To think 'big food' industry is to blame for the obesity epidemic, not individuals?

[aintnothinbutagstring]

When I read on MN, and when I talk to people IRL, there's an underlying attitude to obesity that it is all down to willpower, or lack of, and individual choice over whether to be fat or thin. If we all tried a little harder and were disciplined, everyone could be their ideal weight.

I recently got on to reading some books on processed food, they are not new concepts, the ideas have been around a while. Lots of scientists and MDs from the US, where the obesity epidemic is a little further down the road than in the UK, have written about the addictive nature of processed food, books such as 'Wheat Belly', 'The Dorito Effect', Robert Lustig has done many talks on it. In the UK, Joanna Blythman has wrote quite a bit on the UK food industry.

Some have linked processed food to activating dopamine receptors in the brain so it works like other addictions. Yet cannot escape it once we walk into a supermarket, most of what is for sale there is very highly processed food. It's all sugar, salt, wheat, the bad fats (processed oils like rapeseed, not natural fats which are healthy). Flavours created by amazing scientists so you'd rather eat the flavour chemicals than the actual food.

Yet we are telling obese people, some of whom may be using food addiction to deal with past trauma, lifestyle stress etc, 'it is your choice, what you eat, you need to try harder, have more self respect, more willpower'.

I see obese people now as 'you are a victim of 'big food', the companies (only a handful of global billion pound companies) that produce and cleverly advertise and use supermarkets to sell this highly refined, highly addictive processed food'. If they were educated and told it's not their fault, they might decide they don't want to play the 'big food' game anymore.

Yes sugar, wheat and grains, hormones in food and cosmetics, villification of fat all messed us up.

Although there are people with genuine challenges around foot prep.
It’s sad to see non medical related obesity.
I think the two need to be separated.

I heard a really interesting lecture once by a doctor studying obesity, who had done a lot of data analysis on people who lost weight sucessfully and kept it off.

What he said is that essentially, once you are overweight, it is very very difficult to lose. People in the studies who lost and kept it off were on very strict diets, long term, eating a lot less calories than normal non-obese people. In fact they had to eat at a level that most people of any weight would find very difficult to maintain long term.

So it's not like you are asking someone obese just to have as much self-control as an average person, you are asking them to have more. Plus solve whatever problems may have contributed to their eating before, be it upbringing, cash, emotional issues etc.

And if a person does diet, and then stops, they usually gain back more and are even worse off. Children who are obese have an even harder time getting to and keeping a normal weight, no matter how they eat as adults.

As a society wide level, you have to tackle obesity before it happens. Once people are overweight it's stacked against the to lose long term. Most of us, even when we don't struggle with our weight, don't and couldn't eat with that much control all the time.

It leads to instabloggers labelling hummus 'quite naughty'
😱 Blasphemy!!!

Yeah. You are quite right about the "healthy". People have massively skewed view of what's healthy and what is not.
Moderation is the key, that's it ime

define 'junk food' or 'processed food'

it's not easy.
obesity as a whole has one simple reason - calories in versus calories out.
but on an individual level and socioeconomic level it gets really complicated.

Ultimately it is up to the individual, but ofcourse big companies have a huge effect. Hence the sugar tax, which i think is actually good but look how that went down.

I think it was Robert Lustig who predicted that the US health system will face imminent collapse, within this decade. Primarily because of disease caused by poor diet. Well functioning healthcare systems rely on healthy young adults paying into the system to take care of sicker elderly adults. Now the young are becoming sick and taking more out of the system. I can't imagine a vastly different scenerio with the NHS within a few years.

There is a lot to be said for the food industry. In the US it can be much harder to get good food as many areas lack even a basic supermarket and you're forced to either travel for hours to one, or eat from a convenience store.

But it also isn't hard to simply not eat this stuff.

I wasn't raised in a family who ordered takeaways or had cupboards of 'snacks' or biscuits, so I don't miss these items. I am grateful that I did not develop the kinds of habits that would be hard to undo in later life. I might buy cakes once, we have a cup of tea and a cake and that's it, a one-off thing. It's not something you graze on all day. I know these items are on the shelves, but I don't buy them any more than I buy, I dunno, fishing gear or car parts. They're not on my radar.

And if a person does diet, and then stops, they usually gain back more and are even worse off. Children who are obese have an even harder time getting to and keeping a normal weight, no matter how they eat as adults. As a society wide level, you have to tackle obesity before it happens. Once people are overweight it's stacked against the to lose long term. Most of us, even when we don't struggle with our weight, don't and couldn't eat with that much control all the time.

Agree with every word of this. I've had a lifetime of obesity and eating disorders. All started when I was about 8 and overweight. When that young, you have no control over your eating - that's what parents are for! My excess weight was picked up by the school teachers who reported to social services(?) and me and my mother were summoned to education authority's "school doctor". From then on, it was made into such a big deal, weekly weigh ins at the school doctors office, strict diets at home (parents and siblings continued eating crap, I had boring/basic salads). Obviously I rebelled and started snacking from the cupboards at home when parents weren't watching, which led to stealing from Mother's "pots of cash" (milk money, etc) to buy chocolate bars and crisps from school tuck shop. And so it went on. Binge eating has been with me throughout my adult life, as has yo yo dieting etc - it's also had a massively detrimental effect on social events, relationships, etc. Had my parents fed me properly when I was young, none of that would have been necessary.

@Pipandmum

People have free will, and I don't believe they can not make the choice to eat one way or another. Yes food full of fat and sugar are yummy and somewhat addictive, but no one is forcing you to buy and consume it. People do have a genetic predisposition to be heavier or slimmer. But not obese or healthy weight. Some people can eat more than others and be slimmer. That's just life. But it's the choices one makes - it may be harder for one person to resist than another, but that's not an excuse, and blaming food companies is just avoiding personal accountability. I'm not saying it's easy- I'm overweight myself - but I acknowledge it's my problem, not anyone else's.

Brilliant post. Couldn’t have put it better.

schrodingers I know! I love me some red pepper hummus with carrot batons or the aldi rosemary crackers with are so yum. I've browsed YouTube for aldi food hauls this week hoping for some meal inspiration, and while there are a few normal people (ie mostly fruit, veg, fresh stuff but also things like a pack of biscuits and crisps etx) others take things to the extreme. One labelled a fish pie kit as a 'bit of a treat because I dont usually eat mash cos it's not healthy, so this is my weekend treat'. Women (and it's always women who obsess over this stuff seemingly) labelling what I though was a very decent food shop with no biscuits etc as not the healthiest, because it contained some cacao bars and some diet coke. Ridiculous. Finished watching that video and suddenly had doubts that maybe I'm not eating 'healthy' enough and maybe I dont know how to eat right . Theres so many diets out there that no one knows quite where to turn. Carbs are bad, no they're not, meat is bad, oh no it isnt, oh yes it is now, oh potatoes are the devil... everything in moderation is key. The trouble is I think that for some people, me included, saying everything in moderation makes me more inclined to focus on what I'm eating and deny myself chocolate etc then binge. I think as a general rule eating when hungry, stopping when not, and not having 'rules' around food eg 1 square of choc a night max, people will generally self regulate anyway. Rsnt over lol x

@Madein1995 I saw someone say they have a teaspoon of hummus with veg... A teaspoon. I am obese (not for much longer, ha!) so I might not best one to criticize, but... A freaking teaspoon😱

Moderation is the key. We should also stop "dieting". Diets don't work🤷🏻 Diets end. Change in lifestyle can be for ever.

It's all fucked up. But it's up to individuals to unfuck it.

I would MUCH rather eat crisps, chocolates, sausages ,pies, takeaways etc etc than healthy food but force myself just to have these as treats occasionally.
Anyone who doesn't know by now what foods are healthy must have been living with their eyes closed and fingers in ears for the last 10 years.

@Meadowland

I would MUCH rather eat crisps, chocolates, sausages ,pies, takeaways etc etc than healthy food but force myself just to have these as treats occasionally. Anyone who doesn't know by now what foods are healthy must have been living with their eyes closed and fingers in ears for the last 10 years.

That really surprises me, I think on the whole people feel much better when they eat well, but each to their own I suppose!

Even if you take the example of some of the very worst processed foods are aimed solely at children, children's cereals contain huge amounts of sugar, sweets, chocolate, soft drinks. Supermarkets often place these items at the eye level of children. Why is this even a thing? Why do we accept that? Yes parents can say no, but let's face it, the pester power must work, these companies are making huge profits from it or they wouldn't do it. And the big supermarkets allow it to happen, in fact they make it happen, they're not there to serve you the customer, they're there to make money for Nestle, General Mills, Kelloggs, Mondelez, Kraft.

That said I think peoples perception of food and portion sizes isnt the best. I posted my tea in a wattsapp group- a bread roll with halloumi hummus , chilli jam and lettuce with sweet pot fries on the side. People said it looked nice but also that it looked really healthy and where was the meat and the rest of it? I'm not a skinny minny at size 18 and it filled me so hardly sparrow size, but it made me chuckle how they thought that was trying to eat 'healthy'

Interesting thread. I am overweight and have tried every diet under the sun:

calorie counting
low fat
weight watchers
slimming
Atkins
Keto
Dukan
hypnosis

But I cannot stick to any of them. I know all of the theory but lack any willpower. I am really at a loss as to my next step.

I live in the US and one of my best friends is a bariatric surgeon so has counseled a huge number of people who are very overweight, before they have surgery.

Some really don't know what foods are healthy. They go to the supermarket and buy what their parents bought, what their friends buy, what their family buys, what they see advertised on TV, what they see cooked on TV shows, what is served in the kind of restaurants they patronise.

She has to send them to dieticians to help them relearn what foods are out there, and how to cook them, and what is a healthy amount to eat.

Sometimes once they've done that, and they've changed their living habits, they end up incredibly unhappy because they are now making their friends and family uncomfortable, and they no longer fit in, and they end up leaving spouses and friendship groups.

It's so much more complex than being just down to 'big food' or 'individuals should try harder'.

@Madein1995 that meal is actually quite healthy. Just get rid of lettuce. Useless veg. Spinach, rocket, cress. Much better nutrition wise😁

Yes, people's perception of portion is skewed massively. It's either all or nothing. Admittedly, mine was too. I eat healthy, but I eat enough to feed 2 people👀 So I am now size of 2 people...

Yes - I fill our house with healthy food and cook balanced meals. Three of us eat normal portion sizes and are healthy weights. Two eat big portions and are overweight. One eats big portions but is very very active and is slightly underweight.

@022828MAN
Yes I do feel better - both physically and psychologically- after eating healthy food.
It's just that I still prefer the taste of a lot of junk food (crisps / chocolate).
It's a choice I make to stay fit and healthy, but my point is we all have that choice, and it is, in my opinion, a cop out to blame anyone else, but yourself.

define 'junk food' or 'processed food’

This a good point - I was thinking of ‘ultraprocessed’ food I suppose, or things that objectively have no or virtually no nutritional value. Like ultra cheap bread, processed meats, things like cheese strings, or mega sugary cereal, cheap chocolate, anything that’s just sugar and additives - that kind of thing.

Other things are fine in moderation, but not as a staple diet. So eg takeaways or McDonalds etc, if you choose well and have them occasionally it’s fine. Every day, not fine. I love Coke but I probably don’t have it even once a month, because I know it is absolutely unhealthy and my body doesn’t need it.

Obviously you could get fat eating hummus but it’s not unhealthy. Plenty of things are mega fattening but not unhealthy. The conflation of healthy & low calorie is another trap people fall into and is also easily monetised by the diet industry.

Lockdown is certainly not going to help the obesity epidemic: many people being have been denied their usual exercise (the "exercise" that we're allowed out for is no substitute if your usual exercise is swimming, or team sports), and also with oceans of time at home, there is temptation to eat out of boredom.

Well yes, what is processed food, what is junk food? People could think they're eating a healthy diet, but it is full of labelled 'healthy' heavily processed food and drink. Like so called healthy fat spreads, benecol and the like, people still think those things are healthy because the label touts it as such, probably has a ton of unrecognisable ingredients. Healthy foods don't need a label, literally, fruit, veg, eggs, butter, milk, plain yoghurt, olive oil, meat, fish. You could probably guarantee that foods that are labelled 'healthy' are most definitely not. I'll have to draw the line at having my own cow to milk, or churning my own butter, some processing is inevitable.

I think there is a huge gap in this country for making making healthy cheap food something that everyone can cook and prepare for themselves at home. There’s slew of fancy cooking programs when really we could do with something that’s similar to good student cooking. I’m not convinced that buying crap food is cheaper than buying healthier; Eggs, lentils, beans, apples, bananas, chickpeas, potatoes, onions, carrots, flour, oil all cheap. But you need skill and knowledge to things together in an in interesting way.