Fat/Size Acceptance

[GothAnneGeddes]

I'm not sure if we have a thread on this yet, so apologies if we have and I've missed it.

I think of all the toxic, time-wasting shite women have to put up with, Diet Culture aka Be Thin and Win, is one of the most widespread. It is the unholy triumvirate of body policing, self hatred and bad science.

I thought this was a really interesting take on Jamie Oliver's new obesity campaign: shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-fat-hatred-and-eliminationism.html#disqus_thread

Would love to know what you all think

OK, have read more posts now. I like TeiTetua's post about hunters on Friday at 17:13, and where TheBride said that there are no bad foods, only bad diets :)

People do have differing metabolic rates. If you have a 'slow' metabolism you can speed it up by doing a lot of exercise, but it still won't get as fast as one of those people who can eat anything and stay thin (and, naturally, your metabolic rate changes over time and with health.)

A 'slow' metabolism is the healther sort. In expending fewer calories and laying down fat, it insures you against famine. Skinny types generate excess heat, 'spending' all their calories instead of saving them up.

Haha, I was thinking exactly that while reading the news this morning, SAF!!

SardineQueen

In my experience, I agree it's women who are largely on the faddish diets, but there's a pressure on men as well to be healthy and slim - but I think they resort to going to the gym/ going for a run/ cutting out the beer to get slim. Many of my male colleagues talk about their weight quite a lot

It's not quite true that if you've put on weight in the past, you are now eating the same amount as everyone else, or you'd just get fatter. It takes more calories to maintain a larger frame - I assume because you're physically heavier. So you've stabilised, but at the number of calories it takes to maintain the weight you are. If you ate the number of calories to support the next dress size down, you would (very slowly) become that dress size. But that's the way to be and stay slimmer, rather than assuming you have to put yourself through a couple of months of pain and then can go back to normal.

I spend a vast amount of time thinking about food, because as in the majority of UK households I have the female responsibility of making sure there is dinner on the table each night. I enjoy it, but it takes obviously a lot of time and thought. I'm the one who walks round the supermarket trying to navigate through all the lovely fatty, carby, salty things to choose sensible plain meat, veg, and complex carbs.

If men were as a group responsible for the nutrition of their families and themselves, perhaps they would be more prone to disordered eating and making bad choices.

If DH is hungry, he eats something. I do now I'm pregnant, but usually there is a big internal battle of 'is it ok to have this' which I don't think men have.

We are incredibly aware as women of how our looks and bodies impact how we are accepted by others, so have to control our eating patterns or face the consequences.

For women, 'fat' is not a medical diagnosis but a nasty and hurtful insult.

Robot it doesn't work like that I don't think.

If a person goes up to 16 stone. Then they consume 1800 calories a day and expend 1800 calories a day they will stay the same size.

If a person who is 10 stone consumes 1800 calories a day and expends 1800 calories they will also stay the same size.

I am sure that's how it is - the idea that larger people eat more than smaller people is not correct.

Garlicnutter this part of your post:

"Do you not find it odd that we - in the industrially-developed world, at least - are so obsessed by a wish to control our bodies? Can't we trust them to just get on with life? I'd hazard a guess that this is far more pronounced in women than in men - it's easy to observe men who don't betray any concern about how their bodies are functioning, but pretty hard to find a woman who isn't trying to rein in her natural functions and alter her physical configuration."

I really don't agree at all. Where businesses are trying to make as much money as possible and making foods that are intrinsically awful. And then market them very heavily from the cradle up.

For example drinks that contain artificial sweeteners. I was surprised the other day to realise that "no added sugar" squashes from "trustworthy" brands like robinsons contain sweeteners. I didn't realise (and I am generally quite careful about this stuff). Artificial sweeteners are a problem for a variety of reasons, and the labelling is misleading IMO in that when the average person reads a label that says "no added sugar" they do not think "oh that will have loads of nutrasweet" or whatever make it is. Ditto low fat yoghurts that are stuffed full of sugar instead, all sorts of foods that contain transfats etc etc.

These things are bad for you, the food is adulterated, it is not what our bodies need but it is cheap, available and it triggers happy sensations in the brain.

It has been left up to people's bodies to decide what they want, and in combination with a food industry aggressively marketing crap at us, we have a situation where people are becoming less and less healthy.

I think that is a social problem and should be addressed, but the governments will not take on the food industry - they are terribly powerful.

All that is on top of the feminist issues surrounding food, bodies, media messages and all the it which is an equally awful but gendered issue.

"Robot it doesn't work like that I don't think.

If a person goes up to 16 stone. Then they consume 1800 calories a day and expend 1800 calories a day they will stay the same size.

If a person who is 10 stone consumes 1800 calories a day and expends 1800 calories they will also stay the same size.

I am sure that's how it is - the idea that larger people eat more than smaller people is not correct."

It does work like that. The bigger you are then the more calories your body needs at rest, because there is literally more of you to be maintained.

Yes, if you use up exactly what you expend, you will stay the same.

But if the same person, with the same metabolism, is a size 16 while eating 2200 calories / day, they are using up 2200 calories as well. The reason heavier people use up more calories (which they do) is because it's physically harder to be a heavier person. Carry around a 14lb rucksack all day and you'll use more calories, the same logic applies. If that person then started eating 2000 calories a day they would lose a little weight untll their reduced weght meant they were, once again, expending what they ate.

Also, I'm surprised that you didn't realise that 'no added sugar' = 'contains artificial sweeteners'. How did you think they managed to make the drinks taste so sweet?

I'm surprised too!!! SQ, goodness knows how you managed not to wonder why 'no added sugar' drinks are sweet ... well, now you do, you might also be unimpressed to know that modern sweeteners may fool the brain into thinking you've had sugar, which may bump up your insulin - and that 'no added sugar' often means added corn syrup, lactose and various other ingredients that are basically concentrated sugars.

Walking around with an extra 4 stone in body weight obviously uses more calories up. It is load-bearing exercise! Somebody on here once had a go at me for saying this, but it's common sense. Wear a 25kg rucksack all day if you don't believe me

No food is 'intrinsically awful'. Not unless it's literally poisonous. All foods have nutritional value, and all creatures need calories. You would die a lot faster if you ate only organic celery than if you only ate white sugar.

I'm sorry, SQ, but your replies seem to betray an unrealistic understanding of diet & nutrition. No doubt that's the result of all the conflicting messages that swamp us. If you wanted to get better informed, you could start by searching the ingredients on your food labels at Wikipedia (not some health site with vested interests) and reading Orbach's book.

I may have seemed a bit rude in this post. I do hope not. As you see, I feel strongly about this whole issue. I'm sorry if I have offended you.

I've just done a few experiments on this b,i-calorie calculator, and it seems you burn about 110 extra calories/day per 10kg. Not much, but it's a Kit-Kat!

Thanks garlic, I'm glad someone else can do maths.

I'm not sure that that's what this thread is about (it appears to be about something different in the beginning, and I skipped the middle), but people often do get upset when it's suggested that a heavier person (who is neither gaining or losing weight) is most likely eating more than a lighter person.

I'm not sure why everyone is having a go at me!

We bought a "no added sugar" drink once on holiday. It was a robinson's fruit squash. I thought that the sweetness would be from the fruit. I read the label and saw otherwise. Normally we get a "hi juice" squash for the children which does not have sweeteners and so it did not occur to me that other juice squashes would have them and not say so on the label. Fruit is terribly sweet - hardly a wild assumption to make

Also I don't understand why people are disputing that someone who takes in the same calories as they expend will stay the same weight? That's just basic common sense. How many calories people expend will depend on a range of factors such as their weight (as someone has pointed out), how much exercise they do and so on. It is obviously incorrect to say that a large person will automatically be doing more work than a smaller person as people have such enormously different lifestyles. The idea that a larger person will burn more calories in an average day than a smaller person assumes that they are doing exactly the same things, which is too much of a stretch assumption-wise I'm afraid. A smaller person might run for a bus or take the stairs while a heavier person might not do the run and take the lift. Or vice versa - the slim person might take the lift and not raise a sweat as they feel they don't need to while the larger person takes all opportunities they see for a little exercise. The idea that everyone has exactly the same day in terms of what activities they do is too much of a simplification. The fact that calories in = calories out = maintaining weight is pretty indisputable surely.

I am also well aware of the difficulties with artifical sweeteners which is why I was so shocked to find them in a drink labelled in a way that suggested it was healthy. The problems with artificial sweeteners are much wider than what you have touched on in your post garlic.

And yes I do think you are being rude. I have never had any issues with food nor been on a diet. I am happy with the way I look and try to ignore the media messages that we receive. My credo is generally to try and get things that are as unadulterated as possible, and cook. I like to use things like proper butter and jam rather than low fat/sugar equivalents. I scan labels when something is suspect to see it does not have too many "nasties".

The stunned amazement that anyone would not be aware that a "safe" brand no added sugar fruit drink would be sweetened is a bit baffling. I suppose all of you imagine that teh labelling system we have at the moment is fine then. I think that manufacturers deliberately mislead consumers with labelling and I think it is a bad thing. I am reasonably savvy and I didn't realise. Yet instead of a response of yes the labelling is bad, the response is, oh you must be stupid. Well fair enough, you don't have a problem with labelling and so on, I do, I thin that manufacturers should be brought into line and act fairly, I understand though I am in a minority on this thread.

Nothing like everyone jumping on you and saying you're thick to make a person pull back from what was, earlier, an enjoyable, informative and interesting thread.

"If a person goes up to 16 stone. Then they consume 1800 calories a day and expend 1800 calories a day they will stay the same size.

If a person who is 10 stone consumes 1800 calories a day and expends 1800 calories they will also stay the same size."

Can anyone seriously explain how this is incorrect?

I'm not having a go at you. You're just wrong about this, I'm afraid. You must see it's more calorie-intensive to carry about an 18 stone frame to an 8 stone frame, surely? Even if you're sat on the sofa, your heart is working harder to pump the blood around you.

To give a real-life example - if you ever joined weightwatchers (which I haven't but a friend did) you are given more points as your allowance when you're bigger, and when your weight drops, you get given less, and then you have a maintenance amount of points which is the amount which keeps you at the same weight.

God I'm really annoyed now sometimes you try to have a nice conversation on here and people come and jump on your head.

Read up about food you can piss off thanks. I am a great cook, I cook from scratch, I love food.

You go away and learn some basic maths.

I did, in my post at 15.10

*"If a person goes up to 16 stone. Then they consume 1800 calories a day and expend 1800 calories a day they will stay the same size.

If a person who is 10 stone consumes 1800 calories a day and expends 1800 calories they will also stay the same size."

Can anyone seriously explain how this is incorrect?*

You're being overly defensive. I understand what you're saying about calories in / calories out.

But this isn't maths, it's physics.

So you dispute that if a person consumes 1800 calories and burns 1800 calories they will stay the same weight?

That is just nuts.

Of course a larger person uses more energy to do things. But I did not say that a smaller person and a larger person doing the same activity would burn the same calories. That is not what I said.

I said that calories in = calories out = same weight. How on earth is that wrong.

What is physics?

I am being defensive because 3 or 4 people in a row on this thread said that I am stupid. Of course I'm defensive.

SQ - you are being quite defensive

Tbh I prefer to get sugar-free squash - for my teeth's sake rather than calories. I would also have thought it was pretty obvious that sugar-free nearly always means sweetened artificially, but it doesn't bother me, better than ruining my already crap teeth.

"I said that calories in = calories out = same weight. How on earth is that wrong."

It's not wrong. That's not what DT and I are disputing. We're disputing the idea that you can be (say) size 10, eat and expend 1800 calories a day, and then put on weight, and still only be expending 1800 calories a day. If a size 10 person expends 1800 calories a day, and then goes up to a size 16, they will be expending more calories than that as they are then carrying more weight. So if they are maintaining their new weight, they must therefore be eating more. If they started eating 1800 calories a day again, they would lose weight, until they returned to a size 10.