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.

How was Cloudy's comment just then fat bashing?

I do agree with what you’re saying. My obese friend is not lazy or stupid. She’s a highly educated professional. I also find often there are back stories to why someone has become too overweight. My friend had an unhappy childhood and I’m convinced her weight is a reflection of this. She’s very smart and articulate but her childhood was dysfunctional.

I have thought for years that the health angle is the best way forward but I’m still not convinced that will work as it has been part of the weight conversation for a while. When I was very skinny people would shout abusive things to me and accuse me of having eating disorders, it was very upsetting, there are just nasty horrible people in the world and that’s not going to change unfortunately. My friend’s health issues still haven’t been enough for her to lose weight. People shouting things is so nasty but how do we stop nasty jerks being nasty jerks?🤷‍♀️

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.

And that non fat people are morally superior.

Thanks. The same poster has used the line ‘fatty bashing’ throughout

The idea that yes it’s hard to do but ultimately it’s up to us is a hard message maybe but it’s not ‘fat bashing’

Then people have imagined I’ve used lazy etc which isn’t the case

@RattleRattle in particular is very defensive.

I find it fascinating how people talk about those who are overweight. It's as if being fat is a moral failing and that being thin makes you a fundamentally better human being. It's quite odd

Stopping nasty jerks from shouting abuse is tough and I have no bright ideas about that, I'll admit.

We can challenge fat-shaming (as in actual, real fat-shaming) on Mumsnet rather than pretending it doesn't exist beyond the imagination of oversensitive fatties. The 'shovelling McDonald's' and 'disgusting rolls of fat' and 'can't be arsed' comments are here on this thread and they don't come from a neutral place of health concern; they are laced with ill-informed contempt. That might clear the way towards a more constructive discussion here at least and as another poster has already said, Mumsnet can be influential.

My point is that the reduction in smoking was little (if anything) to do with government information or public messaging and there is no reason to think it would work for food. It would need to be something other than passive information but that is very difficult in the case of food as we do need to eat. Being too thin is also detrimental to health and until recently that would have been the problem rather than being overweight.

I don't think it's fat bashing to say individuals need to assume personal responsibility for their health. I am fat and I know how hard it is to lose weight, but at the end of the day it's down to me to make changes. It would be fantastic if the Govt was more proactive in banning hidden sugar from being dumped in every day foods – my particular bugbear – but I can also read labels and know what I should be avoiding. I'm not fat bashing myself or anything else for having that viewpoint.

My suggestions about what the government can do with regards to obesity weren't actually related to public messaging, it was about changes to infrastructure and legislation and funding of services. Public messaging could go alongside that but that's not what I was talking about.

So my suggestions @WomblingTree86 were around NHS funding, mental health services, cycling/pedestrian infrastructure, leisure centres, Sure Start, overhaul of PE curriculum and school dinners, loads of other things that I've listed a few times on the thread. Not about passive information.

@MysteryPop - when you say "overhaul the PE curriculum", what did you have in mind that isn't already practised in schools?

I think it probably varies across schools @Maireas and I certainly don't want to add to the extreme pressures schools are facing. I was thinking of equipment and facilities, so much more funding to start with. Doing it more than once a week - but of course schools are expected to cram in so much what do you cut? I am absolutely not blaming schools or expecting them to pick up yet more of society's problems without being given any more resources. And I don't think it's a really simple or easy thing to do. Anyway, I realise that there are plenty of people enormously opposed to any kind of national and collective effort to combat obesity so I'm going to work and will try to summon up the willpower to stay away from this thread as I can't offer anything else productive and I think I'm on my own in imagining anything can be done.

Exercise is good for health obviously but I'm not sure that the increase in obesity is due to a decrease in exercise. You don't burn that many calories from moderate exercise and it's not going to make that much difference. e.g. at one point I was running 3 miles four times a week and it only burned an average of 170 calories a day.

Doesn't make me a better human being. But it does allow me to go on a hikig trip with my 78-year-old mum (who is still a size 8 because she works hard at it) without both our knees giving way. That's my biggest motivation: staying fit to do the things I love. I like travelling, hiking, swimming, water sports... and I can only do those things if I stay slim. Even a bit of excess weight and my back doesn't feel so good.

when you say "overhaul the PE curriculum", what did you have in mind that isn't already practised in schools?

Many people will have views on this. The Department for Education says the following (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-physical-education-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-physical-education-programmes-of-study):

Aims
The national curriculum for physical education aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• are physically active for sustained periods of time
• engage in competitive sports and activities
• lead healthy, active lives

I think many people would say the third - and probably the first - of those points is unnecessary, driven by political ideology and counter-productive. People don't need to be competitive or excellent: they just need to be active. Many young people are deterred from participation in physical activity because schools present it in the form of competitive sports in which lack of ability isn't tolerated, and this persists beyond school as they already associate fitness with unpleasant experiences.

Looking at the subject content at all key stages, there is an excessive emphasis on competition and exposure to physical risk.

Of course there is a place for competitive sport and "adventurous" activities, and many young people enjoy them, but the curriculum as written makes no allowance for people who lack motor skills/co-ordination, a desire to compete or the psychological capacity for facing danger. There doesn't appear to be any allowance for encouraging these young people to be physically active: quite the reverse, in fact.

The problem is that most slim people who have never gained weight don't understand the difficulty of keeping weight off. 80% of people who lose weight put it back on, 80%! I don't believe that all those people just slip back into old habits or are lazy.
There's a study which suggests that hormones are partially a contributor:
Next, researchers looked at the effect of a very low-calorie diet regime of around 800 caloriess_ a day for 8 weeks on a cohort of 42 obese patients. Participants lost an average of 12.3 kg following this intervention. At the end of this 8-week period, participants underwent testing to observe how their leptin, insulin, ghrelin, and neurotensin levels changed in the three hours after a meal.
Researchers then instructed this cohort to follow a calorie-restricted diet (600 calories less than their daily need), for a further 52 weeks.
To analyze the impact of hormones on weight loss maintenance, researchers analyzed findings for a subcohort of participants, from both groups, those who had lost over 3% weight during the maintenance period and those who had regained 5% or more of their initial weight loss.
They found that those who had initially shown a higher level of neurotensin in the three hours after a meal after the initial 8-week weight loss phase were more likely to have lost additional weight in the maintenance period.
Leptin, insulin, and ghrelin levels were not significantly different in either cohort.

There have been 30 years of obesity policy, 697 policies during that time by the UK government: during that time we have a nation got much bigger.

That means huge problems we are storing up. Fatty liver disease now in people in their 20s because of diet not alcohol is a huge problem.

The food industry don't want any changes and the budgets they have dwarf the Government. Yet on here, the very small things they might do like ban two for one offers on UPF or meal deals are roundly opposed.

Education does not work: it's been shown over 30 years since the first obesity strategy in 1992. Giving people information on healthy food, exercise and cooking does not work.

Sugar tax, fat tax, processing tax will work because people will be priced out of eating this crap because it is cheap.

In this environment you have to think long term. We are all living longer but it seems less healthy because of diet. Exercise makes less difference to weight loss. The food industry likes to pretend you can eat what you like, do some exercise and that's fine. It's not.

@FatOaf

I think many people would say the third - and probably the first - of those points is unnecessary, driven by political ideology and counter-productive. People don't need to be competitive or excellent: they just need to be active. Many young people are deterred from participation in physical activity because schools present it in the form of competitive sports in which lack of ability isn't tolerated, and this persists beyond school as they already associate fitness with unpleasant experiences.

I think actually getting better at something, gaining a sense of competence and skill, and taking part in group/competitive sports can be one of the best ways of motivating children to actually find PE fun. Obviously depending on how it's done, on being inclusive and doing plenty of other active things as well, things like dance or hiking or climbing or yoga etc.

I'm not very physically active myself unfortunately and didn't enjoy PE at school in part due to the lack of tolerance for the not naturally sporty, but in terms of fitness I think the best and most sustainable forms of exercise are those where getting fit is an afterthought - where it's a sociable, friendly game in which you develop skills and teamwork and where there is a competitive element to keep things interesting. So I wouldn't want to jettison those elements of the curriculum, I think that would make it rather a bland experience for a lot of people. It would be nice to see having fun, trying different challenges and being part of a team there as well though.

In some countries, there is a culture of exercise at the beginning of every school day. Even ten minutes of intensive exercise would be enough - a proper run around the playground or field, exercises of the star jump variety, for example. Children need this now far more than in the past because they are far more sedentary than ever before. Many don't walk to school and they don't burn off their energy. If you add this to the snacking culture that seems to have built up in the fairly recent past then you have a recipe for disaster. When l was at school (1970s), it was rare to see a truly overweight child. I was short and slightly chubby but not overweight but l could see the difference. It was a true case of puppy fat as l had my growth spurt later than most and slimmed down as I grew upwards. What was the difference forty or fifty years ago? Perhaps the biggest difference is that there were far fewer families where both parents went out to work so there was more time to prepare home cooked meals from scratch. We would have a dinner (generally meat and two veg) followed by a pudding. Many of our own parents were children during and after World War 2 and remembered rationing and wanted better for our generation so it was plenty of fruit, full fat milk and sugar. A recipe for obesity on paper. The crucial difference was the amount of exercise we had without even trying. We walked to school by ourselves from an early age, played out with friends climbing trees, riding our bikes and roller skates. We had undreamed of freedom by today's standards, probably the last generation to do so. We would go out with our friends for the morning and return at lunchtime. By the age of ten l was cycling all over the Norfolk countryside with my friend. This was entirely normal.

I want to be your mum at 78! That's why, as a fat person at 51, I am taking my health in hand now and I'm serious about it. I can't wait for some Govt policy to tell me what to do. I know it's not going to be easy but I've got to try. And that's what I mean by taking individuals do need to take personal responsibility. Yet are quite a few posters on this thread seem to think that suggestion is fat bashing and that's half the problem. We've got to stop being so defensive about being fat.

@Dreamersdontdie

They found that those who had initially shown a higher level of neurotensin in the three hours after a meal after the initial 8-week weight loss phase were more likely to have lost additional weight in the maintenance period.

This is interesting. What is neurotensin?

And that's what I mean by taking individuals do need to take personal responsibility.

Argh, that line is gobbledegook! I meant:

And that's what I mean about individuals needing to take personal responsibility.

"The problem is that most slim people who have never gained weight don't understand the difficulty of keeping weight off."

How many people can there be reading this thread who have never gained weight? Most people's weight fluctuates through the year.

I imagine the poster meant significant weight gain.