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.

This is really interesting. And whilst i know a lot of this already I have bookmarked it as it is a good way to live.

I could go into more detail but I doubt anyone wants that!

It is partly their fault actually. They set certain standards of food that are allowed to be sold to us, the public. And have sat back while our food has been meddled with to such a degree, that so much of the "food" is actually harming us. Of course there are ways around eating so much of this rubbish food, but it is more expensive, and would actually involve cooking.

Generally, a lot of the modern British diet is pretty shit. Watch or listen to the diary of a ceo about the Japanese lifestyle and diet for example. From school age it’s instilled in the culture. Some cancers are linked to some of the foods we regularly consume in England. Obesity costs the NHS and the UK tax payer millions. It does not make sense

I've noticed this with groups of 20 year olds, obviously on a night out in a University town. The young women tend to be plump and on the heavy side, while the young men seem the thinner. It's very different to when I was a student, I was considered the heavy one, but I'd be sylph like compared to todays students.

Zero food culture and no idea how to cook veggies or lentils.

I think we are too americanised and we're becoming more and more like them in many ways and less 'european' and it will get worse.

It will be party demographics. So type of people likely to cruise more likely to be overweight as draws of a cruise are all you can eat food, less walking. If you were on a walking holiday it’s a different demographic.
Smoking is out of fashion. It used to be used as an appetite suppressant by women.
Alcohol - women in past didn’t drink as much, high calorie drinks like frappes, cheap carbs, lack of exercise in daily life so cars not walking, household appliances not physical housework.

British supermarkets are incredible.... the choice of not just junk food but treat food is unmatched. And you don't have to go to several little independent shops to get it like in Europe. It's all just there whilst your shopping for bread and milk.

Also takeaway culture, it's more normal now to get takeaway every week than it's ever been. I'm relatively young and I remember when it used to be a treat. Now people are getting slices of cake delivered to them on a whim! In the UK you can have whatever you want, Whenever you want and there's not a strong culture around food to dictate that it's inappropriate.

The fact that some posters are treating this flippantly is depressing.

It's deadly serious.

My mum mentioned this recently. When she was young (60s and 70s) everyone was skinny. Some women got a little "stout" (her word) post-menopause but the vast majority of young women were very slim. Now I often see young women out with their mums and the mums are a more healthy weight but the daughters are obese. I think things have gone wrong in recent decades. Many young people, in particular, have awful diets.

This.

You’re on a cruise OP!

France still has 50% of the adult population being overweight or obese.

MNetters seem to imagine the country is primarily populated by slim people and it just isn't.

The US and UK lead in weight problems and obesity but France has a lot of it too. At least 50% are not slim people wafting around being slim and stylish.

It's a MN/British myth based on people going on holiday and employing cognitive bias.

Same as all the French kids who are so beautifully behaved, eat 'adult food' and none have any possible ND needs and they sit quietly for hours in the evening eating steak and not getting out of their seats till their parents take them to bed at 10/11pm.

So Sainsbury's have a conspiracy to make poorer people overweight?

It's deadly serious how we've lost sight of how other peoples bodies are none of our concern.

I have neighbours who are in their mid to late 20s. At least 3 times since Thursday night iirc, they have had pizza delivered, and other takeaways. That seems to be normal for them. People do not even need to make the effort to go and get food like that, anymore.

For me the answer is overeating due to previous poverty. Also greed but I think it’s linked to trauma.

Added to all of the very true factors mentioned in the previous posts by so many users, I feel that the cost of living, the wars, the depressing behaviour of the U.K. government and its effect on NHS, schools, social care, etc., the dog whistle lowest common denominator media, the rise of the far right, worries about climate change, social media fakeness are pretty bleak and a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar or a Coke or a cake or some microwaveable nachos are a quick, affordable treat. People got used to staying at home during COVID, but even before that (e.g. cinemas closing and everyone getting Netflix), and delivery services boomed, so did eating as a past-time or comfort (as well as drinking alcohol).

Yes, you can get up and go for a walk in the park for free or put on a dance video or go for a run but it takes willpower and perhaps that's harder than ever to find.

There was a steadily increase of obese/overweight people in the uk before working from home so I’m a bit sceptical about that being the reason.
Life is different now than when it was in the 80’s. Life in the 80’s when I had my children was different to my life growing up in the 50’s and 60’s. My parents life was different growing up during the war than their parents and so on.
I agree with a lot of the changes mentioned
eg snacking, larger ( much larger) portions, fast/delivered food, high white carbs, more reliance on cars, all adults in the home working as opposed to one being at home doing the food prep. And the manual labour in the house and at work has changed. For instance my mums day was housework and laundry ( mangle!) and walking to the shops to buy food in the morning, gardening, more household jobs and preparing food in the afternoon. We were never offered food between meals.
In the 80’s my children never had endless snacks between meals maybe a biscuit or 2 with a drink mid morning. We walked everywhere or went on our bikes as we only had one car which whoever was at work used. We never ate in a cafe as money was very tight- I always took a homemade picnic out which was considered our treat!
I would also add that food didn’t seem a big thing in my childhood, we had breakfast, dinner and tea and never anything in between. My mother was astonished once when we walked past the beach cafe at 2 pm and it was full of people eating
” what ever meal can they possibly be eating at 2pm” she said.
Cake, biscuits, sweets etc were a once a week treat and a “ fairy” cake with a bit of icing on the top was about a quarter of the size of a muffin today. When I made a batch of 24 fairy cakes for mine in the 80’s, a small cupful of buttercream was enough for a little blob on each one - the shop bought muffin/cupcakes of today have about that amount on just one!
I wonder also if there is an increase of more advances medication which has more side effects affecting weight than in previous generations?
I’ve definitely found it easy to put on weight in the last 10/15 years as my eating habits have moved with the times! Ie I eat between meals, we often have our meals at irregular times, eat out more, have more takeaways, larger portions and use the car more than I should.
One more thing!
Lycra! As soon as stretch was added to clothing there was less construction in clothing, which in the past reminded people that weight was creeping on.
Im not being critical, These are just my observations over the years. Food is so lovely!

I’ve noticed women become overweight earlier, and the men catch up by the age of 40/50. There are a lot of fat teen girls around here, but just a handful of fat teen boys. By middle age they seem to be overweight in equal numbers.

As for why, it’s food, the wrong food and too much of it. American eating habits have made their way over here and we have a lot of corn syrup, oils, flavourings and sweeteners added to our food. Junk food is cheap and to many parents food equals love - I see loads of fat kids being ushered into the corner shop after school to buy an ice cream or Mars bar. We have takeaways on every corner, and there’s no shame around being a bit overweight any more so less incentive to do anything about it. Most women are a size 14/16, it’s seen as normal and even ‘healthy’ because we’ve got so used to it being slim looks scrawny.

I’ve spent a lot of time in France and Spain and the eating culture is totally different. Much less cheap junk for sale, food is held in higher regard and they’ll put time into making something from scratch rather than just slinging frozen food into the oven. They focus on quality rather than quantity and food is more expensive so you buy what you need and not an extra 10 items to ‘dip into’ as snacks. In fact snacking is far less of a ‘thing’, here it’s seen as shocking if you don’t ply your kids with snacks every 2 hours.

I think something is going wrong with women’s hormones as well to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s caused by being overweight or the reverse but women seem to be so oddly shaped now. Like inverted triangles with narrow hips, closely set legs and wide shoulders. They don’t seem to have that hourglass shape they used to. And lots of PCOS, endometriosis and so on about.

I would argue that first world poverty is way more likely to make you fat than third world poverty.

The long and short of it is that poverty is depressing, which makes people turn to comfort foods when they are available.

On a cruise?

-increase in mental health problems
-trauma

I'm obese and I comfort eat

People weren’t traumatised in the past..?

I assume much like threads about children's behaviour, it's because we're not as good as the "Europeans"