AIBU - With this new data on obesity and the NHS is it time to have some honest and difficult conversations?

[IAmADancer]

New data from a ‘landmark study’ has show that obesity costs the NHS around 14billion a year and that 2 out of 3 adults are obese.

I know this is a difficult subject but the numbers are pretty clear. With the cost of living crisis and a general requirement for both parents to work now to support themselves how do we support people to make the right choices and tackle a growing problem?

Im really interested to hear people’s opinions on what we can do with such stark figures laid bare.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/17/cost-of-obesity-twice-those-who-are-healthy-nhs/

Once you’re aware they are hard to stop eating, it’s in the tagline after all, just don’t start

Irresistible while eating them or when they're still on the shelf?

I’ve been reading the whole thread, some interesting responses.

one thing that needs to be changed is restaurant portions, I tend to get starters as I don’t want to eat a days worth of calories in one go.

A PP mentioned a latte habit and a lot of people don’t acknowledge they drink hundreds of calories through milky coffee or sugary drinks. Even the zero cal fizzy drinks are awful for you health wise.

I’m on ozempic after a Frank conversation with my rheumatologist. I’m 35 with several autoimmune diseases and a heart condition. He said unless I lost weight I’d be a T2 diabetic by 40 and my health would continue to decline. It was the kick up the bum I needed. Ozempic helps but I’ve also changed my diet and re-educated myself on what a sensible portion is. DH can eat more than me so I serve him more food, I used to give him the same. Ozempic is a tool but you have to change your diet and portions too.

I had binge eating disorder at university and was lucky to have therapy for it.

I can emphasise that after a tough day it’s easy to veg on the sofa with wine and chocolate- both cheap and easily accessible but both are dangerous drugs.

There’s a lot of people who don’t take personal responsibility, or have an excuse for everything. My family are like this and mock me for having a bowl of soup rather than the double cheeseburger but I really want to be healthy and not add any more diseases to my body.

I exercise 5 times a week for fitness and mental health, not weight loss.

What WE can do as a society is helping our children not to get there in the first place

But that’s not going to happen if people are having to deal with the same unacceptable stress levels that we currently are.

@WoolyMammoth55

I’ve had CFS/Fibromyalgia, autoimmune thyroid issue and POTS for 30 years, the first 10 years I was housebound. I’ve had arthritis in my knees, ankles and back for around 5 years.

I have every excuse to be obese but I’m not because when I got ill I realised as I was able to to do so little exercise I would put on weight if I don’t taper my food intake.

There are plenty of Pilates and yoga exercises that can be done at home for people with knee injuries.

Intermittent fasting and/or low glycaemic load diets are both very good responses to inflammatory diseases as they help reduce inflammation in the body.

We need to educate and spread the word about this as it helps break that cycle of feeling fat>eating foods that exacerbate the reasons we are fat > feeling fatter> eating more of the bad stuff cycle.

There does come a point in time when a healthy diet stops the cravings for chips, pizza and other inflammatory foods.

Stop the food lobby from buying politicians and being allowed to sell toxic food.

Have a long term food policy that supports farmers to get a fair price for food grown in the UK.

Teach cooking in schools & community centres so people know how to provide healthy fuel for their bodies.

Invest in our communities like every human life actually matters.

Encourage grass roots exercise in the park that is free, close to get to and normalises moving a bit just more wearing whatever clothes you happen to have on at the time.

To be fair to Boris, the food report he got done was about the best thing his government achieved. Then it got buried because following it would reduce profits for a load of his mates who make money out of the illness & misery & peddling shit quality food 🤷🏼‍♀️

https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/

I don't know I protect myself from such addictions by only eating lentils potatoes and broccoli

I mentioned earlier in the thread about the effects of breastfeeding for 12+ months, which has a significant impact on childhood obesity.

I imagine baby formula comes under the UPF tag, so maybe this would be a good place to start?

Reduce stress on our children in schools, take a leaf out of Scandinavian books on educating children.

Ban all advertising for UPFs.

Stop hospitals from hosting Starbucks and Costa, serve patients real food instead of the weird whatever it is right now!

Address the high stress levels of so many people - really work out why more people have stress related issues than ever before, and then act on it.

The whole stress stuff always reminds me of this screenshot, but this is the way everything is handled right now!

But that’s not going to happen if people are having to deal with the same unacceptable stress levels that we currently are
Healthy eating and exercise IS one of the best medicine for reducing stress. People who exercise regularly are not under less stress, they Jake the time for it because they know it helps it.

Small children shouldn’t be in an environment that requires stress busting techniques in the first place.
They’re children. We know there are many negative effects of stress (including weight gain), so why keep putting children through it? Schools keep introducing buzzword fixes which do bugger all.
Identify the stressors, eliminate them as much as possible.
Like I said, look at Scandi countries - no homework, no tests, child led activities - less stress, excellent results.

Beat the stress, beat the mental illness and obesity problem.

I buy whole foods, meat, veg, fish, fruit, porridge oats and flavour ingredients (herbs, spices etc). Small amounts of hard cheese like parmesan and semi skimmed milk. Wholemeal versions of pasta, couscous, bread. Brown rice.

No processed food, no cake or biscuits, sauces, processed desserts, snacks etc. No alcohol. No fizzy drinks. Don't have them in the house. I don't spend a lot, £55 a week feeds us both.

I cook from scratch (which takes 30 mins each evening). If I want a cake or pudding, I make it, which means extra work, and so I bake once a month at most.

No limits on how much we eat. We are both slim. At 60 I'm a size 10 and 5'8". DS (14) is teen skinny.

It's not only the calorific value of what you eat. It's what additives your food contains. Stick to fresh, unprocessed meat or fish & a wide range of veg, you'll be healthy & food will taste great.

Part of the problem is the BMI index isn't fair or life accurate.

It tells me that someone my height should weigh 13 stone. I haven't been 13 stone since I was 12 years old. I was stick thin. You could see my ribs and hip bones but I weighed exactly 13.3 stone. I was and am tall for a woman.

How am I supposed to weigh that now as an adult woman whose had children? I would look anorexic literally. So I am classified as obese.

Until we find a way of not lumping everyone into defined boxes that don't reflect how we are all different, we can't say these statistics are true or reflective of real world.

So two thirds of the population have issues with self loathing, self hatred, medical problems, medication? Nope. Don't buy it. There are people on this thread who have awful health problems and / or weight affecting drugs. There are some with metabolic problems. They have my sympathy. But most people are fat because they eat too much. Look around any cafe or restaurant or just watch people in the streets. The fat people are usually the ones eating something - usually fast food of some kind. It's sad.

The best I can come up with is a greater emphasis/support from government on producers of real food, i.e. farmers and find ways to keep these costs lower than cheap processed stuff. Cooking and nutrition should have greater emphasis at school from younger age, especially nutrients, calories, budgeting. Everyone should leave school with the ability to plan a weeks worth of healthy meals for a family on a budget. It will take a couple of generations but we need to start planning.

I don't agree with banning macdonalds and starbucks, but people should go in there educated about how their mocho choca frappe with maple syrup is half your calorie intake for a day but doesn't fill you up and give you energy so you end up in surplus, ergo, put on weight.

I agree with those who talk of personal responsibility. At the end of the day people have a choice of what they eat, and it is within their control to lose weight (except the extreme minority who have certain conditions or take certain meds, even then, don't just give up on it) but I do feel that our food culture and messaging set people up to fail.

@FartSock5000 there's a huge gap between anorexic and obese.

I agree and then more problematic again because so many parents are obese, while trying to teach their own children not to be.

So two thirds of the population have issues with self loathing, self hatred, medical problems, medication?

Nope, that’s already been addressed. Two thirds are overweight or obese.

Having now slimmed down I think BMI is overly generous. My BMI was 26.8 and I was podgy. It's now 21.4 and I still have considerable lard. I'm very close to my goal weight and am now focusing on toning but the lard remains. Less of it sure, but it's there being obnoxious all the same.

These threads are always full of what the government or schools etc should do. Frankly there is so much information out there all they need to do is say 'look on you tube for healthy recipes, workouts, cooking skills' or watch the tv, wall to wall cookery programmes.

I am in my 50's we didn't have the internet, we did have home economics at school but it was rubbish and didn't teach me anything about food.

Pushing responsibility into anyone/everyone except the individual is wrong. It's all out there, people just don't won't to accept what they need to do to lose weight (I am NOT talking about people with medical conditions or who are on medication that causes weight gain).

FartSock5000
But BMI doesn't tell people they have to be a set weight.It gives a window that's an indicative healthy range for someone of that height.

I've just put mine in and the healthy range for my height is spans 18kg! That's not far off a 3 stone range for most people to fall into, more if you take into account some people might naturally fall fractionally into the underweight or overweight categories.

Because of different build types some people my height will look better at the bottom end of that window, others would look very skinny at the bottom. Some people look better and are at their healthiest at the top, others would look overweight towards the top.

The 50th centile for a 12 year old girl is 92lbs. Most 12 year olds are not 13 stone. Arguing BMI isn't accurate because you were over 180lbs at the age of 12 and it's down to being tall doesn't make sense. A 6 foot tall woman will be in the healthy range at 13 stone.

@AutisticLegoLover

Everyone's different, not the case for me! With BMI of 22 I was far too 'thin'. It's not generous, just not at all customised!

I've always said this. It's massively over generous.

I could gain more than a stone and still be in the healthy range, but I'd most definitely be fat.

There was an outcry on here when restaurants/cafes began putting calories on menus. But it's helped me massively when I am out. Amazing how many calories a simple sandwich or even a salad can contain.

I agree personal responsibility plays a huge part, people must want to make a change and exercise will power and self control. But don't you think people are set up to fail these days? Cheap, processed convenience food is so prevalent, look at a reasonably typical day if a person has a pub meal in the evening:

Breakfast: Toast with marmalade - If thick marmalade that'll be 600 calories without filling you up

Lunch: Shop bought meal deal with tons of mayo and barely any cheap processed meat, 600 calories, crisps 200 calories, bottle of so say healthy smoothie, 200 calories.

Afternoon coffee: Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino 470 calories, just 1 cookie 360 calories

Dinner - Lasagna served with chips (!!!) 1500 calories

This person has taken in double the amount of calories that is recommended for a woman without really ever feeling like they're going overboard, and probably feeling hungry all day. There is a huge amount of carbs in all 3 meals and very little protein until the evening meal.