NHS advert on TV

[JustGiveMeGin]

I keep seeing an ad by the NHS about 'lockdown pounds' and how we should all be eating healthier to reverse the damage lockdown did.
I find this intensely (and probably irrationally)irritating and condescending. The damage was done when we were all locked up for months on end with nothing to do but eat and drink, AIBU to think they should back off and leave us to it now?

Instead of being sanctimonious, try a bit of empathy
You've totally missed the meaning of my posts. I am not having a go at people who put on weight during lockdown. As you say, people crave comfort through food. Boredom will also increase appetite.

The issue I have is with those that don't acknowledge the above and try to make it that there had no alternatives to control their weight. They did, they opted not to, because they indeed needed food for comfort and to fight boredom.

It's ok to acknowledge this and indeed, the first step to making changes to start losing it now. The NHS advert is not condescending. It is highlighting the issue so that people affected do take initiatives to tackle their increase weight now that the lockdown is over.

YABU.

Its clearly struck a nerve with you and maybe thats because you feel personally attacked having gained weight?

Its nobody elses fault that during lockdown you CHOSE to eat and drink and nothing else. You were permitted an hour exercise a day at the worst parts, this is plenty time to get out and do some intense exercise and keep the weight down. ALSO, weight gain is mostly from bad diet rather than lack of exercise, which is entirely the individuals fault. Nobody has forced anybody to eat poorly and lockdown really isn't an excuse for that.

Sorry to sound harsh, but at the end of the day, obesity is a national health crisis and is taking up so much of our NHS' resources and it doesn't need to be the case. Stop being greedy and lazy and look after your health (not you specifically, just anyone who wants to blame the government and lockdowns for weight gain)

There was plenty of time to do family exercising. You were allowed to go out, there were plenty of free exercise videos on line

One slight problem with that.

I had Covid.

I couldn't leave the house from the end of March until July because my lungs were so fucked by it. The only reason I left the house in July was for a medical appointment and the next time I went outside (in August), it was to have chest x-rays to see if the damage was permanent or merely the nine month thing it turned out to be.

I was just about managing to increase my step count to 26 a day by then by deliberately choosing to go to the toilet upstairs - and that left me gasping for breath and my heart feeling as though it was going to burst out of my chest.

I was not going out for hour long exercise sessions or doing Fucking Yoga With Fucking Adrienne when the act of sitting upright wasn't just exhausting, it gave me repeated palpitations and ectopic beats that felt like I was being thumped in the chest.

Took me until May this year until I could actually exercise again, rather than just about manage the effort of being physically upright for the purposes of work.

In January, I was having 1200 kcals a day and wasn't losing weight because I wasn't capable of doing anything (I refuse to do crash dieting because that also affects the heart muscle, as there weren't any other muscles to be broken down for energy by that point and having had an ED before, I had no desire for that to come back with a vengeance). Come June/July, eating up to 2700 kcals a day depending upon what I felt I actually needed (probably did over 3500 on the day I felt I needed a chippie tea for the first time in two years) and I've lost 7.5kg in (checks app) the last 9 and a half weeks.

Not all of us could go out exercising. Not all of us could reduce energy intake enough to reduce weight without potentially causing even more medical issues. Being arses to those who couldn't exercise and weren't able to eat fewer calories really isn't going to help.

@NeverDropYourMooncup, why are you making this personal? the majority of people didn't get Covid or if they did recovered quickly.

Your situation was different and in any case, the advert doesn't apply to you since you have lost the weight. That's great and well done you. You are exactly what the NHS want others to copy.

Fair enough, I was a little blasé when I said there was nothing to do but eat or drink!
Most people understand what I meant, I did get out every day for more than an hour with my Family and dogs. Unfortunately this did not mitigate the takeaways we had or the gin I consumed
My point is I don't need and NHS TV advert (costing how many millions of pounds???) to tell me I need to get a grip and stop putting weight on, my jeans and bras have been telling me that for free for a little while now

[quote vivainsomnia]@NeverDropYourMooncup, why are you making this personal? the majority of people didn't get Covid or if they did recovered quickly.

Your situation was different and in any case, the advert doesn't apply to you since you have lost the weight. That's great and well done you. You are exactly what the NHS want others to copy.[/quote]
Yours was just the quote I picked, rather than the frankly nasty ones others have made on here, as it provided a useful point I felt needed countering (after all, there's no point even giving the 'you're greedy and lazy and only have yourself to blame' posters the time of day).

I'm not feeling superior because I've lost weight now that I can move around and use the gym. I'm feeling good, but compared to last August, of course I bloody do.

I still recognise that multiple factors contributed to people putting on weight;

Lots being ill.
A ban on non essential travel.
Not being able to get supermarket deliveries. If you did manage to get one (I managed two in that time despite being on the list for priority access), no idea if you'd actually get something - one of my deliveries was planned to cover 21 days of being inside; I was delivered enough for exactly 4 meals.
Not being allowed to go into supermarkets after queueing up if you had small children with you. Not being able to go with somebody else to help carry things if you didn't have a car. Not being able to stand and wait in the carpark for over an hour.
Playgrounds and parks closed in many places.
Going by the number of dead bus drivers, even nearly empty buses were dangerous places. Even if you were prepared to risk being stopped by police and told this was non essential travel and to go back to your home area.
Exercising in attractive countryside or large parks is a whole lot different to walking around concrete oceans. Even before you allow for safety considerations.
The biscuits, tinned pies and packets in every food parcel for CEV people.
Having to homeschool and work from home, making up lost time in the evenings.
Being told if you were CEV that if you absolutely must, you could open a window or sit on your back door step if you had one, but other than that, to not even open your front door for months.
Safe places to exercise for disabled people - gyms, pools, physio units - were closed because they weren't safe in terms of airborne infection and physios being redeployed to teach people how to breathe, cough and stand up again after time on ventilators.
Arseholes (generally men) deliberately using the time to come up behind and cough to try and scare women - which backfired on my first trip out to the GP, as I still had a cough myself, so the twat nearly got himself run over trying to avoid me.
And people were, quite rightly, scared. The NHS was at breaking point. Emergency services couldn't handle extra people out and about and getting injured. You were told to Stay At Home.

and much more.

It's not right and it's not fair to write it all off as being entirely self inflicted. The circumstances were completely different to anything previously experienced. To think that it would completely change people's outlook so that they all come out of a situation where multiple factors made it even more difficult than usual to be as active as usual, to eat healthily, to increase intentional exercise to the extent that they are now being told on her that they only have themselves to blame for being greedy and lazy, is unrealistic.