To not know whether people are getting fatter or thinner?

[giantwaterbottle]

I am trying to lose weight (again!) and I can't figure out whether people (in the developed world) are getting thinner or fatter. I keep reading that the population is obese/getting fat but then it seems like their are so many gym bunnies and slim people around (although I will say this is mainly on social media/TikTok) but there seems to be such a weight loss/health kick about where everyone looks tiny and fit, and is wearing corsets and amazing cosmetics and just generally looks amazing, but is the opposite the reality? And if so how do people feel about this!? Does it make you want to just give up before you even begin? I don't know..I can't figure it all out. I do think when I go out I see quite a lot of larger people but also loads of young very slim and fit people.

I think as you're going about your everyday life your attention is being drawn to the slimmer people because that's what you're mentally comparing yourself to.

It happens to me...I'm slightly overweight and I go through phases of thinking every woman my age is thinner and fitter looking than me (they're not).

it does the NHS no favours by having a rise in obesity. The cost alone is staggering so it isn’t cheaper to let the rise go unchecked.

You can look up obesity stats for any country, I’m the world, over time.

We are clearly getting fatter.

No one country, not one has reversed or started to reverse the levels of obesity we have been and still are witnessing.

Obesity grew as smoking levels fell

In my town there is a lot of deprivation. These areas have very high rates of obesity but also very high levels of smoking.

Sure, but I bet it’s cheaper than dementia / Alzheimer’s/ diseases of the brain?

Really good point I haven't seen made before. I can't afford to replace clothes (and have some cords and non stretchy jeans I love) so if I put on a couple of pounds it's a good incentive to try and lose them again.

I'm also not convinced the NHS diet advice is correct saying woman can eat 2000k per day.
Some active women yes, many in active women no.

Maybe employers should be encouraged to have gyms at work. Tax breaks for having these sort of things.

It's really noticeable that the younger generation is getting fatter and fatter. I often see families where the gran/grandad are slim but the mum/dad and teenage/young adult children are obese. It's like the older generation know how to eat in moderation and eat healthily but younger people don't! My mum is 74 and said it's shocking how many young people are obese. When she was young, people her age were slim or skinny and it was only as women entered their 50s/60s that they started to put on weight and become "stout" in her words. Some young people I see today look extremely unhealthy.

Fat shaming is taboo thin shaming is allowed.
No matter how fat someone is it is considered rude to mention it.
I have had so many comments on my slim figure over the years. I actually used to think something was wrong with me. But I was never too thin. Always been an 8/10 and 9st ish.
About 60% of the population are obese. It seems worse from the teens to 40 age group and definitely worse in poorer people.

And it doesn't account for the rise in childhood obesity.

Size 16 is overweight by any definition unless you are 5'10 which most UK women aren't. I am 5'7 and slightly overweight at a size 12. We have lost sight of what normal looks like.I am not fooled by body positivity.

I reinvent ly read some stats that showed 1 in 7 children start primary school being obese. By the time they leave this goes up to 1 in 4.
it is higher in the most deprived areas where a third were obese, compared to 14.3 per cent in the most affluent locations.

There is a positive shift in the ‘gym bunny’ physique today. It used to be that women were told they had to starve themselves and do endless cardio. Now women are encouraged to lift heavy instead, which is far better.

This might be viewed as ‘chunkier’ or bigger women, which is stupid as people are still insanely fit.

Big doesn’t = unhealthy and slim doesn’t = healthy.

My hairdresser is in her 20s and absolutely gorgeous but very overweight. Recently I saw a colleague offer to pick up her lunch. My hairdresser asked for several things such as a packet of biscuits, a donut, a smoothie and some chocolate. This was her lunch - all sugary carbs, no protein! I do think some people have just forgotten how to have proper meals so fill up on stuff that tastes nice and gives an energy hit.

I'm not sure that obesity is always a socio economic issue though. What I am noticing more and more is that the children of celebs are getting fatter so you have the very slender celeb mums with overweight kids. That can't be because they can't afford to feed their kids properly so it must be down to something else - normalisation of excessive food intake maybe?

The younger generation has a certain group of gym bunnies though I'd say there is far more overweight people in their age category.

My age group 40's I think the majority are overweight.

Absolutely this!

Most of the overweight and obese people I know (myself included) are on heavy meds

I was on a high dose anti depressant and mood stabilizer when I was at my thinnest (just under 7 stone). I was at my heaviest when I was on an antipsychotic. Medication really fucked up my body.

I was looking through the children's section of Next clearance and saw plus size children's wear. I didn't know this existed.

Look at stats op if you're ever not sure of something. People are definitely getting fatter.

To my mind the rise isn’t due to the smoking levels but more processed foods using carbs as a cheap filler and cheap fizzy drinks. Then add in the more sedate lifestyle and children get carry, adults get fatter and we all lose sight of what a healthy weight is because they just make clothes bigger and body positive tells us we should embrace the curves rather than calling us fat.

@Bearsan can I ask roughly how old you are?

Honestly most of the "bigger"women around are not bigger because they are lifting weights, surely. All things being equal, yes, slim is healthier. Why are we trying to tell ourselves that being obese is good?

You often see threads on here where people talk about their ideal weight and say things like “when I got down to BMI 26 I was far too thin, I looked gaunt”.

We just have a very different perception of what is a normal weight these days.

I do think perceptions of what ‘overweight’ looks like have been skewed. I’m 5’10, mostly size 10 but sometimes a 12 in jeans. But I’m actually overweight, just, at 25.1 BMI. I plan to do something about it. But if you just looked at my clothes size + height, you’d probably think I wasn’t overweight. Being taller I think I ‘hide’ it better: most of it is on my hips & thighs. But the scales don’t lie.

If I had a parent that was never home, palmed me off on nannies my whole life while they were always working or away on endless holidays with their new boyfriend/girlfriend, I'd probably feel a bit neglected, lonely and depressed which could lead to binge eating/comfort eating.

This is a fascinating, but long, read about the role of sugar in rising obesity rates.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

As the article says:

"Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane. Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000. In the UK, the line is flat for decades until the mid-1980s, at which point it also turns towards the sky. Only 6% of Britons were obese in 1980. In the next 20 years that figure more than trebled. Today, two thirds of Britons are either obese or overweight, making this the fattest country in the EU. Type 2 diabetes, closely related to obesity, has risen in tandem in both countries."