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?

[Gingernaut]

Sorry.

Pink is size 16

White is size 14.

[MadameForest]

So the average 50 year old should have the body of a 20-year old professional athlete. Righto 

I'm 54 and although I can't say I have the body if a 20 yr old I run every day, often beat younger women in races and have a much better body than many younger women. I had a horror if being fat and frumpy at 50.

[Gingernaut]

Regardless of different styles, the size 14 is larger than the size 16.

[MadameForest]

This is a photo of a French size 10 pants and a U.K. Primark size 12 pants. Yes the size 12 should be bigger but surely not by that much?

[Gingernaut]

We are being pandered to.

It's insulting, it's embarrassing and it's wrong.

[shinynewapple]

I think that there needs to be a level of health and fitness which is attainable to every one, somewhere in between obese and never exercising and the level of fitness which madamfrost is portraying. This isn't practical for most people with a family, work etc and not necessary for general good health either. I think that when confronted with someone saying how super fit they are like this, it makes a lot of people think that the walk round the park isn't worth it and go back to the sofa.

[redchocolatebutton]

I watch the athletic for the decathlon

[MadameForest]

It's a matter of priority. I'm a single mum with 2 kids and no family around and I work. I get up very early and enjoy sport. I'm not saying it is for everyone and certainly you can be fit by doing a lot less. The most important thing is to find exercise you enjoy and do it regularly.

[Maskin]

What do the kids do while you’re enjoying sport very early in the morning?

[LeGrandBleu]

There are many levels absolutely attainable between a professional athlete and an obese person eating crisps on a daily basis.
The core of the problem is the food more than the physical activity.

To answer a PP about French women and exercise, I wouldn't say we are not fanatic in that department, far from it. We walk certainly more but then walking is normal and easy and you use your legs as a mean of transport, not as a programmed activity like here in Australia, where I go for a walk with my friend, but would never walk to the shops (3km).

For me, the issue is the food and even more the non-food, such as crisps, snacks, the artificial spongy bread, the industrial and highly processed food in every aisle of the supermarket . The real bread in a French bakery can be used as a weapon, the supermarket bread, I can play badminton with. The human can't deal with the way food has been transformed into a frankenstein version of it.

I have been a helper on many school trio and the content of the Australian lunch boxes is shocking. Packets and packets and more packets. Crisps, savoury snacks, rectangular yellow food-like substance yhat I refuse to call cheese but is nothing less than solidified cream and additives, cereal bars glued together with syrup, ... there is no food in these lunch boxes, only inventions that come from the mind of a food engineer.

Then you read about the sugar tax, the cake tax, it makes me laugh. It is like considering putting a superman band aid on an amputated leg. IT gives the pretence of doing something while making no difference to the health outcome.

[TomPinch]

@LeGrandBleu

I'm disappointed but not surprised that Australia is no better than NZ. And yet despite this, there's plenty of good quality fruit and veg for people to buy. I think it doesn't help that the traditionally bland diet meant that people assumed that nice taste = junk, but there's no reason for that now.

[LeGrandBleu]

@TomPinch
There is a great variety of fresh fruit and veg, quite expensive compared to France and other continental Europe countries but lack of fresh produce is not the reason people are fat.

When I am at the till in supermarkets, and I see the trolleys, most have chips, biscuits, chocolate, ..... When I am in cafe, despite having salads in the menu, most tables will have fried food of some sort. I just came back from the beach because there is a crazy wind today, and I didn't see a single family handing out a salad, or some veggies, only massive bags of crisps, or savoury crackers of some sort.
I had pumpkin soup in a flask for me and pasta salad for the kids and their friends. Filling, good, and very cheap, instead of buy 4 x fish and chips and having kids moan after 1 hour they are hungry again. Because this is what I see when I go with friends to the beach, their kids are constantly hungry, so at 10 it is the cereal bar, at 11 the doritos, at 12 chips from the bar, then the ice-cream and non stop requests for food. Sadly they don't receive food but things that fill the stomach for a very short time.

People take a suitcase of snacks while going on a cruise or camping or even to Fiji, as if they can't live without Pringles for a week and it is cheaper to buy them on specials at the big supermarkets chain. They might be cheap but the final cost in terms of health is very high.

[MarshaBradyo]

There is a significant number who love food and choose well in Aus but it really does depend where you are, south is better and depends on people you’re around.

I can imagine that families may revert to worse habits.

[stucknoue]

Been following this thread and mostly in my day to day life I don't see many obese people (only if I go to asda) but yesterday I had to use the bus due to car woes ... oh my goodness where I went to (admittedly a large post war housing estate but semi detached houses, loads of open space) the passengers were so different to the part of town where I live (took two buses) it's really noticeable. There's a huge income disparity between the two areas, the aforementioned asda is in between. There is a coop on the estate but mostly it's small spar type shops selling junk whereas the (interest build privately) area where I live we have Sainsbury's local and Tesco express which sell fresh fruit and veg cheaply. Car ownership is high in my city but if you don't have one on the estate it's hard because the bus doesn't go to asda.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

LeGrandBleu - those are not kids who are hungry, those are kids who are eating out of boredom and because they know the snacks are available. If the families took nothing but a bunch of bananas to the beach you can bet the kids wouldn't be 'hungry' every hour - they'd go off and do other things.

[Teateaandmoretea]

There are many levels absolutely attainable between a professional athlete and an obese person eating crisps on a daily basis.

Quite obviously but the answer was in response to the statement that the people on TV who are elite athletes are how bodies 'should be'

All this comparison to how wonderful mainland Europe is really grates on me tbh. Fruit is cheaper in France - not when I went.... enormous numbers of the adults were walking round with a fag hanging out of their mouth though, that's probably why they are (slightly) thinner on average.

I agree re constant eating it's totally unnecessary and we need to move away from the culture of panic when a child says they are hungry. But most children in the UK are slim and are as they always were. Why not compare to them rather than how heavenly things are amongst the French tobacco clouds?

[TatianaLarina]

All this comparison to how wonderful mainland Europe is really grates on me tbh

Offs.

[anyoneseenmykeys]

All this comparison to how wonderful mainland Europe is really grates on me tbh

too bad. It's bollocks to pretend everybody smoke and that's why they are not generally overweight. Unless you are Kate Moss, it's the most unhealthy and smokers who tend to be overweight anyway!

When you read threads about people complaining they would never be able to eat "normally" ever again if they don't want to become huge, that is the problem.

[dontpooyoureyesturnbrown]

The Aussies are just as fat as us here in Britain. Dp is Aussie/ British and the Aussie side of the family are not humongous but certainly not svelte. They are the first to get fish and chips whenever they visit us here.

[Lyingonthesofainthedark]

I've nearly got to a normal weight. I'm over 50. I've been a textbook example of overweight = high BP, high cholesterol etc, and dropping it = reversing it. I still have half a stone to go.

I remember the 70s we

[Lyingonthesofainthedark]

In the late 60s and 70s, mayonnaise didn't exist, all sandwiches were thin, nobody drank sugary drinks or alcohol except at the pub or on special occasions, lunches may be cooked or packed, but didn’t include crisps or chocolate, and sweets were for once at week at most, as they were expensive.All meals included veg and usually potatoes.

[TatianaLarina]

I ate mayonnaise all the way through the 70s.

[Lyingonthesofainthedark]

That surprises me, as I saw it in Holland in 1977 and didn't know what it was. Or custard in cartons, or yogurt for that matter.

Were you living in London? I was nowhere near there.

[TatianaLarina]

Yes London. But mayonnaise was hardly niche.

We used to have Ski yoghurts and Petit Suisse.

[Lyingonthesofainthedark]

Not in my town, or probably county.