Glorifying obsesity

[Poppybob]

I find it bizarre that media and social platforms are glorifying obesity. Am not talking about people putting pictures of themselves on social media and living their lives in general, and am NOT saying overweight/obese people should be hiding.... but actual social media stars who are promoting obesity and how good/gorgeous they are etc etc. It's unhealthy!!! Takes 10-20years off your life! The Co - morbidities from being dangerously overweight alone can shorten your life. It's on par with smoking it's so bad for your health. And I worry about my kids looking at this and thinking that it will be OK for them to be very overweight.

This is one I can think of

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuPl4rKr8OB/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

The single thing that gets me about these sort of adverts is that the headlines/comments etc always refer to 'normal bodies'. Yes that may be entirely normal for some people but for example I'm a size 6/8, I'm only 5'2" and always been petite, yes I live by everything in moderation and I do go to the gym several times a week but that's for the good of my mental state and I'm not training hard. That's NORMAL for me!

Oh and as someone with fake boobs don't even get me started on the 'real bodies' stuff...

Really???

Yes important to note here- if you've got a problem with obesity being glamorous then you should also have a problem with wine/cocktails with friends being glamorous or shown off on social media.

However, most of the body posi posts I see aren't implying 'you should aim to look like this overweight' but more
'If you look this big, you should also celebrate yourself and feel confident and happy and live your best like and have good self esteem and know that you are a worthy person and not a second class citizen'

If you're worried about people with eating disorders being triggered, perhaps you could refrain from talking about 'fat people being disgusting'?

Otherwise your post makes your sound hypocritical and a bit cruel.

And for the record, no-one needs your permission here to 'crack on' with the conversation.

Ps on the subject of being overweight, I really struggled with weight I was piling on pre and during pregnancy and I have lost most of it after becoming much more conscious of my diet and learning about carbs because I had gestational diebetes. If you follow this you will drop 10kg (20kg for me but some of that was baby weight) in a couple of months - now I'm 10kg below pre pregnancy weight

• stick strictly to nhs guidelines on drinking alcohol - two large wines a week max. Aim to drive to social events if you can to help you not drink, saves cash too.

• no 'liquid calories' so water or fizzy with lemon for flavour or tea/coffee with minimal milk only. Or diet drinks. No juice or squash or lattes.

• eat your fruit rather than blend. So yog and berries over a blended smoothie.

• max 30g carbs per meal. Thats a small portion of rice, make sure there is protein and plenty of fruit/veg on plate. If you're veggie or vegan tofu eggs and beans are your best friends. Choc/biscuit and crisps are not allowed as snacks sorry only fruit or crudités with sour cream (this is so nice).

-only Wholemeal brown rice and sweet potato not white potato (same goes for pasta /bread if you must eat them but try to avoid).

• after every meal you need to get moving, either walk or if you can't go out then be on your feet and do your chores then, not later. It's not what you feel like doing after a meal but if you can make that a habit I've seen by blood sugar testing how much that gets rid of sugar in blood which would become fat if not quickly burned off.

• walk everywhere to get your 10.000 steps a day. You can also do core exercises or weights too to take pressure off you back but the steps will be what helps you burn the calories.

I wish someone had told me all that years ago when o struggled with weight and didn't know how much carbs and my drink choices were a cause of being overweight

I've been overweight all my life. And absolutely repulsed by myself, considering myself revolting and apologetic for my presence. Guess how I coped with feeling that way? Food.

Putting normal people in an advert isnt glorifying them. I see fat people in adverts and it makes me feel less disgusting even though ironically I'm the lightest I've been for 30 years.

The biggest mental shift I've had in managing to lose weight is seeing people bigger than me on tic toc doing get ready with me etc shorts and being confident. Yes they acknowledge they're big but they still have confidence they don't hide away like I've done for years.

I would love to be as "fat" as I when I first thought I was fat. Fat is seen as disgusting, unhealthy (obviously), greedy, lazy etc and I believed every single word. When you're obese, being overweight is a symptom. The cause in my case certainly is absolute disgust with myself as a person. If you want to help people like me accept me, my size and shape, help me raise my self esteem and then I'll start caring about myself.

The world has told fat people they're disgusting for many many years and we're getting fatter, it's not working!!

I personally don't look at overweight people on television and feel disgusted. I am more interested in what they are advertising. I have a huge weight problem myself due to being treated with steroids. It has cost me employment and bullying in employment. The assumption is I eat a lot. I don't. I am finally shrinking. Old age I expect.
I work in beauty and I can tell you beauty companies don't use plus size models for their advertisements. Kids are used for mature skincare and a few BAME people make it into ads. Do we really get fat through inclusive advertisements? No. It starts in childhood with crap food in schools (back before Jamie) , sweets and fizzy drinks. Meal delivery services, toys as insentives to buy burgers. Parents trying to feed their kids whilst feckless fathers don't pay (I have niece who works but eats toast).
We don't teach cooking/ nutrition in school or offer swimming above the entitlement of six weeks per year. We've sold our playing fields. Children can't play out due to stranger danger and we all know that is due to our failure to police the Internet and the perverts who lurk there.
So yes it isn't healthy to be obese but very few people will wish for that and a hell of a lot less than young girls seeing very thin girls and wanting to ape that along with plastic surgery altered bodies. Neither of my adult DC are overweight. Both eat good food and cook. I didn't want a life of dieting for them.

A million percent yes!

Tik tok accounts where people eat so much food you can’t believe they can function.

I'd fully support a sugar/UPF tax being then used to subsidise normal foods like fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs.

Yes! Fresh natural food is the best.

But the Tories would spend it on making their rich friends richer no doubt <ooh she veered into politics!>

To the poster upthread who went one diet and do claims that diets work, they do if you haven't been yo-yo dieting for your whole adult life and if you remain on some version of the diet forever!
Eating low fat, low sugar (but flooded with sweeteners and artificial crap ) diet foods will help you lose weight but won't teach you anything about maintaining good nutrition and are designed to keep you as a repeat customer. There's a reason why people who lose weight mostly end up regaining and not enough is being done to help them.

@fluffy2buffy @FancyFran

Agree! Everyone deserves to be positively represented.

It’s like the climate crisis - we should be holding our MPs to account - to demand they do their job and act for the benefit of society, not placing all the responsibility for action only on individuals.

You absorb more nutrients from food you enjoy.

Umm what? Do you have any info to back this up? I'm interested in health and never seen anything in any scientific paper to show this.

@PhantomUnicorn

you can't argue with the stupid or wilfully ignorant. It's an exercise in futility!

your last comment is spot on!

like you I'm obese due to medical issues, but no one ever believes you!

another poster said she stopped eating bread/cakes/sugar & is losing weight. Good on her, I'm pleased for her.

but fucking hell, I've been low carb for years and not eaten those things and due to a virus that attacked my liver & fucked my metabolism and led to diabetes T2, (I was 7 stone 5 before this virus) I'm now very obese. I low carb to try to control my diabetes & lose weight. It's fucking tedious but medication really makes me feel utterly shit.

I'm not a glutton
I don't eat crap/junk food
I don't drink soft drinks/soda/juice/cordial etc
I don't snack

etc etc

the assumptions people make about what I eat are so far off it's not funny.

the whole thing is very depressing

Yes 100%.

I agree op. I work with young people, we took 10 of them away for a 4 day trip. 8 out of 10 are very clearly overweight and 5 of them obese. The two who were a healthy weight were slagged off for the entire trip about being scrawny, skinny, will snap if they play football etc.

When I was in school you were made fun of for being overweight, it's the opposite now.
I'm a normal weight but a very small person. People increasingly allude to eating disorders or comment I do too much excersice when I reality I just do the recommend amount.

Its insane.

I don’t know if it’s glorifying being obese normalising it perhaps? I quite like to see diversity on tv, aren’t half the women in the uk a size 16 or above. I’m sure it’s not the same for everyone but at size 16 I’d be around the tipping point from overweight to obesity.

Being overweight is bad for your health as is smoking/ alchohol but really what it costs the NHS is balanced out by the savings on social care and pensions as you tend to die younger. Or so my economics professor told me.

@LadyBird1973 I was a member of sw for years. A lot of the talk is spent pushing snack bars and instant food packs. It can work for hugely obese people but I think that is down to the psychology of belonging. Often morbid obese people have little support around them. A therapy session a week would probably work better.

I'm not sure 'employing overweight actors' counts as glorifying obesity

Is that me? I have always had a healthy diet but just ate too much of it in my overweight years. I eat the same kind of food just lesss of it. Kickstarted by what I describe as a diet. Honestly it wasn't rocket science!
And I'll still eat pudding if I want, or have an ice cream. Just smaller portions at a more sensible frequency.

if anything I've had more body shaming and horrible comments re: being a thin lady than any of my larger friends

Same for me.

Oh get over yourself

@BarelyLiterate

Obesity is a lifestyle choice, not a disease and we should say so loud & clear

oh yeah? Tell my fucked metabolism that.

it's not a fucking lifestyle choice! I low carb - hard. Especially as a vegetarian do you know how fucking hard that is??

i exercise.

what part of that is choosing obesity?

My sister is very slim. She gets a lot of comments about being too thin, or skinny or like an ironing board. Even from friends. Yet if she time travelled back to the 70s or 80s her frame would be closer to the norm.