Talking about weight and covid

[Iamsososoexcited]

In the 44-53 age group, 73% of people in the UK are overweight to obese. This is a government statistic according to the House of Commons library.

Does anyone else think this is massively concerning?

This awful virus arrived a year ago. It has a disproportionate effect on people who are overweight and obese.

People are washing hands, wearing masks, keeping their distance, isolating with families to stay safe. Why aren’t people losing weight to stay safe as well?

I don’t understand. It is like being told there is a course of action you can take (losing weight) that will drastically improve your chances of surviving this terrible virus, and yet people are not doing it?

Please help me understand?

@SeldomFollowedIt thank you. I am definitely more concerned for DH than myself
My family is similar. Even the slimmer family members have sturdy legs but proportionally smaller waists

@LetMeStraightenMyCrownFirst all slim people are slim because they smoke 20 fags a day and probably do loads of cocaine. That's an assumption isn't it? That is no different to the 'far people just eat crisps and do no exercise' brigade to which you obviously belong.
There are so many different reasons why people find it hard to lose weight. These aren't excuses. It will help more people to lose weight if we acknowledge why people got to the weight they are rather than by shaming them or making generalisations.
Mara who has been a size 16 for the past ten years and enjoys food socially whilst staying moderately active is completely different to Heather who has gone from a size 8 to a size 18 in two years and has ate multipacks of crisps due to her depression and the breakdown of her marriage.
They require different approaches and maybe different lifestyle changes. It's unhelpful to just bark 'eat less and move more' at people and it just doesn't work. Looking at lifestyle, fitness, age and other health conditions as well as BMI is much more likely to lead to weight loss and help people to keep it off too.

[quote QuantumQuality]@hamstersarse Can you not see what you’re saying? Type 2 diabetes is preventable and treatable, but it’s still killing people and causing them to have limbs amputated. Do you honestly, honestly believe that if it was as simple as just go on a diet people would still be losing limbs? You don’t think there’s anything slightly more complex going on there that means for a lot of people they are so unable to lose weight that they lose a limb instead?![/quote]
I think you're ignoring how much people are in denial here. A lot of people simply refuse to accept basic simple facts, we see it all the time.
I think the real issue is that there's a growing attitude that our weight is something that is beyond our control, that gaining weight is inevitable as we get older, or go through difficulties in life, especially for women. It's this attitude that needs to be challenged.
I have been obese myself and I thought this way myself for a while. Thankfully I got out of it. Our weight is under our control for most people, though of course some people do require more help.

I don't know much about obesity, so can't say whether obese people can lose weight or not. Seems that this varies person to person.
I think the more pertinent point is that again a group of people are being held responsible in some way for the situation we are in.
The elderly who have had their lives, the vulnerable who won't stay in, the selfish rule breakers, the 'young', the over 50s, now people with obesity who are finding themselves trying to justify why they can't lose weight.
The virus, and arguably the government's response, have caused the situation we are in. Trying to hold other people responsible and blame and shame makes a bad situation worse.

It's this attitude that needs to be challenged.

It really isn't. I'm not obese and never have been, but even I'm not thick enough to believe that what works for me works for everyone else in precisely the same way. Well done, you lost some weight. I've been all sorts of weights, from underweight to overweight and normal in between! I did not morph into a good person when I had a normal bmi. I did not morph into a bad person when my bmi edged up into overweight. It is the othering of people with obesity who really get the worst of everything which I find utterly shameful. "You have no excuse for being that obese and inactive". Well, how the fuck do you know?

You're right as well, that people, especially women, do gain weight as they age. How many times have you seen it on the pro-rexia weight loss boards? I've been slim ALL MY LIFE but now I can shift the weight. It's funny how when they are in the ALL MY LIFE stage, some of these women will be the ones saying "no excuse, lack of discipline tsk". Then they find themselves on the other side of the argument as it were.

Would it not be a lot healthier if we didn't insist on making this into camps? I'm thin (good, aren't I? Look at me, aren't I great)? Then those fatties (bad, their fault, shouldn't be allowed medical care...). Because, odds are, you will find yourself in the wrong camp again one day. It happens to almost everyone who loses significant amounts of weight. It isn't even necessarily a bad thing. Overweight (not obese) people over 60 tend to have better outcomes. So getting into a pattern of lording it when you are thinner and verbally kicking obese people, is really fucking stupid. But you do you boo!

Of course there are exceptions but are we saying the majority of overweight people are too ill to try and restrain themselves and move a little more? Is anyone forcing them to buy fattening snacks? I'd love to stuff my face but avoid buying biscuits, chocolate and crisps in the first place so when I fancy some there's none.

Well good for you!

Do you really think it's that easy? Don't you think that if it was, there wouldn't be so many people struggling to lose weight?

As the link up thread from @GlittercheeksOakleaf posted showed, there are many, many, many reasons why people gain weight/find it difficult to lose weight. It's never as black and white as 'just stop eating biscuits' and it's actually pretty insulting to those who are struggling to suggest that it is.

The problem is the focus on losing weight when the focus should be on changing the lifestyle and reverting to what used to be 'normal' and people were slim.

Food used to be mainly about a physiological need to remain healthy. It's now become a source of pleasure and comfort making it as addictive as drugs, one that is so easy to grasp anywhere.

@LetMeStraightenMyCrownFirst

Of course there are exceptions but are we saying the majority of overweight people are too ill to try and restrain themselves and move a little more? Is anyone forcing them to buy fattening snacks? I'd love to stuff my face but avoid buying biscuits, chocolate and crisps in the first place so when I fancy some there's none.

I would say the majority of obese people have underlying issues, whether they are health (mental or physical) related, psychological, economic or social, which mean it is more difficult for them to lose weight. As BIWI, who is pretty much a pro at weight loss iirc, just said; if it was that easy, do you think people would choose to remain obese? What are the perks which go with that status do you think? I would argue that there comes a point where overeating is not pleasurable at all. It can be a form of self harm. If it makes you feel better to think it's easy, well go for it, but it displays a truly remarkable lack of empathy and probably, in some cases, a level of over privilege to do so.

If we want to protect the NHS at all levels obesity needs to be declared a national crisis and money and education spent on it.

@ParisJeTAime I did not say obese - I said overweight. That's very different. I know plenty of people, including family, who stuff their faces because 'life's too short' or 'I love food/booze' or 'I had a stressful day at work' - but then they complain when they have a beer belly (men) or look fat in fitted clothing (women). But they don't stop overindulging. I deliberately said overweight instead of obese.

[quote LetMeStraightenMyCrownFirst]@ParisJeTAime I did not say obese - I said overweight. That's very different. I know plenty of people, including family, who stuff their faces because 'life's too short' or 'I love food/booze' or 'I had a stressful day at work' - but then they complain when they have a beer belly (men) or look fat in fitted clothing (women). But they don't stop overindulging. I deliberately said overweight instead of obese.[/quote]
Ah, I thought you were responding to my post, just before yours which was to do with obesity! Were you responding to someone else?

Yes, you're right. At the lower end of the scale, where it is easy enough to make positive changes and be healthier, that is different. But still, in those cases, I wouldn't rely heavily on BMI as the be all and end all. I am a smidgen overweight, but there are people with higher BMIs than I have who are no doubt healthier!

The seeds of this obsession are sown very very early,particularly in young women in this country.Then a life time of dieting and a resultant weight gain. I often think if I had left well alone and not wasted time and money on slimming clubs/trying to gain approval from my mother, I would be 9 stone instead of 11 stone.

@randomer

The seeds of this obsession are sown very very early,particularly in young women in this country.Then a life time of dieting and a resultant weight gain. I often think if I had left well alone and not wasted time and money on slimming clubs/trying to gain approval from my mother, I would be 9 stone instead of 11 stone.

I totally agree. When I was a perfectly healthy weight, (but tall), I always thought I was enormous! So dieted like mad, became underweight, maintained that through pure grit, and then regained it all.

I was saying earlier and it is an interesting point re significant weight loss, especially rapid weight loss, and muscle wastage. When you lose lean mass, your metabolism is slower. It takes many years of nourishing your body properly and exercising properly with rest days to regain that metabolism. If, like me, you were a chronic dieter, you need to rebuild muscle to help your metabolism. This won't show what you want to see on the scales, but it is healthier in the long run.

For all those trying to fight their food addiction I just wanted to give a message of hope, having been there myself. If you stick with the healthy living you can break the cycle of addiction and there will be a point where exercise and healthy food are what you ‘crave’. The high after a great exercise session is a much better feeling than the low of giving in to the chocolate demons. Good luck to everyone taking those steps to health.

Great @Worldgonecrazy! I love to exercise too, having hated it at school and as a young woman! Far more interested in shrinking my body than making it stronger and healthier back then, which was a mistake.

I hated PE at school too! Didn’t take up exercise until my late 40s 😎

Yes, pleasure, that's why government prefers us to Eat out.. / takeaways/alcohol to rescue economy rather than concentrate on health drive. We know that takeaway foods are mostly full of fat, sugar and salt and they contribute to poor diet.

They would need to tax health then it would be worth it for them.

Makes me so angry

Physically it's extremely easy to lose weight.

If we took 10000 obese people and put them in a controlled environment where we controlled how much they ate and how much they moved we could reliably and predictable get 10000 out of 10000 of those people down to a healthy weight.

The mechanisms are the same for all of us. Obese people are all obese because at some point in time they overate for their activity level/metabolism. There is no other mechanism that causes obesity. There is only one real mechanism to lose that weight (besides surgery) and thats undereating for a particular activity level/metabolism which is very simple to do (physically).

It's the mental side of it that's difficult. Our brains are complex. You also can't just lock up an obese person for 1-2 years in a controlled environment.

Given the fact that lockdown has had a huge negative impact on people's mental health and that is much more important to the weight loss picture it's not surprising that people have gained weight rather than lost it.

@ParisJeTAime I wasn't replying to anyone in particular. I agree with you that BMI tracking is often pointless. I'm talking about people who carry too much weight (big belly, large face, rolls of fat on the back, etc. They could make a few changes and become much healthier. They are the sizes 14 and 16 usually. Of course some people are not overweight at those sizes if they are tall/big bones/muscly. These conversations are rarely about specific cases but, rather, about generalisations.

[quote LetMeStraightenMyCrownFirst]@ParisJeTAime I wasn't replying to anyone in particular. I agree with you that BMI tracking is often pointless. I'm talking about people who carry too much weight (big belly, large face, rolls of fat on the back, etc. They could make a few changes and become much healthier. They are the sizes 14 and 16 usually. Of course some people are not overweight at those sizes if they are tall/big bones/muscly. These conversations are rarely about specific cases but, rather, about generalisations.[/quote]
Yes, but this conversation is about specifics; the people you describe are not the ones who tend to be hospitalised with covid. People who are size 14 may not even be overweight! I'm tall with a big frame and am a normal BMI at size 14, sometimes a 16. I think it is unusual for someone who is a size 14-16, young and with no other conditions to be in hospital with covid.

You might think people look a bit nicer slimmer, but the jury is out really that going from a 14 with a bit of extra weight to a size 10 makes an enormous amount of difference to health. So, your preference for OTHER people's looks and size is just that, YOUR preference. So, keep it to yourself really. Unless you're generally obnoxious about peoples appearance. It isn't a concern about health, unless you know these people to all have unhealthy habits.

That said, positive changes for health at all sizes are obviously to be encouraged and are a pleasure when you get into it! But to dictate the dress size of perfect strangers based on nothing but your preference and supposition is questionable.

My point is that people who are overweight CAN become obese if they don't stop overeating and not exercising (enough). Even without food-related issues such as MH they can still go on to become obese. And if they nipped it in the bud and decided to can the fatty treats, they would probably not become obese and therefore save themselves a lot of health issues.

Yes, that's true that support at the right time would be much better than leaving it till crisis point. However, many people stay a little overweight without going on to becoming obese.

As we were just discussing, I actually think that "nipping it in the bud" if that can be interpreted by some to mean "quick, lose weight as fast as possible; then just keep it off" can be counterproductive for the reasons we've mentioned already.

So, there is a balance to be struck I think.

Support could mean better access to nutritious food, less promotion of fad diets, better access to gyms. Walking is free, but it takes time. The other issue is lack of childcare for parents of young children, particularly single parents. It is very difficult to exercise efficiently with kids. Walks tend to be shorter and slower for example. Also addressing MH issues early on, so people don't end up in a position where all they have is food to sooth their emotions.

Anyway, my point is that support costs money. This is why it is reserved for people in absolute dire need. This is the problem, not just for weight, but general health too.

Not everyone needs support, but many do. But I don't see how that will change any time soon, sadly.

One thing which categorically doesn't help imo, is being overly critical and obsessing over BMI. Healthy changes are easy to put into action, but if you are only concerned about your dress size and the scales, you will quickly become disheartened. This is why get thin quick diets are so popular, but, as already discussed, they may actually lead to people becoming even fatter in the long run. If people were encouraged to make the changes and stick with them, they would find that weight would come down in time. But it's the "in time" part which is problematic for many; "why aren't I / you thin yet? Why aren't I / you losing weight"? But actually, I think that is the worst possible approach.

If obesity is such a risk factor with covid, why is it only those woth a bmi of over 40 who are considered clinically vulnerable?

I am 48 and obese and low priority for the vaccine. I am scared of catching covid.

I want to loose weight but it is bloody hard. I put on weight during the first lockdown. I have lost some of it in the run up to Christmas. I have stopped drinking alcohol (aproaching 200 days) but the weight didn’t fall off. I should add that I would like to loose 4-5 stones but what I do instead is loose a few pounds and put them back on. Despite the fluctuations this year and the money and effort spent trying to loose weight, i just go up and down within roughly a bracket of a stone.

It doesn't help that I am lonely and scared and busy and trying to home school and work full time and hardly talk to anyone apart from my Ds and never go out. Two of my favourite things are cooking and eating. The kitchen is my happy place. I have a few health problems including a recent injury from a fall which means exercise is currently impossible. I haven't been out since before Christmas because of my injury, although I rarely feel motivated anyway and don’t enjoy exercise.

I spent Saturday making healthy food, just ate a healthy lunch and then without thinking have polished off 4 biscuits. Why, I have no idea! I know everything I need to do, I can cook, I have great reasons why I want to loose weight. None of this is enough. It doesn’t mean I am not trying and beating myself up when I fail. Peoples reasons for being and staying fat are complex. It isn’t just a case of knowing you should loose weight and therefore doing it. If only.

I'm talking about people who carry too much weight (big belly, large face, rolls of fat on the back, etc. They could make a few changes and become much healthier

How absolutley unpleasant you are. I have a slim face but post menopause back fat, post 2 sections, belly fat.

@Scarlettpixie,lonely and scared, I'm so sorry. Lonely and scared and trying to educate and being vilified because you eat biscuits.