Perceptions of 'healthy' or 'overweight' are really skewed by the area you live in?

[alwaysdream]

I'm sure I'll get roasted for this, but here goes anyway...

I live in an area of London where pretty much nobody is 'overweight.' Particularly young people.

Last night, in Wembley Stadium (Harry Styles concert), the ONLY food available was chicken and chips or doughnuts. That's it. And - I know this will sound very judgemental - but I'd say about 7 / 10 people were quite 'overweight,' but all walking around in tiny shorts and cropped tops, etc (I know this is the vibe at this kind of event). It made me wonder if this is 'normal' for young people, on a national level? I know it sounds judgemental, but AIBU? Are most teens overweight where you live?

I do think being bigger has become normal to the extent that slimmer people are often thought to be underweight. I'm a size 8 and 5"2. Apart from a very stressful time at uni where I didn't eat properly, I've always had a healthy BMI, and yet I've had people tell me that I'm too skinny or underweight. I put this down to the average size having gone up as much as it has. I have been a size 8 since I was about 16. I still have the occasional item of clothing from then, which still fits me, so I know I'm not the one who has changed. In a lot of shops now, I struggle to find clothes that aren't too big for me. If they go down to an 8, the 8 doesn't fit. I've even had shops that go down to a 6 and that's been too big, so big I question if a 4 would also be too big. I understand the need to provide bigger sizing, but why make an 8 what would have been a 10 15 years ago.

Not sure how it relates to Harry Styles,

I think , but could be wrong ,that using Harry Styles concert as a reference was because op saw thousands of people in one are at the same time and was able to make observations about their rough age bracket, weight and style.

Weight comes down to genetics and lifestyle choices. One you can control and the other you can't 🤷‍♀️ A weight one person can contol almost effortlessly will be a lifetime battle for another (irrespective of the current number on the scale).

When you really know people you realise that there is sometimes quite disordered eating going on to maintain weight. Hearing people who are a size 10-12 taking about GLP1's etc.

Comparisons between teens at state and grammar schools are interesting. Primary food options at state level are ok imo but once you get to secondary it's a different story. It's burger, chips, pizza, panini's, doughnuts . Bacon and sausage buttys in the morning. And it's all free choice with very few healthy ones in the mix. It's not changed from when I was at school when it was pizza chips and beans every single day (I think they had a very small number of jacket potatoes and salads which the staff tended to get as they could go straight to the front). In contrast, my DS went to an event at one of the private schools and said the lunch was the most amazing thing ever and sounded quite healthy and fresh.

What I have have also noticed is that most of the viral food trends are ridiculous. Loaded burgers and milkshakes, huge american XL portions etc. My teen would also feel like he wasn't welcome in a lot of cafes serving ordinary healthy things and will opt for big fast food chains because they aren't so worried by having teens in so he tends to frequent KFC, McD's, Greggs etc. I have suggested to him that if he is polite and respectful he may be surprised, but honestly I'm not too sure he's wrong in some cases and there are ND safe food requirements in his group. What I have found personally is the choices you make in your teens tend to set your path for life when it comes to weight.

If you've never been overweight, it's easy to be judgemental and make assumptions about what people are/aren't doing for their health and what barriers they might have (money, ND, genetics, health, injury, time, education). These threads always come across as quite sneery tbh.

@LostInTheDream not sure what’s disordered about taking GLPs as a 10-12 to be honest. GLPs enable people to more easily eat a balanced, healthy diet and not become overweight. Whether there is an element of vanity feels irrelevant, if it’s a drug that helps people stay in a healthy weight range I don’t know why we’d view it different to other drugs that enable people to stay within healthy ranges such as blood pressure medication.

I live In the Cotswolds and I can say there is not one obese/overweight child in my children’s school. Also very few overweight parents, however everyone lives a very outdoor life and there is sport 3-4 afternoons a week at school plus Saturday matches. There is also outdoor ed and farming ed, so that teaches an understanding of food and where it comes from. We also couldn’t get a takeaway if we tried, it just doesn’t exists where we are.
i also find it interesting when I need to head into a city the difference I see with people’s weight and eating habits versus what I see where I live.

Took dd to Lana del rey at Wembley and I didn’t see many overweight teens. Similar age group. Maybe it’s Harry styles fans 😂

I was there too! Great show wasn't it! Shania at 60 in those boots wow 😂 so impressive

anyway yes I was shocked as well at the amount of overweight young women. Sorry but I was. I didn't comment or stare or anything (I'm only judgy in my head)

a pp said it's because there were thousands and thousands of us all crammed in and so we saw it up close. Nothing to do with Harry!

I had the chicken and chips it was great although we shared (a mumsnet favourite)

and!!! We had some pick and mix as well if anyone is interested 😂

I just don't believe a word you said.

I completely agree. I live by the seaside so in the winter it’s just locals and most of us (pre ozempic) were a bunch of fat mfs. In the summer a lot of out of towners come down and I must admit they’d remind me that I’m not as good looking as I thought I was 😂

I think facts and emotion often get combined when speaking about a topic such as this.

Taking emotion out of it, yes people are far larger than they have been. Yes we have a bigger obesity problem than the rest of Europe. No there is zero shock factor to this, have you been living on a cave?

Why is this?

Many reasons. Cost of living. It’s far cheaper to buy processed foods which make up a meal, than fresh ingredients. People need to eat. Sometimes they simply don’t have the luxury of selecting what. In this scenario more should be done to either make food cheaper (won’t be happening for some time), or make processed food healthier. This also comes with a cost so it’s a lose lose situation. This is also why statistically, those in less affluent areas have a higher chance of being overweight.

We also work very different hours to much of Europe. Many Europeans have longer lunches than us. Schools here seem to rush children to shovel their food down within 10/15 minutes, this will create habits later in life. We also have a naturally very different diet, lot more carb heavy as root veg is historically what we have grown well due to weather conditions as well as the nature of the work we did.

We cook less from scratch both due to cost of ingredients and time…but also knowledge. Adults now are often the generation who got meat and 2 veg. They also got introduced to convenience food which has got routinely more unhealthy. Many often simply don’t know how to cook. Cooking lessons on a budget aren’t something taught in schools.

Throw that in with the fact we are ‘moving less’, again for various reasons - long working hours, and for children’s accessibility to sport - once again due to cost, there will naturally be weight problems. It’s very sad that children cannot easily access extra curricular sports now without significant money paid out by parents.

Therefore yes statistically we are much larger and following inline with America. We eat far more processed foods, we have less money and we are moving less. That’s all factual.

Emotionally I don’t think this solely relies on parents at all. The government could be doing a lot more to make all of this accessible (not speaking about Labour, all governments. It’s not been a focus for years). Therefore, no, I don’t think you should be either shocked nor judging anyone. We’ve been heading this way for years. Better people have self confidence than have shame due to their size.

Did you need to remortgage your house for the pic n mix

Close your eyes or stay indoors if people are triggering you that much. A few words come to mind over people like yourself, but I'll keep them to myself. However, you're about as vile or even worse than a playground bully - That's me being polite. Please stop forcing your sly narrative on us. You were too spineless to even say what you really wanted to, which I suppose is also a bonus. People like you are ugly on the inside, making your outsides just as ugly. Ever thought the public don't want to look at ugly people like yourself?

Have a day off. Cretin.

I teach in a very wealthy part of Oxford but live in an ordinary market town.
The difference in physical appearance of the kids and teenagers I see is very marked indeed.

YANBU. I think the clothing choices make it more obvious too. Teens/early 20s very overweight wearing crop tops, skin tight leggings or shorts, and fat bulging out everywhere. Can't understand why their parents/whoever they live with don't kindly say something.

I’ve looked up statistics the least overweight place in the uk is Brighton and Hove followed by parts of London and the most is Wigan, South Tyneside etc

Why Brighton and Hove comes top, is it that it has a younger demographic? Wealthier?

1. Brighton and Hove
2. Richmond upon Thames
3. Kensington and Chelsea
4. Camden
5. Wandsworth
6. Westminster
7. Hammersmith and Fulham
8. Islington
9. Kingston upon Thames
10. Wokingham
11. St Albans
12. Elmbridge
13. Guildford
14. South Cambridgeshire
15. Hart
16. Mole Valley
17. Waverley
18. Brentwood
19. Windsor and Maidenhead

1. West Lindsey
2. Hartlepool
3. Bolsover
4. Wigan
5. South Tyneside
6. Stoke-on-Trent
7. Doncaster
8. Sunderland
9. Barnsley
10. Knowsley
11. Blackpool
12. Middlesbrough
13. Rotherham
14. Blaenau Gwent
15. Redcar and Cleveland
16. Kingston upon Hull
17. Wakefield
18. County Durham
19. North East Lincolnshire

Is your concern their health or their appearance? If they were still overweight but wearing caftans, would that be ok with you?

I’m silly to reply as these type of posts keep popping up and it’s hard not to think it’s trolling.

@AfogatoFirenze well that is up to you but I can tell you that is exactly how it is where I live. Prep schools place a lot of importance on outdoor activities and sport plus we live in a rural area so children learning about outdoor education and farming as it is part of the community.

Completely up to you what you want to believe but I have no reason to make any of it up as that would be an awfully odd thing to do.

Maybe quite a lot of behaviours I see women doing are considered normal to a lot of people, but it isn't normal.

I don't see many men eating one meal a day, weighing food at every meal, limiting carbs etc unless they are on a training programme. I certainly don't think it's especially normal for the control of food to be occupying so much brain space that you are considering GLP1's so you don't need to think about how hungry you are all the time.

I think that the types of food on offer, additives to processed food, and portion sizes that have been normalised mean we have issues that we just didn't have 50 years ago. But no, I don't think considering GLP1's to maintain a healthy weight you have already been maintaining is normal behaviour.

Whilst i kind of understand what you're saying it feels a bit like must fight to stay at this BMI range at all costs 🤷‍♀️ Nothing worse than being overweight. It isn't just for health, it's fear of the judgement (this thread being proof of why).
Plus, no licenced private provider would prescribe it to you, which is rather telling.

I agree with you Op. I was in Alderley Edge recently which is an affluent area. The vast majority of people there looked slim and healthy. Conversely I had to go to Crewe town centre where the majority were overweight.

As a nation, we are increasingly overweight. We have all read about ‘The Obesity Crisis’ - rocketing type 1 diabetes and a generation of children whose life expectancy is lower than previous generations - in the papers. Your concert was a reflection of this.

Your area of London may be an unusual geographical pocket in having largely slim people, especially young. It’s a cultural thing.

Certain areas of London are expensive to live in. So the people - especially young people - who live there have to have higher than average salaries in order to be able to afford to live there. In order to earn higher salaries they likely have higher levels of education. Likely come from higher social-economic groups where healthy/ nutritious food, sport and exercise are prioritised and (for them) affordable. Brought up with an
’eat your greens’/ ‘get out for a walk’ culture within their own family and amongst family friends.

In geographical areas with lower socio-economic demographics this is not always the case. Fast and ultra processed food is cheap, prevalent and and readily available. Maybe within these demographics there is more of a culture of watching tv/ playing video games rather than getting out for a walk.

We have also made ‘body positivity’ much more prevalent in the UK. In many other cultures (eg French, Eastern European) your mother will not shy away from telling you you are getting fat.

Maybe it’s just Harry Styles fans?! I work in state secondary schools and the vast majority of teens are a healthy weight. Maybe a couple in each class are overweight. I wouldn’t expect fancy food at a concert either. They generally serve fast food!

Where I live you rarely see a really obese person, maybe a few people who are a bit overweight.

But where my mum lives is very different to the extent that many shops stock clothes accordingly so if you are a size 8 you find it harder to find clothes.

I was in the Netherlands recently and most people are slim there, because they cycle everywhere - it also helps when you are taller. If you see fat people there you can guarantee they are British, American, or German.

Agree that fast food is served in stadiums and a portion of chips once in a while is fine and won't make you fat.

But crop tops and fat bellies don't really work together....