Fat Welsh men & women

I do remember that when we went on courses in Wales, there was always the usual buffet accompanied by a massive bowl of chips...
More seriously, I know that my cousin who lives deep in rural Wales says that her neighbours eat massive quantities of fried food and sweet things, are fine all the time they are working on the land and then pile the weight on when they stop.
I would guess that overall, it is about poverty, unemployment, low-cost sweet and fatty food and poor eating habits.

I eat high fat foods and I'm not overweight. It's not about the fat per se, it's about how much (of everything) you eat. I agree with absent in being baffled as to how people get as overweight as the example given. I can only put it down to low self esteem and depression. Anyone who had a decent sense of self value would do something before their weight problem got so excessive. It is very sad.

PS don't eat chips though. Haven't liked them since they stopped being cooked in animal fat.

I think there is often more to it than simply over eating. I'm a BBW. I spent most of my life dieting to try to conform to society's norm. My mum took me to the doctors when I was 8 years old and he gave me diet pills (which at that time were speed or speed related). I became very hyperactive I continued to diet into my teens and adult life. At one point I lived on one apple and one slice of bread each day. Oddly people kept telling me how well I looked when actually I was incredibly ill. What they meant was that I was size 12.

One day (at the age of 47) I woke up and thought enough is enough. I decided to eat normally but healthily as best I can. The weight piled on because my body was, and I think still is, in famine mode. I walk, cycle and dance but it has no affect on my weight. It's got worse in the last year as I've had to spend more time in the house and due to this I'm less active.

Food is more than nutrition to some of people. It's a comfort or a way of punishing yourself. I go through periods of starving, eating properly or comfort eating depending on how well or ill I am.

I'm not saying this is the case for everyone but it does help to explain why some people have weight issues.

DH would agree with you, vamp, about starvation mode. Have you had a look at Mark's Daily Apple and the "Primal Diet"? DH feels better on that. Essentially it's cutting down on carbs but eating plenty of what Mark considers were the foods of hunter-gatherers. Meat, fish, eggs, fruit, nuts, veg. Not much grain which came in with farming.

Will look out a link for you.

Here you are: The Primal Blueprint

For the record, I don't think the rest of GB has any right to point the finger at the Welsh although I do think its NHS is storing up troubles for itself later down the line by not tackling such cases before life-threatening disease sets in.

Vampirequeen Your body seems to have taken quite a bashing and it's probably not surprising that your metabolism is out of sync. However, this guy is 20 and doesn't appear to have had a long period of yo-yo dieting – just a steady increase to 35 stone. I can't get to grips with how he has managed to reach over three and half times my weight without doing anything about it. I understand Mamie's point about eating heavily because of hard manual labour and then piling on the weight once the work stops – but, I repeat, this guy is 20.

Wales maybe as fat as the US but many areas in the UK have fat and obese people. I live in a suburb of a coastal town. Most of the locals are of average build but then a lot of the locals are professionals, elderly and working people. When I get a bus to work in the next suburb some 15 mins away it's like a different country. Huge amounts of young single mums and huge amounts of really fat and obese people. I hate to say this but it's almost a class thing.
In my area we have a number of really nice restuarants and coffee shops. In the area I work, not one coffee shop and the only cafes are of the chips and beans with everything type.
In my area most of the people are employed, own their homes. The other area mainly low rental or council housing.
The other problem is: young women in these areas have no idea how to cook. So its microwave and takeaways.A lot of sweets and biscuits,cakes etc. A lot of people watch TV ALL DAY or play on playstations and computers, no exercise whatsoever.
Any of us who have lived or been to the US know that their portions in restuarants are enormous - it's starting over here now.
Gastric banding, though can be a life safer, is not the answer. I heard a woman say that after time of getting fatter by the minute, she can always have a band inserted. We still don't know the long term affects, it isn't a healthy option in the long run and over time can be stretched.
It has to be education. Bring back proper Domestic Science where girls were taught how to cook properly. [do you remember making your Xmas Cake?]. When my daughter took it, they seemed to talk a lot about vitamins etc - she did no cooking at all.That was 15 years ago, now they are reaping the 'rewards'.

I think there is more to it than over-eating. Different bodies handle food differently.

People never agree withg me when I say that, but I do NOT believe that those people got that way by eating a lot more food than the rest of us.

Didn't they identify a fat gene recently?

I personally, find that when I try to diet I am always hungry until my body has caught up with the weight I was when I started. I think that that is because it's the weight I am supposed to be.

(Family don't agree )

First you have to decide whether you are a hunter or a gatherer. The hunter can exist on one good meal per day and then when he/s he eats this they fill their stomach really full. Gatherers eat bits through the day and its their Blood sugar level which is always sinking. Hunters have a very stable blood sugar- I know because I am married to one.

DH was always thin, tall and thin but with age he put on weight, not much but a lot for him. His most successful diet was a hunter diet when he ate a huge lunch and then drank water and wine and had an one slice of (german) black whole meal rye bread through the rest of the day. He managed very well on this an got his ideal weight back.
He felt well on it. For hunters if they don't feel like breakfast then they shouldn't eat it. If they realise that there are periods of the day when their blood sugar is stable then they should not eat because it is time for it. If you are definitely a gatherer than eat small amounts and chew gum to ward of hunger pains. You can raise your blood suger with a sugar lump or a boiled sweet and it gets you thorough the next hour. It doesn't have to be chocolate.

JO4 Nobody is supposed to be 35 stone.

Most people who put on weight do so because they eat more than they burn, it is simple. There are very few people who have a metabolic disorder as the cause of their weight gain. How many fat people did we see on the photos of Belsen? My BMI says I am overweight, I am size 12. We have become so used to seeing heavier people around that I am often told I am not ovwerweight but I AM! My thyroid has been removed and as a result I cannot eat as much as others but that is something I have to deal with and not just use as an excuse.

I don't really 'get' gastric banding. I watched a programme about it and apparently it is necessary to show that you have the willpower to eat properly once you have had the band fitted so what's the point? If you have that willpower you won't already be overweight.

I have a friend who reached nearly 30 stone and paid privately for this operation about 4 years ago. At first it was a great success and she made it down to size 12 but when I saw her a couple of months ago she was up to 17 stone. When we had meals she ate much more than was good for her and said 'you never did eat very much' but that was just her perception compared to what she ate.

I am one of those who eats when life throws rubbish at me so can understand the cause for some but why so many fat people? Is it simply that society accepts bad diets? I don't know.

I don't doubt that different body types react differently to food. I don't think, though, that you can ignore the link between poor diet (broadly speaking high in fatty and sugary foods, low in vegetables and fruit), obesity and diseases like Type 2 diabetes in younger people. I agree education certainly has a role to play, which is why schools spend a lot of time on issues related to healthy eating, (though I do wish the DT curriculum had more cooking in it, obviously for boys and girls).
I think one of the main issues in all this though, is the role of the supermarkets and the food "industry" . Did anyone else watch "The Men Who Made Us Fat", on TV recently? The links between the food industry and some politicians were interesting to say the least. The cynical policy of "supersizing", the role of advertising, the suppression of legislation to warn people about the dangers of what they are eating, I found quite shocking.

I agree mamie poverty, unemployment and then there is poverty and unemployment.
When i worked in Welsh Water 20 years ago, there was a sudden realisation by customer accounts that 40% of their customers were "on benefits".
Since then, the economy in wales has benefitted only marginally from the boom years.
Very little manual labour for a long long time now. The miners strike and all that followed was about 30 years ago!
There are many families that have been living on benefits for several generations.
Where i live in Mk there are high levels of obesity and you can see by looking at the young overweight women that they are predominantly not affluent, middle class young women. Along with nearly all health problems, obesity and the problems it brings are correlated with class and wealth.

One would like to think that the new Health Secretary would tackle the problem - but Jeremy Hunt

I agree with JO4. I think there is a genetic factor. My body has become what it was intended to be. All my life I was fighting my body.

I don't think it always has to do with what you eat or the amounts although I admit it may for some. When my girls were at school I got two letters demanding that I attend appointments regarding their weight issues. It turned out that my older daughter was overweight and my younger daughter was underweight. They both ate the same diet, went dancing, swimming and played outside. They just had different ways of metabolising food. My elder daughter had to go to a dietician. After months of following her advice and finding that there was no significant drop in her weight the dietician decided that my daughter's body was incredibly efficient and if we ever had a famine she would have a much better chance of survival. So maybe that's it. We who gain and hold on to our weight maybe have a gene that evolved when food could be in short supply and made us burn energy more efficiently.

Mr Hunt presumably promoted because he single handedly organised the Olympics. Or at any rate is basking in its reflected glory.
Suspect he is going to be terminally bogged down in the thankless task of overseeing a huge re-organisation while being expected to deliver massive spending cuts while at the same time not alienating the electorate. No problem at all for Olympic Minister. Just pop those lycra shorts on, over your suit trousers and away you go. What could be easier.
Mere details like an epidemic of obesity can wait for a lesser mortal to take over from him in the future.

JessM. Not at all facetious, of course.

Vamp i'm ignorant, what's a BBW?

I too am very ecconomical to run but I also don't understand how someone can get to 35 stone without noticing or asking for help. I have found that My Fitness Pal has helped. It's not as exact as Weightwatchers but keeps you on your toes and makes you think.

Just don't google for pictures of one!!!!!!!!

I wish I hadn't.

A BBW is a big, beautiful woman.

The media and fashion industry makes everyone think you have to be thin to be beautiful but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and is more than just skin deep.

I agree 35 stone is a tad OTT because by then it does affect your health but although I'm a BBW I have perfectly normal cholesterol, sugar levels, kidney and liver function, lung function and a healthy heart.

Perhaps I am the only member with personal knowledge of gastric banding and my advice is - DON'T DO IT! It carries the same risk as other surgical procedures and the long term effects are not yet known. In the short term, it does not address the underlying problems which made someone turn to over-eating in the first place. People have been known to liquidise chocolate bars to get their empty, sugary calories. Others have had to have the band removed because it eroded their stomach or food got trapped behind it.
My daughter's life has been ruined by her botched gastric-band operation (O.K. so her surgeon is now notorious for his failed operations). She was only 17 stone and 5' 9" and her BMI was not high enough to justify the operation - but the £5,000 fee swung it.
I am in despair at the contstant pushing of this operation in the media, especially when 'celebs' boast about how much they have lost.
We need to hear much more about the failed operations.

In the world of apparent quick fixes greatnan it is a shining star! Irresponsible media! If I understand correctly it means that one can never eat anything other than a tiny, baby-sized meal for the rest of your life.