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'm sorry but I used to live in France. I knew plenty of fat people. They ate processed food, sandwiches and crisps. They are in front of the tv. They went to macdonalds.

Yes this is true, especially among lower income people. The French are the biggest consumer of Mcdo per capita outside of the UK. However, the percentage of obesity is still a lot lower than in the UK. Most of the French women I know take care over their appearance, don't smoke, don't drink alcohol a lot and do sport regularly.
Keeping in shape is a question of self respect, respect of your partner and showing your kids a good example.

Of course it doesn't apply to every single French.
I entered the discussion because people were mentioning the French.

I commented on my view on why, Australians are fatter than French. My view is mine, you might agree on some points, disagree on others or on all of them, I don't really care.

And SoyDora, to answer your question, children have sandwiches every single school day here, no school dinners are served, and more often than not, they will have sandwiches for lunch during the weekend as well. So even if it is not 365 sandwiches in a year, 250 is a quite accurate guess.

I’m not saying I care what you think odd response, the point of a forum is to talk about experiences.

And you’re painting a depressing picture of Australian produce. Although it depends on circle you’re in. I fly home and eat superbly well, as do my friends. But they are wealthy so probably same wealth rules apply.

Apologies LeGrandBleu, I thought you were talking about the UK, not Australia.

Do the French do much exercise? I’ve always found there’s not much interest, maybe they’ve moved on. They definitely do a lot in Aus starting with a huge amount of sport at school.

I live in Korea and I am always shocked when I come back to the UK. It is very rare to be fat here, let alone obese - you might see a lot of older guys with fat stomachs from drinking all the time, but you will rarely see anyone with fat all over their bodies. It's just considered to be inherently disrespectful for you to not take care of yourself.

Is that necessarily a good thing? Not always, because there is SO much pressure to be slim/attractive etc, especially for women. It is totally normal to tell your friends they are fat or have put on weight and it does feel like a kind of social policing at times. But I do think that we've reached a point in the UK where it has become the norm to be overweight, and that's not healthy either. The diet culture here is awful though, I know someone who eats three yoghurts a day and that's it.

People will often say that Asians are naturally slimmer, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. My husband only has to look at food and he puts weight on. When his parents were growing up, they really didn't have sugar or processed food so it's really rare to see fat older people but I see a lot of fat children these days. I think it's just diet changes. We've had access to cheap sugary crap in the UK for ages and it's had a bad effect on our diet. This has only started in Korea in the last 30 or so years, and it's starting to have an impact now as it becomes the norm. Don't get me wrong, I eat a load of crap too, so I'm not judging anyone, because it is so hard to cut out sugar.

There's also more of a sharing culture in Korea, so people will buy a packet of crisps or sweets and share it between friends. It's quite rude to just sit and eat a doughnut or a chocolate bar by yourself. I think that reduces how much food people eat because they would be embarrassed to gorge themselves and eating alone is seen as something you only do out of absolute necessity, even if it's just a snack. If you go to the corner shop, there are only about 10 or so types of individual chocolate bars, compared to 30 or 40 in the UK. There are much more sharing type things.

Here people eat sandwich every single day of the year, with artificial cheese, poor quality processed meat, and fake spreadable butter

I don’t know anyone who does this.

Have you been to a school at lunch time recently?

MarshaBradyo, I think I have said that people eat the same 5-6 veggies over and over again, not that they are not available in the supermarket and it is was in response to a PP saying that convenience food was the cause of obesity but that at the same time it opened the door to a variety of new food.

In my experience, people eat the same things over and over again, and many have never touched half the veggies in the supermarket. and in some cases, even fruit.

We have an open house, so very often we put an extra plate or two at the dining table and two different teenagers had never eaten a cherry before and I had to teach them how to eat them. Mind you cherries cost between 15-24 Australian $ (divide by 2 for pounds) . A girl had never eaten a strawberry. Many had never seen the inside of a pomegranate and of course never tasted it.
And these kids belong to wealthy families, so money is no the issue.

"People just didn’t snack in the same way 20 or 30 years ago"

This is definitely part of it. We never had snacks when I was growing up. And my mother would have died before she let me eat something while walking home from school.

We had far from a perfect diet (very 80s beige) but we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and that was it. Getting a hot chocolate from the machine (20p!) after swimming was a massive treat.

I'm sorry but I used to live in France. I knew plenty of fat people. They ate processed food, sandwiches and crisps. They are in front of the tv. They went to macdonalds.

Like here it depends on the demographic. I’m part French, have spent a lot of time there etc. I’ve never eaten in a French McDonalds in all my life, neither did any of my friends/family.

That is odd LeGrand. I’m wondering where you are. I did grow up in the state best known for excellent produce and then Melbourne which has a really good access to a huge variety of food. And all those markets.

My heritage is French / Eng moved to Aus as a child. Admittedly my mother despaired for a while about it all but now the marriage between French knowledge and Aus quality produce is worth travelling for.

Do you feel like you have access to nice stuff even if others don’t buy it?

Have you been to a school at lunch time recently?

Not at lunch time this year no, but as the chair of governors at my DC’s school, I know they have 90% school dinners take up so not many sandwiches being consumed there.
The quality of the school meals is another matter of course, and one we’re working on!

I think all the people saying that they work with 1000 people send apart from 2 all the rest are not only slim but really healthy in their opinion have missed the point. People have a warped opinion on what is slim. A size 12 for an average height woman is in most cases, overweight. We have been conditioned to thinking it is acceptable but 30+ inch waists and the ability to grab fat on one's body is not slim. A genuinely slim person shows a shadow of ribs and has visible hip bones. A slim man does not have a belly. At all. No belly. No moobs.

I said that about young and slim and no warping, I can see it’s not true outside those workplaces.

"A genuinely slim person shows a shadow of ribs and has visible hip bones"

Exactly. People will often say such people are "skin and bones" or "too skinny" but that is a normal weight.

I agree with watchingthemoon that snacking a big problem
For me in 70's 80's, I had sweets once a week on a Sunday evening and my parents had one bar of chocolate then. Such things weren't a staple or daily occurrence as they seem today. Ditto crisps
Fruit juice only appeared at Christmas to great excitement.
I had a friend who had fizzy pop delivered on a Saturday - 2 of the large glass bottles - and I was so jealous as I never got this at home.

Well I don’t check colleagues ribs but definitely tending towards size 6 to 8, 25 inch etc rather than 30 inch

Not all. Some size tens. But definitely not fat for the majority.

It is an anomaly though

When I was a child in my home country, it was considered massively rude to walk around eating or drinking. Even if you bought an ice cream, the correct etiquette was to sit down and eat it. The constant munching wherever you are certainly contributes to weight gain.

Yes I agree op, there is an obesity crisis. It's been in the news for many years so am I shocked by it? No.

Some kids are even sent to school every single day with squash in their water bottle. WHY! When parents can't even stick to water or milk (at home) but have to start put sugary crap as a staple in their diet, you know there's a huge problem in the way people think.
Then you always have the clever and hilarious "It's not heroin you know, squash is perfectly fine"

No wonder the state of kids teeth is becoming another massive issue. Cavities on milk teeth? Shocking.

I am thin but can't see my hip bones as a result of five pregnancies stretching my stomach. I think it's a little bit dangerous to say that anyone 'should' be able to see these things, everyone carries weight differently, and panicking about not being able to see my hips brought me to the edge of an ED, until it was pointed out that it was skin, not fat, obscuring them.

"I think it's a little bit dangerous to say that anyone 'should' be able to see these things"

It's more like being able to see them is normal, rather than a sign of being anorexic, which is what many think.

We've had the text from the school (that goes to all parents) to only send water, not squash, although I'm not sure whether they would still allow it if it was sent in. I know quite a few parents who give squash every day.

When I take my border collie to the vet he says he is overweight if you can't feel his ribs. It is the same for humans. As soon as my hip bones and rib cage stop being apparent I lose the one or two kgs required, I hate not being able to see or feel those bones!
And yes, the French school curriculum is more sports orientated now, the government were concerned about the increase in obesity in young people and have managed to turn it around with certain measures.

I’m not sure about hips and ribs as I’ve never looked, but I was certainly one of the bigger members of my team at a size 10-12. There was also a huge competitive exercise culture. I was the only person in my team of 20 who hadn’t run a marathon!