What should the government do to reduce obesity at the societal level?

[waistchallenge]

We're the fattest country in Europe and the upshot is what you see here: people posting threads in desperation about their weight loss struggles. I think we can probably all agree it would be easier to never have gotten overweight in the first place and to never have had to go through these weight loss efforts and experiences.

Apart from the sugar tax, I cannot see that the government has done much, if anything, to reduce obesity in this country; it's higher than ever.

I'm asking here because we all have experience of this to be on here, what-if anything- should the government do to reduce obesity in this country? What would have helped you? Or is it all just ultimately a question of personal responsibility?

Oh yes, it would be a very broad brush approach, as obviously different people use calories differently, but it might go some way to giving an idea as to just how many calories there REALLY are in some foods that are regarded as 'snacks'. Enough to make people stop and think?

https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/news/beats-response-government-plan-calorie-count/

I have disordered eating. There is NOTHING that you can do re calories and food that won't trigger someone. Sometimes the needs of the many, and all that.

Ok but the charity BEAT was sufficiently concerned about calories on menus to launch a campaign… and the government responded by asking restaurants to offer a non calorie menu to those who request it. We cant introduce obesity interventions without considering the impact on those with eating disorders, different demographic groups etc.

This is so true.

If you live somewhere with only corner shops and takeaways and you don't have transport then getting fresh food regularly can become a real problem.

Or to say calorie per item. Rather than having to work out how many in a pack , and calculating.
Tbh I’ve only done that a few times but it wasn’t just a simple look at this table.

the government have told us we need to exercise to lose weight and that is a lie as it makes little difference. It’s about what we eat.
Exercise is good for us but it won’t make a huge difference to weight

Nonsense. Several times I have lost weight just by increasing my walking. Even at the moment, when I am eating a large amount of sugary food, I don't put on weight because I do lots of walking every day. If I stopped walking I would balloon, if I then started up again I would lose the excess weight - all from just walking. Of course what we eat matters, but so does exercise.

Larger-bodied passengers are being forced to buy two seats to fly on some airlines. This needs to be extended to trains, cinemas etc - people need to take personal responsibility for their unhealthy eating habits.

@saythebellsofstclements @NotOverYouOcelot

Crap food is not more expensive than fresh food: cabbage, frozen peas, onions, Carrots, seasonal fruit, lentils, oats wholegrain rice and pasta, potatoes, pearl barley, etc., are not more expensive than cheap/crap food. A large chicken costs £6.50 and should cover 6-8 portions. 1kg of beef or turkey Mince is about £6.50 and should make 10-12 portions. Tinned tomatoes, eggs and baked beans are reasonably priced.

I'm not saying it would make for the most interesting diet but the chicken carcass, half and onion, a carrot, a cpl of sticks of celery provides the basis of about 8 portions of carrot, tomato, spicy bean and lentil soup.

A shopping delivery might start at £30 but with a bit of planning one shops for the week.

Alternatively, perhaps the state could provide healthy food boxes instead of giving cash to sound on: biscuits, donuts, pizzas, takeaways, ready meals, sweet cereals and white bread.

Again, is it only royals who aren't at fault if they gain weight while on steroids? Because I know lots of people with my condition who don't recognise themselves.

And also, I don't understand, when I was anorexic I used to get regular compliments and noone once made out that my eating disorder was morally reprehensible. Yet People take such great delight in judging fat people

(I was skinny till my late 30s when put on steroids, so I have been both sides. I am the same person, whatever my body shape. I can only assume being utterly vile about fat people makes others feel good about themselves. But there are all kinds of amazing people who struggle with their weight, whether due to trauma, medication, lack of knowledge about how to fix it , like of time and energy to fix it ... )

Larger-bodied passengers are being forced to buy two seats to fly on some airlines. This needs to be extended to trains, cinemas etc - people need to take personal responsibility for their unhealthy eating habits.

Yes, unless they have a medical reason (eg steroids), but that would be easy to obtain from GP

Yes. One of my children is medically underweight (autistic and extremely limited diet) and I bet he (and I) wouldn’t get half the judgement from someone passing in the street that we would if he was overweight due to a medical
condition.

Being underweight is of course also unhealthy, but we have an epidemic of overweight people in the UK, hence this thread.

I wasn’t talking solely in context of this thread, more in context of the judgement overweight people get compared to underweight people. In general.

@RosesAndHellebores again you're talking about people with the means to spend a lot of time cooking

• not people living somewhere with a shared kitchen or no kitchen at all
• not people who are physically unwell and can't stand up for long periods of time
• not people with children who have restricted diets
• not people who work long hours
• not people with limit dexterity
• not people who have no freezer or fridge

@NotOverYouOcelot, I work exceptionally long hours. You can cook in a shared kitchen, I lived in shared houses in my early 20s. It's not difficult to sit and prepare food. Tell me what sort of restricted diets. There are tools to help with dexterity. No fridge/freezer means daily shopping for fresh stuff.

You do realise the human race survived for millenia prior to UPF and fast food I imagine.

And it's not a sensible or helpful thread if it descends into judgements and suggestions of taxing people based on body shape. Unless you are going to tax everyone with disordered eating? (Because if not, why?.when the underlying causes of trauma /stress/ medical conditions can apply just as easily to either).

My theory is it just makes people feel really good about themselves to judge fat people.

But I know larger people who are amazing in all sorts of ways, it's vile to treat them like pariahs when (as an anorexic) I often got treated with sympathy (or even admiration!)

Let's look at the causes, not the individuals.
And let's make sure the choice to often prescribe steroids is part of that conversation. I could have (am now) been prescribed a drug that isn't so associated with weight gain but it was more expensive . Multiply that across 1000s of patients and it's definitely a conversation the NHS needs to have.

The same GPs who failed to diagnose my chronic condition for over 20 years? Who kept telling me it was all in my head. Not only do GPs not always know what is causing someone's struggles, sometimes the individual might not even know themselves. I cried on and off for a week when all my battles with health in adulthood suddenly made sense. My condition didn't cause weight gain (but the medication to treat it did) but if we extend my experience to people whose conditions do cause weight gain then surely you can see how palpably horrendous this is? Plus I doubt anyone would fine an anorexic for being too thin ??? Yet that's just a different type of eating disorder.

I

Loving the idea that GPs will have all these available appointments for medical exemptions! My GP couldn’t even see me when I had a severe infection that led to sepsis. Now that would have been a cost saving for the NHS… a 5 min appt and some antibiotics rather than my 2 week stay in ICU!

I haven't rtft so apologies if someone has said this already, but all the major supermarkets need taking to task. Every promotional display end is full of UPF and sweet snacks, why not healthy foods instead? I'd say that it is the government that needs to deal with this, but no doubt they'll be receiving donations and back handers from the board members. In some countries in Europe, chocolate and crisps etc are expensive and healthier foods are cheap.

I don't know if seeing overweight models "normalises" obesity. Overweight is normal because so many adults are overweight. Seeing stick thin model in the 90's didn't stem the tide of obesity.

I agree. I don't know what percentage of food in a supermarket is a UPF but it has to be immense. It's a lot of hassle to avoid UPFs as well, I've been trying for the family lately, and it involves a lot of label reading, buying bread outside the supermarket ect.... It's a lot of work. It's not an accident that poorer areas have more obesity - if you are poor and you are struggling with your life, you wouldn't have the spoons left to be reading labels and meal planning. Promoting a healthy life style needs to be done at both an individual level and also target food companies and fast food places/restaurants.

Paul Rutter, Christina Applegate, Amy Schumer, Selena Gomez, possibly Kate Middleton.... All these people battling/have battled devastating illness and medications that cause weight gain ...

And yet still we have thread after thread of vile comments blaming individuals.

Do you know how shit it is to get a devastating diagnosis and then discover that the medication doctors prescribe will change your body beyond recognition and yet to top it off people will take great delight in judging you and feeling better than you?

It's utterly crap.

Contrast with when I was anorexic and skinny and got sympathy and even praise.

No conversation about obesity that is full of judgement and looking down on others is going to fix things. Not least because it will alienate the very people whose voices should be loudest - those battling it

I was mainly agreeing with the problem with local shops not selling much fresh produce.

Sure, you can live on onions, carrots and potatoes pretty cheaply, but if they only sell them 3 miles away and you can't get there you have to make do with the noodles, tins of soups and rubbish expensive bread at the local corner shop. Also - not much variety with the cheap veg - you couldn't live off it and have a varied menu for very long at all.

This makes fresh, healthy food harder to acquire for people who can't get around easily.

Plus, even fresh potatoes, carrots and onions are very high in price in corner shops - if you can find them there at all.

Agreed. Our local market and supermarket were down a big hill when I lived in a deprived area at university. I love and still love healthy eating (despite what the people who see my steroid altered body would like to smugly think). But I didn't have a car, and so would lug bags of fresh fruit/veg etc up the hill.

But of course I was lucky to have my health and a sturdy expensive rucksack.

People living at the top of the hill often just accepted buying their food from the local convenience store, and what little fruit /veg there was was utterly shriveled and tasteless.