Why are there so many overweight and obese British women?

[EvaHara]

Genuine post and I promise I am not a weight troll. Recently I was on a cruise and couldn't help but notice that many other British women onboard - especially younger women - were considerably overweight or obese. Some were in fact huge and easily as big as some women I saw in the US when there a few years ago.

What has caused this rise in overweight people, particularly younger women? I don't remember there being this many overweight/obese people even 10 years ago.

I am not judging, just curious.

I know exactly why I'm overweight. I drink too much, which is extra unnecessary calories and when I've had a few glasses of wine I get the munchies bad and hoover up whatever high fat, high salt, high sugar food I have in the house.
I'm trying to cut down on drinking.

This! 👏

always someone’s fault
no time to cook
no time to exercise
body positivity - seems like obesity is now the accepted norm

why can’t people take responsibility of their own health and stop the excuses.

It’s depressing as hell. When you look at old photos, the lack of obese people is really striking. It used to be one of the few ways we could feel superior to Americans! Not any more. We’re now the Americans of Europe.

I’m afraid it’s a pet hate of mine. When I see fat people, I assume they’re either ignorant or greedy (or both). I know that isn’t always fair. In some cases, it really is beyond their control. I don’t buy the poverty argument though. Excusing someone’s obesity on the grounds of poverty seems almost offensive. You don’t need wealth to buy wholemeal bread, baked beans or bags of carrots. Those things cost less than Dunkin donuts and KFC, that’s for sure. I know it’s a cliche, but no British soldier left a Japanese POW camp weighing 20 stone.

Society becoming so accepting of obesity is doing no one any favours.

Love responses about 'not cooking from fresh ingredients'. As if 'fresh' ingredients are not pumped full of hormones (including wild-caught fish full of contraceptive pills), pesticides and the rest. We are all screwed, ladies and gentlemen, all of us. Even the so-called organic farming, yeah, right, downstream of non-organic farming, with the same rain, water, etc. Personally I think it is the quantities consumed (90%) and sedentary lifestyle. There was an excellent article in the paper (don't remember which) where an experiment was described, something like eating 1970s portions. They were tiny compared to ours these days. Yes, and poverty. When you don't have the money to spend of interesting stuff, the most efficient way to get a hit from a happy 'high' is a portion of chips or a cake or biscuits or whatever is your favourite food.

I think that cruises may be skewed in its representation of the number overweight people within the population.

I was on a cruise last November and came to similar conclusions, not just for women, but for both sexes.

I was told the reason for this may be is that larger/wider people may struggle with economy airplane seats, so many heavier people therefore choose to cruise to avoid difficulties/embarrassment on flights.

I have worked in the NHS for 11years, I thought that I had seen everything regarding extremely heavy people (requiring 6 plus people for maunual handling), but my time on a cruise certainly surprised me.

Love responses about 'not cooking from fresh ingredients'. As if 'fresh' ingredients are not pumped full of hormones (including wild-caught fish full of contraceptive pills), pesticides and the rest. We are all screwed, ladies and gentlemen, all of us. Even the so-called organic farming, yeah, right, downstream of non-organic farming, with the same rain, water, etc. Personally I think it is the quantities consumed (90%) and sedentary lifestyle. There was an excellent article in the paper (don't remember which) where an experiment was described, something like eating 1970s portions. They were tiny compared to ours these days. Yes, and poverty. When you don't have the money to spend of interesting stuff, the most efficient way to get a hit from a happy 'high' is a portion of chips or a cake or biscuits or whatever is your favourite food.

Car culture. The British love driving and lots of people never walk or cycle anywhere anymore. Then they don’t have time/money to go to the gym instead. Same problem in the US. Indoor lifestyle as well, because many of us seem to think we’re going to melt if we go outside in a slight drizzle.

Also, cruises are quite sedentary holidays. Sedentary people tend to choose sedentary holidays.

The extent of UPF in the UK has got ridiculous. It’s incredible that supermarkets have a whole aisle for ‘Sharing Crisps’.

Yes, so you are suggesting the shit diets are the underlying problem.

I agree that once you are overweight, losing and maintaining a healthy weight is far more difficult. But the underlying issue would be the shit diet. (I suspect there are other things too, like snacking, and general decline in daily activity.)

A lot of British soldiers never left Japanese POW camps. Not sure what Japanese POW camps have to do with fat women on cruise ships though

Shops in poorer areas do this, and charge higher prices, too. If pressed, they say the junk food is what the market wants. One problem is that poor people are less likely to know how to cook from scratch (blame Thatcher for that, who decided domestic science was useless and children should be taught how to market yoghurt pots instead - and the intention of this was to boost the processed food market). The other problem that people in poorer areas have is less time to cook from scratch, even if they know how. Commercial though they are I sometimes think Weight Watchers and Slimming World actually help here, by providing recipes for fairly simple from scratch meals, their clients usually being from the lower economic groups (i.e. not those who can do expensive fad diets or packaged diets because of the cost).

This is so true - I hate snacking in between meals as dont enjoy my meals the same. I eat 3 proper meals a day (by no means all home cooked). Ive noticed how people cant seem to function without snacks- getting on a train, short flight, cinema (im not just talking about popcorn), literally any occasion needs snacks. I love that my office has no snacks and my colleagues generally are pretty healthy so its a good environment to work in. We do occasional cakes/biscuits for birthdays and special occasions but thats it. Also, not near any shops so everyone brings their own lunch from home.

Body positivity movement which is fabulous in theory but when it's been used to promote obesity as a healthy normal life choice is dangerous

Big portion sizes

Sedentary lifestyles the amount of people who literally never walk or would not dream of walking there kids to school half a mile along the road shocks me.

Binge drinking

Social media when people can use filters to take pounds of themselves and get loads of compliments it gives a false representation.

Junk food

Not cooking from scratch.

Takeaways

It's a huge variety of factors.

Wine,crips and the menopause!

I agree that we’ve normalised obesity. I can think of several young women who are grossly overweight, with bellies literally hanging over their trousers, who think they’re average. I once heard a doctor say that almost everyone, including the health conscious, eat too much.

Fresh ingredients are also expensive and usually require other ingredients to be able to do anything with them, as well as access to adequate kitchen facilities, equipment and utensils, the money for the gas/electricity to cook plus the time, knowledge and basic skills to make something edible.

Many people don't have some, all or any of these. The judgement and smug sanctimony on this thread is so nauseating it's making me wish I weighed twenty stone just so I could ask exactly what is wrong with that considering I wouldn't give a fuck? I don't give a shit what other people weigh, wear or look like - being a decent human being is what matters.

It would be nice if this were true, but it's not, or not anymore. The whole thing is now bizarre and toxic, often with claims that saying being obese is unhealthy is "fatphobic" and also untrue. There have been a number of influencers who have died in the last year or so, quite young. And these are not just people who are "normal" fat, many are extremely obese.

Smartphone dating culture explains why so many young women are out of shape.

Most of the men on apps like Tinder get no swipes and can't afford to be fussy.

I think it's a combination of money with unhealthy foods generally being more accessible/cheaper, and also an acceptance of obesity. There have been so many influencers promoting the "fat is beautiful" message but fail to mention the raging health concerns that come with that. So if someone is larger and lazy, they jump on board this messaging and don't even try and help themselves.

Because chocolate is fabulous and celery is rank.

Ultra processed foods. It's that simple. Diet this and diet that. It's all shit. Real. Food and no diets is what is needed. We've all been brain washed and now we diet and fail and diet and fail and the weight goes up and up. I'm one of them. Trying hard to eat normally again after decades of faddy diets. I'm bigger than I've ever been so clearly they don't actually work.

A lot left dead though and your post is fucking offensive.

You don’t need wealth to buy wholemeal bread, baked beans or bags of carrots

No. But you need heat to cook them and many people are choosing between heating and eating. Plus, a diet of wholemeal
bread, beans and carrots is bloody boring and when life is tough people need a little something to make themselves feel better. You should read George Orwell on this. Things haven’t changed.

A couple of years ago I was in my local McColl’s and noticed you could buy two apples for a pound. At the counter they had packs of four apple pies for a pound. Full of sugar, very little apple, but if you’ve got hungry kids the pies would fill them up more.

And also the victim mentality. I’m sure lots of people consider themselves victims even while consuming a tray of donuts (“it isn’t my fault, it’s poverty and lack of opportunity and, er, the Tories…now where’s my Ben and Jerry’s ice cream?”).