfast of cereal, skimmed milk and a low fat yoghurt. Lunch is a sandwich, pre-made pasta salad etc. Dinner is usually a Gousto box and I only get the unhealthy ones with stuff like paneer cheese every other week. Have one takeaway a week and a few glasses of wine a week. I think the way I’ve stayed slim is solely down to diet and choosing healthier options where I can. I go for green and orange labels. So, as an example the salad would be a large M&S prawn layer salad with 10g fat rather than a pot of pesto pasta with 25g. Sandwich is tuna and not cheese. I don’t have things like crisps for lunch and I don’t have biscuits with tea. I eat chocolate etc but it’s an occasional treat and not a snack between meals.

I feel like I do nothing at all to stay slim which is the best way because it means that eating well and choosing healthier food is just part of my lifestyle. Like I say, I have an under active thyroid to contend with.

Oh and in case I sound like a smug arse - I piled on almost a stone comfort eating after losing a baby - cake every night - and despite being slim still have crap self esteem! So being thin isn’t everything...