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?

Well I am permanently hungry that's why. I eat a meal, I am still hungry, my brain doesn't get "you are full signals". It is very difficult to ignore the "I am hungry" message because the urge to eat is a fairly primal instinct. It therefore becomes impossible to sustain a lower calorie diet for any period of time.

Obesity is called 'a normal reaction to an abnormal environment' that being the abundance of food. If we're surrounded by food, we'll take the opportunity to indulge, or overindulge. Our food environment only partly explains why obesity is on the rise, though. As questioned in the OP why isn't everyone obese? Why are some, like you, better able to self-regulate in the face of abundant energy-dense food?

Well according to the NHS the highest obesity rate is in the 45-54 and in the 65-74 group so the 80s and 70s group.
https://www.issuesonline.co.uk/articles/1-obesity-statistics

As a teenager growing up in a dysfunctional and abusive family, food became a source of comfort and I was very overweight. Once I left and made my own life, my relationship with food changed and I lost the excess weight and have remained slim.
I do have certain rules. If I don't feel particularly hungry, I don't force myself to eat a meal, I'll have a healthy snack instead. I don't fry food and rarely eat takeaways other than the occasional pizza or fish and chips. I cannot stand fat on meat and will cut fat off bacon and buy low fat organic mince for cooking. I eat little red meat as I prefer chicken or tuna. I don't add salt to my food. I love smoothies but restrict myself to one a day as they are high in natural sugar or I'll have pure orange or pineapple juice instead.

I love Skyr and Greek yoghurt and one is always part of my breakfast (high in protein). I eat pasta (with a side salad) most days as it releases energy slowly. Treats are mini chocolate bars, nuts of all types with raisins, a piece of cheese, small on the vine tomatoes, the occasional bag of Wotsits and Tiramusu. I rarely eat crisps and don't drink anything fizzy. I do drink alcohol - Aldi's equivalent to Baileys - sometimes a few glasses a week, sometimes none, I can take it or leave it.

I'm overweight. Spent my teenager years being told how fat I was by my mum and dragged to weight watchers
I was a size 12, she was a 26
She went on about how much smaller her shoulders were than mine, her thighs, bought me size 28 clothes so they would be "flattering"
Basically wanted me to be the 5ft petite blonde daughter she wanted

Her brother (my uncle) was a heavyweight boxer described as having spades for hands. Her dad (my grandad) was a wrestler

Funnily if I stand next to the men in the family I look normal, tall, broad shoulders, big frame
If you stand me next to an average height woman I look like a giant. The doctor has asked if I had lead for bones when weighing me
My frame will never ever be a size 10 but I would like to get back to a 14

Perhaps she thought it was a fishcake 😂

I think it depends on so many factors. There will be people that are overweight because they consume more calories than they burn, there will be those on medication that can cause a gain in weight, there will be those that food is more than just fuel but an emotional support. Genetics can play a part but then is it nature that means families are either overweight or not or is it a nuture thing where certain habits or behavior has been learned from our family.

I’ve been overweight and I’ve been a normal BMI. I’m currently on the higher end of “normal” at present because I do have a higher muscle mass due to the sport I do. I think I’ve managed to maintain my weight because of the level of exercise I do. I can be an emotional eater so I have to keep myself in check.

DH is overweight and has been so pretty much all of his adult life. His parents had very little money when he was growing up and they always cooked traditional meals which were not particularly healthy. They also always had biscuits, cakes etc and always had a supper each evening. However they actually served very small portions and DH says he was always hungry so as he got older he bought his own food/snacks which led to over eating.
The weight now doesn’t budge because he doesn’t exercise and has a sedentary job. He also eats large portions.

My parents were slightly better off when I was growing up. They also served fairly traditional meals (my Dad was definitely a meat and 2 veg kinda guy!) but healthy portions so I can’t remember that we ever snacked a lot. We had treats but not all the time.

DC are very aware of nutrition as both interested in fitness so they like to eat good food and they see it as fuel which I think is a really healthy mindset.

Body weight is very highly correlated with the environment and financial circumstances people live in.

In some areas it is very hard to find and afford fresh food and to cook. But it is easily to buy ultra processed foods pretty much anywhere.

UPFs have been engineered to taste great, are quite addictive, very easily available, often much cheaper than fresh whole foods, and they keep very well. Hence many people eat them - and why wouldn't they? However, they are also very high in kilojoules, low in nutrition, don't need much chewing and way too easy to overeat, hence many people who eat them are overweight.

Also our bodies have not evolved quickly enough to be able to cope with stuff that is basically not even food, hence the many health problems that abound when eating UPFs.

If we treated UPFs as an addictive substance we might get somewhere. I say this knowing it is a highly controversial view and that people also don't want to be told what to eat.

Until governments get serious about cracking down on multinational UPF manufacturers like Nestle and Coca Cola and start making it difficult for them to advertise, and also reduce the fast food places everywhere it will continue to be very hard for most people not to be overweight.

To the OP's question then: why are some people not overweight? Well it's the opposite side of the coin isn't it? In general people who are not overweight have more money and greater ease of opportunity to eat fresh whole foods as opposed to UPFs.

In my own case, which is kind of irrelevant because it's a sample size of one, but I'll mention it for interest: I am bordering on being overweight. I have been slimmer and I have been heavier. I hate diets and cannot sustain them. I decided to make a lifestyle change and I cut out UPFs. I don't buy them because otherwise I would mow my way through them as I have absolutely no willpower. That made a big difference. (The YUKA app is very helpful to use at the supermarket. You scan the bar codes and it gives a score out of 100 and also recommends healthier items. It's an eye opener to see the crap in some of these so-called foods.)

All this is easy for me to say this though, as I live near easily available fresh food, and can afford it.

Also lifestyle can add those hidden calories that sometimes we don’t account for. We rarely have takeaways - maybe a couple of times a year and we only eat out for special
occasions because quite simply we can’t afford it and have to budget quite strictly with food. I do make most meals from scratch although occasionally use shortcuts! Don’t often buy ready meals. I don’t buy takeaway coffees etc again from a budget point of view.
we have a treat once a week as we do a family night with some snacks and a few drinks (I generally don’t drink for the rest of the week)
I also eat very little bread as this tends to make me gain weight quite quickly.

don’t get me wrong I’m no saint and if there are biscuits/sweets/chocolates lying around at work then I struggle to resist!

@kattaduck, one of the things I loved about France and Italy was the intense appreciation of food. (This was a while back; I don't know how well their food cultures have survived modern pressures.) People would start discussing lunch straight after breakfast - what to have, which ingredients to buy, how to cook them - and make a ritual of preparing the meal, sharing it, discussing whether this meat/cheese/fruit was better than last week's.

Once it was done and the table cleared, the same would begin for dinner. They spent the whole day thinking about food! The difference was that their thoughts weren't about eating as an end in itself; they were like artists seeking the best materials, sharing ideas and creating a fresh work twice every day.

It's hackneyed to call this 'sensual' but it's exactly the right word. I was anorexic when I went there, anorexic soon after I came back, but had no trouble with three good meals a day in this environment of joyous food appreciation.

Oh good for you 🤣

@enkelt2 for sure about East Asian fat shaming as mentioned in my post above I was at a family wedding I was the biggest at size 8/10 and the fat Auntie. Everyone else was a size 4/6 that was Chinese and these were women ages from 45 to 65. when I’m with my white mates I’m the slimmest. It’s quite odd really to be viewed by some as big and by others as skinny. I was a 4/6 till after menopause.

Wonder how much of it is due to antidepressants? I've been on them (plus anxiety meds) since I was 16 and I find it very difficult to regulate my appetite. A significant number of people in the UK are on antidepressants - perhaps that is partly why we tend to struggle with weight.

Not saying antidepressants are bad. I might not be here without them. But they do tend to be associated with mild to moderate weight gain.

I think a lot of overweight women have undiagnosed hypothyroid and don’t know it

yes, that’s what I was saying 🤦🏼‍♀️

While some antidepressants make you gain weight others suppress your appetite.
I specifically asked for one of those because I had problems with EDs in my youth.

I think this is a very interesting question- and also why were a greater proportion of people thinner in the past. I think it is to do with today's food and it setting off unhealthy metabolic patterns due to too high sugar and other additives. Even fruit is higher in sugar than it used to be due to genetic modification. Maybe some people are just more immune to the food changes.

I find sugar incredibly addictive. I lost weight a while ago through cutting out sugar and most carbs. I managed to keep it off whilst reintroducing occasional carbs but for the last two years my diet went haywire in December. I now realise this is because I got a Hotel Chocolat advent calendar and once I reintroduced a small amount of sugar, my body went haywire and I was hungry and craving more food all the time.

So sadly for me sugar needs to be off the menu, but it's worth it to feel healthy and fit my clothes again.

A lightbulb moment has gone off for me thinking about all this. I was a very skinny small child - was even teased about it at school - until I visited USA with my DPs. I absolutely loved McDonalds when there and could eat a Big Mac, fries and a chocolate milkshake.The family legend is I went there thin and came back fat. It's probably true, UPF is so addictive.

On society level, UPFs certainly play a role. THis is very evident when developing countries are suddenly introduced to them and in no time, the previously slim nations are struggling with obesity.
Moving is a more interesting topic - people who are generally more active do not seem to burn more calories, our bodies simply become more efficient. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/

I was vegetarian for over a year. It nearly killed me. Literally. In fact that's where my health issues actually started. Vegan/vegetarian is really unhealthy actually but you do you.
You know absolutely nothing about why I turned carnivore and clearly no nothing about it so maybe actually do your research and keep your nasty comments to yourself and keep eating your oxylates and your processed carbs love.

There is no magical answer to your question OP, slim people are individuals with their own exercise regimes, diets, stresses and health issues. For me, I've always been slim but have had a period of being slightly overweight, when I was drinking alcohol and eating shit food as a student. Staying slim in my case is mainly genetics, and as I have aged and my stress levels have increased my appetite has reduced significantly. I have seemingly lost the ability to recognise hunger and have no drive to eat. This is NOT healthy, I am too thin now, my boobs are empty my hair is falling out and I feel so weak and tired all the time. Being thin isn't all it's cracked up to be, you don't necessarily see the suffering underneath..

Well fruit itself - when I was younger, fruit was expensive and a treat. We didn’t have all these “posh” berries and melons on a daily basis. Now you are constantly told to eat a million portions a day. I know of dentists who comment on how bad this is for teeth too.

It’s not though :) been vegan ten years and haven’t eaten meat since I was 16! It’s a perfectly healthy way to eat and is recognised as such by most health organisations.

Honestly not trying to be nasty, being a ‘carnivore’ is really very bad for you. I’ve actually done a lot of research as I was absolutely fascinated by why anyone would choose to eat such a terrible diet when I first heard of it! Seeing people complain of constipation/diarrhoea, dizziness, sluggishness and of course the famous blood test posts surely didn’t do anything to convince me of the healthiness of the diet! It’s really quite worrying and a good example of people being unable to think for themselves and follow silly influencers/conmen who want to sell supplements. Just so silly- but also pretty concerning actually.

I'm sure if I hadn't spent the last 50 years constantly dieting and regaining, I wouldn't be 2 stone overweight now.

I sometimes think the same thing.

But it’s possible I would be 3 stone overweight if I didn’t occasionally go on diets when my size 16 clothes feel tight (not going up to an 18 for both cost & vanity reasons).