Michael Buerk. Is obesity a disease?

GagaJo states that constant dieting lowers the metabolism. I’m not sure about that but what it does do is change the muscle to fat ratio.
Muscle uses up more energy that fat. If muscle is lost whilst losing weight it is replaced by fat when the weight is regained and the body doesn’t work as efficiently. It doesn’t use up as many calories because fat doesn’t do any work!
A slightly different take on it but the same outcome.

Oh, and I not only look like my granny, who was born in 1906, but I'm the same size and shape as her her, too.

It's a very well documented fact, that constant dieting lowers the metabolism. I've dieted my whole life, therefore now to lose weight, I have to eat under 800 calories a day, and after 3 or 4 weeks, my body adjusts down and I have to cut down again. It's just not sustainable, permanently.

Exercise wise, I belong to a gym and go at least 3 times a week. I'm not as obsessive about it as I was at my peak, when I would gym before and after work at least 5 days a week. And I was still overweight.

However, medically, there's nothing wrong with me. There are however plenty of conditions that can make it next to impossible to lose weight. Polycystic ovaries and hypothyroidism being just 2.

It is VERY judgemental of those without the problem of being overweight to stand in judgement. I would not deign to judge their flaws.

Nonnie - I’m not witzend but I don’t know of any such illness.
I am willing to be corrected because I hold no medical qualifications at all.

I do believe that a lot of conditions make it very difficult to lose weight. Some medications make the patient feel ravenous all the time. Some genetic factors can influence weight gain.
If the gut bacteria isn’t healthy it can send signals to the brain that the body isn’t getting the nutrients that it needs so the brain tells the body to eat more. If the food intake isn’t healthy then it’s a never ending story.

Witzend do you know of any medical reasons which mean that someone actually cannot lose weight? I mean if they really try, not just eat what they think is normal. I can understand water retention but think there are pills for that. I understand things that slow the metabolism but that can be countered by eating less or, when possible, exercising more. I would really like to know of any conditions which make it impossible. As Bossy says 30 years ago there was not so much of it.

Go back 30 years, the U.K. population was not obese so not sure how the genetic argument fits in with that. Also, if you draw a graph showing the rise of fast food outlets, I bet there would be a correlation between that and the weight gain of the general public.

I must confess to being irritated when obese people say 'it's an illness'.
People with genuine illnesses - like a young relation of dh who has MS - would do absolutely anything, dietary or otherwise - if it would mean getting well again. But they don't have that choice.

Excluding those who are that way for medical reasons, I can appreciate that it's hard for very fat people to alter their habits of diet and exercise, but there is a cheap and certain way to lose weight - if people really want to.

jenpax I think we may have a different view on what 'fat shaming' means and maybe I shouldn't have used that expression. However I do think that being overweight is as dangerous as other bad habits and don't think it should be a choice between them. Is one really worse than another for the person who has it? I have seen very fat people smoking and consider both to be as bad as each other although I don't know the statistics.

I don't believe that anyone chooses to become an alcoholic or drug addict or even to become overweight but that it is their lifestyle, which they think they can manage, which leads them to become so. They need support and encouragement to change that lifestyle, preferably before it becomes an addiction. They don't need people to say it is OK and not your fault, that does not help them.

I don’t care why anyone is over weight but hate fat shaming with a passion! It’s not helpful and it isn’t necessary.
I grew up with a mother who, while rake thin, was a functional alcoholic and a smoker (the smoking eventually killed her ) The drinking and smoking were far more impactual to me as a child than if she had been overweight! My grandmother (her mother) was overweight but very beautiful, and a lovely person to spend time with.
Why or why is it ok to vilify fat people especially those who over eat through depression! Many equally harmful conditions go unobserved. my mother (if you has met her in the day time) was thin as a whippet, beautifully dressed and very elegant, so elicited admiration and praise, yet in the evenings behind closed doors after she had downed a lot of whiskey (neat) would become verbally and physically aggressive yet no critical finger pointing would have come her way because it wasn’t visible!

None ever .

Less you may call it gazing at the navy but I consider health to be far more important than that. You make the mistake of deciding I am comparing their plight with ours, I didn't say that, it comes from inside your head, but feel free to continue to attack if you enjoy it.

How many more threads would you like to attack me on?

If you ignore 6lbs it becomes 12lbs then 18lbs then 24lbs...

This sounds like the proselytising teetotallers belief that one drink will assuredly lead to a terrible death as a hopeless drunk in a gutter. Yes, it can do, but doesn't necessarily.

Most people's weight fluctuates within, at times, quite a wide weight band, and if you know what goes up will come down, why worry about it?

The journalist actually suggested that being very overweight saved the country money.
He wasn’t giving his opinion on why people put on weight. Simply pointing out that rather than costing the country more than slim people they actually cost less.

Ok Nonnie, I will spell it out for you in clear terms...this is a discussion about something a journalist said. It then leads to people ( women) chatting about weight gain and some ideas about how to lose weight.

to bring in the abberation that was the Holocaust is unsuitable. Those poor, desperate ,abused people bear no connection to our somewhat self indulgent naval gazing.

I'm with Day6 people are just far too judgmental and even when told the facts refuse to acknowledge them. I'm very well educated regarding nutrition and calorific values etc and don't want the advice of any of you but I've been working out just how little I've been eating and it's less than 500 calories a day on a good day on a bad one it can be less than 200. I don't feel hungry I don't crave any foods and what I do eat is all good for me, there is no crap in my diet at all. I'm not bothered by my weight, I know as do my specialists exactly what the cause is and no walking wouldn't help because walking isn't possible. Nor can I burn calories using my arms instead because they are just as badly affected. I don't find being a bit overweight hard what's really hard is being in pain 24/7 . I don't care if people are so small minded they judge the overweight because let's face it they do it to make themselves feel better. Skinny doesn't equal healthy either .

Probably not all obese people. My friends sister puts on weight while she is asleep due to a hormonal problem, so best not to judge everyone along the same lines.

This is an advice thread and no one is 'telling' anyone what to do, we are simply saying what we think. No need to take it personally Lessis and it you wish to comment on what I said perhaps you would tell me why you disagree? A few people have said I was wrong, that's fine, but no one has said what was wrong despite being asked. I can therefore only conclude that saying people starved in concentration camps is not offensive.

I have to disagree about the ~'you have to be hungry to lose weight'~.

Its not about the volume of food but the type of food.

Grampy and I have been going to SW for 9 months now and whilst I hate being told what to eat :-) , we are losing weight and in hindsight can see where we were going wrong. BUT we have never been hungry.

Our weight gained over many, many years was partly due to lifestyle, working away from home, shift work, staying in hotels . Partly due to making bad choices and partly bad habits ingrained over many years.

It would help if advice on foods was consistent. I remember when it was all about how much fat you ate , now its sugar. I remember when margarine arrived and was hailed as 'better' for you than butter, now a complete about face.

Weight loss for those with limited mobility is a balancing act. You need to ascertain your metabolic rate and then consume less calories but the balancing act is that if you go too low your body assumes starvation mode and stop losing weight.

Nonnie, I really don't know what's wrong here. You seem like such a nice person. But you can't really go on throwing out comments about concentration camps in a conversation about a load of grans trying to lose a few pounds.

It's bloody hard being overweight. Miserable. Please don't tell me to walk more and starve myself.

lessis yes, I agree with you, very judegmental - you. How rude to suggest I am 'obsessing about 6 lbs'. You choose to suggest you know how I feel about it. Such arrogance.

Day6 are you deliberately misunderstanding my posts? Is it because we disagree politically? I know there are conditions which affect our weight unless we do something about it but if you have one of those conditions and eat much less and the right things you will lose the weight. There is nothing callous about stating a fact. We all need to face up to the fact that if we put in more than we use we gain weight, whatever the reason.

Yes, you need to be hungry a lot of the time to lose weight. Many people miss breakfast or follow 16/8 which means not eating for periods of time at a stretch.

2000 calories is too many for most average women - an average 5'4"" woman will probably only need about 1500 cals to live on. To lose a pound a week, you'll need to create a deficit of 500 calories per day - so an intake of 1000 calories. If you do 10000 steps , you'll "create" an extra 200 calories (ish) - hence 1200 calories suggested by MFP.

Makes sense.

I vaguely remember a thread on here a fair time ago - the usual mother in law versus daughter in law type.

One of the issues was mum in law not having given the grandchild enough snacks.

When we were small my Nan was told not to give us any!

A doctor told a friend of mine who needed to lose a bit of weight as she was borderline diabetic: “if you’re not hungry, you’re not losing weight”. Unfortunately, this is true for most people. It’s very difficult to live with being hungry most of the time, especially when surrounded by plentiful food, which is why it’s so hard for overweight people to lose the excess and keep it off.

I rarely eat naughty treats

However, I have put weight on due, in part, to medication and possibly through regaining an appetite and an enjoyment for good food.
I'm just glad to be here, a bit overweight or not.

there is a huge difference between admitting it is hard and blaming it on some other 'reason'.

Nonnie you are being quite callous, and dismissive of those people who do not over-eat but find they gain weight because there IS a reason. A lack of mobility AND a drug regime has caused my weight gain. I don't have a huge appetite nor do I eat junk food or sweets and chocolates all day long. I do not like being overweight but I would have to exist on lettuce leaves and water I reckon to lose weight now.

My metabolism has been shot to pieces too and the drugs I have to take every single day not only make me gain weight easily but make me lethargic and drowsy too. I try to fight it by doing any activity I can manage. That is not an excuse. I know my food groups, understand the calories in and out logic, appreciate the balance between activity and food intake and fed my children a very healthy diet.

People need to understand that they are the only ones who can do something about it and patting them on the head and saying 'its your condition' doesn't do them any favours

And yet YOU fail to recognise that some conditions and the drugs needed to treat them completely bugger up the people unfortunate to be stuck with them! I don't want my head patted, or sympathy, but recognition that some overweight people have gained weight when normally they wouldn't would be a start.

I wouldn't wish a lousy drug-taking regime on my worst enemy. I often wonder how much more energetic I'd be if I hadn't become ill. I cope with it because I have no choice but there are obviously judgemental people out there like you with no understanding or tolerance of those who are overweight but hate being that way.