Why can't we discuss how fat we've all become?

[Nodinnernogift]

Obesity is becoming the norm. Why aren't we allowed express concern or any views that are less than celebratory about this?

I mean seriously why?

If whole parts of your country were in the grip of a meth addiction we would be allowed have a discussion about it.

National campaigns to stop people smoking are applauded.

Look around you. Look in the mirror. We are all getting bigger and bigger. It reminds me of when people would visit the US in the 80s / 90s and come back with tales of huge people and massive portion sizes.

Does nobody care? It's like the Emperors New Clothes. I don't get why it's a sacrosanct topic.

Yabu - it's nobody's business
Yanbu - it's fine to address this as a societal problem

I don't drink either...but I don't believe that many people recoil in disgust when they see people holding a pint of beer or a glass of wine...yet when they see people eating cake, they start judging

Just been to shopping in a Home Counties Tesco. Young couple in front of me 25-30 (same age as my DC), quite obese. I couldn’t help myself having a look in their trolley.
Just shit food but all ‘label’ food. Nothing you could really cook a meal with. Then had to move aside for daughter and mum, who were both as wide as they were tall. And don’t get me started on the overweigh children.
i didn’t feel disgusted, just a bit sad really.
Where are we going wrong?
I actually work in food poverty. Many of the people in receipt of food bank food or community supermarkets , work very hard at producing nutritious food for their families with what they are given. My family didn’t have much growing up and we didn’t have a mum, so I try very hard not be critical.
We’ve been having these discussions for a good ten years now and nothing seems to be changing.

Mumsnet should have a separate board for daily threads of "why is everyone fat?" Unless MN starts these threads themselves cos of the engagement they get.

Probably because healthy food - fresh fruit, fresh meat and fish; salad stuff etc is expensive and rubbish like chips, chicken nuggets and other processed food is cheap.

I agree, they should all be put in fat shamer's corner or something so they can easily be hidden.

I'm not sure we all feel hunger in the same way. I know people who feel hungry, eat, then forget about food until they're hungry again. My DH is like this. I never stop thinking about food..ever. seriously. I've been thin..a size 8...I still never stopped thinking about food. Therefore the discipline I used to stay that size was monumental compared to someone who doesn't have the food noise in their head all the time.

I was a size 10/12 in the 90s when I weighed 8st 3.

I'm now 10st and still a size 10/12.

Thats part of the problem.

Having a child who has recently recovered ( almost) from an eating disorder (along with the suicide attempts and self- harm), I think there might be worse things to be than fat.

I agree, it’s a major health crisis. Though the likes of mounjaro and ozempic are on the rise for weight loss. My friend uses mounjaro and she had lots an awful lot of weight.

Mounjaro sorted me out to the tune of 5 stone. I never want to be fat again. It was horrible and Im having a very early hip replacement because of it. Hopefully give lost enough weight that my other joints won't go.

I would have previously agreed, always being a very slim person with no metabolism issues.

However, now I am struggling hugely with weight because of some necessarily prescription medication that I cannot be without.

My diet is excellent, I exercise excessively and nothing helps.

Dont judge when you don’t know the story.

I've got fatter as I have got older. I was a size 10/12 in my youth I measured 34/24/34 and there was nothing out of the ordinary about that in the 70s and 80s, I would say I was pretty average. I can only recall a couple of overweight girls at my school, it really was unusual to see anyone who was very big. I think it is a multi factoral thing, the only fast food we could get was Kentucky and MacDonalds and there were only one outlet of each in the town I grew up in, there was no delivery so no way you could have a burger and fries delivered to your door. While I was not and never have been keen on exercise we did do a lot of walking. When I was pregnant I gained minimal weight and was back in my Levis when my baby was a week old, to be fair this is a family trait, all the women in my family are lucky enough to ping back into shape. So why am i fat now? I am of course much older and I admit to being greedy and lazy! But I do worry when I see young women half my age who are even bigger than me and wonder what the health impact will be for them when they are my age. I think fast food has got a lot to answer for, if I open my front door and turn left I can reach a Subway, a Dunkin Donuts and a Kentucky in 5 mins, if I turn right it takes 10 mins to reach two pizza places, an ice cream parlour, a burger bar, and several other take aways.

I agree I think people are blind to it I’ve had a a baby recently and was talking about wanting to loose the baby weight. Have had responses from people saying I don’t need to loose weight I’m not fat etc I definitely overweight on my bmi it tells me I am.

There is always one Lampard...

This. I heard a family friend gossiping about a friend whose son had died at 19. “She has put on loads of weight it’s awful and now she needs a knee replacement”

whereas I’d think if you come out of the trauma of your child dying only 4 stone overweight you’re wining life really.

said family friend reminds me a lot of some of the posters on this thread

theyre just being nice and trying to make sure a new mum isn’t feeling shit about her self. Lucky you that you have people around you who care about you that much

I’m somewhere between you and your DH! I think about food in that I make sure that the week ‘balances’ overall so I don’t gain weight, i.e. if I know I’ve got a barbecue coming up, I’ll have a couple of days of clean eating / a calorie deficit beforehand. I used to be more laid back about food, but since my metabolism ground to a halt I have to give it a bit more thought, unfortunately.

Who uses more than 500g of mince for 4 people? Surely that’s just too much meat?

I don’t know.. the amount of people now using weight loss injections maybe in a couple of years the stats will look different? They are an incredible drug (not without potential side effects I know). It it’s helping people lose weight that they’ve been trying to lose for years.

I keep getting a Facebook pop up of the Benidorm strip last night showing Brits out having a good time.
God know why I'm getting this but that's another thing.
In the 2 videos I've seen there has literally been only 1 person who is not overweight be it male or female. It's shocking.

Well said. I got to 20 stone after both parents died and it helped with my grief to be able to comfort eat whenever I wanted, once it wasn’t so raw I lost it all again. It was like a big hug at the time

Eating has become a national past-time - any time, any place, anywhere. Morning coffee has to be accompanied by a large slice of commercially produced gateau and afternoon tea by sandwiches and cakes (plural).

You only have to read the good reviews given to eateries based on their "large portions" to realise there's a real problem. We've become a nation of gluttons.

Ha, I remember the dissonance rewarding myself with a tub of ice-cream for burning off 400kcal on the treadmill.

I was noticing this recently. I went to the theatre and was shocked at the amount of people who were overweight and not just slightly overweight either.

Since that theatre trip, for some reason I can't help noticing it even more now.

Some people think being able to move = healthy. It’s like the guy that ran the London marathon at 25 stone. You’re still 25 stone, that’s still putting strain on your body. Being able to move doesn’t negate that fact