To think that biscuits don’t make you obese?

[covidtired]

I’m 20 stone 7 . I’m not that weight because I ate too many biscuits - if biscuits weren’t there I would ate anything I could find, and a lot of it !! I’m slowly losing now (was 22 stone 13 on NYD) but I’m still eating biscuits, cake, etc - just in moderation and without a side order of guilt .

Surely the answer is to support mental health more, especially in children and adolescents - I ate for comfort because I wasn’t getting it from anything else - and promote exercise - I was removed from PE due to dyspraxia and bullying, and told not to bother trying ... hence I’m now an adult that finds exercising awful !

Surely fixing these things is the answer, not banning cheap biscuits ?!!

The issue of obesity is very complicated IMO. I think people are overweight due to the following;
Mindless eating
Eating late at night
Too much sugar
Too much processed food
Eating due to; boredom, stress, anger, sadness, anxiety etc
Lack of activity
Lack of will-power(I want it so I will have it)
Not knowing when hungry
Not knowing when full
Bad habits
Too much alcohol
Steroids
Greed
Addictions to sugar, cola, carbohydrates etc

And probably 100s more. So, for some banning biscuits would work. I have known fat people to put cake in the bin, cover it in water, then fish it out and eat it.

I eat a fuckton of biscuits and they make me fat so YABU.

Biscuits are the biggest problem if you work in an office - many offices seem to have an endless supply of communal biscuits and it's so easy to muck on them mindlessly throughout the day.

No one ever brings fruit, vegetables etc to share with the office... it's always biscuits.

There are loads of reasons why people become obese and eating too many biscuits is one of them. The reasons you have listed are valid too.

It is important to think about why people eat certain foods and we need to find ways to make it easier to eat in a healthy rather than unhealthy way. At the moment it's much easier and cheaper to be unhealthy. This needs to change.

Everyone has different reasons for being obese - I have an emotional overeating problem with binging on sugary foods like biscuits, chocolates etc, they are totally the reason I am fat whereas things like cheese, alcohol, crisps I can take it or leave it.

I agree that it would be money well spent though, to look into reasons behind why people overeat and offer help at that level.

I was slim until last year (I'm 35 with an almost 4 year old). My problem is absolutely too many biscuits/cake/takeaway/Greggs at lunchtime when at work.

From today I'm only going to eat when I'm actually hungry, hopefully I can get back to better habits.

But surely something's not right when I can pop to shops and pick up a big packet of custard creams for 35p but 6 golden delicious will set me back £2.

I agree. I've been obese and biscuits weren't my thing, bread was. I could easily eat a whole loaf toasted. No one is proposing bread is banned. Excess calories is the issue and they can be found anywhere. I'd be surprised if the new measures make any difference.

I fully welcome the changes. I agree with @NotExactlyMrsCurrentAffairs junk food is so cheap whereas healthy options like fruit/veg is extremely expensive in comparison. You can see why people choose the junk options if they're keeping to a budget

I think I’m just worried it’s going to perpetuate the attitude that it’s all our own fault . It probably is to some extent my fault, but I was called fat and greedy from age 7 (I was 6 stone) - I’m convinced now that made it much, much worse and what would have helped would have been for someone to act with kindness and not judgement .

You worry that if they keep saying on TV it’s simply because we eat too many biscuits it’ll keep people pointing the finger ...

I’m maybe taking it too personally !

In theory the reason people are obese is simple - they eat more than they burn off.

But as @crossstitchingnana points out, the reasons behind why people overeat are various - and it's not the same for everyone. If people are emotional eating etc then stopping cheap biscuits isn't likely to stop that, they'll just find something else.

I also think poverty plays a role. I know people always point out how cheap you can find veg etc if you know where to look, but the fact is a bit carby/stodgy ready meal iceland lasagne for £1 is going fill you up for much longer than a vegetable soup made from scratch. And if you're on one meal a day then that's what you're looking for. And then there's issues about people who have never learnt to cook, or are struggling with their electric meter and may not have the money to keep the oven/stove on for long.

Like many things, it's rarely as simple as it might seem.

Just posted this on another thread:

I have little faith in what the government has planned to solve the obesity crisis.

I’ve posted this before. I was a fat kid who grew up in a morbidly obese family. We were poor so food choices were limited but I can’t blame our weight solely on that - we were lazy. Lazy bodies so didn’t exercise and a lazy mind to even consider eating something other than chips with whatever.

When I was in my early 20s and away from home after uni I decided to do something about my weight. I went from 15 stone to 9 stone in a year due to sheer will power. I taught myself about nutrition and found a love for running.

Education is key. I have a colleague who I work with who is morbidly obese. She always comments that she wishes she could eat what I have for lunch (often leftovers) as it looks tastier than her diet lunch (she’s always on Slimming World). What she fails to see is that her huge tuna pasta with low cal mayo is more calories than my chicken stirfry purely down to portion size and refined sugars and carbs.

People want a quick fix but it’s takes the effort and control initially to retrain your mind and body.

My own tuppence is I can’t eat in moderation. If I have a pack of biscuits, I’ll eat the whole pack, so I just don’t buy any. The same goes for sweets, chocolate, crisps etc.

So yes, for me, I have banned all of those things. Ive banned those things for a few months now and am now starting my weight loss journey (need to lose 3 stone).

@covidtired so at age 7 you were nearly twice the average weight for that age. The bullying was a symptom not a cause, and it 100% wasn't your fault - your parents failed you at that point and essentially will have set you up for a lifetime of bad eating habits which then had added emotional problems (eg bullying) that would have compounded it all.

I'm about 2 stones overweight. I'm overweight because I eat too much crap food. I'm not going to blame anyone else for my lack of self control.

I don’t eat biscuits often but I do log everything I eat on MFP.

One day last month I was over my target calories, I’d obviously had an off day as I had 5 chocolate digestives. Total calories for 5 biscuits was 440! That’s more calories than my usual lunch.

So yes, eating biscuits (or anything that puts you over your daily calories amount) makes you put on weight.

I think high calorie, nutrition free, cheap, addictive, easily available and convenient food is one of many issues.

If you had no biscuits but only say, vegetables and nuts available, I doubt you'd eat as many calories, even though the nuts are calorie dense.

However, I doubt increasing a packet of biscuits from 30p to 60p (or whatever is proposed) will make much difference.

In my view, things will only change when it becomes socially unacceptable to be obese (like smoking or drink driving) but that is such a taboo, as we stand now and would take a huge public information campaign which would not be well received by the public (voters) so is therefore unlikely to happen.

I do understand that obesity is a very complex issue but it will never be solved without individuals taking responsibility, alongside the public health programmes they need to support them.

Well exactly, I'm a similar weight to you op and for similar reasons. I've read all of Boris' plans today and am not optimistic that they'll work. People don't lose weight because you restrict access to junk food. People lose weight when the reason they got so big in the first place is tackled.

Yes eating too many biscuits make you a bit fat but to have a BMI if over 40 I'd guess that obesity is the symptom not the cause.

YANBU

I’m fat because I eat too much, but the reasons why I eat too much aren’t so simple as many people seem to believe. It’s definitely a combination of factors including growing up with an unhealthy attitude towards food. I suspect if I had children I would likely be passing on that unhealthy attitude and repeating the cycle, even if I meticulously gave them healthy food in appropriate portions.

One biscuit is around 40-70 calories depending onthe type so a biscuit does not make you fat but You can eat a packet of biscuits and because its all sugar and simple carbs it doesn't fill you up, so you eat more of them and before you know it you've downed over 500 calories.

Whereas if you'd eaten something with a bit more fibre/protein etc then you tend not to eat as much of it.

I have a colleague who I work with who is morbidly obese. She always comments that she wishes she could eat what I have for lunch (often leftovers) as it looks tastier than her diet lunch (she’s always on Slimming World). What she fails to see is that her huge tuna pasta with low cal mayo is more calories than my chicken stirfry purely down to portion size and refined sugars and carbs.

I used to get this too. My coleagues used to bemoan why I could eat what I wanted yet they were on diets all the time. I did/do have a fondness for chips but what they failed to see was that their tuna mayo laden sandwich which the pack of crisps,bananna, can of coke and the umpteen biscuits they ate all day was far more calories than my ham salad with a side of oven chips (I dislike the taste of butter, mayo etc and I don't like fizzy drinks so drink water. My lunch filled me up so I didn't contantly snack like they did.

YABU. It's an odd question to focus on biscuits rather than diet. A person's diet makes them overweight. This issue can be debated, deconstructed and analysed for hours. A fortune can be spent on personal trainers, diet plans, clubs etc etc. I've got it down to one line. Is your diet 2/3 fresh veg? If it's not, that's why you're overweight. If it is, let's analyse and debate why you're overweight.

@honeygirlz same here.Cant have biscuits in the house.

Excess of anything makes you fat. Of course biscuits are keeping us fat if we are eating them, along with cake and other crap that has no nutritional benefit whatsoever. We have to take responsibility for what we put in our mouths. No one if forcing us to overeat. We need to have some personal accountability instead of expecting others to sort it for us.

I think biscuits and sweets are not seen as real food so you can consume a surprisingly large amount of additional calories without really noticing. If you put, say, an additional 400 calories worth of food onto your plate at your evening meal it would look like a lot, but a couple of biscuits or piece of cake with morning and afternoon coffee could easily amount to that or more and barely be noticed.
I have lost a lot of weight recently and whilst I have made some changes to my meals, they are not massively different. But what I have done is cut out pretty much all the "extras" . When I was at my fattest I would have sworn that I wasn't eating enough to account for my weight, and I was exercising regularly. But when I actually analysed what I was eating it was apparent that I was eating hundreds of extra calories a day without even noticing. I would even say to myself "Its only 85 calories, what difference can that possibly make" as I took another chocolate biscuit and its true that if its once in a while it won't make any difference. But my problem is that I was eating at least 2 or 3 biscuits, a bar of chocolate, or a piece of cake more or less every day without even thinking about it. That amounted to over 2000 calories per week.
Obviously there are multiple reasons why people are overweight and there isn't a simple answer. But regularly eating unhealthy, calorie dense food on top of normal meals is clearly not going to help.

3500 extra calories a week and you'll put on a pound. That's roughly 6 biscuits a day. I could easily do that at work without thinking about it, 2 with tea at break, 2 at lunch and 2 at the after school meeting/training and that's not including any other crap I grab before running Dd to her activites.

For me putting on weight is these minor poor choices in diet and not exercising enough. Its nothing to do with my MH I was never bullied as a child / teen in fact I was athletic and sporty and when I set my mind to it and find time I lose weight but then I get busy again and those biscuits creep back in and my weight goes up.