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?

I don't think it's possible to ignore ravenous hunger, that's the thing and for many that's a reality. We are genetically hardwired to eventually respond to hunger. So low dose of weight loss jabs for life might be the reality for those who want to keep weight at bay. Some just don't experience hunger in the same way.

Because being very slim and having that flat, empty stomach feeling gives me far more pleasure than any food in the world could. So it's simple for me.

And also not being a foodie helps. I don't derive any pleasure from food whatsoever, eat to live, don't live to eat. All the 'trying new foods, visiting exciting restaurants, enjoying fresh organic ingredients, etc' leave me completely cold. I can munch on a plate of broccoli just as happily as a McD's burger or a Michelin dinner, I don't care. My criteria is: as fast as possible, cheap-ish (hate wasting money on something as pointless as food), healty-ish and won't make me fat (most important). So I usually eat same-y: eggs, stir-fry veg, some meat-protein, some pulses, salads, etc, quikly thrown together.

Same for people who aren't overweight except for fear of hunger feelings and lack of will power. A skinny person can still eat all the wrong foods and be incredibly unhealthy with malnutrition and type 2 diabetes.

Genetics. My dad was very thin, I am very thin and my son is very thin. Doesn’t matter what we eat or how we exercise.

A difference I have noticed is the amount of food though - I get full quicker than others and I can’t stomach a lot of sweet stuff in one go. Like one doughnut is fine, two in a row would make me feel sick. But it’s an innate thing, not something I have to tell myself.

I agree with most of the slim responses on here. I’m slim, I don’t over eat, ever, it makes me feel heavy and very uncomfortable if I do eat too much. If I’m out and hungry I can honestly say I’ll never grab a fast food takeaway, I’ll either wait til I get home, or I’ll get a banana from Tesco express etc…

My brother is obese and I am healthy weight. I eat in moderation - he stuffs his face and does not stop until food is taken away from him.
I work full time and work out 4-5 times a week.
He is on benefits and does very little physical activity.
We had the same childhood. Same access to food. Same parents.

I'm happy. He is happy.

Sometimes people make different choices.

Is it a result of aging population ? more middle age people - women gone through menopause and older men. It seem to be when weight appears in Dh and my family.

Though increase food prices in last few years haven't helped - we have to bring that down with three teens - I used to do all the cooking from scratch but less so now fussy eaters and increased costs and fuel costs all make that more a luxury and thus rarer for us. We wee never much for take outs - more quicker cheaper home cooking with time poor individuals.

I've been borderline underweight all my life (40s now) but I like food, cooking and eating and eat whatever I want, have snacks daily, drink alcohol, certainly no picture of virtue or health. I just stop when I've had enough so probably end up eating smaller portions? Like PP have said, I just don't hear the 'food noise': if I'm not hungry you can waft my favourite food in front of me and I won't be tempted, never mind popping into a cafe or the snack cupboard just because they're there. Genuinely no willpower required.
It makes sense to me from an evolutionary perspective that more people hear the food noise than don't.

My (female) partner is a healthy weight and has weighed the same, give or take a few 3lbs since her early 20s. She is now mid 50s. She has a healthy emotional relationship with food in that she doesn’t binge eat or starve herself and has never been on a diet in her life. She doesn’t really exercise and is quite sedentary. She doesn’t have a great diet. She makes relatively healthy breakfast choices (weetabix and fruit) and her standard lunches are fairly balanced and healthy (say a sandwich, some fruit and a cake) but she snacks a lot on crisps, cakes, biscuits and chocolate, loves sugary coffees from Costa etc and she has unhealthy, fatty takeaways at least 3 times per week, sometimes more if she has McDonald’s a couple of times for lunch instead of taking sandwiches from home. She lives for carbs and her evening meals tend to be ultra processed freezer food. I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s just very lucky. Her older sister has the exact same body type as her and similar eating habits and is about the same size and weight as her.

(meanwhile I’m over here eating low carb, low sugar, no alcohol etc and I struggle to even stay in the healthy part of the BMI chart - I’m usually a few lbs over)

I ignore my food noise. Eating protein, cutting out sugar and UPFs helps hugely.

Oprah Winfrey just sees the financial potential in normalising weakness. People desperately want to believe what she says is true so they can feel good. Meanwhile she rakes in the dosh and becomes an icon. She's a highly articulate business woman.

That said, I think the weight loss jabs are a good thing for anyone who struggles and certainly respect anyone taking control in that way too. Whatever works, go for it.

Also I lost 5 stone and I don’t understand the term “food noise”. Even when I was 15 stone plus the reasons were, lack of planning, lack of knowing when to stop, I always gave myself a treat with food and used it as a reward or to soothe myself or because I “deserved” it. I had PCOS which I don’t suffer so much from now that I don’t eat any sugar at all.

I eat healthily now, I reward myself with other things. I do have times when I’m heavier like at Christmas but I realised I wasn’t actually getting anything from food except fat, poor and emotionally empty.

I can’t say what other people’s reasons are but those are mine.

For me it would be having basic nutritional knowledge - thank you, parents! Having been brought up with small plates in the house. We literally had one "normal size" dinner plate in the household of 4 which my grandfather occasionally used. The rest of our plates were sort-of 50s-style (9inches) and our soup bowls probably held no more than 250ml of food. Concept of snacking didn't exist in our house. You got three square meals a day and that was your lot. A small bar of good quality dark chocolate would be shared among the entire family with evening cup of tea.
There were no condiments like mayo or ketchup.

Most nurses work shifts or have done for a significant part of their career. Shift working, particularly overnight, is a health risk, including metabolic issues. We are incredibly lucky that people compromise their health to look after us. Of course the food environment doesn't help in hospitals where lack of budget means junk food companies win over providing staff with healthier choices. It is well known that when people are tired they will crave more sugar and fat, yet the vending machines and shops are stuffed full of those products rather than removing the worst products.

You've got my dad's attitude to food he ended up with malnutrition and type 2 diabetes. Make sure you are eating the foods that is beneficial for your body to keep it healthy.

I was underweight growing up. Normal meals, no eating disorders, just genetically skinny. Dad was slim all his life.

I've been a size 8 for years. Size 10 bottom, since I hit my 40s.

Now on the right side of 50s, these are the things I do/don't do:

Don't drink. Complete teetotaller. Occasionally had a few drinks in my 20s.
It's just not my thing. Don't like the after effects.

Never smoked.

Skip breakfast as usually not hungry
In the morning

Eat a big meal once a day. Usually late lunch or early dinner.

Do snack, crisps and dark chocolate. Not daily.

Minimal exercise

It's a myth that slim people are healthy. My dad had high blood pressure and suffered from a stroke. My mum too. I think I'm predisposed to that disease as it runs in my family.

To answer a couple of points -

I'm vegetarian and I'm overweight. My daughter is vegetarian and she is fat.

Lots of young people are vegan or veggie and some of them are fat.

When I was slim I ate what I wanted. No self discipline whatsoever. I'm actually far more self disciplined now I'm 20 years older, peri menopausal and overweight. I no longer drink alcohol, I snack far less and you'll never catch me eating puddings more than about twice a year,

My sister is in the 3rd of the population that is and always has been a healthy weight, I ate and have the same activity level as she did but I gain weight, she stays the same no matter what she eats. Her metabolism just seems faster and her body shape is different to mine, I have slim legs and arms and put weight on my middle. To be slim I have to eat a lot less than she does and still I have a bit of a belly. We both had large babies, mine 10 pounds and hers 9 pounds, she went straight back to a size 10 I went to a size 16. Both breastfed, etc. I am now a size 12 and OK with that, but have to watch what I eat, whereas she has chocolate and drinks wine. She used to be teased about being too thin too!

I also have a friend who is desperate to put on weigh as he hates being so thin and no matter what he eats he cant gain weight, so some of this is genetics.

I assume you're losing weight on this amount. It kind of sounds like you're saying you're morbidly obese DESPITE eating this little. And that just isn't possible. At all. Under any circumstance. If this is the case then you're underestimating how much you're eating.

You look back at photos of the 80s and earlier and obese individuals were in the minority, particularly in the young adult age ranges and younger. When I was at school, only one of my classmates was overweight. Now it would be the other way round.

We had a tuck shop at school so sweets and crisps were readily available. Food was plentiful and we never went hungry by choice. Pizza and chips was a popular lunch option in the 6th form.

So what changed? If it is hormonal why is it only now showing up? Food noise too? If that existed then far more of my peers would have been overweight.

For me - I used to be able to eat whatever I liked in whatever quantities I liked and not gain an ounce. That seems to have changed post menopause but it took me a while to notice! I'm currently on a mission to get down to the weight I was in my 40s and that is where I intend to stay. It seems I have to eat a lot less than I used to but I am OK with that.

It does also depend on her activity level. If she's sedentary and eating 1200 calories then it's a slow the weight loss. If she moves more the weight will drop off.

You can be on medications that prevent you losing weight, or indeed, make you gain it in the first place. Assume this is what the poster means

or, many people with gastric bypass will only be able to eat very little but despite losing huge amounts of weight may not be able to get below an obese weight- my best friend is one of those people. She’s been told she’s unlikely to get below BMI 30 but still a good result for her

How do you know how others experience hunger?

Fair enough you are one of the minority who has decided you will probably need to stay on weight loss drugs for life at maintenance level.

But you don't know that other people don't experience strong feelings of hunger. They probably do but are better able to distract themselves with other things so have never got into the habit of eating whenever they feel pangs of hunger. I've been slim in the past and it's not like I didn't feel hungry then, I did. Now I'm fat and it's nothing to do with being "genetically hardwired" it's to do with my own psychology and how important it really is to me to stay a certain size.

People I know who stay slim are comfortable with feeling hungry, they don't feel deprived if they have to wait a while for a meal whereas fatter people often do seem to feel emotionally upset about it.

When covid was here and I wasn't walking as much {Didn't have a dog then} I put on weight noticeably. {a stone}

Now I have a dog again, I lost the weight and walk every day come rain or shine- I do think walking, cycling horse riding and regular exercise helps and not eating too much of the ''wrong'' thing as well.

If one was a ''skinny'' child it probably helps as well, as they say fat cells laid down when one is a child stay with us into adulthood.

Don't know if that is true or not though, or just an urban myth.

Pet obesity is a real problem as well- too many treats available, and soft hearted owners who give treats on top of a pet's daily food rations.

This also rings bells with me, in 1982 when I was 17, I got a job as an office junior, I was about 8 stone (5ft 4) but my jeans were tight and I had a belly, there was a little group of women who asked me to join them in popping to the warehouse one a week to weigh in together and share diet plans. The office talk was all about who could lose the most weight, It was competitive dieting, I do wonder if I hadn't dieted when I was basically a healthy weight I wouldn't have got stuck in the yo-yo diet pattern. I should have just accepted not everyone is meant to have an ironing board stomach and fit size 8 skinny jeans, but this was a different era.

Most thin people I know just aren't compelled to eat as much. Their hunger signals are in line with what their body needs. My size 6-8 friend in her 40s will eat anything, hasn't rules about food and is actually fighting more urge to drink excess alcohol and has other struggles.

Some thin do work really hard to maintain their thin/health, my dad is one of them. He's prone to family genetics unless he's intentional about fighting it.

I am 11st, could look better with more effort but I'm just genuinely lazy. ADHD medication has done wonders to curb sugar cravings.(been yo-yo dieting most of my 20 and 30s and I'm exhausted)