Overweight Brits abroad

[Artyfart]

I know this will upset people but it’s time to face facts and I’m talking about myself here too. Just got back from second holiday abroad this year when once again it was painfully noticeable how overweight British people are compared to our European neighbours. We stand out a mile! Every time I saw someone fat I’d wait for it and…. British accent. We look a state and it’s time to do something about it. No wonder the NHS is on its knees. I came back more determined than ever to lose weight.

Wow 31 pages of people saying it’s not anyone’s fault if they are overweight. This country has some serious issues around personal responsibility. We have 5 million people on benefits and we are importing people to work, we have huge
amounts of obesity, low productivity and low child literacy and behaviour issues. And the answer is blame the government. People are responsible for themselves, adults are not toddlers that need boundaries and punishments and rewards put in place for them by some parent figure. Biscuits shouldn’t be as expensive as a gram of caviar because you can’t control yourself around the kitkats. Sorry to everyone on steroids, awful drugs and epilepsy meds too. But let’s be real, most people are fat because they eat too much for many different reasons.

Yes, great summary of the thread, that's exactly what's been said and of course the government have no responsibility for any aspect of public health (or child literacy! What could that have to do with them?) Thanks for your insight, problem solved, global obesity crisis halted because you showed up to remind everyone of their personal responsibility. Well done.

@MysteryPop yes it’s not a parent’s responsibility to make sure their child can read & it’s not your responsibility what you put in your gob. Better just wait for someone else to sort it out for you.

But education has its limits; for example, do we really think that people do not know UPF or takeaways are bad for them? Or their kids?

I think they know. Jamie Oliver has banged the drum on this and put his own money behind it. He got nowhere as I recall.

The environment about food is ridiculous; you can graze on food from takeaway or multiple places when you go shopping. Where I live, the number of retail shops or clothing shops is in decline. It's being filled by food. My town centre has three bakeries. Three ice cream parlours. 9 coffee shops. Five noodle bars. One waffle house... I won't get into the takeaways.

Hard to resist. But you have a lot more control at home. And it's much cheaper to cook, though it will take you some more thought than a heat and eat meal.

Well, schools do take some responsibility for teaching children to read and we do have a national curriculum to support that. It's not left solely up to parents, is it? So similarly, there could be ways to tackle the obesity crisis on a national level. There's a lot of room in between asking the government to spoon-feed everyone and abandoning responsibility for public health entirely. Things I've suggested have been properly funding the NHS, improving mental health support, investing in infrastructure and public transport to reduce car reliance, preventing water companies from dumping sewage in the rivers and sea, reopening leisure centres, funding education and improving PE and school lunches, tackling long hours - all things that would help people to lead more active and healthy lifestyles but aren't making food more expensive or monitoring what anyone 'puts in their gob' (nice phrasing!) What's so outrageous about that? In the context of every country in the world getting fatter and obesity set to rise even higher globally, why are those such terrible and offensive suggestions? Why's it better to do nothing except berate fat people for being fat? Do you think that will be more effective?

I didn't only suggest education. Did you read my post? Eradicating child poverty not of interest? Improving access to sports facilities no good? Yes Jamie Oliver tried to improve school meals; do we give up now and never try again?

Yanbu. I diet every september after my holiday realisation. And forget again every year by december.

@MysteryPop I live in an area with low car dependency, huge parks, cheap leisure centres, so much infrastructure for families around healthy eating, classes holiday activities with free healthy snacks, free school meals for primary kids, lots of stay at home mums, two sure start centres within two miles. Guess what, loads of families are over weight.
My friends and family who are overweight all complain all the time about it but no one does anything. I know no one who has attempted to access support from the GP or even exercise. The thread that binds them all is complacent attitudes to their health. My niece is 10 and a size 16 but when the school and the gp have contacted my sister she has got upset they are interfering. House stuffed with crap food and my sister won’t cook meals as she can’t be bothered. My best friend is a size 20 and is complaining that the gp told her to lose weight, while eating a bag of greggs. My mum complaining they won’t give her a new knee until she loses weight. None of these people think the issue is with them and I can see from this thread that there are lots like them. I put on five stone while I was pregnant, never once did i think it was anyone’s issue but mine to sort out. Just went for walks and ate sensibly for two years until it was off. You don’t need a leisure centre and a weight loss coach and the banning of UPF. We all know a baked potato is better than an oven pizza. Despite what anyone says - no one thinks a portion of chilli beef and prawn crackers is a healthy meal. Yes the government is shit, but why thrown your hands up and accept that fate when you could do something about it yourself.

God the fat police are here! 🤣

Low productivity ? That's a problem but obese people aren't lazy. Because there are more obese people among the lower socio economic classes and they are the ones doing less sedentary hard graft jobs often for minimum wage.

But we do need exercise for maintaining a healthy weight.So we do need leisure centres . Unless people are fortunate enough to live in areas where it is safe to ride, cycle , play football . Lots of green spaces.

Well my experience of overweight people is people who are always trying. People like the ones on the weight loss threads here who join slimming clubs, download MFP, calorie count, try keto, do the Fast800 or intermittent fasting, join a gym, get a personal trainer, do a meal replacement VLCD - I could go on! But like the vast majority of people who lose weight, they put it back on and more within five years. If you lost weight and never regain it, you should know that you're in a minority there. Plenty of studies show that.

So you know complacent overweight people who never try, and I know ones who keep trying and failing. Our personal experiences are different, just like there are others on the thread with more again. Personally, I think a government obesity strategy could help and would likely be more effective than judging fat people on the internet but maybe you think your way is better.

@MysteryPop are you overweight or are you one of those concerned skinny people that’s never had to lose weight? Just curious as you seem to think that losing weight is some sort of magic that needs Rishi involved.

I definitely don't want Rishi Sunak involved thanks! I've shared upthread that I have thirty years worth of disordered eating and have been very thin and obese multiple times in my life. I think I know quite a lot about weight loss, while accepting that my own relationship with it is damaged. But it's certainly backed up by studies that a major predictor of someone being overweight is if they have ever been on a diet. People do struggle with weight loss and it's very common to fail at maintaining it. I haven't made that up; it's true.

Obesity is on the rise worldwide, it isn't just here. And it's not declining anywhere in the world. It is a major global health crisis and it isn't going to be solved by millions (billions even) of people across the world spontaneously deciding to lose weight, doing it successfully and never regaining it again. That would be great! But governments are going to have to have a strategy, just like we successfully reduced smoking rates in this country through government intervention. The PM didn't come round and confiscate everyone's cigarettes, but the government coordinated initiatives to get people to give up. I don't suggest making food prohibitively expensive or making fat people eat outdoors; we can't implement identical strategies. But we will as a society have to do something.

People have more disposable income here than in most European countries. Stop judging.

I really don’t understand why there needs to be a Government Obesity strategy. Apart from using the lack of one as an excuse used by people who can’t be bothered to deal with it themselves

Everyone knows eating healthy food and exercising will keep you healthy and the pounds off.

If people want to look after their health at some point they need to take control of it.

No just the fattest but also no dress sense which makes it seem worse. Leggings, tight tops, fat pouring out of all the gaps.
Every other nation a slightly overweight person will dress to camouflage the fat parts a bit. UK nope!

I’m just back from Croatia and felt like a shorter fatter version of most of the local women there. And these were definitely people speaking Croatian so easy to identify.

It was also really noticeable however how prolific smoking was, through all the age groups. Everyone was puffing away in the streets, outdoor restaurants, beaches.

YANBU. It's embarrassing.
And yes, with some medical exceptions, people need to take responsibility for their own health and stop blaming everybody else.

Agree we are lard arses

and I included myself

I think also in other parts of Europe clothes are more conservative for rounder women. Tight Lycra isn’t flattering over rolls of fat

@MysteryPop I'm sorry you have struggled so much, but it sounds to me you understand your health condition really well and I wonder if a government obesity strategy would really have helped you.

Have skimmed the whole thread and I genuinely think that people with low income jobs ,lack of self esteem,mental health problems,poor education and motivation are the most obvious reasons for being obese 🤷‍♀️Not sure why this thread was started TBH apart from being patronising and /or stupid!

Yes of course what you write is true.
We have to look at why we have more of these problems than other countries. Inequality is one factor I think.

Do they? What are the stats for this, especially considering the current cost of living crisis.
We have high inflation where I live, but wages are indexed as well...