Britain's Fat Fight (HFW)

[Tigresswoods]

First of all, I love Hugh, we've watched him from the start of River Cottage. Second I think a programme on obesity & raising awareness etc is a good thing.

However AIBU to feel like we've seen it all before? I'm sure I've watched almost exactly that programme with Jamie & Tom Kerridge & probably someone else too?

You have seen it all before, but he probably has a book to sell, and summer is around the corner so it’s the perfect time to launch it. Anyway with Britain getting fatter every year every tv chef has ready audience to flog healthy eating books to.

Oh I've recorded this - is it worth watching or is it same old same old?

He's a pompous, patronising twat.

I'd say it's worth watching just to see the amount of crisps one guy has stashed (I eat a lot of crisps, have a medical need for a high sodium higher fat diet but even I was gobsmacked) and a nice visual about WHSmith.

An overpriveleged posho telling the proles on wafer thin budgets that they must eschew cheap carbs has the potential to be awkward.

It’s same old, same old.

I had to laugh at the bit where almost no-one turned up to his rally in Newcastle. He said he’d have liked to see more people, but the best efforts of the editor couldn’t disguise that it was a dud event.

Having seen some of the comments on Twitter im not going to bother.

Does anyone on here remember the great Jamie Oliver debacle of 2013.?

He’s a pompous, patronising twat 😂
I actually found him more palatable than Jamie, when he was vilifying poor people.

Well he got his arse handed to him on a plate on a webchat on here for that.

I think there was some new stuff in there. Going after big business and not just blaming individuals for a change was good. Obesity as a normal reaction to a disordered environment was an idea I’d not seen on mainstream tv before. It did make me think imagine if the world was designed with our best interests in mind instead of how much money companies could make.

AIBU to feel like we've seen it all before?

Maybe we have but it doesnt seem to have sunk in yet. I was surprised that Nestle and Kellogg’s didn’t use the traffic light system. Interesting how Evil Nestle were the ones who agreed to start using it too whereas Kellogg’s refused. I also liked how they ripped the shit out of WHS for the excessive chocolate displays and pushing chocolate as a bonus item at the checkout.

He is right that we now see overweight/obese as normal. You aren’t allowed to say negative things about fat for fear of being accused you’re “fat shaming” - people shouldn’t be ridiculed for their weight but being fat is nothing to be proud of (I am overweight).

I do think he had his eyes opened wrt how poorer people eat though.

I thought the cereal portion segment was eye opening.

I bet without those chocolate sales WHSmith would go bust. Not much call for stationery these days.

I thought it was watchable enough. I like Hugh and i dont think he comes across as pompous. He really listened when that lady Julie told him she thought he was getting it wrong, and asked her for her advice.

Its good that he is nagging the big companies to improve their packaging. That said, its not ground breakingly different...and im guessing the people who need this message most dont watch these programmes.

My jaw dropped at the salad drawer crammed with chocolate.

I watched it and it was the same as usual.

I don't believe that poor people can't afford to eat well. Fruit and veg isn't expensive. I've been poor. Really really poor and it was a hell of a lot cheaper for us to cook proper meals than it was to eat rubbish.

People in general are lazy and want instant gratification. They don't want to stand in the kitchen and cook a meal when they have other easier options. And let's face it, crap food tastes bloody nice.

People need to take responsibility for being fat. All the info is there on the packaging. Do we really need to have traffic lights on packets to understand like we're children?
The adults looking horrified when they were told how much sugar their kids were having in their cereal must have been faked? I mean, one was a huge bowl of chocolate balls. Of course that's full of crap, you don't need lights to know that.
And when they assumed the cereal was healthy because there was a bloody skateboarding squirrel on the packet 🤦‍♀️

I am fat btw and still well within the poor camp.
I am fat because I like shit food and I don't move enough. Not because I don't have enough money for good food.
I diet and do my best but health conditions and greed make it a challenge. I'll get there in the end though.
(Down 1 stone so far this year )

Do we really need to have traffic lights on packets to understand like we're children?

Yes we do. A coloured system is immediately obvious and doesn’t require you to learn what the RDAs are or whether something is good, bad or really bad. The colours are clear and understandable to everyone and the information is quick to see with no pouring over the nutritional information required.

I was surprised that the people in the supermarket had no idea what a 30g portion would look like and was surprised that they had no idea breakfast cereals are mainly sugar. I thought everyone would know those things and I don't understand how people are managing to avoid all the messaging about healthy eating.

The point of the programme really wasn't to point the finger of blame at people who make poor food choices, but at the giant corporations and their marketing strategies which target children and get them hooked.

Weigh out 30g of cereal the next time you have breakfast. It's tiny.

Very interesting about "available" calories vs actual ones and the 6 McDonalds vouchers which are enough to make it a habit.

It's part 1 of a 4 parter, so I'll be interested to see how it develops.

He does seem to be going for the obesogenic environment rather than blaming the individuals affected by it.

There was a clip of him lobbying at a Tory conference which was sponsored by Tate and Lyle sugar. You couldn't make it up.

He can't help being middle class but he will be called pompous because of it. I certainly don't think the programme can do any harm.

I thought that bit about the calories was interesting too. I’m intrigued by how the scientist is going to reconfigure Newcastle’s public transport too. I thought the whole takeaways part was interesting. Walking past a load of takeaways everyday increases the amount of times you have to say no to bad food particularly hard when your tired. There are less in leafy suburbs compared to poorer areas.

It was interesting that they were talking about the type of shops on the estate being a problem. There was a Heron supermarket and a shop selling a bit of rubbish fruit and veg. The proper butchers and greengrocers were long gone. I have said this before but we need more greengrocers in the UK.

I thought it was quite interesting. It focused more on the obesogenic environment we live in than other shows. It didn’t feel blaming of individuals. The bit about local shops was interesting. Fruit and veg might be cheap in your local Aldi but if you have no car and the only local shops are like those on the estate they featured then it must be incredibly difficult to provide a balanced diet on a limited budget.

I watched it and there was some cross over of things that we have seen over and over again. However the message is still not getting through.
I am not a health freak by any means but I was amazed that the parents didn't realise that the breakfast cereal was a highly processed sugar meal. My kids are adults but going back to when they were little I wouldn't buy coco pops and the like. That was before all these campaigns. My argument at the time was the amount of sugar wasn't good for their teeth. Also it just seemed wrong to have chocolate stuff for breakfast.

I was surprised at how little veg people bought and ate ( By the way HFW's book More veg and Much more veg quickly became a favourite cookbook in our house. They are excellent)

I liked the way he went for the big guns such as WH SMith, Nestle and Kellogg's.
I will continue to watch over the next few weeks.
I was shocked that HFW is deemed to be overweight and I suppose that could be prove of how we, as a population, have normalised what being over weight actually means.

I was surprised that the people in the supermarket had no idea what a 30g portion would look like

I wasn’t surprised at all.

At some level I know that the portions poured into my bowl are bigger than 30g but I don’t actually know what it looks like.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I have to weigh out my cat’s daily food allowance and it is far smaller than I imagined (66g of dry cat food).