Anyone shocked at Ireland being one of the most obese countries in Europe?

[Ethela]

https://brilliantmaps.com/obesity-rates-usa-v-europe/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJngKxleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHnvR7oe_6LYbf4fcbzHl_BeAzJ8ePD0JuJAq5c3InyOEkk-pw539X2tyaeE4_aem_pxpU1_f0YknI4uA62X2TNQ

I heard a podcast, I can't link to it as I can't remember who it was, but they were talking about this, and how the Irish famine (or starvation more like) altered DNA to make it more likely that future generations would be obese.
I've linked an article I got from a quick Google

universityobserver.ie/the-centuryold-reverberations-of-the-irish-great-famine-on-modern-irish-health/

It feels like everything is built around the car.
Not an organised sports person but I build activity into my day by walking and cycling everywhere. There are three national schools near me and the traffic does be mental. Lots of these kids are driven a KM to school.
The kids might be involved in an organised sport but they grown up being ferried short distances.

Not shocked at all to be honest, so many fat kids aswell which paves the way for obese adults. I wasn't like that when I was young. It's quite sad really.

i live in the UK but am Irish. Portions sizes are way too big in Ireland and alcohol definitely plays a part, come on! I say that from personal experience.
Having spent a lot of time in France it’s obvious why they are lower. They eat better non UPF food that actually fills you up and I don’t think they drink the same way we do, despite the old French stereotype

The food here is just too delicious

Living in a northern city, the most obese seem to be mums in their twenties, and they’re not just a bit overweight- they’re morbidly obese. On a visit to a carvery they were carrying plates groaning with food, including two giant Yorkshire puddings., and they ate the lot!

UPF - it’s addictive and obesogenic.

The big UPF food companies are just like the tobacco companies of the 1950-70s.

They will only change when legislated to change.

Until then they will try every trick to maximise our mindless consumption of this stuff and, in turn, their profits at the expense of our health and happiness.

I agree.
I’m not shocked at all.
I need to lose a stone myself.

I agree with this. Public transport is really bad as well as cycle lanes. If you live outside Dublin most people are stuck using cars for commuting as there is no other option. I drive to work and it’s dark when I leave and dark when I get home in winter. I love walks in summer and hate the gym. I find It’s so much harder to exercise in winter when you live in a rural area.

I think it’s also a lack of basic cooking skills in the generation that are now parents.

I was in Ireland 1979-1990 and at the start of that period most teenage girls knew how to make buns and apple tarts, soda bread and boiled veg plus potatoes in any form. They helped with Sunday dinners. Then, as students we lived on sandwiches, chocolate bars, Tayto and the odd apple from the newsagent, all day fry ups, tea and toast. Maybe a spag bol if we were feeling adventurous. Later on it was takeaway salad bars, coffee shops or chip shops.

So the skill of cooking became middle class with ambitious girl graduates my age taking evening classes in Italian or Ethnic cooking.
Even the Irish TV cooks bringing back traditional bread etc are painfully middle class…

I was back in Dublin 2 years ago and I was gobsmacked when I saw people in Merrion Square bringing home takeaway in polystyrene boxes FOR LUNCH. The lack of time and skills just can’t compete with a spice box!

Then there’s the empty calories and health effects from socially acceptable binge drinking.

I'm just outside Galway city centre and people still drive short distances. There two bus routes beside my house that run regularly.
It's like a car is an extension of some people. Then they moan about being stuck in the gridlock.

School lunch was brought in so fast with very little thought. Odd for a state that usually moves at a glacial pace. Most kids including my own are bringing in extra from home as they don't like the food or in our case it's just some chopped up veg to balance out all the bread and melted cheese.

(Too late to edit)*spice BAG!

When I was last over there to see family, was at a restaurant. Ordered curry with rice. Was asked if I wanted half half ie half rice, half curry. I was quite taken aback and hadn’t come across this but believe it’s fairly standard offering a mix of carbs with a meal. I didn’t particularly notice any more obesity than I do in London. Love the way people rush to blame alcohol. As if the British are light drinkers😂

My sense is that it's very difficult to live without two salaries in Ireland and our working model is not set up to be family friendly or non-car commuting. And so the time and opportunity to build healthy habits into life is minimal.
So a two working parent family in Copenhagen - both parents finish at 4.30 as creches close at 5, cycle to collect kids (good infrastructure), get home early, time in the evening to get to the playground and cook dinner, can live close to where you work. A two parent working family in Dublin, highly likely to be working far from home, commuting via car, picking up the kids from childcare at 6.30, home at 7 or later. There's maybe two less hours a day for good habit opportunities.
We work like Americans and can't afford to live in 15 minute cities. We don't have a culture of taking time for food. All the French are taking time for a proper lunch, we're gobbling sandwiches at the desk.
And I agree with the alcohol. I'm a non drinker and alcohol is such a problem here (same culture as the UK).
We have also bought into the US consumption culture for time off. Weekends in Germany are for going on walks and gardening, here it's going shopping (and stopping for food).
I know these are mass generalisations but we have less natural opportunities for movement and eating well. It takes a lot of time and work to overcome that friction and generate them (and the better off can throw money at this problem).

Half & half is half rice half chips. Great invention!

That's not a half and half, it's half chips and half rice with your curry.

If you were taken aback by that then a three in one will floor you 😜

BTW it's a Chinese takeaway dish consisting of chips, rice and curry sauce. Add in chicken balls and it's a four in one.

My neighbour was telling me about a local pub that does a great 'feed' for an Irish Breakfast as they add a big portion of chips with your bacon, eggs, sausage, black and white pudding etc. I was flabbergasted and disgusted. However when I came home on a silly early morning flight where I had not had breakfast and dropped into that pub about 11:30am .... we didnt say no to the chips with our fry .... and worse we had a pint of the black stuff to wash it down. I was flabbergasted and disgusted.....

School lunch was brought in so fast with very little thought. Odd for a state that usually moves at a glacial pace. Most kids including my own are bringing in extra from home as they don't like the food or in our case it's just some chopped up veg to balance out all the bread and melted cheese.

Yes, lots of problems with the school lunches. The amount of waste left over is dreadful. Very poorly thought out.

ETA Not every child in the country needs to be provided with a lunch either. More targeted support would be better.

The Australian stats are off too.

I'm from NI, but lived in South Dublin for a decade. I'm really not surprised at the numbers. It is endemic. And the same in the UK in general. It's easy to blame food companies, alcohol, etc but I suspect that there are major societal issues.

Growing up in NI (farming community) I don't ever really remember much education or advice regarding food. Looking back, our boarding school food in England, was probably not too bad though.

I remember fadó fadó , reading some stats about calorie intake and Ireland was no 1. This made me very proud at the time. Might have been some WHO report? Anyway we were No 1 at something folks!
Agree about the cars. I used to work at a little Centra about 200 metres from our Community School. The older kids would drive up for their ' death in a bun' style breakfast rolls. Some would have to lever themselves out by grabbing onto the roof of the car , sad to watch. Their parents were no better , even though you'd see some of them power walking of an evening they wouldn't walk 100mtrs to the shop.

Yet , when that school opened , late 70s , kids would cycle in from as far as ten miles away.

I was surprised the obesity rate was so high in Greece. I thought it would be more like Italy.

@DonnaHadDee I remember your brothers and DF, you were all a family of super healthy athletes! Also, as we prepared some VE talks, we were recently speaking about your lovely stepmother who was such an excellent swimmer.

If you really want to see a picture of obesity crisis in rural Ireland, just go to a mart.

I think France is probably right. Can’t say I paid much attention to the men, but I have been in Paris recently and many of the women are very slim. Not just not fat, but genuinely thin. Especially older women say 50 plus, all very slim still, although I was surprised how many still smoke.

Australia isnt in the map I posted - just US states vs Europe.