Shocked yesterday at just how many people are overweight?

[Whatevskev]

And I know I’ll get loads of bashing but I’m not judging- myself and all my family may well be included in this observation

The day before I’d been watching a documentary about the 40s and was struck by how slim the vast majority of people were. We got chatting as a group and I remembered there was only one child at school who was considered to be overweight (this is the 80s) so I got a photo out and realised by today’s standard he wouldn’t stand out at all.

Then yesterday walking around town I started actually noticing and it struck me that only about 1 in 10 people if that would be classed as properly slim and how normalised carrying extra weight is. Many people who would have been maybe a size 12 so ‘slim’ are actually carrying so much more body fat than our ancestors.

Once I looked it was striking.
No blame on anyone- society makes it almost impossible to maintain a lower weight unless you have iron will with all the food availability and snacking culture and calorie laden drinks and meals.

And we definitely have reset in our heads what is slim and what is ‘normal’.

How on earth do we reverse this is a society or is it just going to rise exponentially?

It's the crap food/drinks that manufacturers are allowed to produce.

While this is true, they wouldn't produce this stuff unless there was a demand for it. No one is responsible for what goes in my mouth apart from me.

Bourbon luckily the HV and DM/MIL all saw that DS was a perfect size for who is parents were. It must be so stressful if its your family/the HV telling you a DC is too small (when they aren't)

A rather pedantic aside, but relevant to the points about not knowing the calorie content of food/misleading ways that food is presented as ‘healthy’...

Interesting to see how the fry-up (in the post from 10.43 by @TwelveLeggedWalk ) is half the calories of the 'healthy' breakfast with muesli and smoothie.

I’m pretty sure that it’s granola, not muesli. Packet muesli can be surprisingly high in calories especially if you get ‘luxury’ versions, but granola, marketed as healthy, is made with oil and sugar and can have as much as double the calories of muesli.

@Camomila absolutely. My HV said its all about common sense, when I walked in at 4"10.5 and a petite frame and my hubby is only average height. she knew he wasn't going to be a massive.

My aunts likes to keep saying he should go to live with her so she can give him a few chocolate doughnuts to "build him up" ---- she's overweight !!!! And the cycle starts .....

I also think the fat shaming is a misnomer though.
No one has to eat too much.
Smoking, now makes you a social pariah in many places. It’s reasonably tricky to give up but people do because of societal pressure reasons rather than lung cancer.

BourbonbiccyJust because some people can have one drink or one fag, lots of people can’t. If you can eat chocolate responsibily then it costing loads won’t matter because you only eat it once in a while. But it may stop others eating it everyday.

Also since I've been on my strict diet I'm shocked at my husbands overeating... it's quite unattractive and something I never really noticed before...

On Friday he got a large dominoes with 2 sides. He ate half s large pizza and both sides...

That's not normal or healthy. I've noticed today how much weight he's put on.

I've just bought bathroom scales so I can keep a close check on my weight loss...

I'm hoping he'll step on them and join me in being slimmer and healthier.

I think lots of people don't think it's ok to be hungry at any point. I think you should be hungry before lunch and dinner/tea. As soon as anyone is hungry now they reach for a quick snack to 'tide them over'. We ate at 6 when I was a kid, if I was hungry at 5 o'clock my mum would say 'good, you'll be ready for dinner then' and tell me to have a glass of water.

It's ok to be hungry sometimes.

Advertising should be tackled.

It seems a bit mean to constantly show pizza and burgers when we are all supposed to eat healthily and eat less. There is no ingredient/calorie info small print, they don't ever show an ad with a clinically obese person tucking into the food being sold do they?

Some cities are boosting healthy initiatives with bikes for hire, sponsored by JUST EAT! So get healthy with fast food advertising courtesy of government mixed messaging

ads are bad
switches to
tv ads make no difference honest

perhaps because of stupidity like this...

www.thedrum.com/news/2016/09/18/just-eat-marketing-director-why-rebrand-much-more-change-logo
www.irishtimes.com/news/consumer/takeaway-firm-just-eat-pays-2-25m-to-sponsor-dublin-bikes-1.3161399
www.dublinbikes.ie/
yoursay.belfastcity.gov.uk/property-and-projects/just-eat-belfast-bikes-review-1/consult_view/
www.ed.ac.uk/transport/news/just-eat-cycles-uni-pass
www.scotsman.com/news/transport/edinburgh-just-eat-cycles-new-electric-bikes-first-review-1-5006894

I think there's a contagious part to obesity.

As well as wealth I think spending time with slim health people makes you set your level for overweight much lower and drives you to stay a bit healthier.

If you can always look around and see generally bigger people and you feel like one of the relatively slim ones you have another biscuit.

If you look around are are one of the heavy ones you don't.

Our whole lifestyles are so very different from the 1940s. Laundry was still a day long event, even if you had one of the new washing machines. Cooking from scratch. Gardening vegetables. Cleaning products weren't so advanced, and a good scrub was required to get floors etc clean. Cars not in widespread ownership. No internet and computers, entertainment was often physical. And that's before we take into account the war, rationing, digging for victory and women going to work physical jobs while men were conscripted.

I'm obese. I emotionally eat, something I've tooled myself up against (not that easy when everybody wants to sell you a diet but is shit at helping you work out why you're eating too much in the first place and help develop healthier strategies) and am better at not doing that now. I stay fit and active. I'm very against fat shaming, but observing general trends isn't fat shaming. It's slightly bemusing to read people saying that fat shaming works - if it works for you then great, instruct your friends to fat shame you if you want. Fat shaming me when the reason I'm overweight is because I eat my emotions is going to be very counter-productive!

Something awful like 97% of dieters put the weight they lost back on plus some. We have a huge and lucrative dieting industry that is making money but not turning out people who are slim for the rest of their life. I'd really like to see a shift in attitude from willpower towards the psychology of eating and giving people the tools to be able to tackle the problem (why are you overeating in the first place) rather than be on the thankless treadmill of diets.

BourbonbiccyJust because some people can have one drink or one fag, lots of people can’t. If you can eat chocolate responsibily then it costing loads won’t matter because you only eat it once in a while. But it may stop others eating it everyday

Yes it might and I can definitely see the argument for it.

I just don't agree with it, people are blaming advertising, more fast food out lets, supermarkets all manner of things.

As a society are we serious not able to be responsible for our own actions and need things hiding from us or costing so much that only people with money can afford them.

What about the skint single parent who saves what she can for her one treat a week, she now can't have that as others are obese.

Surely the problem eaters need a better funded therapy services providing, punishing others is surely not the acceptable answer

Foods high in fat and sugar need to be taxed to high heaven and labelled like cigarettes with warnings.

Would that apply to avocado 🥑

Another thing I've noticed talking to British friends and family is it's sort of taken for granted that you will be fatter after having children and there's not much you can do about it. In Italy I have never heard this and most people go back to pre pregnancy weight a lot quicker.

It’s only going to get worse though.
I picked up DD a from school, it backs onto a poorer area where many people don’t work, social issues.
More than half the kids were overweight, many of them very overweight.
DD is very tall and slim and I worry she’s not as skinny as I was at her age (I was also very short).
What she tells me some of her friends eat for their evening meals really shocks me. Takeaways are normal midweek meals now. When I was growing up it was a very rare treat and it’s something I try to follow.

Being skinny doesn’t mean you are healthy though. MIL was also very slim all her life and was obsessed with ‘fat people’. She was one of the unhealthiest people I’ve ever known and had zero fitness.

@velocitygirl7
On the flip side, while I'm expected to never breath a word about someone's size, as a slim person I'm apparently fair game for all kinds of snide and often unkind comments
This annoys me to no end, ive heard skeletor, anorexic, bag of bones, bulimic, rake, twiggy, looks like a boy, unwomanly and am expected to take it as a 'joke'
fat or thin, some comments are not about helping or jokes, they just nasty and rude

Also being "THIN" doesn't mean someone is healthy, it's just what we are "conditioned" to seeing and believing that "thin" equals healthy and happy

So true, im thin, tiny by most standards yet i have a diet most would cringe hearing of.
I eat what i like, never count calories, never look at labels, never choose the low salt, sugar, fat options. The sugar count in my coffee gets me asked twice at mcdonalds if they heard right.
I smoke, never exercise, it bores me. I dont drive, never have so if dp isnt around I walk which is as exercise like as i get.

Im slim cos of genetics (my mother was small) and i have a small appetite so while i eat crap i dont eat heaps, i dont push past full to keep eating and if im not actually hungry, i dont eat at all

It's the crap food/drinks that manufacturers are allowed to produce. Foods high in fat and sugar need to be taxed to high heaven and labelled like cigarettes with warnings.

And then we end up with foods full of artificial sweeteners and trans fats and I'm not at all convinced that they are any healthier.

A more holistic approach to awareness of complete diet, and everything in moderation might be lot harder to implement successfully, but would be healthier and more effective I think.

I'd really like to see a shift in attitude from willpower towards the psychology of eating and giving people the tools to be able to tackle the problem (why are you overeating in the first place) rather than be on the thankless treadmill of diets.

Yes but often the answer to "Why are you overeating in the first place?" Is "Because I just love nice food too much". Or "Because I lack willpower".

It's not always a deep seated emotional issue.

It’s not always a simple overeating but eating food that is highly calorific along with drinking calories

talking to British friends and family is it's sort of taken for granted that you will be fatter after having children and there's not much you can do about it.

So true!

I think lots of people don't think it's ok to be hungry at any point. I think youshouldbe hungry before lunch and dinner/tea.

I blame years on slimming world for my attitude of being scared of hunger. Slimming world taught me to overeat to actively avoid feeling hungry at any cost because then i'd eat bad stuff. Never mind that id just consumed 500 calories of mullerlight to avoid feeling hungry...

You won't see it said in as many words in their literature, and they give a token 2 pages to eating to the hunger scale, but in years going to slimming clubs i'd never hear a consultant say that feeling a little hungry before a meal was normal. It was always about eating more to avoid hunger. And again, very little at the other end, about listening to your body and stopping eating when lightly full. The whole culture was about disembodying from your body's natural signals.

Because I have found something that does a far, far, far better job of keeping me mentally sustained while being really, really good for me instead of really quite bad.

I'm really pleased for you that you've found something that does that for you! And yes, the point I was making is that food fills a gap that is in fact eminently fillable by something else more healthy, but getting there and even getting to the point where you recognise that this is the case is not always easy.

I hate exercise, there's nothing more boring to me, I've never experienced the endorphin high, or if I have, it's been so weak as to be unnoticeable. I was reading Romesh Ranganathan's book where he describes his experience with gyms. You're supposed to hit this wall, push past it and then feel great. But all he's ever felt is wall. Wall-to-wall wall. That's my experience too.

Yes but often the answer to "Why are you overeating in the first place?" Is "Because I just love nice food too much". Or "Because I lack willpower".

It's not always a deep seated emotional issue

I honestly think that a lot of those who would reply that are actually so out of touch with themselves that they don't know the deeper reason, not that the isn't one. We live in the perfect world to avoid self-awareness with our phones, TVs, comfort food and so on. Of course this is only my opinion with no evidence whatsoever, I could be totally off the mark.

You can love nice food and if you're listening to your body well enough you will stop enjoying the amazing chocolate ganache before you overeat it because your body says enough. The first bite and the last bite rarely carry equal amounts of pleasure.

Surely by definition if you lack willpower, something is driving you to eat beyond when your body has had enough.

Even if there is no emotional driver, learning how to listen to your body's hunger and satiety as well as notice and be curious about when your mind clicks over into lack of willpower is a more useful tool in the box than "if only I had enough willpower and didn't like food too much".

Something awful like 97% of dieters put the weight they lost back on plus some.

0.7% lose it and keep it off. Your brain is actually programmed to get you back to your heaviest as soon as possible. So, in theory, we need to treat obesity as something akin to addiction. You'll always be an addict no matter how long you've been sober, sort of thing. So if and when you lose the weight, you can never go back to your previous eating patterns if you want to keep it off. You'll always have to employ a certain amount of caution and coping mechanisms. Obesity is a fight against your own brain and physiology and it is hard.

Surely by definition if you lack willpower, something is driving you to eat beyond when your body has had enough.

Yes and sometimes (but by no means always) it's just pure greed and self indulgence.

Very often there is a deep seated emotional reason of course but there isn't always.

For example, "I was taught to clear my plate as a child" is still a reason given by lots of Mumsnetters for being overweight adults.

Future overweight Mumsnetters will probably give the reason "I was overfed by my overweight parents, who didn't recognise portion size".

Everything is there to make being in denial about weight acceptable. How many thread do we read with posters saying they are a size 12 or 14, so therefore average and not fat. The reality is that unless you are tall and big bone, a size 14 nowadays is what most overweight people would fit it.

I recently put on weight and had to resign to buy new trousers. I was so happy that I still fitted very comfortably in a size 10. Could possibly labelled myself as overweight if a size 10. The reality is that I wasn't happy in my body and knew I was overweight for me, so I tackled it through diet and intense exercise regime and sure enough, I regained an acceptable size. These size 10 trousers are now much too big, would probably fit in a size 8, yet I'm far from being very slim.

Sadly, manufacturers want people to buy, and to buy, people have to be happy with the sizes they buy. This false sense of security is definitely not helping.