‘Millenniums’ set to become heaviest generation ever

Personally I feel the greatest worry is going to be the cost of obesity-related diabetes to the NHS in the future. I truly feel for the people who are currently eating themselves into this disease, because apart from the financial burden for the country, I get the impression that diabetes is largely ignored by overweight people or dismissed as 'no biggie' (no pun intended!) - so untrue.

Sorry Jalima, great minds! hadn't got to page 4 when I posted the text on VAT.

I live near a university with a huge number of Chinese students. The female students are very slim (and very well dressed), much slimmer than many of the English female students some of whom are certainly overweight. Yes, obesity is a problem, so many people are overweight. Having a DH with type 2 diabetes (he was never obese but did drink a lot for many years but not now thankfully) and knowing how much his diabetic foot ulcer has cost the NHS (two ops and regular podiatry appts) I just wish people would heed the warnings about weight gain.

grandtante, this on VAT rates for food:

Food and drink for human consumption is usually zero-rated but some items are always standard-rated. These include catering, alcoholic drinks, confectionery, crisps and savoury snacks, hot food, sports drinks, hot takeaways, ice cream, soft drinks and mineral water.

So fruit, veg, bread etc. are already zero-rated..

Amma the BMI measurements used for children are not calculated in the same way as adult BMI. The experts are not stupid.

PS.I can now, press a button and Tesco comes on my Pc screen offering their products for me to make my choice which they will deliver without having set foot out of my door. Are we any happier 21C than 20C 60's/70's ?

Nonnie - I fear schools may be using BMI to decide if children are overweight. This measure was intended by its originator to be used for populations, not individuals, and still less for children. Children clearly are meant to have different body proportions from adults. Interpret BMI with great caution or, better yet, ignore it.

So many young mothers now are alarmingly obese and are wheeling overweight children around. As many have said it is probably a combination of car ownership, internet deliveries of everything from a pizza to an new outfit, and so many fast food places in every high street. I can only recall pie and mash and fish and chips as the 'fast food' of the fifties, and these were very rare treats indeed - probably once or twice a year. I didn't drive until my mid thirties and was a wispy little creature who walked or ran everywhere in those days, usually pushing a child in a pram with lots of heavy shopping. (Sadly I am far from that shape now) We visited a swimming pool a week or so ago and a mums and toddlers group were in the pool; I think only one or two mothers looked a reasonable size out of the eight or ten young women, and one mother was truly the fattest woman I have ever seen- she must have been edging up to 30 stone - and she could not possibly have fitted into a cubicle. What a worrying situation for the health of the nation in the future.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/artificial-sweeteners-weight-gain-link-research-health-issues-diabetes-a7844611.html

soft drinks,
It is quite difficult to find soft drinks such as squash with sugar these days. We drink very little but DH likes an occasional glass of squash on a hot day and I try not to buy anything containing aspartame as that comes with its own set of problems and I cringe when I see children drinking this stuff.

I think it works like that already grandetante:

Food and drink for human consumption is usually zero-rated but some items are always standard-rated. These include catering, alcoholic drinks, confectionery, crisps and savoury snacks, hot food, sports drinks, hot takeaways, ice cream, soft drinks and mineral water. ... catering and take-away food

Foods such as vegetables, pulses, meat, dairy are zero rated as long as they are not processed.
It can become rather confusing

Jananana. I loved your comments which brought back memories with your reference to Tesco. Myself as many others in the 60's and 70's if lucky had a local co-op although a veggie 'man' and a fish ' man' visited our estate once a week. When joy of joys Tesco opened a branch ,although it would mean a three mile walk round trip from our house and as we could not afford a car and we were not then on a bus route I would put my youngest in her pushchair after walking my eldest to junior school and off we would go to Tesco
Losing weight was not an option for me in those days.

.

"I am not suggesting that all the poor are like this"

Nonnie, I hear what you are saying.

There is SO much information thrust into our faces now about the dangers of junk food and inactivity that I cannot believe any parent is ignorant. A packet of crisps and a whole afternoon in front of a screen, TV or a computer or a games console is leading to unfit, fat and unhealthy youngsters. I do feel sorry for young parents that a sedentary lifestyle is so easy to fall into. Having written that, my Mum didn't fret that we ate bread and dripping when we were hungry. It filled us up but after eating it we'd be out playing for hours on end - running about, skating, chasing each other and walking for miles. It was the norm. We worked off the fat if the pastry, potatoes, suet puddings etc were part of our diet. Being so active is not the norm any longer, so it must be very hard to be forever finding ways to feed and amuse children and get them out into the fresh air on a regular basis.

We grandparents often write of an afternoon in front of the TV with something nice to eat - but it would never have been the norm for our parents. Times change and I know to my own cost that it is so easy to become complacent but so hard to get back into healthy habits once the lifestyle is established and the damage is done. Progress - the advent of the internet, social media and a million and one things to watch on TV, is a blessing and a curse as far as healthy living is concerned.

My oldest grandson is a lovely, slim, athletic build, but not because he doesn't eat junk!
Like most teens, he sits in front of his Xbox eating rubbish, given the chance.

I saw this report this morning and noticed a group of teenage girls walking along the pavement. All were munching pastries from a local bakery and all were over weight

We could and should start by making sure that children are taught to cook and to plan healthy meals while at school.
Next on my list is increasing VAT and other forms of taxes on soft drinks, alcohol, anything like sweets and biscuits made with loads of sugar, and reducing VAT on milk products, vegetables and pulses.

That way the next generation will, I hope, be able to make healthy food and able to afford to buy basic and healthy foodstuff however low an income they have to manage on.

Old Meg. Now isn't that a surprise? Look around today and obesity stares you in the face.The young and the not so young.? There may be too much sugar and fat in the products we are eating but have we lost the ability to control ourselves and look for that which has less fat and sugar, or just eat less of it. and turn to something healthier.? I am of an age to remember the end of food rationing in the UK. As young as I was, no persons that I was aware of had suffered from having their food intake decreased. Could those years of forced upon us restriction be the reason there are so many alive today, actively, in their nineties and early hundreds ?Can't all be down to medical science

The pace of life has contributed to food that is prepared quickly. Two parents doing full-time jobs doesn't lend itself to meals prepared from scratch.
But please don't get me started on school-children's breakfasts of crisps and fizzy/sports drinks.

The culture has changed a lot since my young days and I can’t see any likelihood of it going back to what it was. We would not have dreamed of eating or drinking in the street, and it was a real treat to have lunch in town when out shopping - and that was sardines on toast in cardomas or a bowl of soup in British Home Stores. Sweets and chocolate were a treat, not everyday food and crisps were only eaten when sitting outside the pub on a Sunday lunchtime waiting for Dad! We had neither the money nor the food to be snacking all the time, so we didn’t get fat. However when you look at the swimsuit models of the day they weren’t exactly bean poles were they?
I often have lunch out with friends these days and there are always groups of young mums with babies and toddlers lunching too. In general there is much more money around than there used to be. I’m a bit chubbier than I’d like to be now, but my millenials are as thin as sticks -without trying!

Jenpax hope you get care you deserve now . Good luck for your op ?

Jalima I’m pretty sure you are right.

But no one has taken up my point that GPs are not wary about telling patients to cut down/give up smoking as it’s bad for their health. Neither are they coy about asking how many units are drunk in a week.

So why do they shy away from the ‘you ought to lose some weight because it will affect your health’ issue?

JanaNana spot on.

When I left school I weighed 7 stone, 5'7" tall & 36-23-36 figure, size 12/14. I did walk or cycle until I passed my test, good healthy diet as well in those days but there was no fast food except fish & chips as a treat.

I'm considerably heavier, Epilepsy medication which slows the metabolism, "belly button" hernia makes my belly stick out no matter how much I exercise. I am Type 2 Diabetic so I am now careful about portion size, eat fruit (not too much because of natural sugar) & lots of veg. I do struggle to lose weight as my mobility is compromised but I walk to my local shop unless I need the car to go further afield. I have just started a Pilates class.

I smoke 2/3 cigarettes a day, GP & Diabetic Nurse are more concerned about that than my weight although they would like me to lose weight. I do object to Nurses advising weight loss when they are twice my size

We didn't have a car when I was growing up and I can't remember very many people who did until I went to senior school where there were some girls from better-off families or those whose fathers were 'commercial travellers'. We walked, cycled and bussed everywhere. Nowadays many children get taken to school by car and dropped right outside.

OldMeg perhaps some GPs are wary of mentioning a patient's weight and offering further advice:

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/home/finance-and-practice-life-news/one-in-three-gps-have-offended-patients-by-talking-about-their-weight/20033646.article

When I went to Weight Watchers some people there had been sent by their GPs and it had been paid for by the NHS.

In many cases of obesity it is a sign of the times. There are exceptions were a medical condition is responsible and no amount of dieting helps. I was talking to my daughter recently while we were looking through old photo,s from the 60s & 70s and we were commenting how thin everyone seemed to be by comparison to now. No 24 hour television to distract us, no computers and mobile phones, just as well as we would,nt have had the time. Back then we did not have multi-packs of crisps, microwave meals, BOGOFs pizza deliveries, and lots of us did not even own a fridge then let alone a freezer to fill up with tempting foods on hand. A takeaway for us in those days was fish & chips and not on a regular basis either. We did a lot more manual work in the form of housework, no tumble dryer then...back and forth to the washing line praying for it to dry, pushing a big pram with with one baby inside, one on a seat on top and another one holding on to the pram. Nappies then we're terry which had to be washed ...disposables just coming in but classed as luxuries for travelling. Cleaning out the one coal fire which was total heating for the compete house and then on hands and knees washing the floors. Just a few of the reasons we were slimmer then was the sign of the times as it was for us. We could choose to be working mothers or not then. A lot of people now have no option but to work and at the end of the day probably do rely more on convenience foods or takeaways as simply too tired to cook from scratch when getting home. Plus I think we had more small independent shops rather than massive supermarkets like now, I remember a very small Budgens and a small Tesco,s where I used to live, and nothing like the quantities of products they have these days. I think complete change of lifestyle and not just altering your diet has to be the way forward if a person is determined enough to want to change and not everyone does.