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

very good post, I agree with you

In that case I think you should avoid the topic with her. She must feel self conscious.

Bland but healthy. Food now is awful.

@earlyballsorry what kind of question is this? What are you getting at, or trying to say.

Do you seriously think that some excess skin undermines the health benefits of no longer being obese.

Do you understand that chronic obesity is a death sentence. That it leads to higher chances of strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, liver disease, limb loss, some cancers etc etc etc.

Why would excess skin matter? Steady and slow weight loss with exercise reduces the chance of excess skin, but for some people depending on age and amount to lose and other factors some will be inevitable.

But surely you can see that this isn’t about your vile interpretation of what is attractive. Or even about looks at all. It’s about health at the population and individual level.

Excess skin FFS

People like that are toxic and don’t have your best interests at heart

Awful in what sense?

Yep, being a good cook with the ability to acquire and try whatever ingredients you want makes it much more likely you'll stumble across stuff you find it harder to resist!

Processed, full of saturated fats, low fibre, low protein. If we went back to potatoes, meat and two veg for dinner, we’d probably see waistlines drop. But the vast majority of the country wish to eat processed food instead.

I was talking about cooking from scratch though...I cook from scratch a lot but the food I make is imo far nicer than what previous generations ate...like I said, boiled veg, potatoes, unseasoned meat. Nowadays I have access to different ingredients, TV shows and the internet showing me how to cook different more exciting dishes....

Yes and you’re no doubt eating far more and using more oil etc than you would have 100 years ago

Well yes because my whole point that the food I can make from scratch is far more varied and flavourful than it would have been decades ago, therefore me, and probably others end up eating more of it. I mean how much plain meat and boiled potatoes could you really eat?

The shift is that we now eat for taste...so even if you're making it from scratch the temptation is so much more.

Which is exactly the problem.

So not just upfs then...like I said cooking from scratch is not a magic bullet which will cure obesity.

Well UPFs, even in a small quantity, disrupt your hunger signals. So yes, they are the root of the issue.

What does this mean? What disrupts your hunger signals? UPF isn’t a defined thing, so it can’t be that. What specifically is it that interrupts your hunger signals and how?!

The compounds in ultra processed foods to make them literally addictive. Go and research them.

Thanks to the couple of posters who have already pointed out the fucking obvious to Blueskies25 as well as their very poor reading comprehension skills.
Just to clarify for anyone who is equally dense

I am 62 years and have been on many diets . I actually have a spreadsheet of the more successful ones over the years (I know I am a geek)

16 years old - Weight watchers - loss of 4 stone in 8 months. Made me a size 14 or so. Maintained for about 18 months before I started putting it on again. Ended up a size 20

22 years old - weight watchers - loss of 3 stone in 8 months maintained it for about a year. Made me a size 14 again. Then put it all back on plus more by the time I was 26. Was a size 22

26 Weight watchers - loss of 6.5 stone (for my first wedding) in 11 months. Size 12-14. Hardly maintained at all as my marriage was miserable and I put it all back on by the time we divorced a couple of years later. Ended up a size 20-22

30 years old - Lighter life- loss of 5 stone in 10 months. Put a some back on quickly but maintained 3 stone of it more or less thoughout my 30s. This made me a size 18-20 or so throughout my 30s. The most stable period of my life for weight - albeit quite high

40 years old- Had a baby - actually was almost the same weight after he was born as before he was born (maybe 7lbs heavier) . I gave up dieting and decided to try to stop putting on weight Now really a size 20 rather than 18

These are just the diets that worked where I lost a lot of weight. There were countless others in my 'maintaining' phases where I would diet for a few weeks at a time to lose the weight that crept on over months, unless I spent the whole time hungry. By the time I was 50 I was a size 22 again

Then I just got fed up and couldn't face another 'successful diet, where everyone says 'well done' when I knew any weight loss was unlikely to last. I just gave up trying to lose weight.

Those periods of losing a large amout of weight are seriously all consuiming in that every thought in your head is about what you will eat that day and how much you weigh. I just couldn't do that again, I was too happy with the rest of my life.

Now I am in my 60s and a size 22, I probably do need to lose a couple of stone for the sake of my knees and to be able to climb a hill a bit better. I can probably do that though without it taking over my life. I also won't be aiming to be slim, just a bit lighter than I am now and that is fine with me

What are they?

what is the compound?

I don’t need to research them. I have before, and that’s how I know what you’re saying isn’t true.

what I don’t get is why you’re saying it

Supermarkets in general have a lot to answer for in the way their stores are laid out to maximise their sales, but when it comes to tackling obesity, Lidl stands out for its blatant disregard for the issue by placing its bakery section just inside the entrance doors.

Some adults ignore it, or only pick up bread, but some of those with children (and sometimes without children) clearly struggle to resist pleas for cakes and buns to eat on the way round the store...and the other issue there is whether those goodies are paid for at the tills.

I think it's because obesity is incorrectly seem to cause x,y,z when new research is showing that obesity is a symptom and not a cause.

Somewhat agree with this. I think if work life balance was better, and weather (obviously can’t control that), things would be different.

look at Spain - long lunches, fresh food etc. I’ve never seen an overweight Spanish person!

Spain has an obesity problem

Read ultra processed people by Dr Chris Van Tulken. It is literally one of the main points of issue. That UPFs disrupt your hunger signals, making you eat more and consume more calories.

We have lost sight of what a healthy weight is. I have recently lost 30 kg Mounjaro. I was a size 18 now an 8 and slap bang in the middle of healthy bmi. What shocked me was that at size 16 (the national average for adult females in be the UK ) I was still 82 kg which was nearly 20 kg overweight.. that’s over 40 lbs of fat that mostly sits around the middle. .. and this is considered normal. We have ‘normalised’ being fat.
I believe that half the problem is that we have forgotten how to feel hungry. We spend so much of our day filling our faces that we have lost the ability to feel truly hungry and then and only then - eat.a protein heavy meal with slow release low carb veg legumes and nuts. Do that and you won’t ever need to snack .

Your issue seems to stem from a complete lack of self control