Two thirds of adults in England are obese or overweight. It would make as much sense to ask what is different about the other one third.

[H0TK]

This was a comment I read elsewhere. I thought it was an interesting comment.

Rather than wondering what is wrong with overweight people and why they eat like they do. What is different about the people who are not overweight?

The difference between obese and healthy weight people is that obese people are obsessed with food and think about it all the time. Ordinary portions and diets feel unreasonably restrictive to them and they lack perspective on what is normal.

They can’t fathom that normal people don’t obsess over food. They also seem to think that hunger pangs are unbearable torture that must be fixed immediately, instead of just a temporary unpleasant feeling.

Their over-stretched stomachs cause more intense hunger pangs because it has to shrink back down more dramatically after a meal. But the stomach returns to a normal size within about three weeks of eating normal portions.

Finally the public’s perspective is skewed. I have a BMI of 19 but I’m frequently accused of being underweight. It’s because fat people have become the new norm so now healthy weight people look thin in comparison. The same thing is happening to domestic cats and dogs: people think healthy pets look to skinny. They literally don’t know what normal looks like any more.

I have always been slim and I think portion size is a big one. Even though I eat four meals a day plus snacks, my portions are much smaller than most people’s. I don’t deprive myself of anything, I just eat it in moderation, always have my meals at the same time every day and never graze out of boredom.

I have never been overweight and I am 60 now and size 10. I think a lot of it is genetics and metabolism. I was very skinny as a child and could eat anything and not put on weight right up to my late 20s when I had my first child.

I have never been on a diet although now that I am older I do eat a more healthy diet than when I was younger but that is more to do with the risk of heart disease and other health problems than putting on weight.

Our diet isn't natural. We are all depleted in nutrients

Leptin resistance

Lack of exercise. Sedentary jobs lack of time to exercise

To easy to get food now.
Too much temptation

I'm borderline normal weight now I lost 16lb on injections

I'm not judging any individual. I see it as a global issue.

When I was a kid hardly anyone was obese

The difference

Home made meals (one parent at home)
We walked
No coffee shops on every corner
No fast food except fish and chips
I was 12 when macdonalds came to our town.

We had sweets but we had 10/20/50 p to spend once a week from the sweet shop.

Huge Supermarkets were not such a thing.

Food was much simpler then

It's great we have choices now but it's not helpful for our waistlines.

Yes I agree with this. When I was growing up we played out all day during holidays, didn't watch much TV as children's programmes were only on at certain times.

My mum cooked all our meals from scratch even though she worked. The only fast food was fish and chips which we never had as my mum made her own. I never had pizza as a child and must have been at least 18 if not older before I had a McDonalds.

The way they react to stress, the way they've been raised, how much they like themselves & how much shit they eat, I'd imagine.

Agreed about chicken. So odd, I’m trying to lose the Xmas pounds and last night somehow ended up eating 450g of chicken. It was horrendous, I just couldn’t finish it, I didn’t even eat breakfast the next day, I think I was 99% chicken.

I’d have polished that off when I was 15 stone plus. I used to eat an entire stuffed crust pizza to myself.

The difference
Home made meals (one parent at home)
We walked
No coffee shops on every corner
No fast food except fish and chips
I was 12 when macdonalds came to our town.
We had sweets but we had 10/20/50 p to spend once a week from the sweet shop.
Huge Supermarkets were not such a thing

Very true. Social changes are increasing obesity and poorer health too. It’s harder to eat healthily when you get back from a full day at work. It’s harder to fit in shopping for fresh food too. Then you eat more badly, are exhausted and run down, and then that affects your health even if you’re a normal weight.

Society needs to change too.

Someone upthread sort of nailed it: physical response to food and food triggers, which of course can be hormonal and societal- give overweight and obese people weight loss medication that acts on their insulin response and food transit times, thus their satiety, and voila.

I think 'the cure' explains 'the cause' to a large extent.

I agree. I’ve seen people saying things like they’ve eaten a packet of 6 bags of crisps or a share size packet of dairy milk etc
Id feel disgusted with myself if I did that. I just can’t even imagine doing it. And I’d probably be sick! I can’t eat two courses at a restaurant either and if I have two I’d rarely finish the main as portion sizes are so ridiculous .

I also think today’s acceptability levels of alcohol have a lot to blame. People can’t believe that I can go for months with no alcohol. People drink a lot of calories.

I'm house sitting at my parents house and I've been eating from the freezer. There are tons of leftovers that ate gor one person. I've been eating those and realised that if some side veggies/salad would have been added it would defo be meal for two. The one portion of rice has lasted me 3 meals. I was an active and thin child so my obesity was not a childhood problem. However, I definitely have the "that's not a full portion left so makes no sense to save it, better eat it" than my parents had. Which lead to over eating.

Because I want to be healthy, because I want to be able to run around with my kids, because I want to grow old and see my kids grow up.

I also had parents that taught me about self respect, self control, and everything in moderation.

Being overweight is a choice. Being not overweight is a choice.

My weight fluctuates within the “healthy” bmi but I know at the upper end of that I’m definitely not healthy (I’m not very strong, can see the excess fat easily). Many of the differences I notice are in little habits. It’s very easy for me to go from one glass of wine as a treat to one glass of wine most nights to two glasses of wine most night. Same with desserts, somehow I find myself needing something sweet after every meal when a few months ago I only had sweet things occasionally. Also with ready made meals / take out etc…

The same pattern applies everywhere, it’s hard for me to maintain a moderate consumption of anything or to maintain good basic exercise habits. So then I try to consciously reset. As I get older it’s becoming more and more difficult to do this and the weight loss effects are slower, but I still have the memory of sensible eating and exercise. Poor sleep and stress make it harder to maintain good habits and I imagine if someone didn’t have a memory of a healthy normal it would be very difficult to build as an adult.

what I see in people who are consistently slim is that they don’t use food emotionally. Most don’t drink much. Most cook or eat simple food and rarely have fast food / processed stuff / desserts.

Is ‘I was born with good metabolism’ a reasonable answer?

I'm carnivore and lost weight and all the inflammation I had through eating this way. Meat, fish, eggs and dairy and a LOT of fat. I started this WOE because of health problems. I have so much energy and rarely feel hungry, look about 10 years younger than I did 12 months ago and feel amazing.
Before I started this way of eating I was virtually bed bound for over two years and really ill. I started eating like this for my health and to rid my body of the inflammation.
What I discovered was sugar is an absolute drug. If I ever slip up and have a little I am craving it non stop but if I don't touch it I never ever think about it.
I've always had issues with sugar but didn't realise how addictive it really was until I stopped having it altogether. It does horrible things to your body.

My Mother was the same, cooking home made meals all the time, and baking cakes. Having a takeaway as a child was just so rare, and would indeed be fish, and chips. I was occasionally allowed a pie from Percy Ingles, if we were down the market.

I believe it is all the fast food outlets. When I was a child we only had a Wimpy or Fish n Chips. Also crisps were an occasional treat unlike today

How nice of him to share that hilarious anecdote about his fatty patient with you. Nothing like a bit of confidentiality from your doctor eh.

15 pages and virtually nobody has said anything remotely new, interesting, or useful. Just pages & pages of people spaffing their height and weight stats, seeking pats on the back, and telling us they only eat once a day. Orthorexics paradise this place.

I believe it is all the fast food outlets. When I was a child we only had a Wimpy or Fish n Chips. Also crisps were an occasional treat unlike today

The availability of fast food around the clock, and peoples ability to afford it, is not going to help the problem of obesity. Some people don't even have to leave their homes as Uber eats will oblige.

Yes, and those who keep smiling don't get depressed.

Simples!

Nail on the head with all that.

I don't know how I'm not obese.

I eat too fast and so I end up over eating because my brain can't send signals to step eating in time.

I'm in high end of healthy.

I think AuDHD helps because I move around a lot. I eat good, scratch made food but do love a dessert!

No idea.

I don't think there are any new answers.

People who weigh less typically eat less.

Generally though that's not the answer people want.

For most people losing weight involves less food and more sacrifice.

It doesn't mean orthorexia. When the majority of the population is unhealthy, I don't think orthorexia is the biggest issue any ways.

Research on mutant mice is illuminating. They aggressively conserve fat stores in preference to releasing them as glycogen into the blood stream, even in a famine situation. They compensate by becoming lethargic, lowering their temperature, and food-seeking. Its possible that some obese humans are similar, hence the food noise (it must have been useful to their ancestors, but not so much now).

At least some slim people may lack these genes, so they readily release glycogen from fat stores in response to an energy demand, and don't experience food noise (although they'd be doomed in a famine, I suppose).

I've known at least one slim person who did experience food noise (though we didn't call it that then). She could only stay slim by eating very little, and was hungry all the time.