Obesity is a disease of the poor in the west and the rich everywhere else

[AllUpInWomanBusiness]

OK, so I realise I’m unreasonable to be stating the obvious, but isn’t this wild? For the first time in human history fattening food - sugar, meat - is more affordable than the alternative. And poor people are eating themselves to death. It’s heartbreaking isn’t it?

'It’s shocking that a disease of excess is more common amongst the poor. '

It isn't a disease. People overeat for a myriad of reasons, a minority will have eating disorders but the majority just eat too much.

There's quite a balanced, stats-driven look at it here:
www.jrf.org.uk/blog/effective-poverty-and-obesity-campaigns-need-more-just-stats

@melisande99

It's increasingly a disease of the poor elsewhere in the world too. E.g. Latin America.

Very true. And, unrelated to your comment, but my point wasn’t that veggies are thin and meat eaters are fat, but that when meat was a once to twice a week luxury people were, on the whole, a healthier weight. I see some children at work who eat meat three or more times a day! And it’s a very calorie dense food

Poor children are eating meat three times a day??! I guess the Tories were right about not needing to feed them during the holidays, their parents are obviously running a small branch of McDonald's out of their kitchen.

True, but fewer middle class families than poor ones eating themselves into a biscuit coma.
Time poor is an important concept and you are completely correct in what you’re saying. But middle class families are also just as likely to have working mothers as working class ones. And cooking isn’t necessarily a time arduous task is it? I can make chicken (or falafel/tofu/feta) + salad + pasta/rice/pita/new potato in the same time as it takes to do oven food. Why do we make different choices? Culture, education, availability, cost? I don’t know the answer. I don’t want to be adversarial either I just want to understand better so we can do better

@AllUpInWomanBusiness

True, but fewer middle class families than poor ones eating themselves into a biscuit coma. Time poor is an important concept and you are completely correct in what you’re saying. But middle class families are also just as likely to have working mothers as working class ones. And cooking isn’t necessarily a time arduous task is it? I can make chicken (or falafel/tofu/feta) + salad + pasta/rice/pita/new potato in the same time as it takes to do oven food. Why do we make different choices? Culture, education, availability, cost? I don’t know the answer. I don’t want to be adversarial either I just want to understand better so we can do better

Again, more patronising language. 'We can do better'? Who's 'we'? You evidently seem to think you've caught on to some big idea about obesity, what do you want to do? Go around a council estate with a megaphone reeling off 'absolutely scrummy tofu and lentils recipes that even you working class fatties can afford to do if you put down the Mars Bars'?

I don't think meat's the big issue, I think it's sugar everywhere. It messes with the body in a way that fat doesn't, and unlike fat it leaves you wanting more instead of satiated. Apparently the push towards low fat/high carbs that we've been given for the last thirty years may just have caused more problems of its own. Processed food uses sugar to improve the taste where the fat is missing.
We're also a lot less active than a couple of generations ago.

This is far too simplistic. I was slim when I was younger, then we had more money and we could afford take-aways, trips out to restaurants, alcohol etc. That extra money came with longer hours at work and by association less time to exercise etc. So in mine and DH's cases it is literally the exact opposite. I doubt we're unique.

@GetOffYourHighHorse the definition of disease isn't 'something that happens completely by chance and not influenced by any actions on the part of the person who has the disease'. Having said that, obesity itself isn't a disease. You can be obese and healthy - it's just a number, and for some people - for example, people who have lots of muscle and are very active, you can have a BMI in the obese range and have no health issues at all. What obesity is, is a risk factor for disease.

In any case, you (and lots of other people in this dumpster fire of a thread) seem to think that fat and obese people can "just lose weight if they just eat less". That's technically true, if you eat far enough below your basal metabolic rate, you will lose weight. But 'how far below' is completely different for everyone- the human body isn't a car engine and its metabolism is affected by hundreds of factors. One hugely important factor is that when you've been fat long enough, that weight becomes 'normal' for your body, and your hormones will basically do everything possible to maintain that weight - making it impossible to lose anything if you eat more than a very small number of calories, making you obsess over food, leading to all kinds of disordered eating. Why do you think that, according to most studies, anywhere from 80 to 95% of people who lose weight gain it back within 5 years? Are 80 to 95% of people weak, disgusting failures? Or could it maybe be that something else is going on?

You can't go back in time and stop people from getting fat. You can only really teach children how to take care of their bodies, and treat people who already are fat with respect instead of as morally corrupt drains on society - EVEN IF THEY CAN'T LOSE WEIGHT. Or, I mean, you can treat them like shit, and refuse to understand the complexity of fatness and obesity, but that makes you the one who is morally corrupt.

I don't claim to have the answers but I do, at least, understand the problem, which would be a good start for all of you, as well.

@BLASTPROCESSING

Time to settle in nice and early for the weekly fat thread. 🍿

Ooh yes but no popcorn, if you don't mind. I have some celery for you you to munch on.

I'm not poor and I'm 1.5-2st overweight. No financial factors - I just stopped running and started eating too much crisps and cheese.

@FatGirlShrinking
No I’m neither poor nor overweight. I’m not condescending (at least not by design) I think it’s heartbreaking that already disadvantaged people are suffering massive health inequalities. I understand that not every poor person is fat and not every fat person is poor. Statistics are of course a measure of a population not an individual. The question is why? Why are more poor people in the west apt to eat and move in a way that makes you overweight to the degree that you get sick?

@BrumBoo
Yes. Not filet mignon. Cheap bacon, cheap ham sandwich, cheap burger. Shit processed meat.

Yes. Not filet mignon. Cheap bacon, cheap ham sandwich, cheap burger. Shit processed meat.

I don’t know anyone who eats meat for every meal. ‘Shit’ meat or otherwise. And I like ham sandwiches a lot.

The question is why? Why are more poor people in the west apt to eat and move in a way that makes you overweight to the degree that you get sick?

Go and google. You are not the first person to wonder why there appears to be a link between poverty and obesity in the West and there is a wealth of research out there to answer all your heartbroken questions. This is such a lazy thread.

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109343

yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-3bcc48ff-0a6a-4986-9637-75cc5f9a28c7/c/6.pdf

Whilst I said on the previous page it was multi-factorial, I was in iceland recently (somewhere I don't usually shop) and I was shocked at how cheap the family meals were. Lasagnes supposedly serving 6 for £5, I dread to think what fatty meat cuts have been used to make it so cheap. People literally had their trolleys full of frozen, processed food as their weekly shop, so yes I can understand that many people on a strict budget are filling up on cheap carbs.

Is Tonga in the West? What's the definition?

I remember reading about the Tongan pm quite a few years ago and he was trying to encourage the population to lose weight, starting with him iirc running round a track

Or maybe it was their president? Maybe someone remembers was in the news maybe 10 years ago.

This is not a new idea:

"Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.”

George Orwell back in 1937

@BLASTPROCESSING

Time to settle in nice and early for the weekly fat thread. 🍿

Weekly?

If only it were that infrequent!!

'Having said that, obesity itself isn't a disease. You can be obese and healthy - it's just a number, and for some people - for example, people who have lots of muscle and are very active, you can have a BMI in the obese range and have no health issues at all. What obesity is, is a risk factor for disease.'

Exactly, so you agree being obese is not a 'disease' 🙄.

It is interesting why we have such a lot of obese people but then if you look in our supermarkets they are just full of processed junk food. If you go in a Lidl in Spain for example it is mainly fresh meat, veg and fruit. Not a ready meal in sight. Spain does not seem to have the masses of obese people like the UK.

I've just walked the dog. A brisk hours long march, I didn't see any overweight dog walkers. Funny that. People really need to stop with the excuses, just eat less and at least walk places. Of course a minority have severe psychological issues with food. A minority.

There is a link between low income or poverty and the likelihood of obesity, the reasons behind it are complex.

Choice is a big factor. Its all well and good saying vegetables are cheap or basics range staples are cheap but that's working on the presumption that people have access to these, know how to cook them or where to find instructions on how to cook them (e.g., cookbook from the library), and have the means to cook them.

If the only shop you have regular access to is the local corner shop and they stock heat-to-eat processed food, crisps, and frozen pizzas/nuggets/chips then that's what the bulk of your diet will consist of.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

Spain does not seem to have the masses of obese people like the UK

😂😂 have you ever been to Valencia or other places outside of Madrid etc?

I had 2x 1 hour long brisk walks today. Including hills and I walked into the village to put something in the post box (regrettably I don't have a dog).

So far today I've had water, lots of water, 2 cups of brewed coffee wuth a splash of cream and 150g of basil infused tofu (taifun). In a bit I'll be having lettuce/radish/tomato/cucumber, seeds & vegan Mayo & a bit of grated cheese over the top. Very very few carbs.

Last night I had Broccoli, courgette & 2 veggie sausages for dinner. Only coffee in the day.

This is my normal

My BMI is still over 40'

@BrumBoo

What a load of patronising wank.