Fat Welsh men & women

Jess my friend was able to eat more than that and went back to have her band tightened but now eats far more than I do! I don't understand why they do it at all, much better to treat the real problem in the first place.

Like so many things, over eating has become acceptable and being overweight is no longer noticed. We need to change the public perception of fat and take away all the excuses for it in order to change people's attitudes. If your BMI says you are overweight then you are!

Where did she put it Alsion?

Sorry for the dyslexic typing there.

Are you naturally thin?

Sorry J04 where did she put what?

No, I'm naturally fat! I have to eat less than 1000 calories a day to lose weight and then it is very slow. My thyroid gland has been removed and has affected my metabolism so I am like a very fuel efficient car! I accept that this is my problem and don't use it as an excuse but am still above the normal BMI and working on getting down to a better level.

Where does she put all the food you say she puts away?

I guess we never know by just looking at people what medical problems they are coping with. I would find it very hard to eat less than 1000 cals a day.

Glad I'm not the only one who didn't know what a BBW was and after googling it felt perhaps I should sign that e-petition about stopping children accessing online pornography
As far as weight loss is concerned, a lot of things that are promoted as healthy are actually high in calories. I bought a smoothie from M and S the other day as part of a deal - healthy salad + drink for £4.50. The drink (orange and mango) had about 100 calories per 100 ml - so rather a lot of calories in a 300 ml drink.
I agree with bags, fat is not the problem, sugar is.

I have the same measurements as the Venus de milo, I think.
But not the same weight? I hope? She's made of marble and weighs tons!
So do I actually, but not so many

I don't agree that sugar is more of a problem than fat. It's fat that clogs your arteries. (Don't bother Bags pleeeease) A bit of sugar does no harm at all.

(I said 'a bit')

I can feel loads better after a bag half a bag of fruit jelly sweets.

And it fixes any constipation one might have.

If you can keep on about fat clogging arteries, I can keep on about saying I'm not sure it does, plus it depends on the type of fat. I haven't asked you to stop saying what you think, so don't ask me to either. One rule for you and another for someone else, no thanks, jings old bean. [humph emoticon]

Doesn't sugar convert to fat in the body anyway?
Or is that only if you eat too much of it?

There are an awful lot of fat people in Milton Keynes. Fortunately the 2 GNetters I have met here do NOT fall into that category, but there are times when I can feel positively svelte in MK shopping centre. I am very definitely way overweight for my height, but like Garfield I believe I am merely "undertall".
Is it a social issue? The posher the shop, the slimmer the customer it seems. (Ducks below parapet as that might be non PC, like the thread title!)

Yes it does. But only if you eat too much of it.

If I do eat sweets (quite a rare event, but nice) I cut down on carbs elsewhere.

Yes I know that's not a healthy way to do things. But needs must occasionaly.

I hover around the overweight line on the charts.

l

I think you may be right though, gracesmum, and which are the cheapest foods? Why, the high carb/sugar ones.

I think that takes up back to what we are saying at the beginning; that this is about poverty and unemployment and poor eating and it isn't just about Wales. It isn't about the middle-class angst of having an extra piece of chocolate or a slice of home-made cake as part of a good diet. This is about people day after day living on a diet of cheap, fatty meat products, crisps, cheap fizzy drinks and sugary cakes. It is a dreadful problem and it is getting worse all the time.
It seriously affects the well-being of children and young people as well as their parents and it has to be tackled on all levels, educational, political, commercial, advertising. I wish I thought that was going to happen.

The trouble is, the high starch staples of modern diets are the easiest foods to produce en masse to feed ever-growing populations. My own half-baked theiry is that we haven't, as a species, completely adapted to the farmed (mostly grain) diet yet. Farming is only ten or so thousand years old and in evolutionary terms, that's just the blink of an eye.

So I don't think it's just a case of education. I think it's also a problem of population (the rate of growth of which, admittedly, tends to fall as education increases in a given population), and of finding ways to feed everyone. If the global human population stays high, we'll just jolly well have to adapt to a high carb diet. Pity the people who suffer while the adaptation takes place though.

I think the choices you can make about your food are restricted if you are on a very tight budget. Personally, I try to avoid eating things made in a factory and make most of my meals from scratch, but there again I am retired, have the time to shop around and cook, and I don't have hungry teenagers or picky children to feed. I was very influenced by John Yudkin, who in the 60s wrote of the sugar industry in his Pure, White and Deadly, and I think he was prescient in that so many cheap and filling foods are high in sugar, salt and heaven knows what else. I think its quite wrong that products aimed at children, such as high sugar breakfast cereals, can be advertised on TV when kids are watching. Some of the massive food giants sell us stuff high in fat and sugar, and then try to flog us so-called healthy foods such as low fat yoghurts high in sugar.

AlisonMA ..have I misunderstood you?

"Like so many things, over eating has become acceptable and being overweight is no longer noticed. We need to change the public perception of fat and take away all the excuses for it in order to change people's attitudes. If your BMI says you are overweight then you are!"

Are you saying that I should feel guilty about being a BBW and that others should be allowed to look down on me?

Yes vegasmags John Yudkin was before his time. I agree with all you say.
google Robert Lustig if you haven't come across him already.

Thanks janeainsworth I'll do that.

Plump, tubby, having a bit of a spare tyre, even fat are not the same as obese. How can someone eat so much – and it must be quantity as well as the quality of the food – so that he gets to 35 stone?

absent you've returned to that issue, and I agree; how can such a young man have got to this stage?

Thank you for explaining BBW and JO4 I wish you hadn't said not to google it because of coarse I had to! I didn't know you could access these sites that easily. I'm such an innocent! Is this stuff really supposed to be sexy?!

I've been enjoying our DD1's excellent cooking for the last couple of days. I shall now stop eating, I have no intention of exceeding size 20!