Can we have a sensible discussion about obesity without shaming?

[BalloonCityBaseline]

I started another thread which got my thinking; why is it impossible to start any discussion about obesity without someone bringing 'will power' and 'personal choice' into it?
I always find on MN there is sympathy for those with addictions, people in poverty, people who stay in shitty relationships but there is no sympathy for those who struggle with their weight. For one, weight gain is seen as a personal struggle (you made yourself fat) rather than thought of as society's struggle (what can we do to address this and help people?)
Let's not forget that every country in the Western world is having an obesity crisis right now, yes even the Scandinavian countries and the skinny French. Also not one country has successfully managed to reduce their levels of obesity? Why?
The number one reason that we have put on weight has to be the shift to processed food and how available and cheap it is. God it's cheap! Easter eggs are now 75p in Tesco, the other day I saw a row of school kids all walking down the road munching a whole Easter egg each. But what's the alternative? That 75p would buy you absolutely nothing in the fancy health food shop across the road, and six of them would have to club together to buy one punnet of blueberries in the same Tesco so what choices do young people have?
Fat shaming just does not work. The number one reason kids are bullied in this country is because of their weight, with girls being likely to be bullied for being overweight more than any other factor. Do these kids lose weight when the bullies scream at them day after day? No, they often self harm and some end up depressed adults who take that shame with them for the rest of their lives.
As someone who has lost weight recently for the first time in their adult life I feel it coincided with a time in my life when I felt happy, busy, fulfilled, motivated and in control, which felt like the first time in my whole life. When I speak to others on the same journey they tell similar tales. The whole 'I couldn't fit into an airplane seat and everybody laughed' Take a Break narrative just doesn't ring true for so many people I know. Happiness and acceptance is much more likely to put someone in a mindset where they can change their eating habits and take control.

I'd be happy to hear other thoughts.

I just meant that it is physically possibly to never drink alcohol again but everyone has to eat. I’m not saying that stopping drinking is that easy.
This is used a lot on these threads.
When it is easier given up something if you have a substitute - take vaping as an example 1000's who believed they'd never stop smoking did.
Whenever DP is on a diet he raves about how tasty healthy food, soups, fakeaway chinese but it takes more planning and work he can't be bothered with the preparation so never sticks with it.

I think this is a good point, im guessing slim people dont think about food that much

I'm slim. I think about food a lot. Cooking is one of my hobbies.

I eat small portions.

I think this is a good point, im guessing slim people dont think about food that much
I'm slim I don't think about food, if I get a pang before dinner it passes.

@Duggeehugs82

I think the answer is for goverment and especially schools so to start with young children to learn about hunger ques and signs and satisfied feeling and feelings of fullness. The diet industry doesnt want that as it wouldn't be able to keep people feeling the need to diet, i dont even mean the whole intuitive eating because that would obviously be copyrightee and expensive, just basic teaching of hunger and fullness. In school children are taugh healthy and non healthy foods. So striaght away some foods r bad some r good. When if people are truly using hunger and fullness then it wouldn't matter what they are. When we label a food unhealthy we r automatically putting a naughty forbidden label on it, it just makes people want it more.

I teach and don't think this would work without annoying an awful lot of parents.

At my school, children can bring a mid-morning snack, and then eat a packed lunch at lunch time or have a school dinner.

I still regularly get asked if children can eat snacks at their desk in the afternoon - they get peckish mid afternoon apparently.

Parents line up at the end of the day, with snacks in hand - they can't wait to eat until they get home, they're too hungry.

Often, morning snacks and packed lunches are huge, and nutritionally rubbish. Try gently raising that with a parent - you're the 'lunch box police.'

Even a passing comment to a child - 'will you be able to eat both packets of crisps or do you want to pop one back in your bag' for example - attracts a parental complaint.

Parents make this message very clear - they have jurisdiction over their child's food and weight, don't interfere.

We could talk in class about it being normal to feel 'pleasantly hungry' in the run up to a meal, but to what end if the kids don't know what we're talking about (they're never allowed to feel hungry) and parents would override us anyway.

@worraliberty I know this because I am slim and have been apart from two times in my life - as a young teenager and after having a baby.

My experience is that I had to work really fucking hard to lose it and it is no easier to maintain. You don't get slim and then suddenly stop thinking about what you are eating.

Everyone I know who eats junk regularly without proper exercise on top of basic healthy walking etc has put on weight. Bar the odd one with an exceptionally fast metabolism.

Rawlikesushi i actually agree it wouldnt be great in practice and it really does need to be shown to parents first as in it becomes normal practice and children follow, i guess what im wanting will not happen in my lifetime i think especially as dieting seems to be the go to

I’ve been overweight for my entire 50 years-as an adult i have varied between 11 and 21 stones. Over the years i have probably lost and gained 50 stones. I have definitely got a food addiction, coupled with diabetes 2, PCOS, Insulin resistance, depression, endometriosis, kidney disease....
Last year at 21 stone i had a gastric sleeve-very much felt this was the last chance. It hasn’t been easy but after 4 months i had lost about 3 stones. This was based on eating @800-1000 calories daily and trying for 60g protein. For the first 2 months after my op, i was recovering (lots of pain due to endo and scar tissue on my intestines-had to have sleeve surgery rather than bypass due to this). Then i started to feel really hungry again, was thinking about food all the time, obsessing about what to eat (even when you can’t eat much, its still possible to eat the wrong food-or eat too much and then vomit). I was so depressed feeling that the surgery hadn’t worked and that i would inevitably regain-and fail. Its the most horrible feeling-knowing you are so weak and greedy, and that society hates you. Being hungry made me feel incredibly and irrationally manically anxious.

The (hopefully) happy ending is that 2 weeks ago my dr put me on Ozempic-a new once weekly injection for diabetes type 2. I’m on the lowest dose, no side effects so far and it seems to be working with my op. For the first time in my life i am not hungry or thinking about food. I’m not eating much-@650 calories daily. Trying to prioritise protein. I keep forgetting to eat. But for the first time ever i feel ‘normal’. I’m torn between feeling hopeful about the future and mourning the last 50 years of feeling like a greedy, fat slob, a failure. After about 4-5 hours i can sometimes feel like i have mild hunger pangs-but it is totally different to my former intense and scary desperation-to binge until full-after which i could re-enter the cycle of feeling calm-then guilty-then tired and depressed-and then hungry again...

So basically, yes its hard-and everyone has their own individual reasons for their struggles-its complicated. But no, i don’t think many people manage to successfully lose weight and keep it off. Certainly shame, pressure etc don’t work imo.

@trockodile

I’ve been overweight for my entire 50 years-as an adult i have varied between 11 and 21 stones. Over the years i have probably lost and gained 50 stones. I have definitely got a food addiction, coupled with diabetes 2, PCOS, Insulin resistance, depression, endometriosis, kidney disease.... Last year at 21 stone i had a gastric sleeve-very much felt this was the last chance. It hasn’t been easy but after 4 months i had lost about 3 stones. This was based on eating *@800*-1000 calories daily and trying for 60g protein. For the first 2 months after my op, i was recovering (lots of pain due to endo and scar tissue on my intestines-had to have sleeve surgery rather than bypass due to this). Then i started to feel really hungry again, was thinking about food all the time, obsessing about what to eat (even when you can’t eat much, its still possible to eat the wrong food-or eat too much and then vomit). I was so depressed feeling that the surgery hadn’t worked and that i would inevitably regain-and fail. Its the most horrible feeling-knowing you are so weak and greedy, and that society hates you. Being hungry made me feel incredibly and irrationally manically anxious.

The (hopefully) happy ending is that 2 weeks ago my dr put me on Ozempic-a new once weekly injection for diabetes type 2. I’m on the lowest dose, no side effects so far and it seems to be working with my op. For the first time in my life i am not hungry or thinking about food. I’m not eating much-@650 calories daily. Trying to prioritise protein. I keep forgetting to eat. But for the first time ever i feel ‘normal’. I’m torn between feeling hopeful about the future and mourning the last 50 years of feeling like a greedy, fat slob, a failure. After about 4-5 hours i can sometimes feel like i have mild hunger pangs-but it is totally different to my former intense and scary desperation-to binge until full-after which i could re-enter the cycle of feeling calm-then guilty-then tired and depressed-and then hungry again...

So basically, yes its hard-and everyone has their own individual reasons for their struggles-its complicated. But no, i don’t think many people manage to successfully lose weight and keep it off. Certainly shame, pressure etc don’t work imo.

I think certain foods are addictive and the food industry knows and exploits this. A good watch is the documentary " The Men who made us fat"

Not all people get addicted to cigarettes or alcohol so there must be a susceptibility that makes some people more likely to abuse food.
I dont mean this unkindly but people dont binge on vegetables, its always so called "treat foods" which hit a certain spot.

Its Easter coming up
Im a take it or leave it type of person when it comes to chocolate.
DH will stalk his Easter egg and eat most of it in one sitting, mine would sit there gathering dust for about 6 weeks until he begs to eat it this after mentioning it daily.
Neither of us understand the other 😂
He has no idea why I can bear to leave mine and I have no idea how he can eat a roast dinner, pudding and then a large easter egg.
The thought makes me feel ill .
I got a very expensive plant this year at my request instead 🌺
There is something in us that makes us very different but what is it?
Genes or nurture ?

I am obese because I eat too much and move less than I used to. It is that simple.

Yes, I have conditions which have meant being on medications which would make weight loss far more difficult for me than others but I am not stupid - tesco selling easter eggs for 75p is not the reason.

“Not all people get addicted to cigarettes or alcohol so there must be a susceptibility that makes some people more likely to abuse food.
I dont mean this unkindly but people dont binge on vegetables, its always so called "treat foods" which hit a certain spot.“

Absolutely agree-people binge on sugars and salts which i believe are addictive-and i think there is a lot to be said for genetics-my sister is slender, and not interested in food-she’s a smoker and likes gin! I have never smoked and am not interested in booze-my drug of choice is usually sugar.

However my main point in my rather pathetic and lengthy diatribe is that after 2 weeks on this new diabetic drug i walked round M&S this morning without a glimmer of interest in anything for myself-i picked some meals up for my mum, pizza for my son and absolutely nothing for me-i wasn’t even interested in the lovely fruit-this has never happened before ever! Its so bizarre-it feels like a ‘come to Jesus’ moment!

Its complicated is my other point

DS is nearly 16 and also very thin-5 ft 10 and 9 stones, BMI about 18 i think. He eats very similarly to his dad-ex DH and has a similar build/hand and foot shapes etc. He hates butter/cream sauces etc and can happily go all day without eating and have a huge meal at night!

Nature v nurture? Who knows!

I dont mean this unkindly but people dont binge on vegetables, its always so called "treat foods" which hit a certain spot

Why would that be unkind? It's not a mystery why highly calorific foods are extremely desirable and addictive, and it's got nothing to do with weakness or moral failing. Humans and animals who have sparse resources and have to spend a large amount of energy sourcing or hunting their food need to target the highest value foods or they will starve. And now not only are high calorie foods cheap and abundant, but food companies do everything they can to make them more addictive.

@trockodile

“Not all people get addicted to cigarettes or alcohol so there must be a susceptibility that makes some people more likely to abuse food. I dont mean this unkindly but people dont binge on vegetables, its always so called "treat foods" which hit a certain spot.“

Absolutely agree-people binge on sugars and salts which i believe are addictive-and i think there is a lot to be said for genetics-my sister is slender, and not interested in food-she’s a smoker and likes gin! I have never smoked and am not interested in booze-my drug of choice is usually sugar.

However my main point in my rather pathetic and lengthy diatribe is that after 2 weeks on this new diabetic drug i walked round M&S this morning without a glimmer of interest in anything for myself-i picked some meals up for my mum, pizza for my son and absolutely nothing for me-i wasn’t even interested in the lovely fruit-this has never happened before ever! Its so bizarre-it feels like a ‘come to Jesus’ moment!

Its complicated is my other point

Thats probably because you are not on the yoyo blood sugar going up and down and craving food due to fluctuating blood glucose.

Spiking blood glucose is always followed by a crash which would make you shaky and desperate to eat.
I agree its very complicated, I wasnt argueing against what you said btw

My family aren't fat, and I had good nurture when it comes to food (by mn standars no, because I lived of fruit in season, but someone had to eat it and there was like 5 apple trees, 3 pears, 3 wallnuts, 10+ currant bushes, 3 peaches, 2 cherries and a sour cherry and massive veg patch of strawberries and I volunteered as a tribute 😂 oh and a masaive raspberry bushes)

I still managed to get morbidly obese years later.... Sometimes it's just... Bit of a dumdum situation...

Maybe it’s only something you empathise with when you go through it.

I was thin until my mid-30s and just took it for granted, thought of obesity as something that happens to other people and when people asked me how I stayed thin, I just said ‘fast metabolism’.

Over the last few years, my weight crept to 11.5 stones and I was in genuine denial about my eating. Calorie control did not work for me, exercise did not work.

I really don't understand the posters who are saying that most slim people work hard at it, are always controlling what they eat, keeping an eye on weight, whatever working hard at it means.

There must be a reason for the people who say it they they want to believe it. But what's the reason? I don't understand.

I find it a really discouraging message.

@NiceGerbil nkthing compared to the beautiful discouragment on many weight threads with "95% of people regain it anyway"... I am surprised it hasn't appeared in here, but that may be because people were distracted by the 75p chocolate egg (my fat and stingy arse didn't even know about and now am fuming that I bought more expensive maltesers ones for nieces and nephews because I didn't see these. )

I think it's a self sabotage / pre-emptive preparation to not succeed maybe?

I get that I do.

But it's so discouraging.

@Templetrees are you on Ozempic?

Apologies that was actually for @trockodile

Gosh sorry only just catching up with this thread I see you are

Me too, for T2 but need to lose 2.10lbs to get to bmi of 25. I've lost my appetite too, it's like a switch has been flicked.

I Also went around the supermarket today picked up this and that and no treats for myself, that's a first!

@amysteryforsaturday

I’m 29, I’m 21 stone .

I gained weight age 6 when my dad finally left and we were taken out of foster care and I became my mentally ill mums full time carer . She would tell me about how she was raped and stuff and I couldn’t cope with what I was hearing so I ate : and ate; and ate ....

I was fat shamed repeatedly as a child and adult and laughed at openly by family . As a teen I had food and drink thrown at me at school - Diet Coke poured down my hair, milkshake, potato; flour and once memorably squirty cream was sprayed all over me . My gran used to hide food from me - if I came to visit her she’d make all sorts of comments . Told me I was it was just as well when diagnosed PCOS as I’d ruin any child’s life I gave birth to and no sensible man would want to marry me anyway .

None of that make me skinny .

Instead I ended up a very depressed, angry, hurting adult who still eats to bury my feelings ... it’s like an addiction - I’ve been addicted to codeine and hell I’ve beaten that but food is much harder, you can’t not eat like I can just not take codeine !

I’ve lost weight twice . Both times it was because I felt safe, in control, loved, supported and I had someone to turn to for consistency, someone I could always rely on to be there and to be ‘safe ‘ iyswim .

I’m - very slowly - learning to love myself and to realise I have wants, needs, aspirations and qualities like anyone else but I’m nearly thirty .

I genuinely think if I’d been supported back when I was so small I’d not have gained weight .

I don’t think being 21 stone comes simply from not eating and not moving, there’s so much more behind it ... But if you ask NHS for help it’s just my GP ringing and basically saying she’s not interested . I’ve finally, finally got a good counsellor who’s trying to help me, but again - I’m 29, it shouldn’t take so long !

There are other things that could have helped like if I’d been supported to exercise in a way that suited me - and the way we almost worship food isn’t helpful at all - but I genuinely think a lot of it comes back to mental health .

You sound a lovely persone inside.Don't look back.Try to make the best of your future

trockodile
I had the same experience when I started taking metformin. For the first time in my life I didn’t feel hungry soon after a meal. For the first time I was satisfied with smaller portions. For the first time I was able to exercise the kind of self control the skinny people are familiar with. I’m choosing vegetables, limiting myself to a bit of chocolate rather than an entire bar, one slice of pizza every other week rather than 2 slices every week. And I don’t feel deprived or hungry and I’m losing weight. Prior to metformin I would have been starving and unable to think of anything else until I gave in and ate half a box of cookies.
It’s a wonderful thing.

Need to add-the weight loss is due to low-carbing, and breaking the vicious circle of sugar addiction, but I was never able to adjust my diet at all before the metformin.

But there are varying reasons aren't there.

I put on a ton of weight when I was pregnant, I had severe pelvic girdle pain and went from daily exercise to not even always being able to leave the house (stairs weren't good for me), I had the most incredible appetite I've never experienced and I was so sad with pain. Anyway I put on 3.5 stone and my BMI a couple months after birth was 31, pre pregnancy had been 23/24.

I've still been suffering with bad pain but I've been able to tackle my eating and my BMI is back to healthy and I went from a size 18 to a 12.

For me there weren't complex reasons, I just ate too much and moved little. I feel I had clear reasons for why it happened.

Many people on this thread had such a different experience and I'd never diminish what they've been through but there will be people like me too.