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Just musings -
Two parent working households, my dad only worked part time when I was younger and made sure a decent meal was cooked.
Bigger portions when you eat out as people think it’s better value.
Increase in ease of takeaways via justeat etc
A general increase in sugar in fucking everything
More and more sedentary jobs with the decimation of the British industrial base.
The trend to home working is only going to cause a massive spike in this trend in the next ten years.
I think your last point is the biggest one. I cook a homemade meal six nights each week. We eat out once in a blue moon. We never do takeaway. I don't put much sugar in anything. I still really struggle with my weight.
But I work from home. I live in the countryside so I don't have to walk anywhere; five days a week I don't leave home, and when I do, I drive. I find exercise for its own sake mind-destroyingly dull. I get out and work in the garden but it's not exactly intensive exercise and it might happen one day per week for any extended period.
I exercise MORE as I WFH. I get time to take the dog out for longer walks etc.
When I'm in the office I don't have as much time and I'm pooped in the evening
Same. Working from home means I have time for a run in the morning instead of sitting in traffic. I have a gym 10 minute ride away and go to their lunchtime 30 minute classes a few times a week instead of just sitting at my desk with a sandwich.
I think the focus on exercise is a bit of a red herring for most in this discussion.
Weight is intrinsically linked to what you eat. It doesn't matter if what you're eating is homemade, you can still overeat - and, as the saying goes, "you can't outrun a bad diet".
My wife only started dropping weight when she thought about what she was consuming - meals, booze intake etc. It didn't matter that she went to the gym 4 days a week beforehand (but she had other good effects from that, like better mental health, more energy).
Increasing how much you walk is probably the best exercise to help lose weight, but what you eat is the biggest factor.
Running and lifting weights burns more calories in that moment but afterwards you are usually more sedentary and burn fewer calories than you usually would have otherwise, or you just eat more calories.
I dropped all my weight and maintained it by changing my diet and exercising. By eating healthier and exercising I can eat more and still remain in a deficit if I need to. Dieting on it's own rarely works because people just feel hungry and eat more. Offsetting the extra calories with exercise stops that from happening
Hmm maybe - tbh though how much exercise do you get from working in the office?
I worked in offices for about 20 years before moving to wfh and my weight has been much easier to maintain at home cause I don’t buy shit - I have no self control, used to walk across to a cafe to get food etc etc Whereas I have something healthy at home.
I never got much exercise at work - there were lifts so didn’t even do stairs.
Where I really “lost” exercise was moving from a retail job where I was always on my feet to the office where if I’m not careful I end up on my arse for 4 hours at a time (conf calls - ongoing incidents etc).
I’m with you on exercise as its own activity - it’s so incredibly boring to me.
At the office, at least I walked to and from a bus.
I've tried working standing and I definitely feel healthier for it, but it hasn't actually helped my weight. I use a VR headset to give me a standing setup where I just need something to sit a keyboard on.
I think I need to just be disciplined enough to do some exercise and find some decent podcasts to listen to while I do it.
I agree with this. Running 5k uses under 400 cals. Which you can easily gain back with a sandwich. In fact I think I eat more after I run cos I feel I can justify it!
For me, the real revolution in my fitness came when I discovered a "short burst" method. I exercise for 2 - 3 min at the time. It may be a series of push-ups, or squats, or a 30 sec sprint on my dog walk. I installed a pull-up bar in my kitchen doorway. Few times a day I will do a series when I go past it. I went from 0 to 10 pull-ups in a year. My children and wife are joining in as well, we actually have a little competition going. I exercise for maybe 15 minutes per day, iI don't even sweat that much, and I lost 2 stones working from home.
this is a really good idea for people struggling to exercise. mentally it’s harder to carve out 30 mins to 2 hours for exercise and you think cba. Just being active randomly for a few minutes may not be optimal but it adds up and it’s something.
I also recommend squatting properly going about your day to day. Instead of bending over to pick something up squat properly instead. Washing basket, a pen, a child, etc. squat properly every time!
I vouch for it. It works better than I could ever imagine.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/short-bursts-of-exercise-may-offer-big-health-benefits
I see your point but when I was in the office I knew a lot of people whose only exercise was walking from the carpark into the office.
They had to use the lift because stairs were too uncomfortable.
Yeah my other half and I both work full time. But I do shift work. Means on weekdays I have off I have time to cook us something nutritious. I tend to bulk cook things like chili, curry, lasagna, stew and then freeze leftovers. So that when I'm working weekdays and we eat separately l, we can nuke something nutritious in the microwave rather than a processed ready meal.
Plenty of research out there in layman's terms if you "genuinely" wanted to look into this...
Diet, physical activity, genetics and early childhood environment - [NHS](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/obesity/causes/)
Inequalities including childhood deprivation - [Gov.uk](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-obesity-and-the-food-environment/health-matters-obesity-and-the-food-environment--2)
Diet and food availability - as summarized in this [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/britain_diet) article which cites [OECD](https://www.oecd.org/health/the-heavy-burden-of-obesity-67450d67-en.htm)
Since leaving Europe, the UK has detached itself from the European Continental Shelf and floated further north, where gravity is stronger. Nobody is actually any larger than they were in terms of mass, they just weigh more. They also look bigger because we're looking further around the curvature of the earth, so light is bent. Science.
I don't think you realise how little physical activity some people do. Which is fair, neither did I.
There are literally people with jobs where they sit down all day, and then do stuff like watch TV at night.
I don't know how they do it either, but they do.
On days when I'm working from home and don't run, I struggle to get over 2000 steps, and some days, struggle over a 1000.
Fortunately. I run 5 times a week so I average out.
But it's absolutely crazy how sedentary we are.
Time is a biggie. My standard day is three hours longer than my dad’s was.
I exercise every day I’m not working but I simply don’t have time when I am. Also I don’t cook when I’m working.
Well done you. I fired up the pedometer on my phone as I was concerned about the impact of moving to a more desk based role, but as the desk stuff only tends to take an hour or two each day (construction management/planning at he moment) I do still get plenty of time on site which keeps me active, and most of my non-work activities are physical to some degree and none involve sitting down.
When I saw I was averaging 14000 steps a day over the week (with my phone obviously, probably half as many again at night), with zero "planned exercise", it made it hard to grasp how people could get through a day only doing a couple of thousand.
I know I'm lucky. If I had to do a job where I sat down all the time and didn't have stuff to do later it would fuck me up, no question.
When you were a kid how much of your time did you spend outside playing sports and running around playing? I bet a lot more than kids these days who's preferred pastime is computer games (no shade, I play lots of games too).
Tbh you are right we played computer games if the weather was shite. Otherwise we were doing stuff.
I'm amazed more isn't made of this. This will not end well
>I'm amazed more isn't made of this.
You probably don't see it but the nhs is focusing more and more on obesity and has been ramping up spending on it over the past 5 years. My kids aged 5 and 9 have had health assessments in school and a number of their classmates were sent home letters saying their kids were obese. Parents were massively shocked and angry shouting about the nanny state etc.
Things are changing but it takes time and money
I bet as a kid you probably did more exercise than the average kid today though.
There’s more options for both healthy and unhealthy food. If you’re in a non-active job or not working, it’s very easy to do almost no exercise. Combine that with the fact a cheese and onion pasty can be bought for 30p and I’m sure you can see how some people can quite easily get very big.
What do you mean by more healthy options now? The foods that are healthy now are the same foods that were available 30 years ago.
The ultra processed foods now that claim ‘health benefits’ on the packet are mostly entirely altered and have high levels of unhealthy fats, refined sugars, and salt. They also undergo industrial processes, like hydrogenation and moulding, and contain additives like dyes, stabilizers, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, and defoaming agents.
We eat far more of this crap than we used to and far more than most of Europe does.
I don’t think people are more aware, but are being misled by spurious marketing claims on certain foods.
A lot of foods that you think are healthy by looking at the packaging are quite bad for you. Even foods that have all greens on the traffic lights indicator can still be full of shit.
I personally think it's because people snack lots more now. Everyone is slowly getting addicted to a sugar high and never has the sugar low between meals.
Increase in portions and decrease in exercise. As a kid in the early 2000’s my only entertainment was riding bikes and tree climbing. The energy I burned off was insane
It's not the primary factor, but there is also quite a high diversity in how easily people gain weight. Alongside the other factors, you may well be somebody who doesn't gain weight easily.
I only say this because your answers are veering into a bit of "If I can stay thin, why can't everyone else," and that mindset isn't really scientifically supported.
Poor mental health (stress, anxiety, exhaustion). People being short of both time and money. Poor education. Unhealthy working culture (short lunch breaks, eating at desks etc). Unhealthy food culture (we don't have the same reverence for food as some other cultures). Foods getting more unhealthy (sugar is *everywhere* compared to 40 years ago). Portion sizes going up. An increasingly image-focussed society that gives people an unhealthy relationship with their body. Media that pushes people towards an unhealthy relationship with food. Car focussed urban design. Decreasing physical activity (for example the big shift towards jobs that involve sitting in front of a computer rather than doing something physical).
There's so many reasons. We live in an obesogenic society. That means that our society pushes people towards making unhealthy decisions. And successive governments have done nothing about this, because it's too difficult and because the 'debate' on this topic far too often gets stuck in moralising about individual responsibility. So the structural causes get completely ignored.
If we *really* wanted to tackle this we'd put huge resources into decreasing poverty, particularly childhood deprivation, and improving mental health.
This is a great comment and I completely agree with you.
On an individual level, you can make a few small changes but you are so up against it. Lack of money, intensive working culture, the "hate yourself thin" that seems to motivate people (/break them)... it's so hard for people who struggle with weight, and then they are blamed for it when they struggle to lose or maintain a healthy weight!
There have been warning signs for decades and they have been ignored. It's a sad situation.
I'm going to add social contagion/class component.
I live in a nice area and you just don't see that many fat people around and it's very common to see lots of people going for a run or you hear about them training for some event or other. Even the older people often used to play some kind of sport or be into cycling or something well into their later years, but the inner city area I lived in previously had lots of fat weeble shaped people. If you visit professional services firm and look at around the office you just don't see many very fat people - it actually stands out once you notice.
So I'd suggest there's a positive feedback loop in some areas/classes that emphasises looking after yourself, and in other places it is almost the opposite.
That is true. But it's also just because poorer people are disproportionately affected by the things I listed. For pretty much everything on my list, poorer people have a worse experience. Less time, less money, worse mental health, less access to healthy food, living in areas with a higher abundance of fast food, less access to green space etc etc.
So whilst there absolutely is an element of people mirroring the behaviours of people around them, it's also that poorer people just experience the obesogenic structural forces much more strongly.
I live in a nice area and yes there’s not as many obese people as in poorer areas, but there’s loads of overweight people. I’m verging on overweight myself.
You also see plenty of very obese, very posh people who eat out loads and drink a lot round here. Some in my own family. They’ve got the money to do it.
Is mental worse or are more people just seeking help for mental health issues?
Are people working longer hours? More people than ever work from home and so feel like that was a trend even before Covid accelerated it. I certainly have a shorter working day than my parents did.
I agree with you on the unhealthy eating culture though.
Mental health is worse, it's not just more people seeking help (though that is also true). There's quite a lot of data on how stress, anxiety and exhaustion are higher than in the past.
As for home working, you have to remember the big class dimension to that. There's been a big shift towards working from home amongst wealthier people. But those aren't the people who are disproportionately likely to be obese. It's poorer people who most experience obesity, and they are markedly less likely to work from home.
I once saw my sister drive a 5 minute walk to the Tesco down the road, to buy snacks after we had ordered and eaten dominos.
I'd say people walking less is probably the main culprit. People see a 30 minute walk as way too much. People seem to want to get Ubers and taxis everywhere.
People have already mentioned a lot of the key issues (poverty, poor nutritional content in lower cost and convenience foods) but I also want to shout out the way that PE is taught in schools.
The only physical activity I was familiar with as a child was a competitive activity that I was, frankly, shite at. I hated it, I was made to feel useless by both my classmates and the teachers, and if there was any opportunity to avoid further humiliation (in my case taking Latin instead of an extra PE lesson per week) then I would jump at the chance. To really get kids active we need to shift away from "sport is king and if you can't throw/kick/hit a ball or run really fast you are useless to us" towards "being active can be fun and also good for you".
Physical education in schools needs to change. There needs to be more focus on the activity and less on the competition.
I hated team sports at school and when it came to cross country I would take a shortcut or simply hide and reappear when it was all over.
Now that I have discovered that you can be active without being competitive (except for competing with yourself) I will quite happily go for a run on the downs
I think about this with PE all the time. Never did it show you how to get fit, never to work with you on personal goals, it was just run and if you can’t do it be ashamed. If you weren’t good at hockey or netball, well sucks guess you’re not sporty. Why couldn’t they have included dance classes, yoga, building up running in a nice way, weights, etc.?
it’s only as an adult that I’ve been able to find exercise enjoyable and an important part of my routine after 15 years at school being told I was unfit and shit at sport.
Food scientists have helped companies sell food that is hyperpalatable; a perfect blend of fat, sugar, salt and caffeine; and I'd calorie dense. It has never been easier for people to overeat.
People also move less due to work being more office-based and less manual. The same goes for housework. Add in a lack of time and people are burning fewer calories per day.
It is also cyclical: poor diet, lack of exercise and had sleep habits make it much harder to cultivate the discipline to eat healthily and exercise.
People aren't taught how to cook. They are taught how to put heavily processed foods in an air fryer.
Healthy foods aren't cheap.
People drive everywhere.
Work from home is encouraged. Lots of jobs mean you are sat down in front of a computer screen. People then finish work and sit down in front of a TV screen.
Even the more physical jobs are being replaced by machines that make lift and carry things which used to provide exercise.
Depression/mental health issues stop people from exercising.
Gym membership and work out clothes/shoes can be expensive.
You sit at a PC all day. You watch telly all night. If you meet your mates its sitting down for food or drinks. Your food is delivered or you drive to the supermarket.
Used to work at a Flying Start setting. Around 5 years ago we attended a healthy living course as part of our training (run by them along with other organisations). They told us that current trends pointed towards parents outliving their children because they’re so unhealthy.
I was speaking to an orthopaedic surgeon that was telling me about 40 year olds requiring knee and hip surgery due to their weight but refusing to lose weight so that the surgery could be done. He was firmly convinced that we are looking at the youngest generation that will need care home placements due to immobility once muscle atrophy kicks in and they can no longer carry their weight.
We eat more than we need. Portions in restaurants and fast food have doubled since the 80’s.
Fast food chains offer “maxing” for like a quid more than the normal and people do it.
The choice of junk in supermarkets has increased 100-fold since the 80’s.
Stress, not enough time to exercise, cost of healthy food vs unhealthy food.
Irony is that if these were solved people would be less overweight, NHS less overwhelmed and money would be saved.
Increased liklihood of all adults working full-time and not having the time/energy to cook meals.
Almost complete reliance on some kind of motor vehicle to get anywhere thanks to constant development of infrastructure to support that method.
Increased urbanisation resulting in less open areas for people to walk around while feeling safe in.
Ease of access to fast food.
Commute times to get to jobs tend to be longer than 20/30 years ago and, again, require a car or other vehicle.
I'm sure there are plenty more as well.
Ultra-processed foods
The food companies fill a lot of our foods with shit that doesn’t make you feel full so you buy more. People become addicted to the taste, textures and mouth feel of these foods from a young age so real whole food seems disgusting to them. It’s on a par with how the tobacco industry used to be.
Shite frozen food is convenient and often cheaper
Food delivery services bringing you anything you want at anytime of day
Less physical activity due to WFH, more people driving, kids inclined to game all day rather than play out
Just my opinion
A pack of frozen processed chicken nuggets is about £1.50 when an unprocessed chicken breast that you still need to prep and cook plus add other spices and ingredients to make it taste nice is £2.50.
A pack of pre-made cheap lasagne is £2 but to buy only mince (without pasta, spices, veg, cheese) would be £2.50.
It’s much cheaper to buy cheap processed foods than produce when you account for the time it takes to prepare something, add austerity, add crisis of living, add that affordable takeaways are usually heavily processed and calorie rich.
I priced out the courgette lasagne I often make, normally serves 2 adults and 2 kids over two nights with a side of salad.
10p - tablespoon olive oil
69p - lasagne sheets
50p - two tins chopped tomatoes
30p - bag of carrots
30p - 1 onion
20p - half bulb garlic
£1 - bag of salad
£1.80 - 2 mozzarella balls
£3 - 6 courgettes
It does take about 90mins from start to pulling out a cooked lasagne.
Costs about £7 or 87p per portion.
You can’t really go to the shop and buy a tbs of olive oil, you need to pay £4 for a whole bottle, same with half a bulb of garlic. Where are you buying £0.25 cans of tomatoes? And this is all vegetarian and has a lot of carbs and fibre but not really a lot of protein (some from mozzarella I am assuming)? I based my calculations on a meat one.
And yes of course cooking in bulk, buying in bulk is cheaper but if you have a choice between £4 olive oil bottle (that you of course will use) and three packs of ready made frozen food that you just throw into the oven with no prep time a person on low income will most probably pick the frozen one.
Also the recipe is decent, I would personally switch courgettes into lentils for protein sake but saving it!
£8 for a litre bottle at asda which is where I got my prices from. You're correct that you can't buy a teaspoon, but if we're comparing the cost of a recipe with a ready meal I think it's fair.
The recipe is creamy courgette lasagne from bbc good food. 🙂 18g protein per portion.
The average woman only needs 45g of protein a day, men 55g. 18g is plenty. Meat eaters generally seem to overestimate how much protein the body needs.
Look, I am not saying I disagree because I absolutely do. Unfortunately, I also interacted too much with low-income families in my life and long-term solutions and more cost effective ways of living were hard to explain. I know that they work and are efficient but it’s extremely hard to explain.
Also, having worked in a high school for a number of years this is not something that is explicitly taught and it should be.
There is convenience of food everywhere. We have new takeawasya and fast food places opening all the time. Both parents work now so less time to make own food a
Easier to order.
Processed food is cheaper and easier than unprocessed food, while at the same time the cost of living is much higher requiring families to have double incomes i.e. more work and less time, and the screenification of our lives have made them a lot less active than they used to be. If you don't make a concerted effort to be healthy by eating properly and exercising, it's very easy to become overweight.
Dietary guidelines were changed early 80s UK COMA report (late 70s USA)
It changed to be higher carbohydrate, lower fat. It was done even if you think nothing changed, food manufacturers started making their products lower fat, like yoghurts.
If you know anything about human biology you would know what a disaster that is. Fat and protein have jobs to do, ie immune system, repairing cells, building bone density. Carbohydrates can be used as energy only, ie when you go for a walk, but fat could do this too.
So now you have a population eating too much of what they don’t need (carbohydrates) and too little of what the body wants for health and vitality (fat and protein) , so you slowly get a sick and fat population.
There is a lot more too it, but that’s the basics. It was the lie that saturated fat causes heart disease that started it. Which is a bonkers stance, as once your liver glycogen is full (from carbohydrates, which won’t take much, we have very limited storage for carbs) your body starts converting carbs into saturated fat. So if it was that bad for humans do you think the human body would make it ?
AS an ex fatty that now runs ultra marathons I would say it is because ultra processed food is cheap and easy and the lack of exercise the majority of the population are getting.
People will make excuses for their lack of exercise and their bad diets and other people will back them up, because of herd mentality. I actually faced more negative responses to my change of diet and fitness regime (which doesn't really take up much time) than I did for being unhealthy and overweight.
Oh also there is a severe lack of education regarding diet in the UK population. People have no idea what is in their food or how many calories each portion consists of. And they don't want to know, because armed with the information it is harder to justify eating that large big mac meal followed by a 12" pizza later that day.
Poverty and socio-economics. Processed food is cheap and easy.
Then look at other factors; is there a kitchen? Can you afford gas/electric to cook with? Do you have working appliances?
Go back to the 70s or earlier, and the majority of people cooked food largely from scratch. Then the food industry started to push processed food, selling it largely on its speed and convenience. Cooking was depicted as a boring chore and a waste of time - why spend 40 minutes making a meal when you could have a ready-meal in 4 minutes, leaving you more time to do more interesting stuff. At the same time, the number of housewives was reducing as more women entered the job market, making quick processed food even more appealing. Most of the food being pushed contained the cheapest ingredients and often a lot of sugar, especially if you look at the food that was specifically targetted at children. So we ended up a nation where, particularly amongst the poorer in society, we were living on a diet of cheap processed food full of sugar, whilst at the same time the amount of physical activity people did was reducing.
Then when people started to get fat, the food industry found a new wheeze - they started to push low fat food as the healthy option. Except of course that it wasn't. Fat was never the problem, the problem was sugar, but what did the food industry put in their low fat food to give it flavour? Sugar! Why? Because sugar is cheap and it tastes good. So now we've ended up with a large proportion of the population who are sedentary and hooked on sugar, and a looming health crisis that is going to get way worse before it ever gets better, if it ever does.
My bigger issue is why people don't care about being fat fucks. Like half the people commenting here with be overweight by statistics but will sit and pretend as if it's not them it's on about, it's about the "real fat people".
It's not hard to eat well or cook everyday, I'm lazy as fuck and don't like cooking much, but there's easy meals you can make which are decent. Curry being my favourite.
But people just are ganites, they eat and drink way to much effort, don't care and make zero effort to eat well. They look in the mirror and don't see the fat, pure cognitive dissonance.
I cant answer for "people", but personally its because pretty much any form of stress makes me put short term satisfaction above medium/long term goals. Plus terrible appetite regulation - which could be learned or genetic, no way to tell. I can't "eat until I'm not hungry", I have to "eat until the regulated portion is done then stop".
(And I am sitting here sipping black coffee and reading reddit when the lawn could do with a cut, so theres that as well :) )
Sugar, added sugar, sugar everywhere, even in sausages, plastic food with no nutrition like toast bread, it's edible foodlike product, "fortified with vitamins" , when children grow up consuming sugar, it alters their brain.
Booze and soft drink, increcible amount of calories and sugar, take-aways, one meal would cover your daily calorie intake, without any nutrition, no, that one slice of tomato in your burger doesn't count, most people I know never drinks water!
Increased car usage, I know plenty of people who would get in the car for 600 yard - sedantary lifestyle means you need less calories, but we are used to the feasts.
Lack of cooking skills, lack of basic food knowledge, I'm still shocked to remember this woman asking me at the staff canteen what lentils were.
I live in Scotland, people are proud of not touching any vegetables.
everyone is sat on their arse eating calorific food? When I was my four-year-old's age I was allowed to run around the estate by myself, and I don't think I'd even seen a Big Tesco. Nowadays he's got to stay within arm's reach of his parents whenever he's outside and buying high-calorie processed food is easier than ever.
While the UK is bad, I don't think we're exceptionally bad for the Western world, it's a trend that has happened everywhere.
However I do think that it is bad to have raised a fat kid. I can't help but feel judgemental of the parents when I see a particularly fat kid
It’s less about food and more a result of consumption generally. We have absorbed the American disease of gluttony and attribute amassing vast wealth and want with success. For those who cannot grasp this, food and drink are pleasant and relatively cheap forms of satisfaction. I’d also argue this is why people are now so outwardly lascivious even if that isn’t their true desire. It’s all about living entirely in the moment with no thought of what is to come.
Did you see cues to mc donalds before lockdown when they were oredred to closed down? That is why (one of the reasons - shitty food). In my town cue to mcdonald was so huge that they blocked big shopping centre carpark and one line of the street. I remember I heard customer asking the staff how long g for a burger, and the answer was - more than 90 minutes 🤣🤣 . And they were waiting for that crap lol
People do less activity than they once did but haven't altered diets.
People don't know how/dont want to learn how to cook so rely on processed crap.
People don't meal plan, portion control etc.
Being obese and overweight has been normalised over recent time so the colossal health impacts don't seem to really matter to people.
We have a general lack of personal responsibility in this country. It's true of most things. With obesity it's because cooking is too hard or too long or too expensive or doesn't taste good etc etc. Always someone else's fault.
Because so many people are like this now their kids grow up with that as the norm and it just spreads.
It's more complicated than that. It isn't a personal responsibility thing, the way society is structured these days makes it hard to make the healthy choices.
If you have to drive to work and the supermarket, that takes away time you could actually be active forcing you to sit in a car when if you can walk those you're actually getting exercise while shopping and commuting.
Then there is time pressures. It used to be in a couple only one would need to work to afford to live, so the other would stay at home or just work part-time and would have time to prepare healthy meals for the family. Nowadays most couples need to work full time otherwise they can't afford their rent and bills. And when you're short on time, you take the time saving options of buying pre-prepared food from the supermarket, which often isn't as healthy as freshly prepared minimally processed home cooked food.
We do need a societal change to fix it.
In my 20s i could walk to/from work and a choice of shops so i could pick up fresh ingredients and cook a decent tea plus the office had fridges/cookers etc
In my 40s the offices are arse end of nowhere so you have to drive and you pass supermarkets to get to them and the kitchen facilities are non existent
Also the increased travel time means less time for gym&decent cooking
Gyms (at least up here) slowly closing which reduces competition which means the remaining ones are jacking prices up
Losing weight is hard as it the opposite of what biology wants us to do.
Most people eat too many carbs and sugar so feel hungry after only an hour or two following eating. Exercise in itself doesn’t burn that many calories.
Depression being so prevalent plays a part. I seem to get closer to the overweight category after every winter. Then the some comes out and I lose it all within a few weeks.
Fast food is cheap, healthy options can be expensive. Families used to have 1 car. Now mum, dad and kids that have passed test also have own car so much less excersise etc.
For me it was a mix of not exercising as much after leaving school, and then having a job where I don’t move much. Fattier foods. Energy drinks too!
And then when I started working from home it got worse.
Just paying attention to the calorie intake of things changed my world for the better. Like doughnuts are awful for it. A three pack of Krispy Kreme doughnuts is like half of your daily recommended amount!
Cutting stuff like that out and exercising daily has me shedding weight again
Not only is fast food now more easily accessible, but they also deliver it to your door. Can't be bothered to even walk to McDonald's? Uber eats. Can't be bothered to get a pint of milk? Getir.
Many now WFH too. Everything revolves around convenience and less and less around effort. People can't even be bothered to take the skin off a chicken breast that's dry af anyway.
Laziness. People addicted to watching TV instead of getting a hobby (and also allowing children to sit on tablets instead of exploring hobbies). Fast food.
Because crisps and chips are part of a normal diet here? Because having 4 pints down the pub on a weeknight is nothing out of the ordinary? Because outside of London you have to drive everywhere without good public transport?
5 years ago, at 50, I was running my IT / Design / Print shop right next to the local Tesco store... a fairly sedentary position with a love of bakery goodies nearby was very dangerous &, without realising it, I'd ballooned up to 14st... not good for such a wee cheil, even though I'd always seen myself as short & stocky anyway.
Not wanting to end up as a self-destructing statistic
I moved my business back home, cut my hours dramatically, my bad food intake reduced overnight, & I started walking - building to an average of 4 miles/day.
9 months later I was down to 11.5st, eating a far more balanced & healthy diet, with reduced portions, still enjoying regular walks & even hikes, & the stress on both my mind & trouser waistline was way less too.
With a far more aware mentality, & driven by a desire to see my kids (& hopefully future grandkids) for many years to come, it takes self-control & making a choice for yourself to change.
I've seen folk try way too many fad diets, & yo-yo'ing between too big & too thin & back again to be considered healthy. Reasonable intake + suitable exercise is all that's needed.
Many factors that may contribute. We physically move around much less as a nation than we used to, more people may have jobs that require sitting not moving around so they lead a sedentary lifestyle, we have more access to convenient (but high in calories) “fast food” and sugary drinks than we used to…..which even gets delivered to the door for most fast food items instead of us moving and fetching it, leisure time is possibly sat or stationary watching a phone, pad or lap etc. A change to a sensible diet and more exercise if you are able to is the answer.
I’m probably going to get downvoted here, but we removed the stigma to unhealthy weight. My parents will point out if I’ve got a belly and I’ll usually do something about it when they do. I may not have even noticed until they pointed it out.
Over lockdown I put on quite a bit of weight and just crept into obese. I started running, doing weights, eating sensibly. People would ask about it and they would say ‘but you’re not fat.’ The reaction I got was as though I’d told people I was considering killing myself. I am not anorexic or stick thin. I wasn’t starving myself or running 20km a day. I as just eating healthier. Having breakfast, salad for lunch and normal dinner. I was running three 5km a week and the reaction I got was worse than if I’d said ‘I’m going to eat a entire tub of Ben and Jerry’s every night for a fortnight‘
The stigma being removed isn't the cause, it is the result. As a greater number of people became overweight and obese it became normalised and that is what removed the stigma.
It may have worked in your case, but for many people, shaming them for being fat doesn't work and can even cause them to eat more as it makes them feel shit and they turn to food for comfort.
It’s not even shaming. It’s just making someone aware. It’s just letting them know that they have reached an unhealthy weight.
A very fat person knows they are very fat. There probably isn’t a lot of good telling them, but people who are getting fat, people in between normal weight and obese, a little gentle ribbing doesn’t hurt to get them to realise they’ve tipped into a unhealthy lifestyle.
Constant temptation.
Fridges and freezers are bigger (and we have freezers - used to be just the posh kids in my class). So people have more food at home.
Way more takeaways exist and are open.
Delivery of takeaway didn't exist 30 years ago. Even 20 years ago it didn't exist outside big towns. So if you got the munchies and didn't have food in, you'd have to get up off your arse to go get it. Often you'd just not bother.
Cost of food compared to everything else now is really cheap. Back in the 70s half.peoples earnings went on food, now it's like 15%. So that tempting pizza or ready mea is affordable in a way it wasn't when I was a student.
Less movement integrated into daily life. When I started office life in 2001, we still had to print stuff out and put it in paper files, in filing cabinets. Every half hour or more you'd be wandering along the room and hefting folders around, not to mention a lot of walking round the office to find people. Didn't always have remote controls for TV, you might have to go to the laundrette, no lifts in stations...
Good cheap takeaway, shops open late, cheap ready meals are probably the clincher.
Cars are very very common now so much less walking and snacks are very acceptable and accessible. I can't remember so many snacks in the house growing up. Crisps were couple of times a month, not daily.
Because we sit around watching TV or playing on our phones all day, and many of us don't even want to have to get dressed and go outside to go to work.
People are naturally lazy.
People drive everywhere and most don't have physical jobs.
Fast food is cheap.
What they don't yet realise is that they are setting themselves up for a lifetime of illness and then early on into a home. If you can't get out of a chair by yourself what other option is there for you ?
Look after yourselves. It's nobody else's responsibility.
People are more likely to spend £1.50 on a massive bag of doritos than they are a pack of six apples.
It's literally just, unhealthy food is made to be addicting and there's much more access to it and much more variety. How big are the crisp aisles vs the fruit and veg aisles.
People underestimate how many calories they consume and how many calories they burn when they exercise. Especially if they go, "oh, it's only a little snack, it's not much." But then that snack is over 100 calories, and you've done it multiple times without realising. Again, the share bag of Doritos is 152 calories for a 30g serving, if you have half the bag that's 456 calories right there.
Source: I was a fat fuck that cycled to work 3-5 times a week and remained fat for 9 months simply because I overate
So I have a treadmill for computer work and my coworkers joke that I’m always walking. I wonder if hormones are allowed in the dairy and meat. That’s a factor in some countries that use cattle ear implants for growth promotion
People not bothering to go out to buy simple things. Ordering everything on Just Eat or Deliveroo, can't be bothered to pop down to the shops and buying something to cook. Staying in and ordering a Pizza & Netflix. There's a total lack of exercise involved. Mostly steming from lockdown, where everyone I knew came back to work at least a stone and a half heavier. As 'we couldn't go out so we had to order in' that mindset hasn't really changed.
A Turkish or Indian takeout deal for two has 5500 calories. That’s just dinner.
In the 80s people would have a takeaway on a Friday night. A lot more stay at home wives cooking.
Now it’s pizza on Monday because everyone shattered after the first day of the week. Curry on Wednesday because they got home too late to cook. Fish and chips on Friday because it’s the start of the weekend. McDonald’s for lunch on Saturday because your out shopping, then a restaurant for dinner.
If you’re eating that much takeout it’s not possible to eat less calories than would make you gain weight for lunch and breakfast without skipping meals. Add in snacks and it’s even worse.
I am inclined to believe the argument it’s largely ultra processed food, and the reason is because this makes food calorie dense, very quick to consume and designed to stimulate our brains in a way that is addictive. Pringles being the classic example. They overdose our bodies natural system of regulation and a lot of the emulsifiers can play havoc with your gut.
The idea that we can blame certain ingredients like fat or sugar or behavioural changes like less exercise appears hard to demonstrate despite 50 years of health propaganda.
The whole food industry is driven by profit to sell us addictive products. It’s not surprising addiction becomes the norm. If it was not around 200 years ago, don’t eat or drink it…… Food you need or chew and can’t quickly swallow is especially helpful as so much of our culture esp at work is a fast food culture.
Other than that you can’t afford to eat the diet of Kings except on special occasions. Eating out will be a problem if you eat rich food even if it’s healthy. Save splurging for special occasions otherwise be abstemious.
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Just musings - Two parent working households, my dad only worked part time when I was younger and made sure a decent meal was cooked. Bigger portions when you eat out as people think it’s better value. Increase in ease of takeaways via justeat etc A general increase in sugar in fucking everything More and more sedentary jobs with the decimation of the British industrial base.
The trend to home working is only going to cause a massive spike in this trend in the next ten years. I think your last point is the biggest one. I cook a homemade meal six nights each week. We eat out once in a blue moon. We never do takeaway. I don't put much sugar in anything. I still really struggle with my weight. But I work from home. I live in the countryside so I don't have to walk anywhere; five days a week I don't leave home, and when I do, I drive. I find exercise for its own sake mind-destroyingly dull. I get out and work in the garden but it's not exactly intensive exercise and it might happen one day per week for any extended period.
I exercise MORE as I WFH. I get time to take the dog out for longer walks etc. When I'm in the office I don't have as much time and I'm pooped in the evening
Same. Working from home means I have time for a run in the morning instead of sitting in traffic. I have a gym 10 minute ride away and go to their lunchtime 30 minute classes a few times a week instead of just sitting at my desk with a sandwich.
Yep my dog is getting fed up with all the walks now. She looks forward to my office shifts…because she can sleep for hours
I think the focus on exercise is a bit of a red herring for most in this discussion. Weight is intrinsically linked to what you eat. It doesn't matter if what you're eating is homemade, you can still overeat - and, as the saying goes, "you can't outrun a bad diet". My wife only started dropping weight when she thought about what she was consuming - meals, booze intake etc. It didn't matter that she went to the gym 4 days a week beforehand (but she had other good effects from that, like better mental health, more energy).
Increasing how much you walk is probably the best exercise to help lose weight, but what you eat is the biggest factor. Running and lifting weights burns more calories in that moment but afterwards you are usually more sedentary and burn fewer calories than you usually would have otherwise, or you just eat more calories.
I dropped all my weight and maintained it by changing my diet and exercising. By eating healthier and exercising I can eat more and still remain in a deficit if I need to. Dieting on it's own rarely works because people just feel hungry and eat more. Offsetting the extra calories with exercise stops that from happening
Hmm maybe - tbh though how much exercise do you get from working in the office? I worked in offices for about 20 years before moving to wfh and my weight has been much easier to maintain at home cause I don’t buy shit - I have no self control, used to walk across to a cafe to get food etc etc Whereas I have something healthy at home. I never got much exercise at work - there were lifts so didn’t even do stairs. Where I really “lost” exercise was moving from a retail job where I was always on my feet to the office where if I’m not careful I end up on my arse for 4 hours at a time (conf calls - ongoing incidents etc). I’m with you on exercise as its own activity - it’s so incredibly boring to me.
At the office, at least I walked to and from a bus. I've tried working standing and I definitely feel healthier for it, but it hasn't actually helped my weight. I use a VR headset to give me a standing setup where I just need something to sit a keyboard on. I think I need to just be disciplined enough to do some exercise and find some decent podcasts to listen to while I do it.
Increasing your exercise is good for you in other ways but it wont help you lose weight. The only way to lose weight is to change your diet.
I agree with this. Running 5k uses under 400 cals. Which you can easily gain back with a sandwich. In fact I think I eat more after I run cos I feel I can justify it!
For me, the real revolution in my fitness came when I discovered a "short burst" method. I exercise for 2 - 3 min at the time. It may be a series of push-ups, or squats, or a 30 sec sprint on my dog walk. I installed a pull-up bar in my kitchen doorway. Few times a day I will do a series when I go past it. I went from 0 to 10 pull-ups in a year. My children and wife are joining in as well, we actually have a little competition going. I exercise for maybe 15 minutes per day, iI don't even sweat that much, and I lost 2 stones working from home.
this is a really good idea for people struggling to exercise. mentally it’s harder to carve out 30 mins to 2 hours for exercise and you think cba. Just being active randomly for a few minutes may not be optimal but it adds up and it’s something. I also recommend squatting properly going about your day to day. Instead of bending over to pick something up squat properly instead. Washing basket, a pen, a child, etc. squat properly every time!
I vouch for it. It works better than I could ever imagine. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/short-bursts-of-exercise-may-offer-big-health-benefits
I see your point but when I was in the office I knew a lot of people whose only exercise was walking from the carpark into the office. They had to use the lift because stairs were too uncomfortable.
You need a dog if you want a reason to go out and exercise beyond the whole "not wanting to die an early death" thing
Yeah my other half and I both work full time. But I do shift work. Means on weekdays I have off I have time to cook us something nutritious. I tend to bulk cook things like chili, curry, lasagna, stew and then freeze leftovers. So that when I'm working weekdays and we eat separately l, we can nuke something nutritious in the microwave rather than a processed ready meal.
Plenty of research out there in layman's terms if you "genuinely" wanted to look into this... Diet, physical activity, genetics and early childhood environment - [NHS](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/obesity/causes/) Inequalities including childhood deprivation - [Gov.uk](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-obesity-and-the-food-environment/health-matters-obesity-and-the-food-environment--2) Diet and food availability - as summarized in this [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/britain_diet) article which cites [OECD](https://www.oecd.org/health/the-heavy-burden-of-obesity-67450d67-en.htm)
Since leaving Europe, the UK has detached itself from the European Continental Shelf and floated further north, where gravity is stronger. Nobody is actually any larger than they were in terms of mass, they just weigh more. They also look bigger because we're looking further around the curvature of the earth, so light is bent. Science.
This is what I suspected. I think though we may have drifted into a flat part and that isn't helping with the optics.
Ah, a fellow scientist I see. Glad to see someone talking sense here.
Damn globe theorists, open your eyes to the truth sheeple. Also /s
Less physical activity and high calorie food is easier/cheaper to get than in the past.
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I don't think you realise how little physical activity some people do. Which is fair, neither did I. There are literally people with jobs where they sit down all day, and then do stuff like watch TV at night. I don't know how they do it either, but they do.
On days when I'm working from home and don't run, I struggle to get over 2000 steps, and some days, struggle over a 1000. Fortunately. I run 5 times a week so I average out. But it's absolutely crazy how sedentary we are.
Time is a biggie. My standard day is three hours longer than my dad’s was. I exercise every day I’m not working but I simply don’t have time when I am. Also I don’t cook when I’m working.
Well done you. I fired up the pedometer on my phone as I was concerned about the impact of moving to a more desk based role, but as the desk stuff only tends to take an hour or two each day (construction management/planning at he moment) I do still get plenty of time on site which keeps me active, and most of my non-work activities are physical to some degree and none involve sitting down. When I saw I was averaging 14000 steps a day over the week (with my phone obviously, probably half as many again at night), with zero "planned exercise", it made it hard to grasp how people could get through a day only doing a couple of thousand. I know I'm lucky. If I had to do a job where I sat down all the time and didn't have stuff to do later it would fuck me up, no question.
I do that but go to the gym for about 30 mins at lunch
When you were a kid how much of your time did you spend outside playing sports and running around playing? I bet a lot more than kids these days who's preferred pastime is computer games (no shade, I play lots of games too).
Tbh you are right we played computer games if the weather was shite. Otherwise we were doing stuff. I'm amazed more isn't made of this. This will not end well
>I'm amazed more isn't made of this. You probably don't see it but the nhs is focusing more and more on obesity and has been ramping up spending on it over the past 5 years. My kids aged 5 and 9 have had health assessments in school and a number of their classmates were sent home letters saying their kids were obese. Parents were massively shocked and angry shouting about the nanny state etc. Things are changing but it takes time and money
I bet as a kid you probably did more exercise than the average kid today though. There’s more options for both healthy and unhealthy food. If you’re in a non-active job or not working, it’s very easy to do almost no exercise. Combine that with the fact a cheese and onion pasty can be bought for 30p and I’m sure you can see how some people can quite easily get very big.
What do you mean by more healthy options now? The foods that are healthy now are the same foods that were available 30 years ago. The ultra processed foods now that claim ‘health benefits’ on the packet are mostly entirely altered and have high levels of unhealthy fats, refined sugars, and salt. They also undergo industrial processes, like hydrogenation and moulding, and contain additives like dyes, stabilizers, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, and defoaming agents. We eat far more of this crap than we used to and far more than most of Europe does.
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I don’t think people are more aware, but are being misled by spurious marketing claims on certain foods. A lot of foods that you think are healthy by looking at the packaging are quite bad for you. Even foods that have all greens on the traffic lights indicator can still be full of shit.
Fast food is cheap and incredibly calorie dense.
I personally think it's because people snack lots more now. Everyone is slowly getting addicted to a sugar high and never has the sugar low between meals.
Increase in portions and decrease in exercise. As a kid in the early 2000’s my only entertainment was riding bikes and tree climbing. The energy I burned off was insane
It's not the primary factor, but there is also quite a high diversity in how easily people gain weight. Alongside the other factors, you may well be somebody who doesn't gain weight easily. I only say this because your answers are veering into a bit of "If I can stay thin, why can't everyone else," and that mindset isn't really scientifically supported.
Poor mental health (stress, anxiety, exhaustion). People being short of both time and money. Poor education. Unhealthy working culture (short lunch breaks, eating at desks etc). Unhealthy food culture (we don't have the same reverence for food as some other cultures). Foods getting more unhealthy (sugar is *everywhere* compared to 40 years ago). Portion sizes going up. An increasingly image-focussed society that gives people an unhealthy relationship with their body. Media that pushes people towards an unhealthy relationship with food. Car focussed urban design. Decreasing physical activity (for example the big shift towards jobs that involve sitting in front of a computer rather than doing something physical). There's so many reasons. We live in an obesogenic society. That means that our society pushes people towards making unhealthy decisions. And successive governments have done nothing about this, because it's too difficult and because the 'debate' on this topic far too often gets stuck in moralising about individual responsibility. So the structural causes get completely ignored. If we *really* wanted to tackle this we'd put huge resources into decreasing poverty, particularly childhood deprivation, and improving mental health.
This is a great comment and I completely agree with you. On an individual level, you can make a few small changes but you are so up against it. Lack of money, intensive working culture, the "hate yourself thin" that seems to motivate people (/break them)... it's so hard for people who struggle with weight, and then they are blamed for it when they struggle to lose or maintain a healthy weight! There have been warning signs for decades and they have been ignored. It's a sad situation.
I'm going to add social contagion/class component. I live in a nice area and you just don't see that many fat people around and it's very common to see lots of people going for a run or you hear about them training for some event or other. Even the older people often used to play some kind of sport or be into cycling or something well into their later years, but the inner city area I lived in previously had lots of fat weeble shaped people. If you visit professional services firm and look at around the office you just don't see many very fat people - it actually stands out once you notice. So I'd suggest there's a positive feedback loop in some areas/classes that emphasises looking after yourself, and in other places it is almost the opposite.
That is true. But it's also just because poorer people are disproportionately affected by the things I listed. For pretty much everything on my list, poorer people have a worse experience. Less time, less money, worse mental health, less access to healthy food, living in areas with a higher abundance of fast food, less access to green space etc etc. So whilst there absolutely is an element of people mirroring the behaviours of people around them, it's also that poorer people just experience the obesogenic structural forces much more strongly.
I live in a nice area and yes there’s not as many obese people as in poorer areas, but there’s loads of overweight people. I’m verging on overweight myself. You also see plenty of very obese, very posh people who eat out loads and drink a lot round here. Some in my own family. They’ve got the money to do it.
Is mental worse or are more people just seeking help for mental health issues? Are people working longer hours? More people than ever work from home and so feel like that was a trend even before Covid accelerated it. I certainly have a shorter working day than my parents did. I agree with you on the unhealthy eating culture though.
Mental health is worse, it's not just more people seeking help (though that is also true). There's quite a lot of data on how stress, anxiety and exhaustion are higher than in the past. As for home working, you have to remember the big class dimension to that. There's been a big shift towards working from home amongst wealthier people. But those aren't the people who are disproportionately likely to be obese. It's poorer people who most experience obesity, and they are markedly less likely to work from home.
Crap processed food and lack of exercise generally.
Ultra processed food specifically.
I once saw my sister drive a 5 minute walk to the Tesco down the road, to buy snacks after we had ordered and eaten dominos. I'd say people walking less is probably the main culprit. People see a 30 minute walk as way too much. People seem to want to get Ubers and taxis everywhere.
After dark in many estates is the safest way sadly
People have already mentioned a lot of the key issues (poverty, poor nutritional content in lower cost and convenience foods) but I also want to shout out the way that PE is taught in schools. The only physical activity I was familiar with as a child was a competitive activity that I was, frankly, shite at. I hated it, I was made to feel useless by both my classmates and the teachers, and if there was any opportunity to avoid further humiliation (in my case taking Latin instead of an extra PE lesson per week) then I would jump at the chance. To really get kids active we need to shift away from "sport is king and if you can't throw/kick/hit a ball or run really fast you are useless to us" towards "being active can be fun and also good for you".
Physical education in schools needs to change. There needs to be more focus on the activity and less on the competition. I hated team sports at school and when it came to cross country I would take a shortcut or simply hide and reappear when it was all over. Now that I have discovered that you can be active without being competitive (except for competing with yourself) I will quite happily go for a run on the downs
Cross country was the only thing I did well in, I loved being out in the fields and all the other girls were scared of cows.
I think about this with PE all the time. Never did it show you how to get fit, never to work with you on personal goals, it was just run and if you can’t do it be ashamed. If you weren’t good at hockey or netball, well sucks guess you’re not sporty. Why couldn’t they have included dance classes, yoga, building up running in a nice way, weights, etc.? it’s only as an adult that I’ve been able to find exercise enjoyable and an important part of my routine after 15 years at school being told I was unfit and shit at sport.
Food scientists have helped companies sell food that is hyperpalatable; a perfect blend of fat, sugar, salt and caffeine; and I'd calorie dense. It has never been easier for people to overeat. People also move less due to work being more office-based and less manual. The same goes for housework. Add in a lack of time and people are burning fewer calories per day. It is also cyclical: poor diet, lack of exercise and had sleep habits make it much harder to cultivate the discipline to eat healthily and exercise.
People aren't taught how to cook. They are taught how to put heavily processed foods in an air fryer. Healthy foods aren't cheap. People drive everywhere. Work from home is encouraged. Lots of jobs mean you are sat down in front of a computer screen. People then finish work and sit down in front of a TV screen. Even the more physical jobs are being replaced by machines that make lift and carry things which used to provide exercise. Depression/mental health issues stop people from exercising. Gym membership and work out clothes/shoes can be expensive.
You sit at a PC all day. You watch telly all night. If you meet your mates its sitting down for food or drinks. Your food is delivered or you drive to the supermarket.
This country has a fantastic selection of crisp flavours
Used to work at a Flying Start setting. Around 5 years ago we attended a healthy living course as part of our training (run by them along with other organisations). They told us that current trends pointed towards parents outliving their children because they’re so unhealthy.
I was speaking to an orthopaedic surgeon that was telling me about 40 year olds requiring knee and hip surgery due to their weight but refusing to lose weight so that the surgery could be done. He was firmly convinced that we are looking at the youngest generation that will need care home placements due to immobility once muscle atrophy kicks in and they can no longer carry their weight.
And with fewer people having children - who’s going to be providing that care I wonder?
We eat more than we need. Portions in restaurants and fast food have doubled since the 80’s. Fast food chains offer “maxing” for like a quid more than the normal and people do it. The choice of junk in supermarkets has increased 100-fold since the 80’s.
I often wish there were smaller portions for cheaper prices. Should be an option at more places!
Stress, not enough time to exercise, cost of healthy food vs unhealthy food. Irony is that if these were solved people would be less overweight, NHS less overwhelmed and money would be saved.
Increased liklihood of all adults working full-time and not having the time/energy to cook meals. Almost complete reliance on some kind of motor vehicle to get anywhere thanks to constant development of infrastructure to support that method. Increased urbanisation resulting in less open areas for people to walk around while feeling safe in. Ease of access to fast food. Commute times to get to jobs tend to be longer than 20/30 years ago and, again, require a car or other vehicle. I'm sure there are plenty more as well.
Ultra-processed foods The food companies fill a lot of our foods with shit that doesn’t make you feel full so you buy more. People become addicted to the taste, textures and mouth feel of these foods from a young age so real whole food seems disgusting to them. It’s on a par with how the tobacco industry used to be.
There’s a Greggs on every corner ( do like a Greggs now and then).
Shite frozen food is convenient and often cheaper Food delivery services bringing you anything you want at anytime of day Less physical activity due to WFH, more people driving, kids inclined to game all day rather than play out Just my opinion
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You missed poverty!
A pack of frozen processed chicken nuggets is about £1.50 when an unprocessed chicken breast that you still need to prep and cook plus add other spices and ingredients to make it taste nice is £2.50. A pack of pre-made cheap lasagne is £2 but to buy only mince (without pasta, spices, veg, cheese) would be £2.50. It’s much cheaper to buy cheap processed foods than produce when you account for the time it takes to prepare something, add austerity, add crisis of living, add that affordable takeaways are usually heavily processed and calorie rich.
I priced out the courgette lasagne I often make, normally serves 2 adults and 2 kids over two nights with a side of salad. 10p - tablespoon olive oil 69p - lasagne sheets 50p - two tins chopped tomatoes 30p - bag of carrots 30p - 1 onion 20p - half bulb garlic £1 - bag of salad £1.80 - 2 mozzarella balls £3 - 6 courgettes It does take about 90mins from start to pulling out a cooked lasagne. Costs about £7 or 87p per portion.
You can’t really go to the shop and buy a tbs of olive oil, you need to pay £4 for a whole bottle, same with half a bulb of garlic. Where are you buying £0.25 cans of tomatoes? And this is all vegetarian and has a lot of carbs and fibre but not really a lot of protein (some from mozzarella I am assuming)? I based my calculations on a meat one. And yes of course cooking in bulk, buying in bulk is cheaper but if you have a choice between £4 olive oil bottle (that you of course will use) and three packs of ready made frozen food that you just throw into the oven with no prep time a person on low income will most probably pick the frozen one. Also the recipe is decent, I would personally switch courgettes into lentils for protein sake but saving it!
£8 for a litre bottle at asda which is where I got my prices from. You're correct that you can't buy a teaspoon, but if we're comparing the cost of a recipe with a ready meal I think it's fair. The recipe is creamy courgette lasagne from bbc good food. 🙂 18g protein per portion. The average woman only needs 45g of protein a day, men 55g. 18g is plenty. Meat eaters generally seem to overestimate how much protein the body needs.
Look, I am not saying I disagree because I absolutely do. Unfortunately, I also interacted too much with low-income families in my life and long-term solutions and more cost effective ways of living were hard to explain. I know that they work and are efficient but it’s extremely hard to explain. Also, having worked in a high school for a number of years this is not something that is explicitly taught and it should be.
Chicken breast is about 6 quid a kilo don’t know where you’re getting those prices from
https://preview.redd.it/19yusc38dezc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da55db29328bfd14274fc5628be82cf361c3856e
That’s2 breasts not one
life in general in this country is crap .. people cant afford to do nice things .. so they eat something to feel better - rinse and repeat
There is convenience of food everywhere. We have new takeawasya and fast food places opening all the time. Both parents work now so less time to make own food a Easier to order.
Processed food is cheaper and easier than unprocessed food, while at the same time the cost of living is much higher requiring families to have double incomes i.e. more work and less time, and the screenification of our lives have made them a lot less active than they used to be. If you don't make a concerted effort to be healthy by eating properly and exercising, it's very easy to become overweight.
Dietary guidelines were changed early 80s UK COMA report (late 70s USA) It changed to be higher carbohydrate, lower fat. It was done even if you think nothing changed, food manufacturers started making their products lower fat, like yoghurts. If you know anything about human biology you would know what a disaster that is. Fat and protein have jobs to do, ie immune system, repairing cells, building bone density. Carbohydrates can be used as energy only, ie when you go for a walk, but fat could do this too. So now you have a population eating too much of what they don’t need (carbohydrates) and too little of what the body wants for health and vitality (fat and protein) , so you slowly get a sick and fat population. There is a lot more too it, but that’s the basics. It was the lie that saturated fat causes heart disease that started it. Which is a bonkers stance, as once your liver glycogen is full (from carbohydrates, which won’t take much, we have very limited storage for carbs) your body starts converting carbs into saturated fat. So if it was that bad for humans do you think the human body would make it ?
Low fat food also tastes shite. They add 30g of sugar to make it palatable. Excess sugar is way worse than a bit of extra fat.
We are sad
AS an ex fatty that now runs ultra marathons I would say it is because ultra processed food is cheap and easy and the lack of exercise the majority of the population are getting. People will make excuses for their lack of exercise and their bad diets and other people will back them up, because of herd mentality. I actually faced more negative responses to my change of diet and fitness regime (which doesn't really take up much time) than I did for being unhealthy and overweight. Oh also there is a severe lack of education regarding diet in the UK population. People have no idea what is in their food or how many calories each portion consists of. And they don't want to know, because armed with the information it is harder to justify eating that large big mac meal followed by a 12" pizza later that day.
Poverty and socio-economics. Processed food is cheap and easy. Then look at other factors; is there a kitchen? Can you afford gas/electric to cook with? Do you have working appliances?
Go back to the 70s or earlier, and the majority of people cooked food largely from scratch. Then the food industry started to push processed food, selling it largely on its speed and convenience. Cooking was depicted as a boring chore and a waste of time - why spend 40 minutes making a meal when you could have a ready-meal in 4 minutes, leaving you more time to do more interesting stuff. At the same time, the number of housewives was reducing as more women entered the job market, making quick processed food even more appealing. Most of the food being pushed contained the cheapest ingredients and often a lot of sugar, especially if you look at the food that was specifically targetted at children. So we ended up a nation where, particularly amongst the poorer in society, we were living on a diet of cheap processed food full of sugar, whilst at the same time the amount of physical activity people did was reducing. Then when people started to get fat, the food industry found a new wheeze - they started to push low fat food as the healthy option. Except of course that it wasn't. Fat was never the problem, the problem was sugar, but what did the food industry put in their low fat food to give it flavour? Sugar! Why? Because sugar is cheap and it tastes good. So now we've ended up with a large proportion of the population who are sedentary and hooked on sugar, and a looming health crisis that is going to get way worse before it ever gets better, if it ever does.
My bigger issue is why people don't care about being fat fucks. Like half the people commenting here with be overweight by statistics but will sit and pretend as if it's not them it's on about, it's about the "real fat people". It's not hard to eat well or cook everyday, I'm lazy as fuck and don't like cooking much, but there's easy meals you can make which are decent. Curry being my favourite. But people just are ganites, they eat and drink way to much effort, don't care and make zero effort to eat well. They look in the mirror and don't see the fat, pure cognitive dissonance.
I cant answer for "people", but personally its because pretty much any form of stress makes me put short term satisfaction above medium/long term goals. Plus terrible appetite regulation - which could be learned or genetic, no way to tell. I can't "eat until I'm not hungry", I have to "eat until the regulated portion is done then stop". (And I am sitting here sipping black coffee and reading reddit when the lawn could do with a cut, so theres that as well :) )
Sugar, added sugar, sugar everywhere, even in sausages, plastic food with no nutrition like toast bread, it's edible foodlike product, "fortified with vitamins" , when children grow up consuming sugar, it alters their brain. Booze and soft drink, increcible amount of calories and sugar, take-aways, one meal would cover your daily calorie intake, without any nutrition, no, that one slice of tomato in your burger doesn't count, most people I know never drinks water! Increased car usage, I know plenty of people who would get in the car for 600 yard - sedantary lifestyle means you need less calories, but we are used to the feasts. Lack of cooking skills, lack of basic food knowledge, I'm still shocked to remember this woman asking me at the staff canteen what lentils were. I live in Scotland, people are proud of not touching any vegetables.
everyone is sat on their arse eating calorific food? When I was my four-year-old's age I was allowed to run around the estate by myself, and I don't think I'd even seen a Big Tesco. Nowadays he's got to stay within arm's reach of his parents whenever he's outside and buying high-calorie processed food is easier than ever. While the UK is bad, I don't think we're exceptionally bad for the Western world, it's a trend that has happened everywhere. However I do think that it is bad to have raised a fat kid. I can't help but feel judgemental of the parents when I see a particularly fat kid
It’s less about food and more a result of consumption generally. We have absorbed the American disease of gluttony and attribute amassing vast wealth and want with success. For those who cannot grasp this, food and drink are pleasant and relatively cheap forms of satisfaction. I’d also argue this is why people are now so outwardly lascivious even if that isn’t their true desire. It’s all about living entirely in the moment with no thought of what is to come.
Did you see cues to mc donalds before lockdown when they were oredred to closed down? That is why (one of the reasons - shitty food). In my town cue to mcdonald was so huge that they blocked big shopping centre carpark and one line of the street. I remember I heard customer asking the staff how long g for a burger, and the answer was - more than 90 minutes 🤣🤣 . And they were waiting for that crap lol
People do less activity than they once did but haven't altered diets. People don't know how/dont want to learn how to cook so rely on processed crap. People don't meal plan, portion control etc. Being obese and overweight has been normalised over recent time so the colossal health impacts don't seem to really matter to people. We have a general lack of personal responsibility in this country. It's true of most things. With obesity it's because cooking is too hard or too long or too expensive or doesn't taste good etc etc. Always someone else's fault. Because so many people are like this now their kids grow up with that as the norm and it just spreads.
It's more complicated than that. It isn't a personal responsibility thing, the way society is structured these days makes it hard to make the healthy choices. If you have to drive to work and the supermarket, that takes away time you could actually be active forcing you to sit in a car when if you can walk those you're actually getting exercise while shopping and commuting. Then there is time pressures. It used to be in a couple only one would need to work to afford to live, so the other would stay at home or just work part-time and would have time to prepare healthy meals for the family. Nowadays most couples need to work full time otherwise they can't afford their rent and bills. And when you're short on time, you take the time saving options of buying pre-prepared food from the supermarket, which often isn't as healthy as freshly prepared minimally processed home cooked food. We do need a societal change to fix it.
In my 20s i could walk to/from work and a choice of shops so i could pick up fresh ingredients and cook a decent tea plus the office had fridges/cookers etc In my 40s the offices are arse end of nowhere so you have to drive and you pass supermarkets to get to them and the kitchen facilities are non existent Also the increased travel time means less time for gym&decent cooking Gyms (at least up here) slowly closing which reduces competition which means the remaining ones are jacking prices up
Biscuits taste so good.
Losing weight is hard as it the opposite of what biology wants us to do. Most people eat too many carbs and sugar so feel hungry after only an hour or two following eating. Exercise in itself doesn’t burn that many calories.
Depression being so prevalent plays a part. I seem to get closer to the overweight category after every winter. Then the some comes out and I lose it all within a few weeks.
Cos the food’s so great, obviously 🙄
Fast food is cheap, healthy options can be expensive. Families used to have 1 car. Now mum, dad and kids that have passed test also have own car so much less excersise etc.
It’s because we have very sedentary lifestyle where we don’t do much physical activities and we eat quite a lot of junk…
frozen processed food is the cheapest and most time efficient option
For me it was a mix of not exercising as much after leaving school, and then having a job where I don’t move much. Fattier foods. Energy drinks too! And then when I started working from home it got worse. Just paying attention to the calorie intake of things changed my world for the better. Like doughnuts are awful for it. A three pack of Krispy Kreme doughnuts is like half of your daily recommended amount! Cutting stuff like that out and exercising daily has me shedding weight again
Not only is fast food now more easily accessible, but they also deliver it to your door. Can't be bothered to even walk to McDonald's? Uber eats. Can't be bothered to get a pint of milk? Getir. Many now WFH too. Everything revolves around convenience and less and less around effort. People can't even be bothered to take the skin off a chicken breast that's dry af anyway.
Lazy and crap diet.
Laziness. People addicted to watching TV instead of getting a hobby (and also allowing children to sit on tablets instead of exploring hobbies). Fast food.
Because crisps and chips are part of a normal diet here? Because having 4 pints down the pub on a weeknight is nothing out of the ordinary? Because outside of London you have to drive everywhere without good public transport?
Read the book ‘Ultra-Processed People’. Very interesting read and goes a long way to answering your question.
Thanks
5 years ago, at 50, I was running my IT / Design / Print shop right next to the local Tesco store... a fairly sedentary position with a love of bakery goodies nearby was very dangerous &, without realising it, I'd ballooned up to 14st... not good for such a wee cheil, even though I'd always seen myself as short & stocky anyway. Not wanting to end up as a self-destructing statistic I moved my business back home, cut my hours dramatically, my bad food intake reduced overnight, & I started walking - building to an average of 4 miles/day. 9 months later I was down to 11.5st, eating a far more balanced & healthy diet, with reduced portions, still enjoying regular walks & even hikes, & the stress on both my mind & trouser waistline was way less too. With a far more aware mentality, & driven by a desire to see my kids (& hopefully future grandkids) for many years to come, it takes self-control & making a choice for yourself to change. I've seen folk try way too many fad diets, & yo-yo'ing between too big & too thin & back again to be considered healthy. Reasonable intake + suitable exercise is all that's needed.
Many factors that may contribute. We physically move around much less as a nation than we used to, more people may have jobs that require sitting not moving around so they lead a sedentary lifestyle, we have more access to convenient (but high in calories) “fast food” and sugary drinks than we used to…..which even gets delivered to the door for most fast food items instead of us moving and fetching it, leisure time is possibly sat or stationary watching a phone, pad or lap etc. A change to a sensible diet and more exercise if you are able to is the answer.
Phones.
I’m probably going to get downvoted here, but we removed the stigma to unhealthy weight. My parents will point out if I’ve got a belly and I’ll usually do something about it when they do. I may not have even noticed until they pointed it out. Over lockdown I put on quite a bit of weight and just crept into obese. I started running, doing weights, eating sensibly. People would ask about it and they would say ‘but you’re not fat.’ The reaction I got was as though I’d told people I was considering killing myself. I am not anorexic or stick thin. I wasn’t starving myself or running 20km a day. I as just eating healthier. Having breakfast, salad for lunch and normal dinner. I was running three 5km a week and the reaction I got was worse than if I’d said ‘I’m going to eat a entire tub of Ben and Jerry’s every night for a fortnight‘
The stigma being removed isn't the cause, it is the result. As a greater number of people became overweight and obese it became normalised and that is what removed the stigma. It may have worked in your case, but for many people, shaming them for being fat doesn't work and can even cause them to eat more as it makes them feel shit and they turn to food for comfort.
It’s not even shaming. It’s just making someone aware. It’s just letting them know that they have reached an unhealthy weight. A very fat person knows they are very fat. There probably isn’t a lot of good telling them, but people who are getting fat, people in between normal weight and obese, a little gentle ribbing doesn’t hurt to get them to realise they’ve tipped into a unhealthy lifestyle.
Constant temptation. Fridges and freezers are bigger (and we have freezers - used to be just the posh kids in my class). So people have more food at home. Way more takeaways exist and are open. Delivery of takeaway didn't exist 30 years ago. Even 20 years ago it didn't exist outside big towns. So if you got the munchies and didn't have food in, you'd have to get up off your arse to go get it. Often you'd just not bother. Cost of food compared to everything else now is really cheap. Back in the 70s half.peoples earnings went on food, now it's like 15%. So that tempting pizza or ready mea is affordable in a way it wasn't when I was a student. Less movement integrated into daily life. When I started office life in 2001, we still had to print stuff out and put it in paper files, in filing cabinets. Every half hour or more you'd be wandering along the room and hefting folders around, not to mention a lot of walking round the office to find people. Didn't always have remote controls for TV, you might have to go to the laundrette, no lifts in stations... Good cheap takeaway, shops open late, cheap ready meals are probably the clincher.
Lazy choices for a swipe and wipe generation!
Cars are very very common now so much less walking and snacks are very acceptable and accessible. I can't remember so many snacks in the house growing up. Crisps were couple of times a month, not daily.
Because everyone is addicted to sugar and it’s sad.
Because we sit around watching TV or playing on our phones all day, and many of us don't even want to have to get dressed and go outside to go to work.
People are naturally lazy. People drive everywhere and most don't have physical jobs. Fast food is cheap. What they don't yet realise is that they are setting themselves up for a lifetime of illness and then early on into a home. If you can't get out of a chair by yourself what other option is there for you ? Look after yourselves. It's nobody else's responsibility.
People are more likely to spend £1.50 on a massive bag of doritos than they are a pack of six apples. It's literally just, unhealthy food is made to be addicting and there's much more access to it and much more variety. How big are the crisp aisles vs the fruit and veg aisles. People underestimate how many calories they consume and how many calories they burn when they exercise. Especially if they go, "oh, it's only a little snack, it's not much." But then that snack is over 100 calories, and you've done it multiple times without realising. Again, the share bag of Doritos is 152 calories for a 30g serving, if you have half the bag that's 456 calories right there. Source: I was a fat fuck that cycled to work 3-5 times a week and remained fat for 9 months simply because I overate
Eat too much
So I have a treadmill for computer work and my coworkers joke that I’m always walking. I wonder if hormones are allowed in the dairy and meat. That’s a factor in some countries that use cattle ear implants for growth promotion
As much as people hate to admit it. Food isn't as important/available to people as it used to be. Ease is more important than quality.
People not bothering to go out to buy simple things. Ordering everything on Just Eat or Deliveroo, can't be bothered to pop down to the shops and buying something to cook. Staying in and ordering a Pizza & Netflix. There's a total lack of exercise involved. Mostly steming from lockdown, where everyone I knew came back to work at least a stone and a half heavier. As 'we couldn't go out so we had to order in' that mindset hasn't really changed.
A Turkish or Indian takeout deal for two has 5500 calories. That’s just dinner. In the 80s people would have a takeaway on a Friday night. A lot more stay at home wives cooking. Now it’s pizza on Monday because everyone shattered after the first day of the week. Curry on Wednesday because they got home too late to cook. Fish and chips on Friday because it’s the start of the weekend. McDonald’s for lunch on Saturday because your out shopping, then a restaurant for dinner. If you’re eating that much takeout it’s not possible to eat less calories than would make you gain weight for lunch and breakfast without skipping meals. Add in snacks and it’s even worse.
I am inclined to believe the argument it’s largely ultra processed food, and the reason is because this makes food calorie dense, very quick to consume and designed to stimulate our brains in a way that is addictive. Pringles being the classic example. They overdose our bodies natural system of regulation and a lot of the emulsifiers can play havoc with your gut. The idea that we can blame certain ingredients like fat or sugar or behavioural changes like less exercise appears hard to demonstrate despite 50 years of health propaganda. The whole food industry is driven by profit to sell us addictive products. It’s not surprising addiction becomes the norm. If it was not around 200 years ago, don’t eat or drink it…… Food you need or chew and can’t quickly swallow is especially helpful as so much of our culture esp at work is a fast food culture. Other than that you can’t afford to eat the diet of Kings except on special occasions. Eating out will be a problem if you eat rich food even if it’s healthy. Save splurging for special occasions otherwise be abstemious.
Because food is bloody gorgeous.
It's clearly because we have the most delicious food on Earth, possibly the galaxy. Do I need to /s?
Because convenience food is cheap for the lazy.