Why are nearly 25% of British women obese?

[twitterer]

On the news this morning we are told that British women are the fatest in Europe, why? Of course it is down to eating too much and exercising too little. But other populations don't suffer so badly. I wonder if there is more (healthy) pressure from society, men, employers and others to be healthy

I'm not telling you to lose weight, and am not wishing to start a fight. I am just disputing the fact that a 5'5" woman cannot physically be a size 10.

I also have wider hipbones than miss Kelly.

How else should I construe "..then she went and lost weight" and a link to a super skinny Sophie? Who has a tiny bone structure??

I am telling you I can't physically be a size ten my hipbones are too wide - they are wider than Kelly's. I can be a 12 but not a 10, why is that so difficult to take on board?

You are insulting and ignorant to behave the way you are toward me - you don't like what I am telling you as it doesn't fit with your idealistic mould that doesn't allow for different body types so

I wouldn't go b y sizes. Go by BMI and weight and real measurements. Sizes are a con - the keep making them bigger and bigger as women get fatter and fatter.
In the 1950s the average woman was about my height 5 foot 4 or so and 8 and a half stone. Now she is often double that weight.

I would NOT like to be 17 stone! :0

But what's your point mychild? Just because it is possible to lose that much weight (when pressurised to do so in the public eye) it doesn't mean it's a good thing.

We have such a ridiculous dichotomy on size in this country. Someone with a BMI between 21 and 23 is a healthy weight and assuming they haven't got a lot of fat on their waist, they don't need to lose any more. But that never seems to be good enough - the ideal is always as low as possible, BMI of 19/20 or best of all less if possible. And at the other end of the scale the reality for many women is overweight or obese.

naturelover, I know what you mean.

but doesn't everyone have a built in "stop" button? that's the bit I don't get.

Once I've had enough, it would make me feel unwell to eat any more.

I don't think anyone can eat if they are full, really, or can they? HAve they somehow disabled the "stop" button?

Mychild, yes I would look and feel better at a lower bmi. But I love eating! I'm technically not overweight, I'm pretty fit- isn't that enough!

I don't give a fig what you think.

You are answering the question the OP has posed by your inability to accept that size 10 is not an unattainable, only-for-people-with-small-bone-structure, dress size. Denial.

You're the ignorant one.

Yes chandon, a lot of us have. And that is partly as a result of endless dieting as much as anything else. If you don't listen to your hunger when you need to eat, you won't feel when you are full either. It should be such a simple thing I know. And when you can't hear that 'voice' you are totally reliant on will-power alone.

Yes, talkingnonsense, that is enough.

I'm not saying everyone should aspire to be a size 10.

It's because we're worth it!!!!!

Orm I never said it's desirable to lose that much weight.

I was just taking issue with people claiming they can't lose weight because they're big-boned.

One word: carbohydrates
It is very possible to eat happily and tastily taking in an average of less than 12g of carbs a day. You will be slim. You don't HAVE to have bread, potatoes, pasta, sweet things.
I have been overweight, underweight and just right (now). It's the carbs, pure and simple.'

it cant be as simple as that. ds eats nothing but cheap crappy white carbs. Never exercises. He is 6 foot tall and weighs 7 stone. dd eats no carbs (freaky medical diet) and we have to count calories to keep her weight down. And 12g of carbs of day is not good. Carbs contain B vitamins and many minerals.

Size 10 isn't small. I'm a 10, well my arse is. I've a biggish bone structure and plenty of flab. (the wrist thing doesn't work - I've small wrists, but am basically rugby player shaped - inverted triangle.)

But then, a year ago size 10 seemed utterly unattainable and unimaginably small. It's funny how being large skewed my perception. My weight loss target was originally 12 stone and a size 14 -as it happened, I was in a size 14 at 13 stone.

The carbs argument doesn't really wash with the thousands of people losing stones on Slimming world and eating buckets of pasta and jacket spuds either does it.

I have a french colleague who won't eat brown bread only white, and was moaning about having a cherry tomato on her plate as it was too high in sugar.

Complex carbs contain roughage that's necessary for the body. French as a nation may be slim, but they aren't necessarily healthy.

Exactly, frog, it's skewed perception.

But they are not eating bucketloads of pasta and potatoes - they are carefully measuring out their prtions, and they are eating fewer carbs overall than if they were not on that red day/green day thing or whatever it is they do.

There are only 2 rules, eat less and exercise more.

I did slimming world once. Did it for a week, gained a pound.

I don't think they had estimated the remarkable amount of pasta I can put away if I put my mind to it. It's A Lot.

A size ten used to be small. It used to be waist size 24 inches.

Now it's more like 28 inches.

You can get more roughage from fruit and veg. It is not necessary to eat complex carbs to get them, but the powers that be who are obsessed with carb eating push them as 'healthy'. The reality is they are healthy in comparison to processed simple carbs. We can still do just fine without them, or in only tiny amounts.

I'm watching 'I used to be fat' on MTV. The girl is 13 stone 3lb and 5'3". BMI around 33. I think she's about 15 or 16.

She desperately wants to lose weight, but her mum is saying she doesn't know why...most women would kill to have her body. Our frames of reference are now so badly out. We need to recalibrate.

Fig, you are not alone.

I wear size 12-14 yet am "slim" (enough), BMI of 22.5

I am 6ft1 and have big hands and feet (sadly) and protruding hipbones. my hips will never be a 10! Even as lanky a teen with virtually no body fat, my hips were wide.

My Gyno joked I would be able to give birth to twins simultaneously with those hips, others have told me I am built for childbearing.

People DO have different builds.

Course they do, but you're 6'1" chandon, not 5'5"