Fat people even more likely to be affected by COVID than previously thought

[pocketem]

UK government scientists are urgently investigating whether people living with obesity may be disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, after emerging data from intensive care units suggested a stronger link than previously thought.

New data from the UK’s Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre, which has been presented to ministers and SAGE scientists, has found that the proportion of severely obese patients in ICUs is twice the proportion in the general population.

Ministers have become increasingly alarmed by data coming out of Britain’s intensive care units, with some members of the government suggesting obesity may end up being a factor in the UK’s higher death toll.

The UK is currently projected to have the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe. Around 1 in 4 UK adults are obese. In 2018, the WHO found that the UK had the third highest obesity rate in Europe, behind only Malta and Turkey.

More here:
www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/uk-scientists-coronavirus-obesity-link

Interestingly my friends 14 yr old son who is type 1 diabetic in insulin has to count carbs, so does a friends dad who is 60 & type 2 diabetic & has to use insulin.

Mikki2019 yes probably although I often do dry January and never lose a single pound!

Quer I switched to having meals on breakfast plates good tip

Loling at the thought that so many people started to gain weight in the '80s because they followed 'government advice'. I must have missed the bit where the government advised us to eat more takeaways, bigger portions, doughnuts, meet the kids out of school with snacks, eat snacks in the cinema, drink wine every night, start driving everywhere instead of walking, and all the other things we didn't use to do prior to then.
Oh no, it's because we don't eat enough lard now. Yeah sure.

@Querlouse yes def takes longer than a month of cutting the alcohol , maybe more like 3

I speak from experience lol x

Portion size is key.

I lost 4 stone - started a year ago. My BMI was 29 and it's now 21. I feel so much better, have more energy, my blood pressure is lower, all good. My fybromyalgia symptoms improved no end, and I have less joint pain than before.

When I started to lose weight, I cut out the sweet stuff (sugar is evil) and the first couple of weeks were awful. I was constantly hungry, then like the above poster, I got used to it. I counted calories, but ate a lot of vegetables, pulses. Only wholegrain starches (carbs).

Portion size is crucial because you can eat a lot of healthy food and gain weight. I eat about a half of what I used to eat, and feel full. You do adjust to having smaller portions.

Work colleagues, one in particular thought she ate a healthy diet (she did) but she ate huge amounts - a huge of pasta for lunch, 4 rounds of bread with her homemade healthy soup - and was very overweight.

I know that there are sometimes medical reasons that hinders weight loss, but a lot of people, regardless of this, eat too much. But some people want to blame it on their income/their genetics/their busy life style, whatever. Some will be denial about the health risks of being too heavy, but they are real.

Clothes sizes have got bigger along with the portions that have grown over the last few years.
So a size 12 now, would have been a size 16, 30 years ago. We are encouraged to eat too much.

Just because a lot of people are overweight (and I was one of them, and in denial) doesn't mean we should compare ourselves to them, or criticise them. But ultimately we are the only people who can sort it out. Don't minimize the health risks because they are real, but if you feel you are happier overweight, combined with the risks, then that's absolutely fine. But if you're not, do something about it. No one else can do it for you.

feelingverylazytoday

bloody hell just bought. sunflower oil, as id read it was less fattening than the others i can only use coconut oil with some things as it can alter tastes too much in some food, and im not using those horrendous oil sprays they destroy your pans. whats the best oil to use then?

Loling at the thought that so many people started to gain weight in the '80s because they followed 'government advice'. I must have missed the bit where the government advised us to eat more takeaways, bigger portions, doughnuts, meet the kids out of school with snacks, eat snacks in the cinema, drink wine every night, start driving everywhere instead of walking, and all the other things we didn't use to do prior to then.
Oh no, it's because we don't eat enough lard now. Yeah sure.

Of course there is some truth in what you are saying and for sure, alongside the government guidelines changing there has been mass consumerism. But note what you have listed there - it is all SUGAR snacks. We didn't demonise sugar, we demonised fat and went for the calorie control route.

I guarantee you that if the snacks on offer were cheese and fat based products (e.g. pork scratchings) we would not snack in the way we do. No one snacks a lot when they eat low carb - that's the biology bit which is important. The point is that we have let sugar take a hold because of the guidelines, we have slept walked into allowing consumerism of sugar, which at it's heart works (we all want more and more) because of biology.

We didn't demonise sugar, we demonised fat and went for the calorie control route

My mum had a copy of Pure White and Deadly back in the early 80s. People definitely knew about sugar and all diets etc recommended restricting sugar.

Loads of people used sweeteners as well. I'm not sure its true thst we didn't demonise sugar.

We sort of know about sugar. We know that it is 'bad' for you. But we don't necessarily associate it with being overweight. We associate eating fatty foods with being overweight.

The calorie control approach enables this perfectly. In theory I could eat my 1500 calories a day in sugary starchy foods? Plates of pasta, so long as it keeps in the calorie guidelines and is low fat?

calpo, I use olive oil. It is more expensive than vegetable oils. People could just eat the meat with fat on etc too. however as people say above you can get fat on anything even just meat and cheese so whatever you eat most who are over weight need to eat less, full stop.

Most people lose weight whatever they eat if they eat fewer calories. However eating meat, fish, eggs, veg, good fats tend to fill them up more and help them eat fewer calories than bread or potatoes.

The calorie control approach enables this perfectly. In theory I could eat my 1500 calories a day in sugary starchy foods? Plates of pasta, so long as it keeps in the calorie guidelines and is low fat?

Lots of people do lose weight on calorie controlled diets, it doesn't mean they're healthier in terms of what they are eating, but there are many ways to lose weight- the ideal is one which balances weight loss with nourishing the body.

I used to do residential fitness camps
And the first 3 days were terrible
We were literally like junkies having no drugs
Drugs being Sugar / Carbs
But once we got past the 3 night the change was amazing in people .
lots of energy not hungry despite doing intense exercise, skin looked amazing and sleeping well .

One thing I remember is the stuff about
sugar / carbs giving you a bit of high buzz for a short time, then you crash and feel tired so you take more sugar carbs to get the energy levels back then you crash again and rinse and repeat and put on the pounds .

Having a breakfast at 8 am full of carbs / sugars explains why at about 11am you start to feel tired and hungry so you grab a bar of chocolate or a coffee with sugar or something with carbs in and feel better but a few hrs later you feel the same tired and hungry so you eat something to give you a quick boost

This thread is just the epitome of bad nutritional advice given by people with no qualifications whatsoever.

I come from a culture whose cuisine is very carb heavy, we also have one of the lowest rates of obesity in the post-industrial world. Carbs are not the enemy.

I have a BMI of 18-19 (I don't weigh myself routinely) and eat bagels for breakfast and am an avid baker (so I am not a stranger to biscuits, chocolate, cakes, tarts, pizza...). I have eat sensibly with portion control and have never thought of my micro/macro nutrient intake.

Life must be very dull for you people who demonise or beatify certain foods.

Surely you can appreciate that everyone is different though? Some people know that if they eat something sweet they find it hard to stop; as there's no real nutritional value in chocolate etc it does no harm to cut it from your diet. Same with carbs, for some people the crash isn't worth it and they find it hard to control. Just because you're a healthy weight and eat them do you really think that applies to everyone?

And most of what people have said is based on research.

Obesity across Europe is linked to depraviation and poverty. Food is something to look forward to. A £1 pizza is a quick and cheap fix. But if you've had cheap white bread/cerial and cheap sausages etc and haven't moved much, you're going to become obese, especially if you throw in a cheap perry/larger/own brand fizzy drinks. This is well documented.

For a couple of weeks there's been think tanks looking how inequalities are showing up in the Covid crisis.

The most deaths are from deprived areas. It has just been on the BBC afternoon news. This is across the board, obese or not.

If you've got things to look forward to, things to aspire to and pleasure coming from different sources, you have motivation. If your budget for pleasure is a film, high fat food and a drink, then that's what you are going to, because we all need that. If those around you are in the same boat, then you're all going to validate each other and carry on.

Carbs are not the enemy or demonised but I personally feel the physical effects described above if I eat too much of them. Our culture is too carb heavy - for many it’s toast or cereal for breakfast sandwich for lunch pizza or pasta for tea. I know that’s what I used to eat anyway. Then fizzy drinks crisps and biscuits. No wonder we pile on the weight!

The advice hamster wrote is produced by doctors.

But then you have a financial interest in us all continuing to chomp carbs so take your advice with massive pinch of salt 😁

Sorry thought you said you were a baker not that you like to bake!

This thread is just the epitome of bad nutritional advice given by people with no qualifications whatsoever.

As opposed to your study of n=1?

What do you think causes insulin resistance and T2 diabetes?

Humans haven’t evolved to eat processed cereal grains at all or sugar in large quantities and most people’s bodies react accordingly ie they fatten. This is normal.

My body tells me not to eat excess processed carb. If I do I get fat, have no energy, have acid reflux, menstrual issues, become pre diabetic...etc

Oh look, it isn't one particular form of food. It really isn't. Pre- and during the war people in this country were largely eating a combination of starchy carbs, meat or fish and vegetables largely stewed to kingdom come, with a pudding afterwards, and there wasn't anything like the obesity problem that there is now. There were fat people who wanted to lose weight back then and I believe that the preferred way of doing it was to cut out carbs, but most people who have never had a weight problem to start with, as far as I am aware, do not follow a ketogenic diet or any form of intermittent fasting anymore than they routinely count calories, Syns or Points. I think that the real difference is that portion sizes were smaller, people tended to be more active and they tended to cook more of their food from scratch. I'm not saying that keto or IF or whatever doesn't work as a way of losing weight but I don't think that it's sensible to confuse the diets that people who are overweight adopt to lose their excess weight, with the diets that people who have never had a weight problem in the first place. I think that they look very different.

There were fat people who wanted to lose weight back then

Not to the extent there is now.

but most people who have never had a weight problem to start with, as far as I am aware, do not follow a ketogenic diet or any form of intermittent fasting anymore than they routinely count calories, Syns or Points

There is an age related aspect to insulin resistance and therefore weight gain. Mpst people in their 20's can consume a larger amount of carbs than a 50 year old. If you have consistently raised insulin you will eventually stop it working (insulin resistance). Your body iterally gets worn out by it.

I think that the real difference is that portion sizes were smaller, people tended to be more active and they tended to cook more of their food from scratch.

So no refined carb junk?

I don't think that it's sensible to confuse the diets that people who are overweight adopt to lose their excess weight, with the diets that people who have never had a weight problem in the first place. I think that they look very different.

Perhaps it is just a matter of time for someone who has excessive carbohydrate in their diet? Middle aged spread is a given? I don't agree with that and think everyone should limit their consumption of refined carbohydrate

I still get amazed that people continue to defend eating junk food!