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.

Active transport is not as easy in the U.K. as some other Northern European countries.

There’s hardly any joined up cycle lanes enabling people to use it as a transport option safely. We had one in our town and the council removed it due to people moaning that it was holding up traffic.

kids are forced to wear certain clothes to school which don’t enable them to be as active and there’s less time spent on outdoor active learning and more time sat at a desk.

I respectfully disagree. As a fat person, I haven't found this thread remotely offensive but rather enlightening and persuasive. We cannot keep pretending that the state of our bodies is okay in terms of health. We just can't.

Ok I do have to go now, but agree the approach needs to come both from public health strategy and individuals - I certainly don't want to diminish the enormous effort individual smokers made to quit. But I do think that kind of effort needs support, and that's all I want.

I don't know who you're referring to when you say no one wants to take responsibility; we have a society where lots of people are trying to lose weight all the time as evidenced by the booming diet industry - people might not be succeeding, but plenty of fat people are trying to lose weight and willing to take responsibility. As one of them, I'm off to the gym now!

Where have I pretended obesity is ok???

The pp had a point. It’s an emotive issue and it is hard to discuss.

Just overcoming that for a start and letting people talk is part of change, the harsh responses ‘fatty bashing’ etc are trying to stop discussion. Fine people get angry and frustrated, but that doesn’t mean the suggestions are offensive.

People say mn has zero impact, but I disagree actually. I see so much start here and over time snowballs and gets picked up. It’s all part of being able to talk about the changes you’d like to see. You have your approach and others think differently.

I was talking in general terms, as a society, not about you as an individual!

Well said. It's a conversation that needs to be had and ideally one that eventually can be had without so much defensiveness and accusations of fat shaming. Yes, the spirit of the original post might have offended some – it didn't offend me as a fat person, because I think it's true – but the debate that's followed has been constructive in places.

I'm not sure what's so offensive.

The UK has high levels of obesity comparatively.
We eat high levels of UP food.
Obesity causes bad health.
NHS is struggling.

All facts.

We need to lose weight as a nation. It's inarguable.

@MysteryPop as @Inkpotlover has said (thank you!), I have just described cultural differences that stood out to me after moving to Asia. I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree with their approach - my opinion on this topic has fluctuated over the years.
I can see both sides and I do think that while it's worth learning something from the Japanese (I believe they were in the top-3 in terms life expectancy in the world together with some other Asian countries - looks like they have a right approach to health issues which weight is a big part of) maaaybe they could be a bit less straightforward with their comments sometimes or not always so strict with their approach. But it's their culture.

Well if you can find a way for people to have the conversation without it reverting back to being taboo then I’ll be genuinely impressed. We live in a world where fat is described as curves and speaking about fat automatically means body shaming no matter how you’re presenting it.

It’s not easy to lose weight, even with the best will in the world it’s hard. I believe there has to be personal responsibility (after all no one is physically forcing doughnuts down me) but the food industries have a huge amount of blame too. The increase in sugar in food over the years is probably the biggest culprit and something needs to be done about that but I doubt it ever will be. I eat mostly fresh food and cook from scratch but I’m not perfect and will eat processed food too as some days I’m just not wanting to cook, I’m tired, I’m not in the mood etc because I’m human and not superwoman with a freezer full of batch cooked dinners for a month (kids are adult so I don’t need to be doing big family dinners anymore). My closest friend is obese (I’m a bit overweight but not obese), do I ever talk to her about her weight, hell no as I know it’s a place I just can’t go to even though I worry about her increasing health problems (that are all connected to her weight).

Fat has become a subject totally off limits so how is it ever going to be fixed.🤷‍♀️

@toucaninjapan I am from another Asian country known for low obesity. A Japanese custom I have adopted is eating from small bowls; really helps with carb portion control. May be a bit excessive, but then I am menopausal, so need fewer calories.

The main reason for the massive drop in smoking recently was nothing to do with public health campaigns. It was not being able to smoke inside pubs restaurants and the availability of E cigarettes and nicotine replacement. They can't really ban eating food although I'm sure if they came out with some fake food that tasted the same but had no calories people would get really thin, although there would probably be some malnutrition.

It's hardly a taboo subject. It’s talked non-stop on MN for example.

Banning smoking indoors was PART of the public health campaign - legislation around smoking was changed in order to reduce the harm of smoking! No, the exact same strategy won't work with obesity ffs. But there are other ways we could implement a public health strategy around obesity.

Pretty sure that poster was being sarcastic...

There were public health campaigns for decades regarding smoking and there wasn't a new at the time the massive drop occurred. It happened when people weren't allowed to smoke inside and also when E cigarettes became available.

Yes!

I thought about this in the gym and I think we could make it easier to talk about if fat was simply a physical descriptor relating to health. If we lived in a world where a fat woman jogging outdoors never had someone wind down the car window and shout 'fat cunt' at her. If MN weight threads didn't have people describe fat people as 'shovelling McDonald's into their faces', if people didn't talk with contempt about disgusting rolls of fat and say fat people just can't be arsed to get off the sofa. The implications are not just about health, it's implied that fat people are mindless, stupid, lazy, grotesque - all things which mean the word fat becomes loaded with a whole lot of value judgements about a person's worth and character.

Now, please don't interpret my words as meaning I think we should pretend fat is beautiful, though fat people can be attractive. I'm not advocating for insipid slogans or delusion. But if conversations about weight really were just about health, there would be no taboo.

It's not just on fat people to stop being so sensitive and taking offence, it's also on everyone to take out the visceral contempt from what they say. To take out the moral element of the word and make it a straightforward and constructive discussion.

This is spot on. If we took away the inferences that fat = lazy and spoke about it in health terms, we could get a national conversation going about obesity that we desperately need. Sadly, I think we're a long way from that happening.

Yes but it’s not spoken about openly and honestly without people trying to shut the (any, anywhere) conversation down. Being taboo doesn’t necessarily mean never talking about it, it can mean never being able to have open conversations about it so it ends up getting shut down.

I don't think I get the sarcasm, sorry. As far as I can see, the government tried public health strategies to reduce smoking and changing the legislation on smoking indoors was very successful. I think the government could try some public health strategies to reduce obesity and they might find some success. They can't do exactly the same things that they did with smoking, but that doesn't mean they can't implement anything.

Obesity is more complex and there isn't a food equivalent to vapes, I get that. But public health campaigns and legislation can help to change people's behaviour. I'm really not saying that alone is enough or that people won't need to do anything on an individual level.

I've just remembered they did succeed in getting sweets removed from supermarket checkouts, but that was aimed more at children. I think one feasible avenue open to the Govt in terms of a high impact campaign would be to put alarmist warnings on junk food packages like they do on cigarettes, but they won't do that because the food manufacturing industry bankrolls politicians and political parties.

True. These threads pretty much always end up with anger and ‘fatty bashing’ claims. Granted the op wasn’t the best way to start the thread but they seem to be long gone anyway.

Other cultures are more direct, the Japan post was insightful. It shows how culture can be tied to obesity levels.

Exactly this. Constructive and sympathetic discussion rather than shaming, name calling and muttering about “excuses”.