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

Trazzletoes Mon 28-Nov-11 10:57:17
Griff, well done, keep up the good work x

Thanks.

its weird when people say size 10 is taking things too far that im wasting away.

Its taken some willpower.

My girls worry me they not overweight but love snacking.

Think for our family snacking is the issue.
desserts after every meal
biscuits.

everyones limited to no more than 1pack crisps a day.

since been on sw diet hubby sort of loosly followed it with me.
just by cutting out the snacks, eating less carbs hes lost weight also.

Im just hoping to get to point that im not worrying about weight and have the balance right.

Always trying to come up with new healthy meals for kids and healthy snacks. My 5year old has a few overweight kids in her class and their parents are also overweight.

I used to work in supermarket on run down deprived estate.
most got healthy start vouchers whic can be used for fruit/veg and milk but rarly saw people purchase anything other than milk or formula.

I dont think costs the issue as despite the low income most of staff went to pub or takeaway 5 niughts out of 7 and spent majority of their income on fags/booze.

I dont think healthy eating is expensive or hard

spag bol or pasta easy enough.
i use a lot of frozen veg, kids love mini corn on cob, huge fan steamfresh just 3mins in micro. we buy frozen fish fillets.
jacket potoes with salad.

You can eat shepherds pie every night sea - I completely disagree - as long as the portion size is controlled then it is fine.

My children have that sort of food every night AND a high fat pudding - bread and butter pudding or crumble or some such but I cant get enough calories into them or me - simply because the school run is a 2 mile walk, and a fast walk at that.

"They measured Marilyn Munro's dresses. During the sixties she usually wore a size 10. By today's standards she would be a size 4 - 6 (A hollywood size zero - she was never a size 14 as some people believe and seem to cling to as being a roll model for curves)."

Nicey, you are confused I think!

Marilyn Monroe wore a US 10, in the Fifties.
This, due to vanity sizing, would now be about a US size 6, which is the equivalent of a UK size 10.

Size Zero, in the US, is equivalent to a UK size 4.

I am gobsmacked that some people on here seem to think size 14 is overweight. I am size 14 and have a BMI of 24 (27 or over is overweight for my age group and 30 or over is obese)

my grandma never exercised and drove everywhere.

She stayed at home chatting to neighbours, drinking coffee...and smoking.

She was a rake.

Laquitar is right about tiredness and eating more too.

I believe I am overweight because of the work/shift patterns I have to do to work around family life. I have no routine (to enable DS and DP to have a routine) and my body clock is always wonkey and I can't commit to exercise at the same days of the week every week.

When I have a routine and a more normal work pattern I am much fitter and healthier

dunno bout the rest of the country, but I do see a lot of other mothers doing the ver unsocial work patterns to fit around keeping everyone else in the family stable and healthy (probably cause I work with them!). Women in more routined 9-5 jobs always look more slim/healthy/well kept to me

I am not incorrect northernwreck.

Her measurements make her a size 4 - 6 UK.
Studio claim - 37-23-36
Dress maker claim - 35-22-35

Size 0 waist (UK size 4) is roughly 22 - 25 inches.

She did put on a bit of weight in her later years but was never more than a UK 8.

People just don't want to believe it.

dabbler size 14 is obese for some people. It's just common sense really. A person who is 6 foot tall and size 14 is a different shape from a 5 ft size 14 person.
We should not use dress labels to define or assess weight. BMI, body fat % and waist measurement/ratios are the only accurate methods.

regarding Marilyn Monroe, I believe she had quite a few pregnancies as well, which made her weight and shape go up and down. Both those sets of measurements are tiny though.

Someone mentioned "excess" earlier, and I think that excess has become more acceptable in our society recently.

For example (I often mention this as it puzzles me) on TV women who have suffered a romantic disappointment are frequently portrayed as eating a whole tub of ice cream by themselves. It is an accepted, bog-standard, TV cliche nowadays, yet to me, that behaviour is alarming. It's binge-eating, emotional eating, the sort of behaviour that people with eating disorders have (although I am not saying that everyone who does this does have an eating disorder) yet it has become completely normalised in popular culture.

I would also say that binge drinking for women has also become normalised in popular culture. When I was younger a woman getting retching, gutter-pissing drunk like this would have been something she would have been ashamed about, because women just didn't behave like that. Now, you could say that it is a triumph of feminism that women are no longer looked down on for getting roaring drunk like men have always done, yet men who behaved like that always got beer bellies . . . so women are getting them too.

I would also like to mention that cookery programmes, which everyone except me seems to love, seem to feature high-fat, high sugar recipes all the time. And I think it interesting that Nigella, who is lauded for her "womanly curves" tends to be filmed from the waist up because she is much larger from the waist down. Maybe women think that if they eat like Nigella they'll be sexy like Nigella, but actually you know she is pretty overweight.

Marilyn Monroe' measurements are interesting because she had such a tiny waist, and so did most women of her time.

Why is it now that women and children's waists are so much thicker? In the last 30 years, the size of the average 11 year old girl's waist has increased by 3inches, and that is a huge amount.

It's noticeable that so many teenage girls, despite being fairly slim, often have bigger waists, and this is a concern as the fat around the waist is the most dangerous sort.

What is it in our diet that causes this?

dabbler - how old are you?

My understanding is that any adult who has a bmi of over 25 falls into the 'overweight' category.

I am also a size 14 and I am definitely overweight. I live in an area with a very big migrant population and it's noticable that English women are much fatter than their non-English peers. I think we've just got so used to seeing really fat people here that we don't think a carrying an extra 20 or 30 pounds is an issue. We've become blind to it.

This is making me think of what happened in my house over the weekend. My six year old, who's got aspergers and is blindingly tactless, casually told me SIL, in front of the entire family, that a boy at his school had seen her passing by the other day and said she was really fat. My SIL was gutted, although she tried not to show it. She later came up to me and said 'I'm not that big am I? I'm only a size 20'. She's morbidly obese and hypertensive, but doesn't think she's actually that big compared to other 'really big' people. I didn't know how to respond, other than to say she carries her weight well (she does) and she's all in proportion (she is).

Should add, she then told me she really doesn't eat very much. I suggested she weighed and logged everything she put in her mouth in a week to find out where the extra calories were coming from, to which her response was 'I couldn't be bothered with that'. And went into the kitchen and ate two waffles piled with chocolate sauce and masses of whipped cream. I wanted to point out to her that you only need to do that two or three times a week, and not adjust your calorie intake the next day to take account of it to end up really fat within a few years. Actually I know exactly why she's fat - she simply eats too much. Her portion sizes are colossal, which is why her husband is fat, her son is fat and her daughter was fat (until she became massively into competitive sport and lost a lot of weight). Wish I could tell her without offending her.

Exercise doesn't make you thin, It is good to do, makes you fitter but you will not lose weight with exercise.
If you do 20 mins on the stair climber you burn around the same number of calories as in 2 slices of wholewheat toast.
I walk around 4-8 miles a day, and fast. I am pretty fit, but still have a belly and wear a size 12 (on a good day)

British people are fat because of :

Crap junk food everywhere
Sugar addiction
Booze.
Just eating too damn much.

I was at my skinniest when I had two part time jobs, and lots going on, as I would often skip a meal, through being too busy to feel like sitting down and eating.
Contrary to popular wisdom, skipping meals does not make your metabolism suddenyl speed up and hold onto all your fat.
Starving yourself for a week might do that, but we are hunters! We are designed to sometimes go hungry.
Its actually good for you, and when I used to do it I wore a size 10.

Now I am sitting at a computer, or in front of the telly every night, and I eat out of boredom and sexual frustration loneliness.

Agree with all that Fellatio said too.

"What is it in our diet that causes this?"

According to my reading it's caused by our huge intake of cheap carbohydrates and our constant snacking. Our blood sugar levels are much higher than they should be, which can cause insulin resistence and metabolic syndrom. Oh, and also our sendentary lifestyles, which affect our metabolism and our ability to process and store fat and sugar.

Whatispi,
Sorry but your kids are not a good example. They might be slim now but when they are adult they might develop heart disease with this diet.
Because, at the end of the day, the article is not about who is unfit or "looking bad in jeans" woman in europe but who is the "at the most risk" woman in europe.
And i think the good food education should start from weaning. Giving high-colesterol and sugar to kids is wrong, even if they are skinny.

dabbler me too I have a healthy bmi of between 23 - 24 and am a size 14. I do think women are meant to have curves and not be skinny. I was 10 stone when I got married and looked thin. My ideal weight is 10st 5, bmi of 22, and I would be a 12 at that size.
I do think temptation is just too great for many, especially when mealtimes are less regular than they used to be. Looking at my 11 year old dd, she eats far more sweets, crisps etc than I ever did and is on the upper end of a healthy bmi. She seems to be average amongst her friends.

Think sizes so confusing.

topshop size 10 does not fit
next far too big

think retailers actually make clothes bigger to flatter the buyers so creates a false picture if you vary between a size 8-10 depending on what shop you buy from.

Bmi a good way of establishing of overweight.
A lot depnds on height and build.
so dabbler dont think anyones aying 14 overweight.
Taller people weigh more ect

For me its about being healthy and being happy/condident with size not just my dress size.

Just losing 10%of body weight if overweight can have huge health benefits.

I dont think state can do much, people have to be responsible and make the right choice for them.

My stepsons stepdad has sleep appnia because hes so large and has been off work sick.

Must admit when I see extremly overweight people and they housebound/wheelchair I wonder how they get to such an extreme that they dident realise they had a problem sooner and robs them of a normal active life.

Totally do notagree with who says thta people eat rubbish because they are tired. You do not need to be a genius to cook some grilled chicken and boil a potato in hot water.
People are always looking for escapegoats.

if you're tired because you work nights/v late/v early you cannot be grillin chickens at 2am!

I eat loads of high sugar cereal bars. cant be crashing about the kitchen when everyone else in the house is fast asleep and also at those times I'm probably too tired to be trusted to turn the cooker off properly before crashing out

I am saying I personally FEEL hungrier when I am tired, as Laquitar also said. You might not feel this way.

of course it doesn't take a genius to cook your own food, nor is it always more time consuming. But that's just the point: people aren't doing it for some reason.

"Why is it now that women and children's waists are so much thicker? "

Yeah I have noticed that too. I have been doing the Jillian Michaels thing and have lost weight, toned up blahdeblah and my waist has gone down to 26" (25" on a good day). 26" is the waist a size 14 was supposed to be when I was young (a long time ago), although I remember having a 24" waist and being a 10 in the late 70s/early 80s.

As I type I am wearing a pair of new Size 10 jeans from Next. They fit me perfectly except round the waist where they are massive. I'd say they are 3" too big round the waist.

Me too LadyHarriet!

Actually 'tired eating' is what's made me fat in the past few years. I went for infancy to the age of 42 with a BMI of about 23, got depressed, wasn't well and was very exhausted for a few months and ended up eating, eating, eating just to get through the day. Put on 3 stone in 6 months. Slowly coming off now on low carb diet.

interesting discussion. IMO another problem is that many people see obesity as something which is somehow 'out there affecting them' as if they have no personal liability or involvement. A lot of obese people will not countenance proper dieting and weightloss programmes but rely on the NHS to sort them out with a gastric band. As if someone else has made them fat.

Eating badly because you are tired isn't that you are suddenly unable or unwilling to cook properly. It is because you feel the need for something quick and comforting - something that you know from past experience will give you a sugar rush and make you feel good. Of course long term it doesn't help. We all know what we should eat, but the temptation to fall by the wayside is greater when you are tired.

I think the lives that many of us lead are simply not conducive to being healthy - not just in the size we are and the food we eat.