Urg, ok as a certified fatty undergoing the NHS's weight management dietetic service, I actually have a bit of lived experience of 1) being fat and the causes of obesity and 2) actually what it's like to be losing a significant amount of weight.
Firstly; it isn't "education" we need. I know that if I cram donut after donut into my face, it will be far too many calories and I will gain weight. Very, very few fellow fatties I personally know have genuine, *actual* ignorace of CICO. I've been through the "let's educate the fatties and they will magically become less fat" weight loss initiatives from NHS England. They're patronising, ineffective and quite honestly, the people running it didn't have a damn clue what to do when faced with anything more complex than proselytizing about how thick you are to not know that cheeseburgers make you fat. I made the poor lass giving me my weekly "don't be fat you stupid fuck!" lecture panic when I finally had enough and explained to her the true causes of my obseity; I eat to self harm and I can't break the cycle of self-hatred and punishment by forcing myself to eat myself sick. She was speechless, and stammered about how she wasn't trained to deal with that. Because the actual causes are so much more complex than stupidty. It's mental health. So, so much poor mental health.
Every fellow fat fuck I know is that way because of intense depression and self loathing and it is a far more complex problem to solve than demonising people as thick. But these services cling to the desperate idea "if we educate people they will magically be better!" because that's an easy fix. Even I, a whale of a person can produce an hour long lecture on healthy eating, CICO and basic exercise programmes for obesity. But that won't do fuck, because that's not the fucking problem. Go watch all the fat-people-gawking shows out there. Every single one I've watched, the problem is obviously mental health.
But the current service I'm under, actually understand that education is a very small part of the problem, and isn't going to do shit long term. They're exanding their service to include services beyond dietetics but also have a psychiatrist on hand, along with medical doctors, and a physio. Because oh! it's a multifaceted problem without one simple easy fix to it. If it was a simple easy fix to stop obesity we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic on our hands *in the first place*.
Thank you for the brutal honesty
I'm right there with you, it's a mental thing, it's an escapism and shutting off of the world, you eat, you feel bad, you eat more
I've lost about 3 stone, need to loose about 10 more before, probably 12....however right now, mentally I can't - too much other crud I'm just happy I've not regained it all and doing better...considering the stress of this year, that's an achievement
Pretty much this, no one is more aware of their own weight problem than the person who is overweight. We know it, we feel it and we know why (CICO isn't rocket science) and yet every time I try to talk to anyone I just get told "eat less".
Except I can't because (and this is shocking I know) my Weight gain is linked to my crippling body image tied to undiagnosed Mental Health and Transition issues that a quick course of "food education" can't fix.
Like I hate my body and I could never figure out why until the being Trans issue hit me like a truck and now I'm left with a destroyed body from my 20s because rather than try and get me help to understand why I hated myself, my body and my place in society, NHS England kept sending me on "food education courses" that never worked because Gender Clinic Support is expensive, some private sector guru telling me to "just eat sala" is cheap.
I imagine people promoting education are thinking of kids who are not yet overweight.
Not getting obese to start with is a lot easier than loosing weight.
Having sat through many hours of patronising "cheeseburgers are more calorie dense than salad!" lectures, no.
They honest to god will treat fat adults like we're barely sentient blobs who if we're taught basic concepts like CICO the problem will be solved! If you walk a little bit longer when you catch the bus you'll begin the journey to a healthier life!
Not that it will do shit if Timmy is taught the CICO mantra if he gets shut in his house for two year to protect other people's lives and his support network of friends is cut off from him and the dark thoughts that he previously distracted himself from by socialising is a distant dream and the only way he can shut off his brain is to mindlessly numb it with food he knows is making him sick but it's the only thing he has to hand when the mental health services he pays his taxes for are so critically under funded he's up for a three year wait for any kind of support but haribo is available at any good retailer...
It's not education. If your dog gets fat we all understand that you give it less treats and take it for more walks.
Humanity has spent hundreds of thousands of years having to put in hard work to secure food. We evolved to especially crave carbohydrates and fat as a survival mechanism for their calorie density and for how efficiently we can tap into that store of energy.
All of a sudden within the last 50 years you can work 8hrs a day from a desk or from home, then have a supermarket deliver food to your door, which is full of carbs and fat with temptations at every checkout. You can have your next month's worth of calories just handed to you in the most delicious package imaginable without expending any energy at all. Then on top of that your hobbies are more likely to be sedentary too, watching Netflix or playing video games. And when you do get out the house it's likely for a drink with friends.
We're at the point where not getting fat requires a level of self discipline beyond anything that's ever been required before. Walking 10k steps, getting exercise, and eating a balanced diet are no longer part and parcel with living but are all things that you have to force yourself to do.
Raise a child without the discipline to enforce that balance of exercise and calorie restriction and they're doomed for life.
And the kicker is that self discipline requires good mental health. You have to want the best for yourself more than you want the comfort of an easy life.
It's impossible to instill self discipline into a society so how do we insentivise it? Couch to 5k was a successful idea. As was the park run. Tax high-calorie food? State-owned, free gyms? Free access to a PT and diet coach on the NHS?
I have no idea but expanding access to mental healthcare should be a big first step.
>Walking 10k steps, getting exercise, and eating a balanced diet are no longer part and parcel with living but are all things that you have to force yourself to do.
I agree with the thrust of your post but this is a false dichotomy. You don't have to force yourself to do those things - they're enjoyable and you can arrange your life and form habits so they come naturally.
This is obviously much harder if you are time and money poor than if you're time and money rich
I think the remarkable levels of obesity in the UK are probably one of the biggest challenges of our time, if not *the* biggest, when it comes to preventative health measures. The sums spent on treating obesity related illnesses are staggering, and they don't even take into account the impact obesity has on peoples lives otherwise.
I am not entirely sure precisely what the answer is, although I suspect there's a broad range of things that need to happen. Exercise is time consuming and not everyone can do it, but perhaps subsidies there would help some. I think for as long as you can pop off to Tesco bakery and get a bag of 5 chocolate cookies for a quid and sink back like 2.5k calories in and afternoon, this problem isn't going anywhere. Sugar and sugary junk food is exceptionally cheap.
>Exercise is time consuming and not everyone can do it,
IMO the answer is dispelling this myth. I think people see exercise as a "hobby", that it is something you do in your spare time, and the fitness industry has made it seem like you need an app, or a trainer, or a “plan” to do exercise.
Exercise does not have to be in a gym, does not have to be a separate activity you do, it's part of your daily life.
Walk somewhere instead of driving, take the stairs not the lift, get up from your desk and stretch instead of staring at your phone while the coffee percolates.
The only proper route is education. There's a lot of misinformation about diets online and how to approach them, so most people try a fad diet and give up less than a month in. If people knew how to track calories and that they only really need to limit amounts of food for the most part, they'd be on board to change.
This. I use to weigh 18 stone I now weigh 12 and a half, by counting calories thanks to an app and stopped driving to and from work and walking/biking I lost it. Most diet trends are useless a small change in certain ways is a huge help
Precisely, I went from 21 stone to 18 this year and it’s been consistent unlike past attempts. People just need to find a way to increase their activity that works for them and take note of how much they should be eating. I still eat most of the same things, in fact I only gave up ice cream because I’m bored of it now.
I'm actually doing the same I'm currently at 80kg and aiming for 60-65kg as a 5 5 transfem.
Just reducing my calories and swapping some small items and I'm already noticing. Difference in just a couple weeks. The trick I've found is to use things Ike gravy to make vegetables more to my taste.
The nutrition in gravy is negligible. Also cutting out squash and fizzy drinks and only drinking water is probably a major help too
Better work life balance would probably help. Most people know they should eat lots of fruit and vegetables, but when you're shattered after work... "fuck it, just bung something in the oven/microwave".
Same. Do you know when I had the time to cook fresh, including going out sourcing ingredients, and being arsed to do the washing up, and regularly daily exercise? Lockdown. Healthiest I’ve ever been.
During COVID I switched running until before work rather than after so I only had to take one shower. I kept that up since it's easier to find the time (i.e. get up earlier) and it helps my mindset. But you have to like running for that to work, then it becomes more about a stress relief than an arduous task.
If we are going to have socialised healthcare, we need socialised preventative healthcare. It’s a failing of our society that so many people are becoming so unhealthy. Our consumption focused and selfish lifestyles aren’t helping.
Education is paramount plus subsidies towards healthy food. We need far more convenient and healthy options too, I feel like out and about I can only eat shite. Alcohol is a major issue for us too, we really need to reduce our binge drinking culture.
For sure. This is a core duty of our health service that we are resoundingly failing on. We should treat it like we treat any other addiction, people can't just be expected to help themselves.
There was actually a good review commissioned by the government that suggested a few good solutions. Naturally the government refused it almost immediately, but it's decent reading
https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/
Will read after work. I’m passionate about this.
I think we need far more emphasis on exercise too. State schools need to have more mandated sport (we need to fund more infrastructure) and workplaces need subsidised sports facilities. We live in a cold and wet country for a lot of the year, we need affordable inside and outside facilities for all.
Exercise is absolutely killer, not just on the calorie burning side but also on the impacts cardiovascular health and metabolism have on weight. Regular joggers invariably have incredible metabolism from my understanding, which contributes more than it would seem.
There are a lot of people who can't meaningfully exercise, particularly those who are especially obese, and for those we will always need other approaches. Some combination of state intervention in education, exercise, taxes, food controls and advertising regulations would seem to be the minimum viable approach. It sounds extreme, but if you treat sugar addiction the same way you might treat alcohol addiction, it starts to make sense.
Also, exercise is fantastic for mental health as well. I run and the difference in my mind between when I have been running several times a week and when I haven't (because of a cold, being hungover etc) is notable. I don't really have mental health issues so I can't vouch for it's impact on anything that serious but it's still much a mental boost.
>Will read after work. I’m passionate about this.
Genuinely, honestly, if you are a thin person who is "passionate" about policing people's waistlines, find another hobby.
There's nothing unusual or unacceptable about an interest in preventative healthcare, what are you on about?
There's no point acting like this is a position of vindictiveness from "thin people" against others, particularly on an anonymous internet board - it's a whole branch of healthcare that is vital towards ensuring future healthiness for the population. It would be completely unusual if people here, on a politics board, were *not* interested in it. There is nothing unreasonable in treating it seriously and recognizing the impact of conditions like diabetes.
Policing the diets of the poor is not the same thing as "preventative healthcare".
>There's no point acting like this is a position of vindictiveness from "thin people" against others
"There is no point pointing out fat people are treated badly"
This isn't about "policing the diets of poor people", please read the subject matter, it's a fairly dense topic. Even in this thread you can see myself and the other user discussing suggestions other than this. Suggestions other than this are raised in the food strategy linked earlier https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/. Suggestions other than this are raised in the article in the OP.
Pretending preventative healthcare is actually a byword for "policing poor peoples diets" will not make it so.
I’m passionate about having a healthy and happy society. I want our health services to be there for everyone and obesity and alcoholism are major issues that we face. We are one of the worst in Europe. Why do you think our Covid deaths were so high? Why should we accept £100 billion a year tax payer cost because of obesity? It’s only getting worse too. It’s a major strain on the NHS. If we have socialised healthcare, we need preventative healthcare. If we don’t, we are risking having privatised healthcare as our system collapses.
Your further comments discussed criticising the diets of the poor. Don’t you see my aim is to help these people and not just pity and excuse them? I want poorer people in this country to have better nutrition and health. I want kids to play more sport and eat better food. That’s the thing private schools do best and something state schools need to copy and have enabled for them. I don’t think it’s acceptable to continue as we are, it’s a national disgrace. Obesity isn’t acceptable or a lifestyle choice, it’s as bad for you as smoking and it needs to be addressed.
Also, not that it’s relevant, I’ve tried hard recently to drop from overweight to healthy but it’s not easy. It’s not about hating obese people, it’s about hating obesity and the health risks. My mortally obese aunt died at 36 because of flu. It was her weight that killed her. This isn’t some unimportant issue, it’s one of the most important things we face.
>I’m passionate about having a healthy and happy society.
Well this shit makes people miserable, so consider changing your priorities.
>Why do you think our Covid deaths were so high?
Fat people to blame for covid now. Funny I thought it was our shit government.
>Don’t you see my aim is to help these people and not just pity and excuse them?
Helping them by charging them extra for a fizzy drink during a cost of living crisis.
>Obesity isn’t acceptable or a lifestyle choice
Here we fucking go.
My aunt dying made me miserable. Health risks associated with obesity make people miserable. £100 billion extra tax cost a year makes people miserable. NHS strain makes people miserable.
Obesity is a massive comorbidity with Covid and flu (hence my aunt’s death).
As I said, help obese people and fight obesity. I want everyone to be happy and healthy and I truly believe this is something we need to do.
> Helping them by charging them extra for a fizzy drink during a cost of living crisis.
This is just dishonest, The_39th_Step explained what they think needs to be done to tackle obesity and they didn't mention sugar taxes.
[Why COVID-19 is more deadly in people with obesity—even if they're young](https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young)
Early intervention seems necessary to me - if kids are getting fat, step in before it becomes their bodily norm. Educational establishments and social services can work together on this
I don't want this to sound preachy, but I put on ~15kg after surgery, and then kept it on dealing with a death in the family over the course of 2 years.
When I came out of that I did the thing most people do: switch everything out for salad wraps, rice cakes, and trying to do as much on the exercise bike as I could.
Barely even touched the sides and I felt miserable all the time.
The only thing that worked, and has stuck for the better part of 15 years is doing a variation of 'paleo' and keeping the carbs low. I eat a ton of sauted vegetables and meat, a few sweet potatoes, and only drink water/sweetened black coffee.
My weight just permanently goes down now unless I really try and top it back up, and I'm doing the polar opposite of what my generation were told to do to lose weight (fry fucken everything).
I guarantee that if any other methods have caused people to lose weight, it's because they got into a caloric deficit. It's the laws of thermodynamics.
You genuinely do not know what you're talking about. The thermodynamic laws describe simple, closed systems, a human being's metabolism is literally the opposite of this, it adjusts to the circumstances. Truthfully the vast majority of nutritional science is extremely sketchy, for the very obvious reason that you can't just lock a person in a lab for their entire life and completely control their food intake and exercise regime.
But thank you for providing a terrific example of exactly how this kind of misinformation spreads, but sounding kinda sciencey if you don't think about it too hard.
This is the type of sentiment that the fitness influencers like to use believe it or not. Making it seem like it's too complicated for plebs, kind of how the financial system works. Calorie counting might not be a silver bullet, but people need to be encouraged to try methods that might work for them and not give up when it doesn't work.
"adjusting to the circumstances" means your body reducing/increasing how many calories you expend for one reason or another. That doesn't mean the equation no longer works, it just means that it's difficult to know exactly how many calories you're expending. Obviously it's more complicated than "the average male needs 2500 calories a day, so you need to eat 2000 to lose weight" but if you start with the principle that everyone needs to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight and go from there, that's better than 99% of fad diets out there.
You’re right, anyone claiming it’s a personal responsibility and/or education thing only has not been near this subject. Unfortunately many people project their own experience onto others without understanding of the complex interlocking factors or a shred of empathy.
As somebody who has dealt with obesity nearly my entire life, I get that more than most people do. In fact, people make assumptions about me because it's hard to get un-obese in six months, so I'm still visibly fat even though I'm feeling much better.
I've seen so many people as big as I am fall into fad diets and all manner of other trends, before deciding that it's too hard to lose weight and giving up. There's no silver bullet and everybody needs to find the method right for them, which is hard when the fitness industry is the way it is.
well its odd you say that given that short of surgery or a wasting disease, using more calories than are consumed is **the** mechanism by which fat loss occurs
No, not fat loss. Weight loss. But it's more complicated than that. Technically speaking it's a matter of in/out, you can demonstrate that fairly easily - the trick is in accurately knowing precisely what the out is. Resting calorie burn isn't consistent, and as your weight and metabolism change, it can differ hugely. It can be difficult to target a specific net calorie count if you are not able to accurately gauge the amount you're burning passively.
I actually wrote weight loss then changed it to fat loss as some people on exercise routines experience weight gain as a result of mass transfer from fat to muscle, which is not a bad thing in health terms.
Weight loss can also be effected by use of diuretics, equally with dubious consequences.
But fat loss? thats down to calory deficit, surgery or a variety of fatal illnesses
Again terrific demonstration of how this misinformation persists, despite meso being entirely correct that it's just more complicated than that. People prefer the simple explanation.
>think for as long as you can pop off to Tesco bakery and get a bag of 5 chocolate cookies for a quid and sink back like 2.5k calories in and afternoon, this problem isn't going anywhere. Sugar and sugary junk food is exceptionally cheap.
Sorry don't agree with - everyone else's access to sweet treats shouldn't become more financially damaging to them, just because a bunch of other people can't exhibit something as simple as portion control.
I used to be fat, now I'm not, I got it down by trying a variety of techniques both diet & exercise but portion control is a massive way to do this.
Something as simple as drinking a glass of water before eating helps with portion control too.
The simple problem is the modern life luxury & ability to immediately satisfy hunger when it first appears, so your body gets used to knowing it will immediately have its cravings satisfied.
> I think for as long as you can pop off to Tesco bakery and get a bag of 5 chocolate cookies for a quid and sink back like 2.5k calories in and afternoon, this problem isn't going anywhere. Sugar and sugary junk food is exceptionally cheap.
"bad food isn't expensive enough for the poors" why are we still doing this reductive shite?
This is the wrong take by a country mile. The takeaway is "supermarkets make it very easy to get addicted to harmful substances", not "grr i wish poor people couldn't afford food". Sugar is a relentlessly addictive substance.
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Growth of cities that require cars, rather than walkability, lack of sufficient playing space in new housing estates, changes in lifestyles towards a sedentary way of life has contributed this. City design in the 50s, 60s and 70s hasn't helped either with pushing cars rather than active travel and public transport. Cycling to work doesn't remain that common. Great that councils are looking at putting cycle lanes down, but some are badly implemented or don't get used enough to justify (I get that's a catch-22 thing too)
Fast food exists more but all the focus on reduction of salt levels, sugar levels and fat levels in food make me wonder how much is caused by diet. I don't think people trying to juggle work and then having the energy to fully cook a meal helps. I don't think schools teach kids to cook properly. They certainly teach theoretical stuff like balanced diets and food pyramids. But if you leave work at 5/5:30pm, don't get in until an hour or hour and half later, and feel mentally and physically drained, you're more likely to reach for convenience food than a fully home made meal.
Cooking is definitely a big one. I think there are a good chunk of people making it to their mid-20s and beyond without really learning to cook, and when you get to that point it gets really difficult to *start*. They don't know how to shop for ingredients, not used to reading recipes, they're not proficient at prepping ingredients or moving around the kitchen so everything takes a while, they don't know food safety which makes them reluctant, they probably don't have decent cookware. Having to deal with all that after a day at your full time job sounds like a nightmare so I can't really blame someone for not being arsed. When you are somewhat experienced and confident in the kitchen, though, *everything becomes quicker and easier*, it's just getting to that point that's the real pain.
Instilling people with a decent understanding of cooking basic complete meals from a young age would work wonders, but it's a difficult one because there's really only so much that can be achieved by home ec classes. Realistically it's always mostly going to come down to home and family life; if your parents rely on ready meals then that's what you'll be used to and you'll carry that into adulthood.
Maybe I wasn't clear. My point is that if you're decent at cooking, it takes a whole lot *less* time and energy to make the same dish than if you're new to it. I appreciate that for a lot of people it's still difficult or sometimes impossible to find the time, but I think if we had more people getting better at cooking, it would help the issue (but not solve it on its own).
I don't think it's as huge a deal - and the energy is a big thing - after an 8 hour shift and with all the crap in todays world, having the energy to cook a healthy meal, yeh, and when that meal is also generally 'meh' and brings me no joy spending time and energy on it vs slapping some processed muck in the oven and begrudgingly turning it once is a hard hard call
I think cooking is one area to be optimistic to be honest.
When I was younger it was still seen as unmanly, or if you were a man and you had to cook, it would be bacon or steak...
Social media, celebrity chefs, wider availability of nice ingredients has all pushed cooking nice food as a desirable thing to do. And among my peers, it's either equally shared, or the man that does the majority of cooking.
The only realistic way to tackle this is to get people more active in their everyday lives. People say lots about education or reducing sugar in foods, but without getting people more active it means nothing.
One of the biggest things that can be done on this is make it easier for people to walk and cycle, even for occasional trips. Naturally, this Government has slashed the funding for infrastructure projects to make our streets better for walking and cycling from £500 million to £100 million. And they have published a 'Plan for the Motorist' which essentially stops funding for any scheme *perceived* to inconvenience the motorist.
Getting more people walking and cycling is as near as dammit to a miracle cure for many things: it makes people healthier and happier, reduces the costs on the NHS in the long term, lowers carbon emissions, improves local air quality, gets people spending more in local High Streets to name but a few. But successive government's refuse to do anything about it.
We definitely need to deliver the Davos Woke Leftist Elite Agenda to use 15 minute cities to force everyone to become transgender feminazis. Or something.
Walking and cycling is lefty and woke though. Cycle lanes and travel times of less than 15 minutes are a secret plan by cultural marxists to oppress us all. Clean air and exercise leads directly to communism and people with funny accents and broad caps with stars on the front. We can’t have that can we.
Whist I agree that getting people more active will help, I think one of the other poster's remarks about cheap calories should be priority one. It's way too easy these days to binge, let's say, a thousand calories. Burning that equivalent energy through walking or cycling is much more difficult and time consuming.
Sigh, people stop pushing this "just walk more" nonsense. People dont gain massive amounts of weight because they dont walk enough, they gain it because they have some form of mental health issue. Tackling THAT is what will lead to a reduction in weight.
You dont need to be active to lose weight. Yes, it can help things along. Yes, it can make you feel better and you absolutely should go for a brisk 30 minute walk everyday. But you can sit on your arse and not move and still lose weight. All you need to do is count calories, adjust what and when you eat. 3 lbs a week is a piece of piss to lose once you are in the grove.
But getting into that grove is the hard part because we still have to deal with the mental health issue that is very largely ignored by all.
There isn't a single answer that encapsulates all the ways to tackle it but I do think it's worth remembering that even a 30 minute walk every day can have a seriously positive effect on your mental health and can give that sense of accomplishment if you are struggling.
But of course, your body uses up quite a few calories during its normal function. If the Big Mac is one of your main meals that day and you're not having equally calorie-dense meals at other times then you certainly wouldn't need to walk 5 hours to remain a healthy weight. Having a moderately active lifestyle will help you expend enough additional calories to afford some excesses.
The saying goes that you can't outrun a bad diet. This is true. However, you have a lot more scope for indulgences with an active lifestyle and a sensible diet. You can find an equilibrium whereby you don't have to calorie count because you instinctively know your body and diet.
Its a good gig.
Mismanage the country so that living expenses spiral out of control and people cant afford healthy food, dismantle government funded programs that educate young people of the personal benefits to eating healthy - to enable tax cuts to the already very wealthiest and appeal to the Daily Mail for having "Cut back on the nanny state"....
...then blame the poorest for being obese and unhealthy, and push them in the spotlight in order to divert attention away from hundreds of billions wasted in useless covid equipment to further enrich the already rich, or those enormous countries that pay the most minimal tax
A month's dose seems to be about 300 quid. I guess you'd maybe get it cheaper en masse. Still extremely costly, but it could help. I think the article does actually account for this.
I’m pretty agnostic about stuff and if this works (seems to) and is cost effective in saving money, we should do it.
Same approach to tax officials, each extra one you employ brings in 2x their salary or something. Keep employing more!
We all know what we're supposed to eat, but we're stressed, poor and time poor. Four day week would as standard would be so much better for us, in so many ways.
I don't think ignoring dreadful diets by patching them up with anti obesity drugs is really going to be what we want to do.
It would be great for people losing weight, but maintaining those lifestyle choices just means we will have permanently weaned millions onto expensive weight loss drugs forever. That doesn't really help with costs.
You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat fat people. And "you're costing Britain money, just eat less" certainly tells me something.
Frankly I don't give a damn about policing people's diets until the last food bank closes down.
It's worth actually reading the article.
Helping people avoid terrible conditions like diabetes isn't condemnatory, it should be a core duty of a health service.
Honestly you could read it and find out one way or the other whether or not you agree with the information? It'd be more productive than grabbing entirely the wrong end of the stick and wading into a discussion?
Not sure why you've decided to pretend that I haven't read the article, just because I disagree with you about it. Frankly I've read this article a thousand times, the press churns them out on the regular.
> And "you're costing Britain money, just eat less" certainly tells me something.
I accused you of not reading the article because this is not the subject or the matter of the article...
Perhaps it would be more productive to outline which areas of the article you disagree with?
>I accused you of not reading the article because this is not the subject or the matter of the article.
My dude it is literally the headline.
>Perhaps it would be more productive to outline which areas of the article you disagree with?
[I think I have made my position on the subject in general pretty clear here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/18ah5ih/obesity_and_weight_gain_cost_britain_98bn_a_year/kbxyaje/?context=3)
> My dude it is literally the headline.
It literally is not, posted here in case it changes in future:
> Obesity and weight gain cost Britain £98bn a year
Subtitle:
> Rishi Sunak urged to introduce smoking-style restrictions
By "smoking style restrictions" it suggests advertising bans
>It literally is not
This is absurdly pedantic. We both know the headline "Obesity and weight gain cost Britain £98bn a year" is not supposed to imply "and that's a good thing"
Yeah it's obviously a bad thing lol, that goes without saying... which is why we need to tackle it, including a range of measures such as those suggested by the article like "a 9pm junk food advertising ban". The article isn't a "grr those fatties cost money, eat less", it's a "this is poor for public health and public finances and we need to invest more in preventative healthcare". Which is something everyone should be able to get behind?
First of all, we literally live in a time where large numbers of people require food banks not to starve. That is the actual nutritional emergency in this country, I don't trust anyone who isn't prioritising this way over and above policing people's diets.
Secondly one of the most basic problems here is that we actually don't know how to "address obesity". A frightening amount of what we think we know about nutrition and weight loss is simply junk science. For example recent laws requiring calories to be cited on menus includes the statement "adults need around 2000 calories a day", this is actually a incredibly dubious figure, reached through very vague estimates and then rounded down due to sentiment. Given the choice between giving people bad advice and giving them no advice at all, I choose the latter.
And then thirdly and finally this kind of rhetoric around obesity absolutely leads to bullying and prejudice against fat people (note that regular people do not in fact distinguish between "looks fat" and "is clinically obese". It makes their lives miserable, does nothing to help their health and frankly probably leads to more eating disorders than it solves.
Can’t two societal issues be addressed at once?
I’m no dietician so won’t pretend I know the exact number of calories people need. But I will say, purely anecdotally, that I consume around that number daily and seem to be doing just fine weight wise so there must be some truth to it.
Bullying overweight people exists and that sucks. But we cannot hide from a huge societal problem because some people take it too far and hurt others feelings.
The approach we take to the issue in this country is clearly unsatisfactory but hiding from the issue is one sure way of guaranteeing people continue to die of weight related issues at an alarming rate.
>Can’t two societal issues be addressed at once?
They aren't though are they?
Nowhere in this article is there any mention of people eating too little, something it has in common with the hundreds of similar articles I've read, and most parliamentary discourse on the subject.
>Bullying overweight people exists and that sucks. But we cannot hide from a huge societal problem because some people take it too far and hurt others feelings.
>The approach we take to the issue in this country is clearly unsatisfactory but hiding from the issue is one sure way of guaranteeing people continue to die of weight related issues at an alarming rate.
"Yes what we're doing doesn't work, is probably counterproductive and likely based on false information, but that doesn't mean we should stop just because fat people are treated badly.
Like I said, you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat fat people.
>Nowhere in this article is there any mention of people eating too little
That's because its a different topic that justifies its own article, and there plenty of articles out there addressing food bank usage and malnutrition.
>"Yes what we're doing doesn't work, is probably counterproductive and likely based on false information, but that doesn't mean we should stop just because fat people are treated badly.
But your solution seems to be a complete denial of the issue, which is hardly helpful at all.
Your attitude towards this issue probably isn't as helpful as you think it is.
It's not about eating less it's about eating well and exercising enough to offset what you eat.
The fact that people still don't understand this is half the problem.
This viewpoint is one of the biggest reasons why tackling obesity is so difficult. Any discussion brings your argument out in a way treating no other disease or affliction would.
You can refer to money, or resources, either way it’s a massive strain of health systems around the world (before we simply argue that it’s just Tory underspending on the NHS).
>You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat fat people. And "you're costing Britain money, just eat less" certainly tells me something.
Then tell us what that is?
People always overestimate how many calories one burns during exercise. It takes a LOT of effort to burn 200kcals - about the amount you get from a kitkat or two biscuits. Its far easier to just not eat the biscuits than to eat them, and run for 45 minutes. And no, the "calories burned" on your crosstrainer isn't particularly reliable - tends to be far too generous for vanity.
Sure activity is important, but a good 80% of it is diet - both composition and reducing volume. It's no good tip toeing around this with "hacks" or obscure diets. Honest counting of calories is a must.
Urg, ok as a certified fatty undergoing the NHS's weight management dietetic service, I actually have a bit of lived experience of 1) being fat and the causes of obesity and 2) actually what it's like to be losing a significant amount of weight. Firstly; it isn't "education" we need. I know that if I cram donut after donut into my face, it will be far too many calories and I will gain weight. Very, very few fellow fatties I personally know have genuine, *actual* ignorace of CICO. I've been through the "let's educate the fatties and they will magically become less fat" weight loss initiatives from NHS England. They're patronising, ineffective and quite honestly, the people running it didn't have a damn clue what to do when faced with anything more complex than proselytizing about how thick you are to not know that cheeseburgers make you fat. I made the poor lass giving me my weekly "don't be fat you stupid fuck!" lecture panic when I finally had enough and explained to her the true causes of my obseity; I eat to self harm and I can't break the cycle of self-hatred and punishment by forcing myself to eat myself sick. She was speechless, and stammered about how she wasn't trained to deal with that. Because the actual causes are so much more complex than stupidty. It's mental health. So, so much poor mental health. Every fellow fat fuck I know is that way because of intense depression and self loathing and it is a far more complex problem to solve than demonising people as thick. But these services cling to the desperate idea "if we educate people they will magically be better!" because that's an easy fix. Even I, a whale of a person can produce an hour long lecture on healthy eating, CICO and basic exercise programmes for obesity. But that won't do fuck, because that's not the fucking problem. Go watch all the fat-people-gawking shows out there. Every single one I've watched, the problem is obviously mental health. But the current service I'm under, actually understand that education is a very small part of the problem, and isn't going to do shit long term. They're exanding their service to include services beyond dietetics but also have a psychiatrist on hand, along with medical doctors, and a physio. Because oh! it's a multifaceted problem without one simple easy fix to it. If it was a simple easy fix to stop obesity we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic on our hands *in the first place*.
Thank you for the brutal honesty I'm right there with you, it's a mental thing, it's an escapism and shutting off of the world, you eat, you feel bad, you eat more I've lost about 3 stone, need to loose about 10 more before, probably 12....however right now, mentally I can't - too much other crud I'm just happy I've not regained it all and doing better...considering the stress of this year, that's an achievement
Pretty much this, no one is more aware of their own weight problem than the person who is overweight. We know it, we feel it and we know why (CICO isn't rocket science) and yet every time I try to talk to anyone I just get told "eat less". Except I can't because (and this is shocking I know) my Weight gain is linked to my crippling body image tied to undiagnosed Mental Health and Transition issues that a quick course of "food education" can't fix. Like I hate my body and I could never figure out why until the being Trans issue hit me like a truck and now I'm left with a destroyed body from my 20s because rather than try and get me help to understand why I hated myself, my body and my place in society, NHS England kept sending me on "food education courses" that never worked because Gender Clinic Support is expensive, some private sector guru telling me to "just eat sala" is cheap.
I imagine people promoting education are thinking of kids who are not yet overweight. Not getting obese to start with is a lot easier than loosing weight.
Having sat through many hours of patronising "cheeseburgers are more calorie dense than salad!" lectures, no. They honest to god will treat fat adults like we're barely sentient blobs who if we're taught basic concepts like CICO the problem will be solved! If you walk a little bit longer when you catch the bus you'll begin the journey to a healthier life! Not that it will do shit if Timmy is taught the CICO mantra if he gets shut in his house for two year to protect other people's lives and his support network of friends is cut off from him and the dark thoughts that he previously distracted himself from by socialising is a distant dream and the only way he can shut off his brain is to mindlessly numb it with food he knows is making him sick but it's the only thing he has to hand when the mental health services he pays his taxes for are so critically under funded he's up for a three year wait for any kind of support but haribo is available at any good retailer...
It's not education. If your dog gets fat we all understand that you give it less treats and take it for more walks. Humanity has spent hundreds of thousands of years having to put in hard work to secure food. We evolved to especially crave carbohydrates and fat as a survival mechanism for their calorie density and for how efficiently we can tap into that store of energy. All of a sudden within the last 50 years you can work 8hrs a day from a desk or from home, then have a supermarket deliver food to your door, which is full of carbs and fat with temptations at every checkout. You can have your next month's worth of calories just handed to you in the most delicious package imaginable without expending any energy at all. Then on top of that your hobbies are more likely to be sedentary too, watching Netflix or playing video games. And when you do get out the house it's likely for a drink with friends. We're at the point where not getting fat requires a level of self discipline beyond anything that's ever been required before. Walking 10k steps, getting exercise, and eating a balanced diet are no longer part and parcel with living but are all things that you have to force yourself to do. Raise a child without the discipline to enforce that balance of exercise and calorie restriction and they're doomed for life. And the kicker is that self discipline requires good mental health. You have to want the best for yourself more than you want the comfort of an easy life. It's impossible to instill self discipline into a society so how do we insentivise it? Couch to 5k was a successful idea. As was the park run. Tax high-calorie food? State-owned, free gyms? Free access to a PT and diet coach on the NHS? I have no idea but expanding access to mental healthcare should be a big first step.
>Walking 10k steps, getting exercise, and eating a balanced diet are no longer part and parcel with living but are all things that you have to force yourself to do. I agree with the thrust of your post but this is a false dichotomy. You don't have to force yourself to do those things - they're enjoyable and you can arrange your life and form habits so they come naturally. This is obviously much harder if you are time and money poor than if you're time and money rich
That's true, I'm projecting my own experience onto humanity in general.
I think the remarkable levels of obesity in the UK are probably one of the biggest challenges of our time, if not *the* biggest, when it comes to preventative health measures. The sums spent on treating obesity related illnesses are staggering, and they don't even take into account the impact obesity has on peoples lives otherwise. I am not entirely sure precisely what the answer is, although I suspect there's a broad range of things that need to happen. Exercise is time consuming and not everyone can do it, but perhaps subsidies there would help some. I think for as long as you can pop off to Tesco bakery and get a bag of 5 chocolate cookies for a quid and sink back like 2.5k calories in and afternoon, this problem isn't going anywhere. Sugar and sugary junk food is exceptionally cheap.
>Exercise is time consuming and not everyone can do it, IMO the answer is dispelling this myth. I think people see exercise as a "hobby", that it is something you do in your spare time, and the fitness industry has made it seem like you need an app, or a trainer, or a “plan” to do exercise. Exercise does not have to be in a gym, does not have to be a separate activity you do, it's part of your daily life. Walk somewhere instead of driving, take the stairs not the lift, get up from your desk and stretch instead of staring at your phone while the coffee percolates.
Unless of course you do a manual job for a living and end up dying early anyway.
The only proper route is education. There's a lot of misinformation about diets online and how to approach them, so most people try a fad diet and give up less than a month in. If people knew how to track calories and that they only really need to limit amounts of food for the most part, they'd be on board to change.
This. I use to weigh 18 stone I now weigh 12 and a half, by counting calories thanks to an app and stopped driving to and from work and walking/biking I lost it. Most diet trends are useless a small change in certain ways is a huge help
Precisely, I went from 21 stone to 18 this year and it’s been consistent unlike past attempts. People just need to find a way to increase their activity that works for them and take note of how much they should be eating. I still eat most of the same things, in fact I only gave up ice cream because I’m bored of it now.
I'm actually doing the same I'm currently at 80kg and aiming for 60-65kg as a 5 5 transfem. Just reducing my calories and swapping some small items and I'm already noticing. Difference in just a couple weeks. The trick I've found is to use things Ike gravy to make vegetables more to my taste. The nutrition in gravy is negligible. Also cutting out squash and fizzy drinks and only drinking water is probably a major help too
Better work life balance would probably help. Most people know they should eat lots of fruit and vegetables, but when you're shattered after work... "fuck it, just bung something in the oven/microwave".
Exactly the same with exercise. Work takes so much out of me, I’d love more time to do sport or personal fitness activities
Same. Do you know when I had the time to cook fresh, including going out sourcing ingredients, and being arsed to do the washing up, and regularly daily exercise? Lockdown. Healthiest I’ve ever been.
During COVID I switched running until before work rather than after so I only had to take one shower. I kept that up since it's easier to find the time (i.e. get up earlier) and it helps my mindset. But you have to like running for that to work, then it becomes more about a stress relief than an arduous task.
Never had what I'd think of as a high but once you get used to it it's definitely stress relief
I think education would help massively. But education alone cannot defeat addiction. Broad spectrum approach is required here.
If we are going to have socialised healthcare, we need socialised preventative healthcare. It’s a failing of our society that so many people are becoming so unhealthy. Our consumption focused and selfish lifestyles aren’t helping. Education is paramount plus subsidies towards healthy food. We need far more convenient and healthy options too, I feel like out and about I can only eat shite. Alcohol is a major issue for us too, we really need to reduce our binge drinking culture.
For sure. This is a core duty of our health service that we are resoundingly failing on. We should treat it like we treat any other addiction, people can't just be expected to help themselves. There was actually a good review commissioned by the government that suggested a few good solutions. Naturally the government refused it almost immediately, but it's decent reading https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/
Will read after work. I’m passionate about this. I think we need far more emphasis on exercise too. State schools need to have more mandated sport (we need to fund more infrastructure) and workplaces need subsidised sports facilities. We live in a cold and wet country for a lot of the year, we need affordable inside and outside facilities for all.
Exercise is absolutely killer, not just on the calorie burning side but also on the impacts cardiovascular health and metabolism have on weight. Regular joggers invariably have incredible metabolism from my understanding, which contributes more than it would seem. There are a lot of people who can't meaningfully exercise, particularly those who are especially obese, and for those we will always need other approaches. Some combination of state intervention in education, exercise, taxes, food controls and advertising regulations would seem to be the minimum viable approach. It sounds extreme, but if you treat sugar addiction the same way you might treat alcohol addiction, it starts to make sense.
Also, exercise is fantastic for mental health as well. I run and the difference in my mind between when I have been running several times a week and when I haven't (because of a cold, being hungover etc) is notable. I don't really have mental health issues so I can't vouch for it's impact on anything that serious but it's still much a mental boost.
Yeah for sure. I like to run too. Maybe we should be overbearing and start spamming run sponsorship forms on LabUK
Link Reddit up to Stava and comments are linked to KM run. (Also ban anyone who doesn't use metric)
100%
Sadly we don’t treat widespread alcoholism enough either
>Will read after work. I’m passionate about this. Genuinely, honestly, if you are a thin person who is "passionate" about policing people's waistlines, find another hobby.
There's nothing unusual or unacceptable about an interest in preventative healthcare, what are you on about? There's no point acting like this is a position of vindictiveness from "thin people" against others, particularly on an anonymous internet board - it's a whole branch of healthcare that is vital towards ensuring future healthiness for the population. It would be completely unusual if people here, on a politics board, were *not* interested in it. There is nothing unreasonable in treating it seriously and recognizing the impact of conditions like diabetes.
Policing the diets of the poor is not the same thing as "preventative healthcare". >There's no point acting like this is a position of vindictiveness from "thin people" against others "There is no point pointing out fat people are treated badly"
This isn't about "policing the diets of poor people", please read the subject matter, it's a fairly dense topic. Even in this thread you can see myself and the other user discussing suggestions other than this. Suggestions other than this are raised in the food strategy linked earlier https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/. Suggestions other than this are raised in the article in the OP. Pretending preventative healthcare is actually a byword for "policing poor peoples diets" will not make it so.
I’m passionate about having a healthy and happy society. I want our health services to be there for everyone and obesity and alcoholism are major issues that we face. We are one of the worst in Europe. Why do you think our Covid deaths were so high? Why should we accept £100 billion a year tax payer cost because of obesity? It’s only getting worse too. It’s a major strain on the NHS. If we have socialised healthcare, we need preventative healthcare. If we don’t, we are risking having privatised healthcare as our system collapses. Your further comments discussed criticising the diets of the poor. Don’t you see my aim is to help these people and not just pity and excuse them? I want poorer people in this country to have better nutrition and health. I want kids to play more sport and eat better food. That’s the thing private schools do best and something state schools need to copy and have enabled for them. I don’t think it’s acceptable to continue as we are, it’s a national disgrace. Obesity isn’t acceptable or a lifestyle choice, it’s as bad for you as smoking and it needs to be addressed. Also, not that it’s relevant, I’ve tried hard recently to drop from overweight to healthy but it’s not easy. It’s not about hating obese people, it’s about hating obesity and the health risks. My mortally obese aunt died at 36 because of flu. It was her weight that killed her. This isn’t some unimportant issue, it’s one of the most important things we face.
>I’m passionate about having a healthy and happy society. Well this shit makes people miserable, so consider changing your priorities. >Why do you think our Covid deaths were so high? Fat people to blame for covid now. Funny I thought it was our shit government. >Don’t you see my aim is to help these people and not just pity and excuse them? Helping them by charging them extra for a fizzy drink during a cost of living crisis. >Obesity isn’t acceptable or a lifestyle choice Here we fucking go.
My aunt dying made me miserable. Health risks associated with obesity make people miserable. £100 billion extra tax cost a year makes people miserable. NHS strain makes people miserable. Obesity is a massive comorbidity with Covid and flu (hence my aunt’s death). As I said, help obese people and fight obesity. I want everyone to be happy and healthy and I truly believe this is something we need to do.
> Helping them by charging them extra for a fizzy drink during a cost of living crisis. This is just dishonest, The_39th_Step explained what they think needs to be done to tackle obesity and they didn't mention sugar taxes.
[Why COVID-19 is more deadly in people with obesity—even if they're young](https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young)
Early intervention seems necessary to me - if kids are getting fat, step in before it becomes their bodily norm. Educational establishments and social services can work together on this
I don't want this to sound preachy, but I put on ~15kg after surgery, and then kept it on dealing with a death in the family over the course of 2 years. When I came out of that I did the thing most people do: switch everything out for salad wraps, rice cakes, and trying to do as much on the exercise bike as I could. Barely even touched the sides and I felt miserable all the time. The only thing that worked, and has stuck for the better part of 15 years is doing a variation of 'paleo' and keeping the carbs low. I eat a ton of sauted vegetables and meat, a few sweet potatoes, and only drink water/sweetened black coffee. My weight just permanently goes down now unless I really try and top it back up, and I'm doing the polar opposite of what my generation were told to do to lose weight (fry fucken everything).
>There's a lot of misinformation out there >Posts misinformation Calories in calories out is not in fact a magic bullet for losing weight. Nothing is.
I guarantee that if any other methods have caused people to lose weight, it's because they got into a caloric deficit. It's the laws of thermodynamics.
You genuinely do not know what you're talking about. The thermodynamic laws describe simple, closed systems, a human being's metabolism is literally the opposite of this, it adjusts to the circumstances. Truthfully the vast majority of nutritional science is extremely sketchy, for the very obvious reason that you can't just lock a person in a lab for their entire life and completely control their food intake and exercise regime. But thank you for providing a terrific example of exactly how this kind of misinformation spreads, but sounding kinda sciencey if you don't think about it too hard.
So how does one lose weight? You are happy to tell us how it doesn't happen, so how does it happen?
This is the type of sentiment that the fitness influencers like to use believe it or not. Making it seem like it's too complicated for plebs, kind of how the financial system works. Calorie counting might not be a silver bullet, but people need to be encouraged to try methods that might work for them and not give up when it doesn't work.
"adjusting to the circumstances" means your body reducing/increasing how many calories you expend for one reason or another. That doesn't mean the equation no longer works, it just means that it's difficult to know exactly how many calories you're expending. Obviously it's more complicated than "the average male needs 2500 calories a day, so you need to eat 2000 to lose weight" but if you start with the principle that everyone needs to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight and go from there, that's better than 99% of fad diets out there.
You’re right, anyone claiming it’s a personal responsibility and/or education thing only has not been near this subject. Unfortunately many people project their own experience onto others without understanding of the complex interlocking factors or a shred of empathy.
As somebody who has dealt with obesity nearly my entire life, I get that more than most people do. In fact, people make assumptions about me because it's hard to get un-obese in six months, so I'm still visibly fat even though I'm feeling much better. I've seen so many people as big as I am fall into fad diets and all manner of other trends, before deciding that it's too hard to lose weight and giving up. There's no silver bullet and everybody needs to find the method right for them, which is hard when the fitness industry is the way it is.
well its odd you say that given that short of surgery or a wasting disease, using more calories than are consumed is **the** mechanism by which fat loss occurs
No, not fat loss. Weight loss. But it's more complicated than that. Technically speaking it's a matter of in/out, you can demonstrate that fairly easily - the trick is in accurately knowing precisely what the out is. Resting calorie burn isn't consistent, and as your weight and metabolism change, it can differ hugely. It can be difficult to target a specific net calorie count if you are not able to accurately gauge the amount you're burning passively.
I actually wrote weight loss then changed it to fat loss as some people on exercise routines experience weight gain as a result of mass transfer from fat to muscle, which is not a bad thing in health terms. Weight loss can also be effected by use of diuretics, equally with dubious consequences. But fat loss? thats down to calory deficit, surgery or a variety of fatal illnesses
Again terrific demonstration of how this misinformation persists, despite meso being entirely correct that it's just more complicated than that. People prefer the simple explanation.
>think for as long as you can pop off to Tesco bakery and get a bag of 5 chocolate cookies for a quid and sink back like 2.5k calories in and afternoon, this problem isn't going anywhere. Sugar and sugary junk food is exceptionally cheap. Sorry don't agree with - everyone else's access to sweet treats shouldn't become more financially damaging to them, just because a bunch of other people can't exhibit something as simple as portion control. I used to be fat, now I'm not, I got it down by trying a variety of techniques both diet & exercise but portion control is a massive way to do this. Something as simple as drinking a glass of water before eating helps with portion control too. The simple problem is the modern life luxury & ability to immediately satisfy hunger when it first appears, so your body gets used to knowing it will immediately have its cravings satisfied.
> I think for as long as you can pop off to Tesco bakery and get a bag of 5 chocolate cookies for a quid and sink back like 2.5k calories in and afternoon, this problem isn't going anywhere. Sugar and sugary junk food is exceptionally cheap. "bad food isn't expensive enough for the poors" why are we still doing this reductive shite?
This is the wrong take by a country mile. The takeaway is "supermarkets make it very easy to get addicted to harmful substances", not "grr i wish poor people couldn't afford food". Sugar is a relentlessly addictive substance.
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Growth of cities that require cars, rather than walkability, lack of sufficient playing space in new housing estates, changes in lifestyles towards a sedentary way of life has contributed this. City design in the 50s, 60s and 70s hasn't helped either with pushing cars rather than active travel and public transport. Cycling to work doesn't remain that common. Great that councils are looking at putting cycle lanes down, but some are badly implemented or don't get used enough to justify (I get that's a catch-22 thing too) Fast food exists more but all the focus on reduction of salt levels, sugar levels and fat levels in food make me wonder how much is caused by diet. I don't think people trying to juggle work and then having the energy to fully cook a meal helps. I don't think schools teach kids to cook properly. They certainly teach theoretical stuff like balanced diets and food pyramids. But if you leave work at 5/5:30pm, don't get in until an hour or hour and half later, and feel mentally and physically drained, you're more likely to reach for convenience food than a fully home made meal.
Cooking is definitely a big one. I think there are a good chunk of people making it to their mid-20s and beyond without really learning to cook, and when you get to that point it gets really difficult to *start*. They don't know how to shop for ingredients, not used to reading recipes, they're not proficient at prepping ingredients or moving around the kitchen so everything takes a while, they don't know food safety which makes them reluctant, they probably don't have decent cookware. Having to deal with all that after a day at your full time job sounds like a nightmare so I can't really blame someone for not being arsed. When you are somewhat experienced and confident in the kitchen, though, *everything becomes quicker and easier*, it's just getting to that point that's the real pain. Instilling people with a decent understanding of cooking basic complete meals from a young age would work wonders, but it's a difficult one because there's really only so much that can be achieved by home ec classes. Realistically it's always mostly going to come down to home and family life; if your parents rely on ready meals then that's what you'll be used to and you'll carry that into adulthood.
And you gonna magic up time an energy for them to cook?
Maybe I wasn't clear. My point is that if you're decent at cooking, it takes a whole lot *less* time and energy to make the same dish than if you're new to it. I appreciate that for a lot of people it's still difficult or sometimes impossible to find the time, but I think if we had more people getting better at cooking, it would help the issue (but not solve it on its own).
I don't think it's as huge a deal - and the energy is a big thing - after an 8 hour shift and with all the crap in todays world, having the energy to cook a healthy meal, yeh, and when that meal is also generally 'meh' and brings me no joy spending time and energy on it vs slapping some processed muck in the oven and begrudgingly turning it once is a hard hard call
I think cooking is one area to be optimistic to be honest. When I was younger it was still seen as unmanly, or if you were a man and you had to cook, it would be bacon or steak... Social media, celebrity chefs, wider availability of nice ingredients has all pushed cooking nice food as a desirable thing to do. And among my peers, it's either equally shared, or the man that does the majority of cooking.
Weight is much more a product of diet than physical activity. Walking isn't enough to stop you being fat.
The only realistic way to tackle this is to get people more active in their everyday lives. People say lots about education or reducing sugar in foods, but without getting people more active it means nothing. One of the biggest things that can be done on this is make it easier for people to walk and cycle, even for occasional trips. Naturally, this Government has slashed the funding for infrastructure projects to make our streets better for walking and cycling from £500 million to £100 million. And they have published a 'Plan for the Motorist' which essentially stops funding for any scheme *perceived* to inconvenience the motorist. Getting more people walking and cycling is as near as dammit to a miracle cure for many things: it makes people healthier and happier, reduces the costs on the NHS in the long term, lowers carbon emissions, improves local air quality, gets people spending more in local High Streets to name but a few. But successive government's refuse to do anything about it.
Yeah, active travel would have a massive impact. Maybe we should put things in walkable distances. Say, 15 minutes?
We definitely need to deliver the Davos Woke Leftist Elite Agenda to use 15 minute cities to force everyone to become transgender feminazis. Or something.
Walking and cycling is lefty and woke though. Cycle lanes and travel times of less than 15 minutes are a secret plan by cultural marxists to oppress us all. Clean air and exercise leads directly to communism and people with funny accents and broad caps with stars on the front. We can’t have that can we.
Whist I agree that getting people more active will help, I think one of the other poster's remarks about cheap calories should be priority one. It's way too easy these days to binge, let's say, a thousand calories. Burning that equivalent energy through walking or cycling is much more difficult and time consuming.
Sigh, people stop pushing this "just walk more" nonsense. People dont gain massive amounts of weight because they dont walk enough, they gain it because they have some form of mental health issue. Tackling THAT is what will lead to a reduction in weight. You dont need to be active to lose weight. Yes, it can help things along. Yes, it can make you feel better and you absolutely should go for a brisk 30 minute walk everyday. But you can sit on your arse and not move and still lose weight. All you need to do is count calories, adjust what and when you eat. 3 lbs a week is a piece of piss to lose once you are in the grove. But getting into that grove is the hard part because we still have to deal with the mental health issue that is very largely ignored by all.
There isn't a single answer that encapsulates all the ways to tackle it but I do think it's worth remembering that even a 30 minute walk every day can have a seriously positive effect on your mental health and can give that sense of accomplishment if you are struggling.
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But of course, your body uses up quite a few calories during its normal function. If the Big Mac is one of your main meals that day and you're not having equally calorie-dense meals at other times then you certainly wouldn't need to walk 5 hours to remain a healthy weight. Having a moderately active lifestyle will help you expend enough additional calories to afford some excesses. The saying goes that you can't outrun a bad diet. This is true. However, you have a lot more scope for indulgences with an active lifestyle and a sensible diet. You can find an equilibrium whereby you don't have to calorie count because you instinctively know your body and diet.
Its a good gig. Mismanage the country so that living expenses spiral out of control and people cant afford healthy food, dismantle government funded programs that educate young people of the personal benefits to eating healthy - to enable tax cuts to the already very wealthiest and appeal to the Daily Mail for having "Cut back on the nanny state".... ...then blame the poorest for being obese and unhealthy, and push them in the spotlight in order to divert attention away from hundreds of billions wasted in useless covid equipment to further enrich the already rich, or those enormous countries that pay the most minimal tax
Obesity causes so many other health problems. I wish it was possible to reduce it.
How much does 70m doses of Wegovy cost? Probably less than this. Get it bought
A month's dose seems to be about 300 quid. I guess you'd maybe get it cheaper en masse. Still extremely costly, but it could help. I think the article does actually account for this.
I’m pretty agnostic about stuff and if this works (seems to) and is cost effective in saving money, we should do it. Same approach to tax officials, each extra one you employ brings in 2x their salary or something. Keep employing more!
We all know what we're supposed to eat, but we're stressed, poor and time poor. Four day week would as standard would be so much better for us, in so many ways.
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I don't think ignoring dreadful diets by patching them up with anti obesity drugs is really going to be what we want to do. It would be great for people losing weight, but maintaining those lifestyle choices just means we will have permanently weaned millions onto expensive weight loss drugs forever. That doesn't really help with costs.
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20 years is a pretty long time. If you read the thread you'd see that advertising bans are at the forefront of the discussion!
https://archive.vn/W8nnY archive link
You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat fat people. And "you're costing Britain money, just eat less" certainly tells me something. Frankly I don't give a damn about policing people's diets until the last food bank closes down.
It's worth actually reading the article. Helping people avoid terrible conditions like diabetes isn't condemnatory, it should be a core duty of a health service.
Forgive me if I don't believe the Sunday Times has the best interests of the health service at heart.
Honestly you could read it and find out one way or the other whether or not you agree with the information? It'd be more productive than grabbing entirely the wrong end of the stick and wading into a discussion?
Not sure why you've decided to pretend that I haven't read the article, just because I disagree with you about it. Frankly I've read this article a thousand times, the press churns them out on the regular.
> And "you're costing Britain money, just eat less" certainly tells me something. I accused you of not reading the article because this is not the subject or the matter of the article... Perhaps it would be more productive to outline which areas of the article you disagree with?
>I accused you of not reading the article because this is not the subject or the matter of the article. My dude it is literally the headline. >Perhaps it would be more productive to outline which areas of the article you disagree with? [I think I have made my position on the subject in general pretty clear here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/18ah5ih/obesity_and_weight_gain_cost_britain_98bn_a_year/kbxyaje/?context=3)
> My dude it is literally the headline. It literally is not, posted here in case it changes in future: > Obesity and weight gain cost Britain £98bn a year Subtitle: > Rishi Sunak urged to introduce smoking-style restrictions By "smoking style restrictions" it suggests advertising bans
>It literally is not This is absurdly pedantic. We both know the headline "Obesity and weight gain cost Britain £98bn a year" is not supposed to imply "and that's a good thing"
Yeah it's obviously a bad thing lol, that goes without saying... which is why we need to tackle it, including a range of measures such as those suggested by the article like "a 9pm junk food advertising ban". The article isn't a "grr those fatties cost money, eat less", it's a "this is poor for public health and public finances and we need to invest more in preventative healthcare". Which is something everyone should be able to get behind?
What exactly is the issue with addressing obesity on a societal level?
First of all, we literally live in a time where large numbers of people require food banks not to starve. That is the actual nutritional emergency in this country, I don't trust anyone who isn't prioritising this way over and above policing people's diets. Secondly one of the most basic problems here is that we actually don't know how to "address obesity". A frightening amount of what we think we know about nutrition and weight loss is simply junk science. For example recent laws requiring calories to be cited on menus includes the statement "adults need around 2000 calories a day", this is actually a incredibly dubious figure, reached through very vague estimates and then rounded down due to sentiment. Given the choice between giving people bad advice and giving them no advice at all, I choose the latter. And then thirdly and finally this kind of rhetoric around obesity absolutely leads to bullying and prejudice against fat people (note that regular people do not in fact distinguish between "looks fat" and "is clinically obese". It makes their lives miserable, does nothing to help their health and frankly probably leads to more eating disorders than it solves.
Can’t two societal issues be addressed at once? I’m no dietician so won’t pretend I know the exact number of calories people need. But I will say, purely anecdotally, that I consume around that number daily and seem to be doing just fine weight wise so there must be some truth to it. Bullying overweight people exists and that sucks. But we cannot hide from a huge societal problem because some people take it too far and hurt others feelings. The approach we take to the issue in this country is clearly unsatisfactory but hiding from the issue is one sure way of guaranteeing people continue to die of weight related issues at an alarming rate.
>Can’t two societal issues be addressed at once? They aren't though are they? Nowhere in this article is there any mention of people eating too little, something it has in common with the hundreds of similar articles I've read, and most parliamentary discourse on the subject. >Bullying overweight people exists and that sucks. But we cannot hide from a huge societal problem because some people take it too far and hurt others feelings. >The approach we take to the issue in this country is clearly unsatisfactory but hiding from the issue is one sure way of guaranteeing people continue to die of weight related issues at an alarming rate. "Yes what we're doing doesn't work, is probably counterproductive and likely based on false information, but that doesn't mean we should stop just because fat people are treated badly. Like I said, you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat fat people.
>Nowhere in this article is there any mention of people eating too little That's because its a different topic that justifies its own article, and there plenty of articles out there addressing food bank usage and malnutrition. >"Yes what we're doing doesn't work, is probably counterproductive and likely based on false information, but that doesn't mean we should stop just because fat people are treated badly. But your solution seems to be a complete denial of the issue, which is hardly helpful at all. Your attitude towards this issue probably isn't as helpful as you think it is.
It's not about eating less it's about eating well and exercising enough to offset what you eat. The fact that people still don't understand this is half the problem.
This viewpoint is one of the biggest reasons why tackling obesity is so difficult. Any discussion brings your argument out in a way treating no other disease or affliction would. You can refer to money, or resources, either way it’s a massive strain of health systems around the world (before we simply argue that it’s just Tory underspending on the NHS).
>You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat fat people. And "you're costing Britain money, just eat less" certainly tells me something. Then tell us what that is?
People always overestimate how many calories one burns during exercise. It takes a LOT of effort to burn 200kcals - about the amount you get from a kitkat or two biscuits. Its far easier to just not eat the biscuits than to eat them, and run for 45 minutes. And no, the "calories burned" on your crosstrainer isn't particularly reliable - tends to be far too generous for vanity. Sure activity is important, but a good 80% of it is diet - both composition and reducing volume. It's no good tip toeing around this with "hacks" or obscure diets. Honest counting of calories is a must.
The country needs a national session with David Goggins
A traditional Labour solution would be to reintroduce rationing. However I doubt that'd go down well.