The truth about obesity

Ina · The truth about obesity

Britons are getting bigger and it's a crisis on the same level as climate change, says the government. Within 15 years most of us will be overweight, with our life expectancy cut by 13 years. Scary stuff, but do all the facts about this "ticking time bomb" really add up?

At last - a voice of sense! I heard it on the radio last night (radio 4, The investigation, 8pm), but there's more on the BBC website:

"No one denies extreme obesity is bad for you, but some are now standing up to defend the overweight. Professor John Evans, from the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Loughborough University, doesn't believe the predictions.

"There is very little evidence to say that being overweight is a signifier of a person or a population's health," he says.

This may sound like heresy but there is good science to back it up. Only this month a study, led by Katherine Flegal of the USA Centre for Disease Control, reported that those who are overweight had no higher risk dying of cancer or heart disease and overall lived longer than those of "normal" weight. You might be surprised at her finding but she was not. "

Full article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7105630.stm

misteralz

Cool, now some proper scientific studies debunking man made climate change would be nice, and we can all go on living our lives happy and free and not worrying that something evil is going to kill us...

zombiecazz

Interesting.
Glad to here that I may not actually be causing myself cancer or reducing my life expectancy due to working 2 jobs and not having enough time to excercise.Oh yes and apparently the 350 million bars of chocolate and cake I must eat to this over weight.
Although I'm sure the stress of debt and lack of money are not helping anyway.

IainC · Re: The truth about obesity

Thing is, some people are fat on the outside and some are fat on the inside and it's the "inner" fat that is far worse.

misteralz

Inside every fat person there's a thin person and a lot of chocolate. Apparently.

Sassinak

LOL I'm saying nothing
If there's something I really dislike its a smug unfat person haha

Ina

Sassinak

We used to tease my oldest granson that he had a tapeworm - he's 14 and could eat for Scotland and is like a piece of string. Upon reflection I think it might be a boa constrictor because not even a tapeworm could eat so much.
Sickening isn't it

PurpleDragon

I think that a lot of the obsession with weight is fashion. Anyone ever heard the expression 'Rubenesque'? What about Marilyn Munroe - she wasn't a size 10, I can tell you!

Women are supposed to have breasts and hips.

Personally I think the whole weight obsession thing is the thing that is unhealthy.

IainC

IainC

Sassinak

He's a skateboarding fanatic and is out skating 3-4 hours every evening and mostof the weekend. Very strong and muscular but skinny with it. From his followers he seems to be quite attractive as well LOL

I certainly read that MM was 38bust which is probably a size 16

PurpleDragon

ridgey

I think people should understand that there may be different reasons for people being overweight. Some people may have eating disorders, not bulimia or anorexa, but other eating disorders, and some people may be overweight because they have a medical problem. There is much more to it than just overeating.

Sassinak

yeah but I'm afraid that in my case its chocolate, bread and crisps

Can't really blame any sort of disorder except liking of the wrong foods. Wish I could develop a craving for raw celery lol

ridgey

My daughter has PCOS, this has made her put on a lot of weight. She also had an eating disorder which she is learning to control. My problem is I don't eat properly, I can go all day without eating anything and then eat something after 9pm, definately not the right thing to do but that is when I get hungry.

PCOS is Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

Julie

dizzyblond

i'm underactive thryroid and struggle with my weight
but hey i think im a nice person and that's far more important

niki · my wee rant!

these sort of topics crop up so readily at this time of year. dont you think.

i enjoy having a good figure (allthough that was nine months ago) purely for the fact that if it is fed kindly and used properly i know it serves me well.
i like being able to run up a flight of stairs, look good in a pair of jeans and play with my daughter (And soon to be son if he would hurry up) . i also enjoy chocolate crisps and cake .

What i am trying to say is love yourself enough to look after yourself. your body will thank you for it. These american studies could have been done over only a few people, when for years now we have seen with our own eyes, not even morbidly obese people struggleing with everyday tasks! yeah the american study says there is little or no difference in how soon or of what you will die. who cares when you are dead thats pretty much it!

But how much better will your life quality be if you can move around freely without sweating, wheezing , developing diabetes and joint problems.

i still think obesity should be considered very bad and i dont care if i offend. Being pregnant has given me a taste of what these people are subjecting their bodys to My heart as to work 40% harder i have the same % extra fluid in my joints, the discomfort in carrying excess weight on damaged joints, and my lungs are working harderto keep up with the extra demands, and it is no way to live long term in my opinion.

i understand there are medical conditions etc and i really sympathise. but as for over eating and self indulgence, its a short term gain with a downward spiral to an even poorer state of mind and esteem and not excercising thats a whole seperate rant.

i think abusing our bodies as we are is abusing a gift mother nature has given us. our bodys! just like dumping oil, not recycling, turning forrests into carparks hunting animals to extinction etc.

I think it is therefore environmentally friendly to look after the human body.

PurpleDragon

Well said.

kimmie

misteralz

wildgarlic

I have to say that your ex must be completely stark raving bonkers - you are stunning girl... and don't ever let anyone tell you different.

I think it's wrong to make a comment like that though too Alz.... skinny, fat, whatever your body type... it's what the individual is happy with that counts.

I used to be a size 8 too, and for me I was desperate to put on a bit of weight.... I then had my children and that put the weight on for me... I went up to 16/18 and that was way too big (for ME) and I didn't feel healthy. I'm now around 14 and that (apart from the wobbly middle bits) is fine by me.

PurpleDragon

I used to be thin. I know everyone who knows me will be saying "Carol - you're STILL thin" but I am nearly 3 stone heavier than I used to be.

I had a dreadful body image, would only drink boiled water, and when I cooked bacon for my boyfriend, I would then toast my bread on the same grill to get the bacon taste and then feel bad about the calories I had added to the toast.

I cannot imagine what I was doing to my body, and although I have a pound or two that I could happily offer someone else, I would never want to be a walking skeleton again.

I think the whole point here is this - some of us are big, some of us are small. But what we should be aiming for is healthy.

We are brainwashed that skeletal figures like these size 0 supermodels are what we should be aiming for. It doesnt just affect women - it affects how men often see women as well. They see the supermodels and think they must be peculiar if they fancy a woman they can get a hold of and that won't snap.

Kimmie - I personally think you are gorgeous and I reckon you are keeping those 5 stone in storage somewhere coz they certainly aren't hanging around anywhere I could see!

zombiecazz

Gee whizz Kimmie. Should have given him the elbow alot sooner.
My OH is always telling me how gorgeous I am. I don't agree, but he definitely keeps my ego boosted.

pictishpunkgirl

F*ck him Kimmie! I'm sick of smug thin people (men and women) thinking they'd never get fat 'cos there but for the grace of god goes any of us. All it takes is a bout of depression, drop in income, loss of self esteem to change your eating habits for the worse. At 11 and a half stone & a size 16, i'm happy enough 'cos i'm not thin or fat & I firmly believe this is the weight i'm meant to be, coming (as I do) from a long line of well-built-but not-fat-women. People, like Labradors, get fatter as they get older. VERY few of us at 50 will be, or are, lighter than we were at 20 & that's as it should be & you only need to look at stone age carvings of women to see that it's always been so. Morbid obesity is another thing but being 'overweight' is a myth. Left to it's own devices and with an awareness of what's good to eat, our bodies find their own level.

Esther.R

I am currently in the process of loosing weight gained by pregnancy and then an underactive thyriod (diagnosed as postnatal depression and so untreated for over a year). I am currently about 11 1/2 stone and a size 14 but have lost a stone and 2 dress sizes in the last three months just through my thyriod stabilising (no diet). Now I have reached the trickier bit where willpower will be needed to get down to my target of 9 1/2 stone and a size 10 which was always a comfortable weight for me (still overweight by official standards as I am only 5ft but my body seemed happy to stabilise there and if I dropped below 9 stone I was never well).

uppercollholls

Good thing you gave the ex the old heave ho, Kimmie. What he was doing wasn't about your weight, but about him being a bully and being abusive and controlling. An ex of mine used to call me fat, ugly and stupid and I was 7 stone at the time!

The metabolism slows down as you get older, and unless you are very physically active, the extra weight comes on all too easily. I think moderation is the way to go (eat generally healthily with the odd naughty goody) - not to get too crazy either way - by either starving or overeating on junk food and thus do away with the guilt,'cuz who needs that?

Julie

I think a lot of you are confusing healthy with thin. It is possible to stay at a steady size 18 and be healthy and attractive if you are well muscled and fit in every other respect. Thin can also be anorexia, hyperthyroidism, bulimia, drug addiction etc as well as being normal for you.
Personally, I have never met a man who liked bony women but then I've never met a man who liked heifers either (I am in the latter group) But I have met plenty of men who love their wives and girlfriends despite their bodies, fat or skinny, and know at least one who thinks the fatter the better. Before you ask, he's married to a real limpet so forget him

I have an underactive thyroid - which doesn't make all that much difference if you ask your doctor - and am overweight because I eat too much.
Here's a bit of data for you;
It takes 3500 surplus calories to create a pound of fat
Therefore if your normal requirement is a certain amount (I'm not quoting figures here because we all differ) you must eat a surplus of 3500 calories to gain one pound in weight, whether you eat them over a day, a week or a month.
Likewise you must reduce your calorific intake by 3500 calories to loose one pound in weight. you can do this by cutting back, exercising or a combination of both. Most people can cope with a reduction of 500 calories a day or an hours exercise instead and their reward would be a steady weight loss of one pound per week. The hard part is, you must be willing to weigh your food and do the math - annoying at first but it has the added benefit of re-educating you and forcing you to make sensible choices.

Of course you can opt for being happy with yourself as you are but you must mean it. Anyone who says they are and then goes on to list their excuses is not being honest with themselves.
Ask yourself this;
If you had a brand new diesel car, would you put petrol in the fuel tank or run it carrying a serious weight overload?
How many years do you expect to get out of that car?
Now, how many years do you expect to get out of your body?

Smooth Hound

PPG here - food for thought

Seriously though, that's a helpful post. I suspect many women would be happy with their bodies, fat or thin or otherwise if we'd not been brought up with images of uniformly skinny models & celebrities. The same is true, I suspect, of the rise in plastic surgery. If we were allowed to see famous people with their imperfections we'd probably accept our own more readily (& that's from someone with no interest in celebs). But that's another issue.

PurpleDragon

Well, yesterday I was advised by the consultant at the hospital to go on a diet and take more exercise.

You'd never know it to look at me :?

Smooth Hound

PPG here - that seems crazy to me. Last time I saw you you looked in fine shape.

You know, having thought about what you said just now & previously, i'm wondering how it feels to have been a walking skeleton and to have reached a healthy weight only to be told to diet and take more exercise? Maybe that's intrusive, in which case i'll mind my own business & apologise for having asked but it seems to me that the medical profession's interest in our weight & BMI have a lot to answer for, given that a strapping, fit soldier's BMI can be the same as an obese person's.

Julie

For me, the trick is to think of food as fuel and not as an indulgence. Obviously I don't always remember to do that or I wouldn't be overweight but the formula does work - you can't argue with the physics part of it.
I have a real problem with this 'slim fast' advert they are running at the moment. It goes on about snacking and indulging in 'yummy food twenty-four seven' as if that were a healthy attitude. What a way to set their victims up for long term failure - it makes my blood boil...grrr
I started a diet on Monday and I couldn't resist weighing myself this morning (even though I promised myself only once a week - you see, self discipline is an issue with me) and found I have lost three pounds already. In fairness though, I think some of it might be lost fluid retention because my legs are back to normal.
If anyone else wants to join in and do their own weight loss programme, we could start a sort of moral support thread to help each other through it.
Any takers?

Ina

I'm constantly monitoring my food intake - it's the binge sessions when I'm in a depression that throw me back.

Btw - can anybody recommend a good calorie counter? I have a good grasp on most common foods I use, but there are some I'd like more information on. And the ones I've seen in book form are totally useless; full of junk food, which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole anyway. Plus - all the processed food has explicit nutritional information on the packet - so why would anybody want pay for a book to read again what they can get for free off the packet? Beats me.

Julie

The source I use is a booklet which I have had for many years - pre the days when they put that kind of info on packaging - which was edited by a research fellow from the dept. of nutrition, London university.
It has 95 pages of info on calorific values of basic and branded foods, 25 of which cover all the basic foodstuffs. I never need the other 70, but it is a very handy source and gives quantities for cooked and raw foods, per ounce, or in handy measures such as per tablespoon.
If you ever need me to I will happily look something up for you.

I'm crawling up the walls today as I feel particularly hungry and am baking a chocolate cake for TJ's 2nd birthday on Monday. I'm off to make ganache and create Nemo and Dory in marzipan. It will be a miracle if I get through it without eating half the icing

Ina

Julie, can you tell me the title and author? I might be able to get it second hand, or in a library - or copy some pages, if necessary.

PurpleDragon

uppercollholls

Yeah, really!

And with the cardiologist - I know when my dad first had his high blood pressure and heart attack, he was told to go on a special healthy heart diet. Not to lose weight as he didn't need to, but more a change in healthier eating habits - low fat (or the right sort of fats), low salt, plenty of fruit and veg, lots of soluable fibre (as in oats to clean out the arteries), limit or cut out the red meat sort of thing. Sounds like the doc wasn't being clear as 'going on a diet' can mean different things (ie heart, diabetic, gluten-free etc) and as you said, if you had had some eating disorder, it would not have helped at all!

Ina

uppercollholls

Most doctors are woefully undertrained when it comes to diet and nutrition - which is why when someone needs to go on a special diet for a health condition, they are supposed to be referred to a nutritionist. Doctors are in general trained to treat the symptoms and not the whole person, but anything beyond drugs and surgery, is beyond them. There are a few enlightened docs out there, but they are few.

Ina

I have a date with one of those specialists coming up - wonder whether they'll be able to tell me anything I don't know yet. Somehow I'm not expecting much.

PurpleDragon

niki

Ina

But it's for basic food that it is strangely difficult to find data - the packaged stuff has is on the label anyway! I wouldn't buy any of the foods you mention in any case.

niki

Ina

Julie

Don't forget though that there are still 25 pages of the calorific values of basic raw foodstuffs so, as I said if you want that sort of info it won't have changed in any amount of years.
I would discard the rest of it and never miss it except that the useful pages would all fall apart if I did

Julie

wildgarlic

This sort of information should be available for FREE on sites like the Food Standard Agency.

Perhaps we could start our own database and encourage a bit of healthy eating ourselves. Too much work?

IainC

Ina

There are calorie counters online - but most of them have something wrong with them: either the usual, i.e. all the processed muck, and no basics; or it comes in portion sizes (and a cup of almond slivers is not a useful portion size for me!!! - what's wrong with weighing the stuff?); or it's simply difficult to use. I just want a proper list... In alphabetical order, if possible. Asking too much here?

Julie

It is a reflection of the times we live in Ina. Most people probably buy all that muck and think that it makes dieting easier if they don't have to think about it. In reality, it just perpetuates their existing eating habits by substituting the rubbish with chemically enhanced copies labeled 'light' because they have water, gel and saccharine type sweeteners added.
The thing is, as I said before, preparing and weighing basic foods educates you to the real worth of the food you are eating. When you are faced with a choice between adding fat in the form of butter or oil, or having an extra meal of something healthy but filling later on when you are ravenous, you soon learn it just isn't worth it for a moments pleasure. Likewise, it doesn't take many days before a piece of fruit will satisfy a sweet craving as effectively as chocolate, providing you stop eating it. It can even get so that it actually tastes too sickly to eat believe it or not.
I am going to weigh myself again tomorrow morning, so here's hoping. It has become easier over the last few days so it doesn't seem like such a grueling process now.
I'll be the one wearing a duck tape smile at the next Suma day

:oops:

Ina

lor138

wildgarlic

Ina

Right - I'll bring a large roll of ducktape then!

Julie

And I'll bring a large fruit salad, eh

I know it isn't a lot but I lost another pound - which would be on target - so It's going in the right direction.......I'm hoping that eventually I will have less joint pain when they aren't being punished so much by my weight.

Ina

That's one of my hopes, too - and at the moment I'm suffering from shin splints (again), too - which athletes usually get!!! But in my case it's to do with the weight, and my flat feet, and weak ankles. It all adds up.

At least I can say I've got one thing in common with athletes!

Ina

Did you know the Scottish Government has just started a public debate on food issues?

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics...od-Industry/Discussion/the-issues

Julie

I watched a really interesting programme the other night on Dispatches, 'The truth about food', where a bunch of people who were convinced they had medical type reasons why they couldn't lose weight were taken to various specialists and tested.
Not surprisingly, they all had their excuses blown out of the water by the experts and - as I expected - were all proven to be in denial about the quantities they were eating, or the calorific value of their diets.
Did anyone see the Jamie Oliver programme too? He had Gunther Von Hagens dissecting a 25 stone body donor who had literally eaten himself to death.
I think it would do us all good as a nation if we had a bit more of this shock treatment because so many of his volunteer test group admitted that they didn't have a clue what was going on inside their bodies.
I've seen for myself what the accumulation of fat inside a body looks like when gutting overweight sheep. The heart is completely encased in fat thicker than the heart muscle itself and you have to dig around in a great wedge of leaf fat inside the spine to find the kidneys. Imagine how much work it must be for the heart muscle to lift all that extra weight every time it pumps. I doubt if my own looks any better at the moment

Ina

But it's still true that some people (and sheep!) lose weight easier than others... We've been weighing 6 groups of ewes every two weeks for a while now - they are on different diets - and although the ones on the lower energy rations lost a lot of weight at first, they are now even putting some on - although they are still on below maintenance ration! My colleagues are baffled - I'm not; but then I'm probably the only one of them who's ever been dieting...

lor138

IainC

lor138

Julie

Well, I have lost another pound now so that's five in total - a drop in the ocean with another three stone to go and I hate having to do this, but it's got to be done.
What I can't understand is how, having gone through all that deprivation, some people allow it all to creep back on. How crazy is that???

PurpleDragon

Sassinak

No that's not the right one - its here along with lots of its friends. It would seem a shame to seperate them so I'll send them all if that's Ok lol

Julie

No, no, you're alright.......consider them a gift from me

This is the longest I've ever stuck to a diet, for some reason my head's in the right place this time and I'm coping with it. I don't like it much but my heels are dug in there for the long haul.

PurpleDragon

I am going to a wedding on Saturday, and I tried on the suit I was going to wear and I couldn't do it up. :?

wildgarlic

Ina

Found an extremely interesting, if very long, article on obesity in the Ecologist. It's worth reading it all, if you've ever wondered why some people get fat more easily that others, and why it's so incredibly difficult for some to lose it again...

As to the comments - I agree they should have included proper references for the research they mention (I'm now off to try and find some of the papers myself! - need to know more about it). And the last comment - that's been written by a typical self righteous b***d who, because he's slim and has a good diet, thinks that's all that's needed to be slim... I have a better diet than most people I know; I have a physically demanding job, most days I could tell you to the nearest 100 calories how much energy I've taken in - and well, most of you know what I look like!
But admittedly, I used to be just as arrogant about people who couldn't give up smoking. I did it, without any hardship - so everybody should be able to do it. I know better now, and apologise wholeheartedly...

Ooops - better post the link, too!

The Big Fat Fix
Obesity is a problem that is chronic, stigmatised, costly to treat and rarely curable. Why? Because we are looking in the wrong places for a solution. Pat Thomas reports
Date:01/11/2006

http://www.theecologist.co.uk/archive_detail.asp?content_id=646

The truth about obesity

Re: The truth about obesity

my wee rant!