To think some people on here make too many excuses for parents feeding their kids unhealthy food to the point they become overweight or even obese?

[Giselle374]

I know a lot people are in really difficult situations financially, and the country overall has become harder and harder due to COL.

But I feel uneasy with the way some posts on this seem to imply that being in a hard financial position means unhealthy food almost can't be avoided.

People usually choose to have children, and food is a basic thing. If you didn't wash your child, or clothe them as best as you could, would that be similarly excusable? Arguably food is more important than many other potential areas since cancer and other illnesses are a very real danger if kids are overweight or obese young.

My mother had financial difficulties when I was young: she was a single parent and on minimum wage, and she hated cooking, ate very badly before I was born. But she ensured her meals (porridge, fish, eggs, veg based mostly) were healthy even if they were plain. I was barely ever allowed sugary or processed food. That's one of the things I'm most grateful for.

I do understand families in a depressing situation with few things for the kids to enjoy use food as something enjoyable sometimes
..areas need more resources, green space, libraries etc .

This isn't to deny the challenges of feeding kids healthily. But I think some posts on here lean too far to taking responsibility from the parents,,and I don't think that's helpful.

It's actually the same as social media, the corporations who own it pay psychologist to make social media as addictive as possible, to make doomscrolling almost irresistible and to target advertising to people in a way people don't even realise it's happening but they make money off you the longer you look at an advert they suggested to you so they use algorithms created by psychologists to work out what you will look at the longest, literally measured in milliseconds and keep pumping that into your feed. It's just about money they don't actively want to destroy people's health because that wouldn't benefit them.

It's only now 15 years on that we recognise how harmful social media is, how it's destroying attention spans and causing mental health crises in teenagers and the government are now looking at putting restrictions on it like they are UPFs but it's too little too late. Our generation have been the guinea pigs of corporations using scientists to make their products addictive to drive revenue and it's destroying our health but no one knew any better at the beginning to stop it before it happened.

I really hope the next generation have it better and are protected from these things by the restrictions being designed now. I have faith they will be because every generation after mine (millennials) are eating healthier and smoking and drinking less than mine did. They are actively pursuing health not hedonism and they are educated in what the corporations are doing because now we have hindsight. Hopefully the future is bright.

All meds come with risks. Gallstones are relatively small risk of WLI considering the millions on them… and the risks of obesity being worse. Loads of meds have much worse possible effects but nobody harps on about it - methotrexate can cause lung fibrosis, some eczema and acne meds can cause foetal abnormalities.

Even eating too much raw rhubarb can cause kidney stones…

Agree that it’s about profit more than anything, like tobacco companies before them though I think producers of UPF foods are very well aware but not willing to respond to the health risks they pose. There is no way they are not as if not more informed about them.

It’s not just obesity of course as others have said - blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, cancers, diabetes, depression, dementia, tooth decay - all have been linked to UPF’s. I reckon we need a national campaign equivalent to smoking and seat belts. What people are doing to their children is so dreadful.

Yes but we supervise and warn people of the risks and check people are suitable for the medication first. Maybe i misunderstood about what was meant by free for all obese people. I just meant not all obese people are suitable to take it so we need to ensure they are seen by a doctor not just ordering it online. They arent a solution for everyone even though I think they are marvellous for those who can take them.

I read it as prescribed by the NHS and monitored as any NHS medication is. Not just thrown at any obese people with no monitoring.

'FFS no the difference was not just portion size. The difference was no UPF you just said it yourself!'

There's no need for expletives and such aggression. Calm down.

I'll try again. Years ago there wasn't UPF food everywhere but there wasn't health advice either. So we grew up on a very unwholesome diet of pies, mash, chips, ice cream, custard creams. I didn’t have any fat friends. There was not this obesity crisis because we didn't eat constantly. We lived on carbs though, just not huge portions. Have genes and hormones changed in the last 30yrs?

So. Constant cheapo carbs in the old days, 'upf' nowadays. All not good if you eat too much of it.

People eat too much and blame hormones/genes/upf.

It is the amount they consume that is the issue as proven by magical WLI.

They do need supervision and monitoring. There will be issues in years to come for sure. Still any long term complications due to WLI will balance out with taking the pressure off the nhs with obesity related illnesses.

Good grief. We all know it's the amount that people are eating that is the problem. The problem is you don't understand the root cause of the overeating. Understanding the root cause is the only way to address it on a society wide level.

It is not simple greed. As evidenced by people losing weight when their hormone imbalances are corrected, their faulty insulin systems are corrected and metabolic causes are addressed.

Genes and hormones have not changed in 30 years, the environment that they operate in has changed which makes it more difficult to overcome them. There is SO MUCH SUGAR in EVERYTHING you buy off the shelf now. Sugar is addictive and will ruin your metabolism. You clearly can't understand that and it's like banging my head against a brick wall. When people were eating all the "diet food" in the early 2000s like all the fat free yogurts and slimming world bars they actually gained weight, because all the fat was taken out and replaced with sugar. It wasn't real food and it left them hungrier than before they ate it. That's what UPF does, it funnels high amount of calories into your body whilst actually making you more hungry so you get trapped in a cycle of over eating. The easiest way to lose weight is to eat a whole food diet and avoid UPF but that's extremely difficult to do in today's environment because most things you can buy from a shop are UPF, everyone is already addicted to them and giving them up is hard and eating them in moderation is even harder. UPFs cause metabolic disruption, that is the problem. When trying to make good choices and eat less or better your are not operating on an even playing field. It's not a moral failing to be fat or a lack of will power. Many overweight people have been dieting all their lives with no success and are ashamed but shame doesn't make them thin.

Simple analogy, you grew up in a nice house with no drugs around. You knew drugs existed somewhere but you weren't exposed to them and only knew one drug addict. 10 years later you raise children in a crack house. 2/3 of them become drug addicts. You can't understand why because drugs have always been around but you didn't know any drug addicts when you were a child. For some reason you don't understand the basic concept that when you raise children in an environment full of addictive substances and it is normalised by everyone being addicted to them and it's cheap and easy to get they are vastly more likely to become addicted.

'There is SO MUCH SUGAR in EVERYTHING you buy off the shelf now.'

SUGAR has been around forever. Again, as you're struggling to grasp this, we grew up eating crap but it wasn't called upf then it was good old carbs.

Stop medicalising obesity, it just enables folk to think they can't help it because hormones and genes. You could write another dissertation on impulse control and how some people like to alway blame other factors rather than their own self control?

We weren't obese years ago when our diets were equally as bad but for different reasons, I remember the 'pop' van coming round and we'd all swig cream soda or coke/lemonade and not the diet variety. Then go the chip shop for crap for tea but we weren't obese because we didn't eat massive amounts nonstop.

In fairness, what we ate in the 80s/90s was unhealthy, but the reason our family ate less of it was because we were dirt poor.

There was no chippy tea, and we used to have a Penguin biscuit on a Friday as a treat. A pack would last my mum a month.

We did however have turkey twizzlers, Findus pancakes and oven chips for every meal.

We were also out a lot more than kids are now. We used to go out all day, travel miles and then come home for the streetlights coming on. Most of us wouldn’t allow our children to just disappear all day now, and they’re nowhere near as active because they’re not out independently climbing trees.

I dont know why these sorts of threads descend into arguments about 'why people are fat'

All of the above, which appear to be opposing views, are correct

Humans are set up differently to each other hormonally, this is true
We do eat too much as a nation, our portion sizes are too big
We eat too much of food that also makes us want more of that food and perpetuates a cycle of this
Some of us are prone to be affected by that more than others due to our genes
But all of us are living in an abundant society which wasnt really seen up until around 40-50 years ago.
Humans are animals and are opportunists food wise, we are programmed to seek out food and eat it there and then because we dont know when its coming next. We are prone to seek out calorie dense foods as a survival technique

In a society where food is not so plentiful and culturally it is frowned upon to overeat/snack/eat in public, this is countered in terms of intake

In our society, all of those things are culturally accepted and even encouraged, food as 'leisure' and 'fun', snacking culture, treat culture. Add that into lack of exercise and some of our genetic make up, massive portions and you create an obese society

This is what we have

There's nothing wrong with sugar. It's when it's hidden in everything that doesn't even taste sweet as a preservative so your pancreas never gets a break from it that is the problem.

The simplest way I can explain this is you won't get fat eating pie and mash in the right amounts. If your metabolism is functioning correctly you will eat until you are full, and then stop, and not think about eating for another four hours. If your metabolism is disrupted by artificial ingredient and you have become insulin resistant, you will feel compelled to eat too much pie and mash because you will be hungrier. If you manage to display the virtue of Self Control you will leave your correct size meal still hungry, think about food constantly for the next two hours then when your blood sugar reaches a low enough point because your body can't regulate it properly anymore you will binge on high sugar foods because your brain drives you to do that in response to low blood sugar as a survival mechanism. You will then have actually consumed more calories than if you had just ate too much pie and mash in the first place and feel shame, disgust and get stuck in a binge cycle. It's biology. You can't deny biology. If you remove the artificial shit and hidden sugar from your diet this stops happening and you can maintain a healthy weight through intuitive eating but it's incredibly hard to give up addictive things when they are all around you.

Parents raising their children on UPFs are priming their children to be stuck in the cycle in the future, they are literally putting biological building blocks for obesity into their bodies. It's abuse in my opinion.

And no, scientists will not stop researching the root causes of obesity and creating tools for people to overcome them. If they did that the cross will only worse and we wouldn't have drugs like Metformin and WLI which improve people's health immeasurably. So no, we won't stop doing that because it upsets some people who can survive on self control and spite alone.

Please go to a drug addict meeting and tell them that if they were just better people they would have the mental strength to overcome addiction. They don't need any help and addiction is a choice they are making, all they have to do is find some impulse control. See how that goes down.

'Please go to a drug addict meeting and tell them that if they were just better people they would have the mental strength to overcome addiction. They don't need any help and addiction is a choice they are making, all they have to do is find some impulse control. See how that goes down'

Well I won't go to a meeting thanks but I would say exactly the same thing if asked. They need help and support <obviously> to live healthily but it isn't their genes, hormones or anything else causing them to make bad choices. Once people accept responsibility they are then empowered to make changes. The victim mentality that some enable doesn't help anyone.

@Gloriia

Do you not believe in addictive personalities, etc?

Bold.

I think people like to use that label to enable their behaviour.

Well we played out, but we certainly didn't travel miles, it tended to involve playing in the street and making dens in the park. We weren't athletes running miles. We used to eat sugar all day long without becomng 'addicted'.. Cola cubes, fruit salads, black jacks. Teeth were often in a terrible state becaue of the masses amount of sugar we consumed.Treacle pudding for tea etc etc. Sugar is not a new thing despite a pp's concerns.

We ate terribly but obesity was not the problem it is now because of portion size.

Simple but very inconvenient truth.

Ah.

But then if you understood behaviour you’d know that people don’t do things for no reason.

Behaviour is generally communication, or the result of an unmet need. People don’t just wake up one day and decide to “misbehave,” whether that’s drugs or otherwise.

It’s always causal, and always has a root.

That may be why you didn’t gain weight, but some of us come from homes where plates are piled high and there’s an expectation you finish it.

My mother still makes gigantic Sunday roasts, and even as adults you get a side eye if you don’t finish it.

Just as you didn’t cycle 15miles to the nearest country park, some people didn’t have parents giving them small plates of dinner.

So is your opinion just that people are simply greedier now than they were then? It’s an interesting theory. What do you think happened to make an entire generation of people greedier than the one before?

That's exactly her theory. That's what's so frustrating. The inability to look into WHY.

Also not understanding that sugar isn't a synonym for UPF. UPF means man made, containing unnatural ingredients that interfere with the body's ability to utilise the nutrients in the food. It doesn't just mean carbs.

If it is the case that we’re all just greedier, there must surely be a reason for that? Interested to hear what that poster thinks it may be!

It's all so readily available isn't it. Online orders, supermarkets open 24/7. Years ago shops shut at 5 and that was it.

People are unable to self moderate, it isn't because of 'hidden sugars' or sneaky upfs it's because some make bad choices. Which is up to them but as said it isn't all hormones/genes and insulin issues.

Can you just explain for me why I could eat the exact same food as someone else and gain weight whilst they lost or maintained weight?

Because I (and science) think it’s my metabolism, but apparently that’s not real so…

Ok…. But surely portion size (which you say is the issue) doesn’t really have any connection with online orders and shops being open 24/7? Those factors don’t make portions bigger. So why is this generation eating bigger portions than the one before? Something must have changed. It’s highly unlikely that an entire generation would start collectively behaving in this new, undesirable way without there being something behind it? Why are people making ‘bad choices’ (ie too big portions) now, when they didn’t before? Why have a whole generation become unable to self moderate?