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?

I was thinking about this again last night and another reason may be that we all eat anywhere now, not just at a table

Years ago I remember being in such a rush one day, a friend was in labour and I had to rush somewhere and hadn't eaten. I went to the chipper and ate something, while waiting for my friend outside. She was laughing about this for months, she kept saying 'oh I met her and she was eating out of the bag, on the street!'

Now we eat walking, in the car, in the playground, in the pram, absolutely everywhere and there is no 'shame' in it.

I remember eating out in a restaurant once or twice a year when we were children, we sat at the table and were very good and cleared out within minutes of finishing because it was so fancy.
Now we all eat in front of each other all the time at cafes and nobody is embarrassed about eating in front of anyone else.

Just writing this I'm thinking about my car being full of wrappers. My father would not let food of any description into his car, even on a long journey. We think so differently now.

Another image that popped into my head was watching old films, they are never eating, except at the table, even films that are newer but set in older times. Can you imagine watching the Titanic and Kate Winslet pulling a kinder bueno out of the dress pocket.

Three things I am taking from this thread: only eat at the table, no eating anything in the car and yes, I do actually have time for exercise if I put down the phone.

Food used to be much more boring and hard to prepare. We're fat because of capitalism basically.

I always wonder how those people who think weight loss is purely about willpower justify this - did everyone have willpower in the past and now almost no one does?

But anyone overweight just needs to look in the mirror to know they need to lose weight, myself included, my middle looks like a lumpy sack with bulges over trousers, under bra etc. And it's very disheartening to try on lovely new clothes only to find you still look like a lumpy sack.

Not necessarily. I have a natural hourglass figure and when I put on weight I put it on evenly. I keep the same hip/waist/boob ratios for 2 or 3 extra stone. So it's very deceptive.

Initially I used to think it was a bit of a blessing. I can put on weight and still look in the mirror and focus on a nice shape, even if it's too wide for my height. But after a couple of years of very slowly piling on weight and barely noticing until I was close to or at obese, I realise that it's not a good thing. I don't get any sort of early warning that I'm putting on too much weight and it's not really noticeable until it's gone too far.

My first real clue that my weight has gone too far is my face. Mine actually looks much better when I'm a healthy weight. When I'm too heavy my cheekbones disappear and my chin rounds out too much and gets a bit jowly. It makes me look very middle aged. You hear a lot about having to choose between your butt and your face after 35 but for me, being lighter suits my face a lot better. Maybe my wrinkles are a bit more filled in with subcutaneous fat when I'm heavier but my overall facial appearance looks older. At a healthy weight my facial bone structure gives me a younger appearance, at least from a few feet away.

We're fat because of capitalism basically

That's a lazy answer. We're fat because we eat too much and don't exercise enough.

I always wonder how those people who think weight loss is purely about willpower justify this - did everyone have willpower in the past and now almost no one does?

People in the past ate less and moved more.

The cheapest foods are full of sugar, fat, salt, calorie dense and have no nutritional value from how processed they are, but they're cheap and fill up a family for roughly £100 a month .

When I first moved out on my own I gloated to my mum about how i'd done a huge food shop which had lasted me and my partner a month for £40, all tesco value food. Me and my partner put on two stone each within a year of eating like that.

More bad quality food and less exercise (not walking, cycling or running for bus).
Until people are freed from the chains of long hours at work, then they will continue to get fatter.

We used to have smaller portions. We had one pizza between 5 of us when I was growing up! Now people have one each!
Dd was gently mocked for her packed lunch being small compared to her friends with sausage roll crisps plus sandwich. Her friend is tubby but this lunch normal for her. I serve my kids (10 and 13) meals on breakfast plates and they rarely snack. They are remaining slim but many of their friends are getting bigger and bigger as the years go by.

I have kept my weight most of my life, although I've increased a bit in later years and I have not noticed any vanity sizing in the 6-8 (even 10) range. So, it's only in larger sizes or its an urban myth.

Absolutely not. Small sizes are affected just as much as any others.

That’s partly why ‘petite’ sizing was introduced.

Small sizes are affected just as much as any others

Yep.

I have remained pretty constant in shape and weight. Ordered a skirt from Hobbs in a 12 - way too big. I could have fitted someone else in with me! Went into the store to swap for a 10. It was also huge. The 8 was a perfect fit.

Even as a slim teenager I couldn't have squeezed myself into a size 8. At 58, I'm not skinny now and could probably lose a few pounds (not many or I would be skinny) .

That’s partly why ‘petite’ sizing was introduced.
That's for shorter and indeed skinnier women.
I spent most of my life having to buy clothes too big for me. I would since the late 80s that my size should be 6, but couldn't find it. Had to do with a much looser size 8.

It’s nominally for shorter women, but I end up buying petite in some ranges at 5’ 11 because so-called smaller sizes aren’t that small anymore.

I think one massive factor is the fact that a double income is now basically necessary to be able to afford to live in a lot of areas. We've seen the enclosure by waged work of around 35-40 extra hours per family in the last few decades. It has helped to drive a lot of changes that have led to a more obesogenic society: the reliance on car travel to get everywhere, the reliance on readymeals and takeaways, perhaps even increased alcohol consumption/sugar consumption as a coping strategy (comfort eating and drinking).

There are some studies I believe that show that rationing was actually a great policy in public health terms.

Fair enough. I don't shop in Hobbs.

If it’s hard to find small brands that sell a lot to places like Japan are good

Preen for example not cheap though admittedly

Sure there are others I only know as the designers said this was why

We're fat because of capitalism basically

As usual, blame someone else!

Has someone seen fat people in ...Hobbs?! This far worse than we thought OP.

I do think that there’s an inability to do anything the remotest bit challenging, like telling kids no you can’t have a snack, or that you’ll have to wait until your tea. You also see it in the decline in behaviour - fewer people are willing to step up and parent, because anything goes now, the expected standards have all gone to pot.

The eating outside is a good example - as a child, my parents would never let me eat on the street, unless it was an ice cream on holiday. Being seen eating in your school uniform outside school meant a trip to the Head. Nowadays it’s more common than not to see people chowing down at all times.

Proper food, eaten at the table at meal times goes some way to establishing healthy food habits.

I don't shop in Hobbs

? Neither do I.

Whereas in my office (large company) in London I’d say the vast majority of people (all ages) are slim / healthy build and in my friendship groups there is no one significantly overweight. Although to be fair I met some friends through sports clubs.

Perhaps excellent public transport plays a part in London? People will have a walk at each end of their commute and maybe also a walk when changing on the tube/station, so they may well do a few thousand steps on the commute, i.e. daily exercise without realising it.

Outside London, where public transport is generally poor, people are more likely to use their cars to commute, so will do a lot less walking, as it's more likely to be a few steps front door to car, and then a few steps works car park to workplace.

Food used to be much more boring and hard to prepare. We're fat because of capitalism basically.

So .. nothing to do with poor choices and eating the wrong foods then? Or not exercising enough? Just all down to someone else. Ok then ...

I think it's probably more to do with having a job (and commute) to occupy people and stop them snacking, plus the gentle pressure to confirm, appearance-wise. I think too much emphasis is put on lack of exercise, and not enough on the role of diet and why people overeat.

Re all the 'wartime rationing meant people were thinner' - I am sure I have read somewhere (am happy to be corrected because I can't remember where and may be misremembering) that there was a study done into weights of children born to underweight mothers. It followed children born to mothers subjected to starvation level diets (may have been a Dutch study, now I come to think of it). Those children were more likely and liable to put on weight - and would be the children of mothers who grew up during rationing (so now entering their 50's/60's).

It was to do with survival - if the body believed food may become scarce, it became more able to hold on to calories. Also may have been behavioural - mothers who grew up with not enough to eat trying to ensure that their children never felt the same levels of hunger that they did whilst growing up. Which would mean a generation who grew up thinking that big portions and eating constantly was natural, and then passed that down to their own children.

Everyone's got an excuse now.
Even those citing medication.

The medication may increase appetite but your body doesn't need the extra food.
Correct portions are easy to find. Once a person knows they have consumed the appropriate amount of food there's nothing forcing them to continue to eat other than their own self.

I think it's both our own fault and not our own fault. (I haven't read all 14 pages btw, sorry). Let's not get too fixated on the 1940s; we are surely fatter than ever before in history.

Capitalism fills the world with horrid sugary fatty food. It's cheap to make and guaranteed to sell. Go to a poor area of London and all the food outlets are fried chicken shops. Go into a newsagent and you'll be greeted with an entire wall of sugar (in a newsagent, for goodness's sake! It's supposed to sell stuff you read.) I recently went into a WH Smith needing some lunch and there was literally nothing to buy to eat there that wasn't arguably poisonous, apart from some brown bananas and manky apples.

People have less will-power than before. No-one is ever bored because they have their phone to read facebook / play candy crush / text friends etc etc. Shorter attention spans match to high availability of quick-cook food (because we're all so much busier than our forebears - thanks, capitalism) and that creates an expectation of going from hungry to full in a short period of time. Thus we eat more crap.

Almost nobody is a stay-at-home parent, preparing a proper meal from fresh ingredients for the family at the end of the day. Fly in from work, chuck the chicken nuggets and chips in the oven, phew done. Vegetables? Oh yes I think we've got some frozen sweet-corn. It's so easy to do. I've done it.

Fewer of us are manual labourers than at any point in the past.

People have forgotten the difference between being properly hungry and just craving sugar. I think in terms of 'mouth-boredom'.

Snacking is socially normal. Compare to France where people are generally not over-weight: they only eat at meal-times. (The difference between Paris and London is visible and terrifying in this respect.) 'Pourqoui tu manges maintenant?' 'Pourqoui tu manges ca?' 'Pourqoui tu manges ca maintenant?' They arrive at meal-times properly and rightly starving hungry (which is why they hold their meals in such reverence)! Compare to the UK; the high-street I just walked down had people munching on sausage rolls and crisps at 10:30 in the morning; coffee shops have big adverts for pumpkin-spiced lattes full of sugar syrup and full-fat dairy. The French generally drink their coffee black, of course.

Being overweight is just normal in the UK now. Again in France, Mothers say 'tu devrais manger de la soupe pendant quelques jours' when they think their children have put on a few pounds. People's weight is closely monitored as part of looking after each other. Here we make our friends and loved ones an excuse to eat badly ('Oh you're no worse than me darling! The other day I stuffed my face with [blah]').

I don't know what the solution is. I was interested by the Scottish Minimum Unit Price approach to alcohol. Maybe we need something similar for sugar? I don't think the gym-bunny culture (as observed in the offices of a few PPs) is the solution. It seems to be a fairly new thing among the relatively well-off (or at least it's got much more prominent than it used to be); I'm guessing it comes to us from Hollywood? It's only really penetrated the metropolitan elite though, not the population at large. My worry about using exercise-addiction as a means of maintaining a healthy weight is that it's not realistically sustainable for everybody into middle- and old-age (not to mention new-parent-age! I was smashing the mars-bars just to stay awake when DC1 had just been born and it took me four years to get rid of the weight!) They're all really good-looking though, for the time being!

ps. Sorry that was long! Also sorry if my french is a bit wonky - I don't claim to be fluent. Also I know the french haven't got every problem solved (I think eating disorders are common in young women bat, anyway...)