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 regularly get told I'm "very slim". I am a healthy weight but I'm actually right at the top of my healthy BMI range
People who are fatter than you will always say you are very slim. It's all relative. OTOH people rarely tell you that you are fat (unless they know you very well and are concerned).

I come from a country where the absolute majority of people were slim when I was growing up. It's changing now, but the average size is still far smaller than in UK. And all this is because one reason only: FAT SHAMING. Now I have to say in advance, I DON'T AGREE WITH ANYTHING I'm going to say below and I do think it's HORRIBLE. I'm just sharing the experience.

-Fat people (kids, grownups and old people) were and still are shamed everywhere and by everyone: other kids, teachers, employers, random people in the streets, shop assistants, relatives and parents - everyone. Not a day will go by without someone (and you're lucky if it's just one) person mentioning that you're fat, look awful and you need to stop stuffing your face and lose weight (and that's putting it politely).

-If you're a bigger person, you will have issues at work. Especially if your duties are representative/dealing with customers. If you're size 16, you won't be hired for these roles and no one will faff about with excuses, they will tell you your appearance is unsatisfactory.

-If you're a fat girl - no man would look at you. If you're a fat boy - you won't have a girlfriend.

-You will really struggle to find clothes if you're anything more than size 12. Above size 16? No chance. Tailoring or internet shopping abroad.

-Reasons for being fat such as 'mental issues'? You'd be laughed out of the room in unison and would be told to stop stuffing your face and start moving your arse. Any doctor would tell you the exact same thing. Psychiatrists/psychologists would keep quiet if not asked, but if you'd mentioned your weight - they would tell you the same (and this is from personal experience).

-'I'm a real woman', 'I'm rocking my curves' - people would die laughing. And when they catch their breaths, they would tell you that size 8 (or 10 at a push) is curvy. Size 16 is a cow. Above that? Monstrosities not worth talking about.

-There was a program on telly. I didn't see it, but as I understand, it was something to do with bigger girls being beautiful, plus size modelling, that sort of thing. It was taken off-air after a few episodes due to lack of attention. Judging by comments after the program, viewers were genuinely baffled: why would any TV channel choose to show these fatties and pretend they're attractive? Is this supposed to be a comedy? Not funny.

So basically it comes to this: if you're fat - you don't exist. No one cares about your tiredness or mental health issues. Don't gain weight/lose it or stay in the outskirts of society.

There are far more things, but these are enough, imo. Now again, I don't agree with any of it. The population IS slim, though. But the cost is also ridiculously high.

I came to UK 10 years ago. Back home, I was considered to be properly chubby/bordering on fat (5'11'' size 14 back then). Here in UK people called me slim. Being here, I've gained loads of weight (pregnancy and other issues) and was size 18/20. Here I was called 'plus size', but generally no one batted an eyelid. Back home I was a monstrosity, people didn't even laugh at me, they pitied me. Then I lost weight and I'm currently size 6/8. Now I get some grief and skinny shaming here in UK. Back home I'm considered to be absolutely normal. Slim, but not skinny at all. Medically I'm on the verge of being underweight, but I'm happy with my size.

Ah, but there are a few GOOD things to mention about 'back home', though. People still cook and teach their kids to cook from scratch and junk food (in shops and fast food joints) is far more expensive than healthy choices. What surprised me here in UK, is that you could get a meal from McD/KFC and the likes for practically nothing. Yet back there (ironically) these kinds of places are considered to be a luxury, as you can easily get a proper good meal in a decent establishment for far less. Also, fast food availability. For example, the city with a population of 295 000 has 1 McD, one KFC (which closed down as wasn't popular), one PizzaHut, one Subway and one Hessburger.

@ShadowOnTheSun I'm guessing from your post you don't want to say, but, which country is this?

Shiny, it's one of the Eastern European countries. There's an explanation for all this, but it's irrelevant to this thread.

Like I said, it IS changing, it's not as severe as it was when I was growing up. But still similar, sadly. And worst of all, it affects people with 'genuine' reasons to be overweight the most. Thyroid issues and similar. No one would care if you have these, you'd still be bullied. And if you'd explain about your illness/medication, you would get a short pause and then something like this: thyroid? So? No one gets fat on water diet! Just don't stuff your face!

Or the forever popular: there were no overweight people in labour camps, were there?

@managedmis

I do try to be truthful ....

Shadow you've probably partly got the answer in more of a "proper cooking" and less fast food culture,

I do agree we're normalising heavier weights as a society through vanity sizing, and the push to be inclusive of everyone.

I also agree that the society we live in is a major cause of the increased weight levels. Theres the crappy advertising that food companies are allowed to get away with, targeting the most vulnerable and being very underhand with the truth about the nutritional value. There's the stress and workload that we deal with now; no previous generation has ever been so on call, and although some industries may have had longer working hours than were do now, office workers generally didn't, and hardly anyone commuted the distances that are considered normal now. Most people would work at most a short bus ride away, now 2 hour commutes each way are what lots of people do every day. That's exhausting in itself without adding in working and trying to do housework, etc.

We also have to deal with a huge amount more toxicity than any other generation, with chemicals added to stop many things we come into contact with, that are known to upset hormones, metabolism, genes, etc. Food, clothes, household items, things outside the house, it's impossible to get away from them even though it's obvious they're harming our health.

But we also need to understand that children learn from us and if we want our children to grow up healthily they need to know what that looks like. I know so many adults who won't eat fruit or vegetables, so their children 'don't like them' either. The kids are fed the same meals over and over because that's all they like (eg, nuggets and chips). They also stock up on huge amounts of snack food which the children know is in the house and pester them for, meaning the parents give in for an easy life. I grew up in the 80s/90s, we rarely had snacks in the house (crisps, white bread, fizzy drinks), as a result I don't really snack hugely because it doesn't occur to me to, it's never been a habit that I formed. Food was more expensive then, especially all the shit, and I don't think that was a bad thing. Treats aren't treats these days because they're so easily accessible and people eat them every day.

Part of the issue is that there is not one answer to it.

I would be the 'plus size' one. You will see 'success stories' of people losing weight who would drink a lot, eat junk all day and takeaways most nights and of course stopping that makes a difference. I however do not drink, rarely have takeaways, don't snack during the day and DH cooks proper food. The advice I get given for being overweight doesn't change much (other than calorie count). Mine is mostly that I do too little exercise with a desk job in which I work long hours. Telling me to eat less doesn't help (and is actually annoying when DH has a desk job, eats a lot more than me plus junk food and is still thin as a rake).

However, a friend of a friend is seriously obese but for her own reason. She loves the feeling of eating so much she feels sick. She will try to diet but will only do SW as she can eat as much as she likes if she follows the plan and is then shocked when she does not lose. She has tried other diets but she gives up the second she feels hungry as will not accept having to feel anything less than uncomfortably stuffed let alone feeling hungry.

That is an example of the issue. Two people who are overweight for different reasons. Whilst I can calorie count and exercise more to lose weight, she never could as would not accept it even if you tried to fat shame her into it. In neither case is it related to poverty/inability to buy healthy food, even though I accept that can often be a link.

Well duh, we've known this for ages. People are fatter, more people also have eating disorders.

Maybe we should stop preaching at people and Stop size being the centre of the universe.

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom what makes you think wealthier people have more time to make healthy food? The highest paid people I know work 12-16 hour days in high-intensity jobs.

Well I am French and live in Australia, and I agree with several things said about the French women in this thread.

The first thing I noticed here is people eating all the time, people eating in the street I should add, eating while walking, drinking half a litre of smoothie, milkshake, lattes.... Whenever we go to New Caledonia, we notice the second a cruise ship has arrived, because all of a sudden, you see adult women eating crisps on a beach.
We don't . We eat crisps very occasionally during an aperitif or at a party, but it is a child's food. Party food
We simply don't eat between meals.
We don't carry food in our handbag. If you randomly stop women in a street in Paris, they will be more likely to carry a Contrex (famous brand of water) bottle in their bag than snack/cereal .

Whenever I read an article about the French so-called paradox and that we eat cheese, drink wine, and yet are very slim it makes me laugh. Yes we eat cheese but a small cube of real cheese, not those fake plastic rectangular artificial cheese, and we certainly don't have much of it. French women are slim because they don't snack and this starts in childhood.

IF you go at the playground in a park in France, you will see that French mothers don't carry a lunchbox around. When it is 12pm, they leave to go home, cook lunch (not a sandwich) and eat at the table, not in front of the TV, and mum and child, any child above 18 month, will have the same meal and eat it with cutlery.

Whenever my youngests have playdates at our house, I serve the goûter, usually crêpes at 4pm, but before and after that, the kitchen is closed. You don't ask for food before or after. dinner will be served between 7.30 and 8. There is nothing to eat or drink before that but water.

I think people are not used to have an empty stomach. They are grazing all day long, eating the crappiest crap. Even at sport events and competition, crap is being sold and eaten. Parents come to sporting events with huge bags of snacks, and both parents and children will munch on that for 8 hours straight.

Even the main meals are very different. For many, homemade=healthy. I sometimes made the most decadent lasagna for when my son had people over, oozing with cheese and a heavy dense bolognaise.
The boys love it . They fight to scarp the burnt cheese on the sides.
It is definitely homemade and as definitely not healthy. It is a heart attack on a plate. I don't touch it.

French kids do way less sport out of school than Aussie kids because they are drowning in homework, and they are way slimmer than Aussie kids. They eat pain au chocolat after school. But they have 1, at 4pm , usually a fresh artisan one made in a bakery and then nothing till 8. They don't eat crisps everyday. Here they give crisps to baby!!! Melty crisps or whatever they are called. They hook babies on fake foods from the very first tastes. And fried food.

I also believe fashion plays a role, because we don't wear "active" wear or lycra or stretchy things, so you notice the tiniest weight gain straight away, so at the next meal, you won't touch the bread or have fish instead of pasta.

And the last thing, which is a bit sad and goes against us, is that we are taught to look after ourselves, our figure, to maintain the same size through adulthood. I takes effort to have the same size at 50 you had at 20, so when your jeans are tight or the skirt zip doesn't close, you eat cucumber and tomato salads until it does. When you are pregnant, the gynaecologists (midwife are only present for birth) are quite strict about the 1kg per month not more weight gain. There is this expectation for you to stay slim.

Is it a class thing in the U.K. is French society less divided by class. Lower classes feel sensible eating rules don't apply to them?
Remember the Jamie Oliver school meals thing.

I agree OP. I was people watching recently sitting outside in a cafe and watched people walk past nearly all (including me) were overweight.

I have noticed a lot of older people who are overweight either have diabetes or use a mobility scooter. I have made a decision that I won't end up like them. I eat 3 meals a day (I don't snack except when on holiday) I try not to drink too much alcohol and always walk everywhere when I can.

I genuinely don't know any overweight people. I work at a university in north of England so I see a lot of people and i would say barely any staff and no students seem to be even remotely fat.

However when I go home to Scotland it's a different story. Everyone is huge. So it must be regional.

Regional in a way but people at a university aren't an across the board mix, they're educated and either in education or employment. It seems that poorer areas have fatter people.
Something to do with believing you have agency over your life, so money, opportunity etc and if you haven't or believe you haven't you are at the mercy of the advertisers.

@LeGrandBleu that's a very interesting post as your experience being a French woman.

It actually sounds very much like the attitude of my mother (British) who grew up in the 1940's and followed her 'rules' throughout life, always remaining slim.

It is also interesting to consider the point made about long hours being worked, and often by both adults in a relationship. When I was growing up my mother worked, which was not the norm amongst friends' parents. My mother was a teacher. Now we read on here every day how stressful life is as a teacher and the long hours worked. When I was growing up (70's) my mum left the house at 8.40 like I did, I walked to my school, she drove to hers. The same in reverse at 3.30 so we arrived home at the sane time. Plenty of time for home cooking and preparing healthy packed lunches for the next day. Time for some exercise too, plus relaxation and an early night.

The 1970's was also the time when convenience foods started to come in. My mum didn't believe in food other than the meat and two veg she'd grown up with, but many of my friends started eating these, and when I left home mid-1980's I couldn't wait to buy all the different foodstuffs now available. So, I am thinking, is there a generational difference between people who grew up being served nuggets and chips, and went on to serve those to their own DC, having developed a lifelong affinity with 'beige' food, only enjoying and cooking these foods and in turn replicating for their own DC. Whereas people like me, a little older, have put on weight due to increased eating out, general increased availability of food and less exercise in mid life. But lacking my mother's discipline!

The crisps thing isn’t specifically French. It’s a European thing - crisps are not daily food, they’re what you serve at parties.

I grew up not eating crisps, not considering them food, and am always astonished at the amount of crisps the British eat. They’re not even very nice!

When French kids go on a picnic or day out crisps do form part of that now for many children. They didn't before. Otherwise, yes, they are generally eaten as an apéro and not necessarily daily.
But I see a lot of fat French kids now, certainly in the provinces there is a class difference and those on lower incomes eat badly. I'm quite shocked at the local swimming pool now, 20 years ago a fat child was the exception, much less so now. Fast food is readily available and in the supermarkets there is more and more shelf room given to pre prepared dishes and snacks. A lot of the younger mums are huge too.
But more sport has been introduced to the school curriculum, and taxes on soft drinks too. I think last year the obesity rate stopped increasing for the first time in many years.
One thing that is good is that families still eat together in the evenings and at weekends. So children eat the same food as the adults, no nuggets and chips or other 'child friendly' food.

LeGrandBleu
That is a very interesting post.

I don't think attitudes to food are always passed down by families either. I was brought up eating wholemeal bread, no puddings no snacks etc. Many of my friends ate crap and I couldn't wait to leave home to eat white bread and Findus frozen pancakes. I put on a huge amount of weight and looking at photos I looked dreadful at that time. I reverted to the wholemeal bread etc fairly quickly.
My children have been brought up eating healthily, but my daughter loves junk food, processed rubbish and chocolate. She can't cook and isn't interested in learning. She is lucky in having a great figure and doesn't put on weight but the time will come!! I worry about what she's doing to her health already.
Diabetes runs in my family. I am currently several stones overweight and I have thyroid problems. I have never drunk fizzy drinks, eat healthily, love vegetables and salads. I think I just eat too much portion wise. it has crept on slowly. I walk regularly, but find I just can't metabolise carbs any longer. I cut them out a few years ago and lost 2 stone easily.

I find also when i go to France I gain massive amounts of weight. I cannot eat bread there or I go home like a Michelin man.
It isn't always true that overweight people eat crap. I don't. It seems very unfair.
i'm someone who just gains weight easily. I was absolutely rigorous about watching what I ate before I had children, but struggled thereafter and willpower fell by the wayside. My daughter can eat whatever she wants and it doesn't make a difference.

we eat a lot of lentils / veg and is amazing how many people feel its OK to criticise our diet :'rabbit food

It's going strong on the "vegan wankery" thread atm!

Just go to any sport centre in England. If you are there for the day- competition or other - you need to bring your own food.

If you try to buy some, it's just vending machines selling crap - chocolate bars or crisps, or a "cafe" serving cakes and rubbish. Of all the sport centres I have been to, not one of them has any salad, healthy sandwich (as much as a sandwich can be healthy), it's just junk food.

It's embarrassing!

Just go to any sport centre in England. If you are there for the day- competition or other - you need to bring your own food.

Same with some of the university open days we've recently been to. Some of the campus "cafes" were just like a Greggs with a fridge full of sandwiches, and a "meal deal" with a fizzy drink and bag of crisps. Then outside there was a sweet "crepe" stall selling nutella crepes next to a burger van. And yes, the "coffee shops" in some of the departments had a counter full of huge buns and cakes.

Really disappointing to see. But does explain why a lot of the students were overweight.

an expectation of driving everywhere too. The public transport where I live is fairly crap, tbf, and expensive to boot, which doesn't help. Drive to work, drive to the shops, even drive to the gym! Ruining the environment and getting fatter and fatter.

The number of people who don't expect their DC to be able to walk more than about 10 metres! It's really obvious when you take kids on school trips, even discounting for kid lethargy there are so many shocked and appalled that they are expected to walk.

Ruining the environment and ruining our health. Of course, the more people drive, the less pleasant it is to walk as well.

anyoneseenmykeys

We have a vegan friendly cafe in our community leisure centre filled with pulses and salads. No idea how it got there! Is lovely. You can get a huge plate of salads after gym for a few quid.