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.

Mate.

However, if you break it down, you will find small pockets where the personal responsibility is not the biggest factor and it's rather about outside factors. No one is denying these minorities exist, but in general discussion about obesity, most talk will be about personal responsibility.

Tbf I'm not sure treating obesity as an addiction will make people any nicer to the victims. Most people loath addicts.

I think we ALL have a disordered attitude to food. You only gave to go pn the weight loss board to see the competetive hair shirt wearing under eating brigade.
Likewise the fact that many love junk food....myself included. The meat industry is barbaric, fuelled by hormones, antibiotics and other iv chemicals and we eat too much. The vegan industry is barking up the right tree environmentally but has a lot of precessed options and can be processed.
Who knows what the answer is??
All the while we are surrounded by images promoting unobtainable " perfect" bodies.

Sorry about that garbled mess of a response!

^However, if you break it down, you will find small pockets where the personal responsibility is not the biggest factor and it's rather about outside factors. No one is denying these minorities exist, but in general discussion about obesity, most talk will be about personal responsibility^

They aren’t minorities, that’s the whole point...

[quote Blackandwhitehorse]Interesting article here which states - A Cambridge University study published last year found that people on low-incomes who live furthest from their supermarket were more likely to be obese that those who lived close by. So yes living near food deserts plays a part. Full article - www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/12/more-than-a-million-uk-residents-live-in-food-deserts-says-study[/quote]
Well if you call over a million a minority. And actually since overweight and obese are now the majority, I absolutely do not agree with you, based on science not some moral compass, that those people are simply too lazy, too thick, too lacking in personal responsibility to attain a healthy weight.

Mate.

Our grandparents, or great grandparents even, had no need for supermarkets, shopping involved simply a greengrocer, a butcher, a baker, perhaps a small grocery shop where they could buy flour to make their own treats at home. Your money would have served the local economy through keeping these small businesses open.

And the thing is the supermarket has an endless supply of baked goods. The local baker did not. You had to get there early or they sold out.

The causes of the obesity epidemic are multifaceted. People being under a lot of stress affecting hormones, people eating products rather than food, food pricing, lack of time, mis-selling (esp by the diet industry), poor/faddy diet and exercise regimes (usually linked to a price tag where the business Model has a necessary failure button). Focus on looks rather than health Benefits of any diet/exercise plan. Vanity sizing, the marketing of products as lifestyle/comforting accessories, Socialising revolving round food and drink. Portion sizes (esp with non- home prepared food). Increased eating out/takeaways. Food seen as a reward (esp an issue where eating disorders exist where food is heavily attached to emotions).

To beat the epidemic doctors need to be more supportive but at the end of the day what goes in you mouth and the type and amount of exercise you take is an individual choice, but it’s not easy for everyone to find the right answers to these things.

Million is a minority🤷🏻

Furthermore, there's lots of type two diabetic thin people. Eating processed food but staying thin is no protection. If you want anecdotal evidence of that, I have plenty. Plenty of personal, painful experience of people, slim people, who have died painful gruelling deaths from complications of type two diabetes.

Lots of people asking for a definition of "processed food". I found this article really interesting:

www.theguardian.com/food/2020/feb/13/how-ultra-processed-food-took-over-your-shopping-basket-brazil-carlos-monteiro

It talks about a big Brazilian study (referenced earlier in this thread I believe) that categorises food depending on its level of processing. Basically there is a huge prevalence these days of ultra processed "edible foodlike substances" - the long term effects of which are still not understood. I definitely think this is a factor in what is a hugely complex issue.

Someone once said to me - if there’s an advert for it, you probably shouldn’t eat it. Very good advice if you ask me

There’s an advert for Pink Lady apples......

@SerenDippitty

There’s an advert for Pink Lady apples......

Scary too!

It's the same as alcoholics.
Some people can say "I decided I was drinking too much, so I just stopped" but if they followed it by saying "so alcoholics are just lazy, sure drinking is nice but they can just stop, I did", people wouldn't all say "mmm you're so right, there were fewer of those in the past".

Add in the fact that food is engineered to be as addictive as possible, we're surrounded by advertising for it, food is one of the very few cheap sources of enjoyment when youre poor, and that the alcoholic method of "not one drop" just isnt possible with food, and saying its all 100% down to the individual to just choose to stop starts to sound as rediculous as it is.

We live in a finger-pointing, blaming culture so for a lot of people it comes natural to always blame someone or something else for their personal failures rather than themselves. At the end of the day though you are responsible for yourself and your lifestyle choices, so if you choose to be scoffing junk food and live a sedentary lifestyle than it is your fault. Don’t blame the government or the illuminati or whatever. There is a lot of convenience/junk food out there but there is also a ton of information about how to counter it and what alternatives you can opt for. You don’t necessarily have to consume something just because it is cheap, and it applies to several things, not just food. Loads of people could afford smoking for example, or drinking on a daily basis, yet they don’t do that.

I think like many conditions and diseases, it must be multifaceted. But it spreads across so many government departments, industries and cultures that it's hard to get a joined up approach.

• Fattening food is cheap, convenient and tasty. And heavily marketed. Non fattening food is now "healthy" as if you would only eat it if you have a problem or are a fitness freak.
• Cultural shift towards snacking, eating larger portions and sweet drinks, and eating between meals.
• Home cooking from scratch/meat and 2 veg type meals aren't a part of many families lives because there are easier alternatives.
• Diet industry and food industry have the incentive to keep us buying their processed foods (no profit in just selling meat/fish/veg) which have a lot of sugar and artificial ingredients
• Once obese/fat it's very hard to lose weight and keep it off due to metabolism changes.
• competing weight loss advice always trying to sell the "one true Diet" when probably there are a choice of ways that work.

I strongly believe that the food industry influences government advice. Nobody makes a profit from "eat less, use mostly unprocessed foods, don't eat all the time".

Pink Lady apples have been bred to be unnaturally sweet!

Loads of people could afford smoking for example, or drinking on a daily basis, yet they don’t do that.

Anti-smoking campaigns are very visual and heavily funded. Comparable anti-obesity campaigns receive a third of the funding. Obesity is substantially lower as a preventative health priority. So your point about smoking actually disproves your point on obesity. Public Health messaging and funding from government along with banning of it in certain areas has had a massive affect in decreasing numbers of smokers. So changing the environment (I.e making it harder to smoke) affected positively the number of smokers.

Pink Lady apples have been bred to be unnaturally sweet!

Well apples are obviously cultivated for thousands of years to be sweet, but pink lady was certainly not cultivated to be any more sweet than any other apple, they were simply attempting to get an apple as sweet as a golden delicious that survived better. It's actually considerably less sweet than many other apples.

Certainly in the UK there has been a movement in apples away from granny smith's which are one of the tartest apples, but pink lady is no sweeter than the red delicious which was the main apple in the US.

Some interesting points have been raised re: availability and prevalence.

People with MH issues around food will often take the lazy and immediate options. Because it is part of the cycle they are in and unable to break, because it is part of the addiction / illness.

Many people have a normal and healthy relationship with food, but some do not. Why is that so hard to accept?

I think advertising plays a huge role as well, like the poster up-thread said, the majority of food related advertising isn't advocating healthy, nutritious food? Yes we are moving towards being a more health conscious society but we have a long way to go!

MN has a very, very skewed about weight in general and obesity in particular, as this thread once again proves.

Anti-smoking campaigns are very visual and heavily funded. Comparable anti-obesity campaigns receive a third of the funding.

Because publicly pointing out that obesity is massive health risk leads to accusations of fat shaming - Cancer research. I've seen a thread where a GP was accused of fat shaming because they raised weight issue.

YABVU. People have responsibility over themselves. If they have no self control over food that is nobody’s else fault but their own.

Basically there is a huge prevalence these days of ultra processed "edible foodlike substances" - the long term effects of which are still not understood

Well said. I translate for a living and have translated stuff for the food processing industry. Milk in a recipe is replaced by a chemical that tastes like milk. If this was just a once off, I wouldn't be too fussed, but the compound effect of so many chemicals going into our bodies and no goodness is disastrous.

As I said, our epidemiologist in Mexico is convinced that, if it were not for processed food, we would not have so much high-blood pressure, diabetes and obesity in Mexico.

@sirfredfredgeorge and I for one am grateful. Golden delicious apples are delicious, but I grew up in Cape Town, where they are a staple of the apple industry, and can't tel you how often I'd wander over to the fruit bowl only to discover they'd gone wrinkly or floury!

But this actually makes me think - it's all very well saying information on food and health and nutrition etc is out there, but look at the massively varying responses to fruit on food threads. It's not unusual for one poster who comments that their children can eat fruit as snacks whenever they want to have a whole bunch of posters coming on to tell her how bad it is. If we can't even get to a point where there's more or less similar understanding of how and when fruit should be eaten, how on earth are we supposed to get a consistently healthy, non-fat-making diet for all people?