| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| cab |
Fat families?What causes 'fat families'?You may or may not have observed this. You know when you see a family out together, at the shops or wherever, you often see a variety of builds all together. Not everyone is built the same in a family. Thats normal, its just how things have always been. Its probably a very good thing. Increasingly, and I mean by this that its a phenomenon thats increasing every year, I'm seeing whole families that are really, really fat. Huge parents and enormous children. Seems more prevailent at out of town shops, places where you'd normally only drive to. Whats this all about? It isn't just me being picky and over critical, is it? I mean, its clearly getting worse, people are getting bigger and the problem often seems to be most intense in families. How does this happen? Do two fat people get together and pass on bad habits and/or bad genes to their children, or do people get married and then get fat? It this a cycle we're stuck in, parents who are overweight, children growing up overweight in an environment where such is unavoidable, our population gets bigger and bigger? What can be done about this (and should anything be doen about this)? |
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| Mrs Fiddlesticks |
I think you're right. I've noticed similar. Part of it surely has to be parents leading by example (so if they slob in front of the telly with soft drinks and crisps, so will the offspring) | ||||||||
| Jonnyboy |
It could simply be that they are more noticable? As a family of unusually tall people would be? | ||||||||
| Shane |
It's diet and lifestyle, in the main. You can tell when you see what they put in their trolleys in the supermarket.
I guess when the parents think that eating junk and slobbing are the norm, the kids pick it up too. |
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| Erikht |
Re: Fat families?
Perish the thought! But on a lighter note, you can probably put these people in two groups: Those who are (big) bundles of bad habits, and pass the shitty food and the lazy bones on to their useless kids, and then you have those who are genetically "big boned." But i can imagine that if you find that you put on weight more or less whatever you do about it, it is easier to succumb to food that makes you fatter, and physical chores can be a bit of a bother. Then bad habits will be formed because of problems that are genetically related, and then it just gets worse. That said, fish and potatoes with 8 hours hard labour every day used to do the trick. Maybe the problem is that physical labour, be it gardening or working out, as become voluntary. |
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| Nick |
More office jobs, more sitting in traffic, less manual labour, even in the home where a washing machine, microwave and a dishwasher stop mum's daily work out. Less PE at school, more Playstations and less football in the park because of Daily Mail sponsored paedophiles. More sugar, fat and salt in our diet, less fibre.
We're able to be lazier and consume more calories. So, we're going to get fatter and less fit. The teachers at school are noticing kids are getting fatter, and these are 10 year olds. It does not bode well for the future. Perhaps kids should be encouraged to take up smoking so they eat less, and fail exams so they have to dig holes in the roads and not become accountants. |
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| cab |
Re: Fat families?
Probably the biggest factor; too many people are basically sedentary, its especially a problem in kids 
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| bernie-woman |
Watched that Dispatches prog last night 'Cotton Wool kids' - scary stuff going on in some houses in the country 
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| BahamaMama |
To the second point in Cab's post, something will have to be done if we are to retain the NHS in its current structure, free at the point of delivery.
These larger, fatter children will go on to develop overweight-related conditions, diabetes, joint problems that will require care and treatment. |
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| Nick |
I'm afraid my son, aged 10, gets turfed out at weekends. He comes and goes as he pleases up to the village, knocks about with his mates and comes home filthy, exhausted and smiling in time for a meal every so often. He has a phone and times to report in. He's with a gang of mates and they even drop in on the pub for a can of pop and crisps every so often.
My main worry is that he does appear to like wearing chavvy trainers and a hoody, and putting rubbish music on the jukebox when he can scrounge a quid. |
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| LynneA |
Speak to the pub landlord - suggest he fills the jukebox with 60's beat, prog and Wigan Casino floor fillers 
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| vegplot |
I'm an embarrasing trolley watcher especially if I see a fat family with bloated beach-ball children. Most often than not the esessentials (veg & fruit) form a very small proportion of the contents, if at all. Most is made up of box meals and pizzas with lashing of crisps, biscuits, white bread, fizzy drinks and knack beer i.e comfort food and by the size of them they are comforted at regular intervals throughout the day. | ||||||||
| Cho-ku-ri |
When food gets scarce this problem will resolve itself. Pre WW1 it was only wealthy people who were fat, and is was seen almost like a badge of success. | ||||||||
| Brownbear |
Think of it as voluntary natural selection. | ||||||||
| Fee |
I'm fat.
I don't eat ready meals, ever, I cook good food, plenty of fresh veg, etc., etc. I do have to occasional chocolate (at a certain time of the month, it's necessary), packet of crisps (well, not for a while, but I did, and still will every now and then), but I do sweet FA exercise most of the time, I sit here at my desk, with the odd trip up and down stairs, or out to the garden/greenhouse. I'm fully aware of my problem! My point is that because somebody is fat, it doesn't mean they eat sh!t food. Anyway, back to the point, families come in all shapes and sizes, we all know that, but I've noticed, even among my friends, that when two fat people get together, they generally have fat kids. A very good friend of mine is a larger lady, like myself, and she tried hard not to pass what she sees as her bad habits (she doesn't like most veg, she's got a thing about textures  ) to her little girl, and her little girl now loves fruit and veg, and eats plenty of it. She doesn't get any junk food, she's not allowed it, but she's still bigger than the average girl of the same age. When I was up visiting last time, I noticed the problem. Her little girl gets pretty big portions in relation to our other God-daughter of the same age.
I remember when I was a child (my Mum and Step-Dad are both fat!), I went to have tea at a friends house and was astonished at the tiny portions we got compared to the adults. That stuck with me, but I've only just thought about it in relation to this. Is this the problem? Are adults feeing their children the same portions as themselves because they're equal?? Ooh. |
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| Frewen |
I think you're right Fee - I have to regularly rein in our portion sizes 
Hence me eating from a side plate 
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| cab |
I'm glad it isn't just me who has spotted this phenomenon! I was a little nervous to post this topic, but I do think thats its an important and worrying trend in our society.
Heres one idea fot you... Some kids don't walk anywhere, largely 'cos adults don't walk anywhere. Go walk around a market town, a smaller place, where people walk to the shops. Then go to the out of town supermarket thats trying to strangle it. Watch people. Where do you find that people are, on average, fatter? |
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| Behemoth |
It has been shown that the walk across the car park and around the aisles of a large supermarket is often further than the equivlant shopping trip on a well resourced high street. However, the shuffling cud chewing nature of the environment doesn't lead to vigorous exercise. | ||||||||
| cab |
Has it? Really? That startles me. Firstly, it startles me because that rather implies absolutely zero increase in convenience for supermarkets, and secondly it would simply be odd to believe that you could get as much excercise. Ahh, hang on, the penny has dropped... Thats assuming starting right at the supermarket gates is it? Presumably excluding the walk to the shop 'cos you've driven there instead? Anyway, the point I was making is that we've de-coupled our lifestyles from our excercise, and nowhere is this more apperent than in food. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
Remember today's fat people, are survivors. Their genes have kept them going through famine and illness for millions of years. Kept them strong as others perished in harder, colder times. When the world gets hungrier, and food and heating oil runs out, it will be the carriers of this 'good do-er' gene that will rule the world. 
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| Fee |
I have to say, I really don't tend to notice people's size very much I'm sure if I made an effort to think about it I could, but I don't think I want to be like that. I see people as people, not fat or thin.
Of course, this trait doesn't go down very well when a friend or family member has lost weight and expects me to notice
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| cab |
I'm rather a people watcher, I find observing people around me to be higly entertaining because, on the whole, people are funny. So I do tend to notice their size, but also their gender, what they're wearing, skin colour, age, etc. I'm not specifically looking out to make judgements of people and I'm not putting people down 'cos they're porky, but I do think that being a 'people watcher' person means that I'll observe trends like this. And the 'fat family' trend worries me. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
I'm not just trying to be argumentative here, but the super skinny mom and daughters worry me more. Yes, there are overweight people, but most are in the condition you would expect any well fed animal to be in. Today's perception of a healthy body is way too skinny. IMHO. Have you noticed Cab, that skinny people tend to look less happy? | ||||||||
| boisdevie1 |
Presumably through some for of natural selection fat people will die out. They will have more trouble procreating so they'll have fewer offspring. And they'll die younger giving them less chance to procreate.
Throw in the end of cheap oil etc etc and I think it may sort itself out. But in the short term it's going to put a huge strain on the NHS. And I don't know what answer we have for that. |
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| cab |
Depends on how skinny or fat; extremes at either end often seem to look rather unhappy, but not always of course. |
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| cab |
There isn't all that much genetic variation in the human race, and few people are actually predisposed to being so fat. The Brits didn't suddenly start changing their genetics over the last few years to allow them to put on weight! So we're not evolving out of being fat any time soon. |
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| Shane |
I think in terms of relative numbers, obesity is a far more worrying problem. |
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| cab |
I agree, but I think we can get to some kind of understanding by looking at more than just the numbers; hence the 'fat families' thread, its really about asking what the underlying factors in the epidemiology of obesity are. |
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| Northern_Lad |
I thought you'd have liked the super-skiny, CKR: more food for the third world. 
The problem with the thought that larger people will survive is only partially true. Those women who consume a modest amount and are still larger will survive (still a need to be mothers). Those men who are large build on a modest amount but still do a lot of physical work will survive. Those who are fat because they over consume will either thin down by doing activity or simply die. |
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| ros |
I often wonder what folks think of me when they see my "Budgens" shop the trolley only rarely cantains anythng except wine, loo roll, sugar, butter, beer and sometimes crisps! but I do the same, always have a look at what others are buying. |
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| cab |
Human nature really. You're there in the queue, you're bored, whatever is in the other persons trolley is bound to hold more interest than what you've got yourself, you've already looked at that. |
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| Shane |
No, not at all - but it does mean, as you've pointed out, that they eat too much food for the amount of energy that they expend.
I was thinking of posing a kind of complementary question to Cab's initial ponderings: has anyone ever an overweight kid with thin* parents? * hard to find the right word here: normal-sized? - not by the dictionary definition of "norm"; thin / skinny? - I don't want to imply underweight; healthy-sized? - not all overweight people are unhealthy (unless they are seriously big); athletic? - a lot of thin people are serious unhealthy. 'Tis a poser, that one. |
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| ros |
I'm sure I read somewhere that the average calorie intake is considerably less than it was in the 40s and 50s. but one worrying difference is that the cals from sugar are about 300% higher.
Think the article concluded that cals expended on an average daily basis had roughly halved in the last 40(?) years. Even the govenments numbers on food packets are wrong, the notion that the average woman needs 2000 cals per day is out of date and to maintain a 10st frame the number is nearer 1800 because we just don't move anymore. Will try to dig out the paper I'm probably miss-remembering |
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| cab |
2000 calories a day... I'm not skinny, but I'd waste away. | ||||||||
| Northern_Lad |
Yeah, but aside from not drinking properly, you're not a girl, either. |
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| vegplot |
Skinny people can have serious health problems. Their metabolism may well enbale them to be skinny but without adequate excercise they are just as unhealthy and a fat person who also doesn't excercise. If overly thin then often they are mal nourished and in danger of doing serious damage to their bodies. I'm overweight, by at least 1.5 stone but I get regular excercise, my blood pressure is 129/85 which isn't bad for being 47 and I'm trying to get it lower. |
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| cab |
Isn't the mens version something like 2500? Couldn't live on that either. On the once or twice I've tried to work out my calory intake, its waaaaaaaay more than that. |
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| scoop |
I'm with brownbear on this one. The problem will sort itself out eventually. |
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| Fee |
*cough* |
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| thos |
The CR brigade have debunked that argument, I'm afraid. Thin people are healthier, once you exclude those who are thin because they are ill. However, I'm also of the opinion that it's better to have a bit of a cushion in case you get ill. A few weeks ago I was pretty bad and all I ate for a week was a few slices of bread (and I had to force that down). I lost 5Kg. If I'd been at my 'ideal' BMI I would have had real problems. |
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| jocorless |
I'm with Fee - I'm also fat - combination of a sedentary lifestyle and years of being under-medicated with Thyroxine - Hence loosing 2 stone since November with no other changes to my diet apart from the right level of Thyroxine
But it's also alot to do with portion size - We eat healthy - OK like everyone else we have the odd takeaway pizza but the majority of our diet is loads of fresh fruit and veg and home cooked meals My Husband is a postman and carries heavy sacks of mail 7 or 8 miles a day and therefore needs vast quantities of food to keep him going, my son is 13, nearly 6ft and has a typical boys metabolism - Faster than a speeding bullet and you just can't fill him - no matter how much he eats and believe me he eats loads! Then there is me and my daughter - who is also very tall for her age - 5ft 7in but she is chubby infact she is overweight - She isn't lazy - infact she does more than her brother - Walks the 1.5 miles return trip to school everyday , does Karate and is mad about swimming. We both love our food but we try and eat half the amount that the boys are eating - Unfortunately what tends to happen is portion creep - over time, the portions get larger and larger until without really realising it - we are eating the same as the boys Now I'm aware of it - I'm trying to keep on top of it but she is only a little girl (11) and in her eyes finds it vastly unfair that her brother can eat a huge bowl of pasta and 1/2 dozen biscuits when she is only allowed a small bowl of pasta and 2 biscuits |
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| Andy B |
You forgot to add more standing about in the supermarket waiting to pay. |
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| Fee |
It's so hard, isn't it! It would have made me eat more when I was that age, if I thought I was being out-done on anything I'd have gone into an "IT'S NEVER FAIR" routine, I'm sure Unfortunately, I have a skinny sister who is 3 years my senior, which didn't help, but image was always very important to her, whereas I couldn't give a flying hoot!
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| Penny |
I've just noticed your avatar Fee - brilliant!!!! 
It's a shock as you get older that you seem to have to eat less and less to keep to a healthy weight - and I love eating
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| Jonnyboy |
Having kids is a nightmare, there's usually some kind of leftover knocking around that the parents invariably polish off.
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| Rob R |
First time I've noticed that too, another great avatar along the rodent theme
As for fat folk it is very difficult to generalise as there are so many tiny contributing factors to individuals & the populace as a whole. Medical & nutritional guidelines are only guidelines, based upon an 'average' metabolism but you'll struggle to find anyone who conforms 100% to the text books. An awful lot of people have trouble with dieting because there has been so much rubbish published about the 'easy' way to lose weight, and nothing about our metabolism or society is 'easy' on our body image. Sadly an awful lot of us now believe it is quantity that has the biggest effect on our weight when in reality it is more about the balance of the ratios involved, which of course are harder to measure, so we ignore them. |
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| ros |
but that's the point. Your calorie expenditure is probably way more than that. Mr average's isn't. |
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| jamsam |
Fee, we are leading the same life!!
im with you all the way fee, i know im big but my boys arent and if i have my way, will never be. There are medical conditions that dont "help" but i doubt anyone is really medically unable to loose weight. I m crap at diets as i forget and then try to make things right, only to bounce back to my usual size! I think its the conveinience of things, drive throughs, internet shopping, takeaways. If had to walk the 6 miles to the nearest chippy, we would never have them. simple. |
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| Nick |
DAIRYLEA DUNKERS ARE NOT LEFT OVERS. |
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| cab |
Happens. I'm reminded of my poor old mum, with a knackered heart valve due to childhood disease only diagnosed late in life, by which time she simply couldn't get excercise because she was out of breath so easily, compounded by a host of linked medical conditions (and others linked to the medication she then needed)... Counting up the calories she used to take in, she would put weight on sometimes on what was essentially a starvation diet. So yeah, happens, but such conditions are less common than some may claim; its the exception rather than the norm.
I wonder how many miles on a bicycle I'd have to do to burn off a bag of chips... Hmmm... |
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| ros |
very roughly - about an hour at 15 miles/hr for a small chipshop portion! |
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| vegplot |
10-15 mins of moderate excercise burns ~ 100 kiloCalories.
On a good day, when I cycle to and from work, I burn around 800-900kCals (18 hilly miles round trip). Trouble is I like food and drink too much. |
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| Erikht |
I am not fat. I weight 107 kg on my 181 cm, but I more or less got the bones for it... maybe a tad insulated, but that's it. The main reason for the weight/height ratio is my abnormal intake of very, very good, oldfashiooned food - the kind that sticks to the ribs. And then I move far too little, being a lazy bastard with no garden. | ||||||||
| jamsam |
glad to see you being honest... |
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| Shane |
Does anyone else have absolutely no idea what this means?
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| Jon |
he is 5 foot 11 and weighs in at 16.9 stone? | ||||||||
| Madame Bear |
I have only just read through this thread, thus avoiding work for half an hour. But as my work is all sedentary, unfortunately no calories have been used up by the time I am taking to make this point.
It strikes me that Cab and Fee both have excellent points and that everybody else has recognised most of them. Is it too boring to suggest that diets which cannot contain what Erikht, Veg Plot and others, including myself enjoy, are self-defeating as they make food an enemy? I heard a report on Radio 4 this morning, based on a Copenhagen University study. It seems that dosing ourselves with vitamin supplements can be harmful to our health. So the super-skinny models have something else to worry about. Let's just eat well, walk, swim, run, garden, whatever we can, and ignore the weight scales. Better cuddly than miserable. |
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| Nick |
The French have just made it illegal to promote being super skinny after a model was found washed up in the Seine, suffering from anorexia. | ||||||||
| boisdevie1 |
But surely if being 'cuddly' means that you're more likely to get Diabetes and have other health related problems then you are going to be more miserable? |
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| toggle |
There's stuff like PCOS and the links between that and insulin resistance. I've seen reports suggesting it could affectt up to 10% of women. There are treatments that can help, but like all problems that are female only, it can be incredibly hard to get a diagnosis. I can explain more about this if you would like. I also know people that have been refused the treatments for the condition until they loose weight, treatments for a condition where weight gain is a symptom and the treatments can help with that. |
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| gnome |
on the other hand, look at the fortune it will save the state in pensions, because these kids will never survive to retirement age. |
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| Fee |
I have PCOS, and I know quite a few other women who have it, and one of them has been refused treatment until she lost weight, which is simply stupid. It took her about 4 years of tests and being passed around before they diagnosed PCOS to start with. Took me about 2 years I think, from first going to the doctor with symptoms. |
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| Azura Skye |
just gonna throw this out there
But isn't it funny how the more frightened society becomes the fatter we get? The more scared we are to go outside lest we catch MRSA and be bombed, the fatter we get - and yeah I mean because we don't move as much, but perhaps there is a psychological factor here as well - a fear that we don't know what ACTION to take to counter act this fear in our minds. I think our brains like to sort out a problem so we can move on, but being constantly frightened of something we have no control over is gonna cause us to reach out to ANY action just to DO something! I know that when I'm worried and thinking of the future instead of the present moment I do get het up and don't know what to do, I certainly eat in times of stress. Just wondering if this is a nationwide feeling too? |
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| Mrs Fiddlesticks |
I've read fat described as 'body clutter'. As someone who is learning all about the clutter in our homes and how its sometimes a metaphor for comfort or security then you can see how the same could apply to one's body. Surrounding oneself with fat as a barrier of sorts sounds feasible doesn't it? |
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| toggle |
certainly if you look at it in terms of people who comfort eat. | ||||||||
| gnome |
that goes back to prehistoric times - fat belly=well fed and doing well. empty belly = starving and on the road to extinction. for thousands of years we have associated fatness with comfort and security, whilst thiness is associated with poverty and deprivation. the fashion of a few decades may change the surface, but deep down inside we all want to be fat still. | ||||||||
| ros |
I think it's cortisol (?) one of the stress hormones that causes fat to be laid down in the belly region and not more evenly ?
sure someone will correct me if I've remembered it correctly though, the fact that modern life tends to be stressful in a different way, we don't get the exercise to burn off whatever it is the cortisol is there to generate, it evolved to give imediate energy for fight or flight. |
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| oldish chris |
When i worked in a stressful office we used to break the stress by sending someone out to get some doughnuts. (Is "doughnut" a vernacular term for cortisol?) Anyhow, 9 months with Weight Watchers removed quite a bit of residual doughnut from my waist. |
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| lettucewoman |
I'm currently overweight...and I have looked for help, however EVERTHING seems to assume that one is over weight because a)one has emotional problems and b) one "comfort eats" I am over weight cos I am supremely contented, have a husband who thinks I'm gorgeous whatever i look like, and I do not do enough exercise...the reason I want to lose weight is for my health - my asthma is worse when I am heavy. So none of the help available to overweight people is at all helpful to me. I would love to know just how many of our overweight population is not overweight cos of comfort eating but more like me, and what help could be good for them???? |
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| cab |
Not such a bad life then, eh?
I would tend to assume that many people who are overweight are just like you. Not because of stress or comfort/binge eating (although plenty of people do that), but simply because they take in more calories than they burn. Not easy to have a good answer for that, other than to encourage such people best we can to be more physically active. |
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| gnome |
recent research has discovered a fatness gene. fat parents dont always have fat children because they pass on their bad habits - there is a genetic disposition to it.
it's easy to say people don't exercise enough and eat too much, or eat the wrong food - but it is not that simple. contrary to what many experts claim - we do not all have the same metabolism, and what works for one person will not work for another. unfortunately, it creates a spiral. in most cases, exercise can help in losing weight, but if you are overweight in the first place, exercise is a lot harder because your heart and lungs have to work harder than they would for a slimmer person. i dont see how kids today are that different from my generation - there was nowhere to play where i lived, so though we had "role play" sort of fun, we didnt have anywhere to play footie or anything that could equate with exercise. i don't think food was that much better - there were lots of saturated fats and unhealthy food in the sixties and seventies. i don't think the tinned spaghetti of 1970 was any more healthy than it is today. the school playground was just a stretch of tarmac, and only the more hyperactive kids played tag - most of us just sat in a corner chatting to our mates. have todays schools banned the obligatory twice weekly sports session? did the fact i went swimming once a month really make a difference? why was i skinny? |
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| Beki |
I'm very overweight. My BMI is 39.6. But it used to be 50.1 8 months ago, so i'm working on it
My OH is a little bit overweight - BMI 33 - but both the kids (aged 9 and 2) are just about right for their age and height. We eat as well as we can. I refuse to eat anything processed, and the kids aren't allowed to either, except on VERY rare occasions, when they might go to McD's or the like. The OH eats whatever he likes, and although i tend to cook him the same food as i eat, he simply doesn't like it much
I always feel ashamed when shopping at a supermarket, because i never have any fruit or veg in the trolley. I buy all my f & v at the farm shop, you see.
But i'm always SO consious (sp?) of people looking in my trolley and thinking "ooooh she's got no f & v in her trolley. THAT must be why she's fat!". I should wear a t-shirt to the shops saying "I DO EAT VEG! JUST NOT FROM HERE!"
*afterthought* - Oh, and i do f*** - all excercise, which i'm sure is part of my *little* problem
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| gnome |
actually, i have a huge belly now, and i suppose i should do something about it - but i love it. i hated being thin, particularly after being dumped by a girlfriend for a chubby guy because she said hugging me was like hugging a skeleton. i like my big tummy. | ||||||||
| lowri |
Just read this thread from start to finish and I am wondering why nobody seems to have mentioned that fat, sugar, carbohydrate and additive loaded food (mostly processed) in supermarkets is bulkier, more addictive and CHEAPER (as a general rule) than fresh fruit and veg. and some unprocessed things. And it's very rare to find BOGOF items in the fresh food sections. It is easier and quicker (in some people's opinion) to shove a ready-made chicken pie in the microwave than to roast a chicken.
Yes, I am a trolley watcher, but I only go to a supermarket once or twice a month (and usually for recycled paper goods and cheap nasty white bread to cut up and crisp in the oven for the dogs. What will people make of that?) It's a good point someone made that just because a trolley has no fruit and veg. in it, this does not mean the household never eats it. And of course exercise plays a part in it, too (or lack of it). And for that one can always blame technology! In the days before emails, it was fun to write a letter and then walk the dog down to the pillar box. Now I sit here and press a key! And the internet is addictive too, hours can pass without one realising it, just sat here in front of a screen. But we are all used to it. Perhaps when somebody pulls the plug on the oil (so to speak) we shall all learn to walk again! |
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| earthyvirgo |
No time to read the whole of this post so this may have been covered earlier on, if so, apologies ... last week, whilst on hols, we watched a TV prog (don't have TV at home, so it's a bit of a novelty) called "Too fat to toddle" or something like that. It was, as the title suggests about toddlers and youngsters who are so obese they simple can't exercise, it was tragic. There was a 7 yr old boy who weighed 9 and 1/2 stone, that's more that I do!
What was so sad was that the parents of the four children being studied for the programme, thought their offspring were 'naturally' overweight, or that they had a slow metabolism. The Mums in particular were pretty upset when the researcher told them quite bluntly it was their own doing. The children all ate far too much and did far too little. The 7 year old had his meal reclining on the settee every day, whilst the rest of the family sat at the table! I forget what the statistics were for obestity in children, but it was a scary figure. EV |
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| Brownbear |
On the topic of comfort eating, I recall reading or being told some time ago that carbohydrates have a mildly sedative effect upon the system. So perhaps eating three sugared cream cakes mid-morning is a form of self-medication rather than greed. | ||||||||
| cab |
It would appear that we can blame fat people for everything now:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7404268.stm Sounds a little harsh, but there is one point in there that hilights my ethical position with regard to so much here at Downsizer:
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| sean |
Of course, the paper it's based on was published in The Lancet which means that the authors probably just made up all the figures. | ||||||||
| Nick |
Is the Lancet still regarded as highly as New Scientist? ie, the gutter press, essentially. | ||||||||
| Sidoni |
I've been living on the same picturesque Cornish beach my whole life (with intervals of years spent overseas) however I've seen decades of visitors come and go. The beach visitor is now polarised between: chubby children, normal children and athletic children. All with matching sets of parents. There are certainly more pasty, chubby children - with their knees already bending inwards and thighs rubbing together because of their weight.
I was opposed to the council granting planning permission to burger vans and similar because of the rubbish caused by take away food and the food itself cr@p. Beach litter, devastating to the environment, unsightly etc. The sporty children have a treat out these places (Coke or an ice cream) but the fat kids and their families have entire meals out of the contents of these takeaway, over and over again during their visit. |
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| Stacey |
I take it you have a lot of free time
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| wellington womble |
Good God, where does that leave the Daily Wail?
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| Sidoni |
Well, I'm actually quite long in the tooth and my studio looks out over the beach so I've got a bird's eye view on the fattness and the sveltness of the visitors. I wouldn't be doing my job as an 'elder' aka 'old fart' if I didn't badger the council about burger vans. I'm not too old fart however - I have some healthy Australian surfers kipping in my spare studio. |
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| jamsam |
holiday at your house next then..mmmm..aussie surfers... sorry, hideously off-topic there! |
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| Sidoni |
Well perhaps not. I've been chatting with these young men and they're intelligent and lovely young people. As foreigners visiting England they often say it's the British class system that reflects how healthy someone is, and what that individual does for fun/activities. One Aussie lad said that he was chatting to some BMEX (type of sport bicycle I think) Cornish lads hanging out in a parking lot why they didn't surf or play sport on the beach - or come join them in a game of 'footie'. And the reply was something to the effect of, 'we doing things with our own'. |
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| Mrs Fiddlesticks |
I've a feeling they have a point ( I wish I could say they didn't) |
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| Stacey |
It must take a modicum of dedication to record the eating habits of all the holiday makers according to their body shape for the duration of their stay. Are you on the North Coast? I can't think of any beaches round here that have burger vans 
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| Stacey |
What does that mean? And what does it have to do with class? |
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| Stacey |
Poverty is proven to have effects on health and life expectancy. I think it's dangerous to start categorising people according to some archaic and these days fairly arbitrary 'class' system. It too easily leads to bigotry. |
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| Brownbear |
Logically, the poorer someone is, the fewer pies they can afford. So I don't think it's a class issue. There are plenty of scrawny people about of all social groups. |
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| Stacey |
Everybody knows that it's only fat northeners who scoff pies |
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| mark |
I think we need to accept some people are lucky and can pig out and not get fat.
Others have a genetic make up that means that if they do this they wil pay the price. sometimes a downsizery outlook can actually be tricky. I certainly hate waste and tend to eat up stuff "so it isn't wasted" beautifully home cooked food and veg from the garden is also so yummy that you can be more tempted to overindulge. and sadly alcohol provides a massive amount of calories in a form that means it nearly always gets laid down as fat (because of how it is processed in the body . you probably got 120-130 calories in a small glass of red wine. Round about 180 in a pint of bitter. So that bottle of wine might put 500 cals down my neck. And a night on the beer can go along way toward my daily requirement. I guess the main problem is that we like to end a meal feeling "full" and we need to train ourselves to stop before that. If we want or need to control our weight we just have to stay under 2,000 cals for women or 2500 for men and we will lose weight. of course exercise also comes into it - I certainly put on weight when i broke my foot despite some fairly energetic physio therapy. I think not walking to school is a big big one for children. Early morning exercise kicks off he body's metabolism and means your metaboism continues at a higher rate for the next few hours increasing you resting demand for calories (as well as burning off a few during the walk) At some stage in the day everyone who is able should run. The human body is made to run! But somehow we have decided it is undignified for adults to run for a bus etc. and our bodies have forgotten the rythm of runnning. I have African friends who run with their grandchildren just cos they are off to the shops or to visit someone. It is as natural as walking to them. Somehow we think it is only ok if we do it on a machine at the gymn!! Sport and dancing are a natural part of a balanced life - (we have changed them into hobbies for the few who want to do them to the extreme) I think if we run and dance and work hard physically and end a meal before we are full - we probably won't need to count calories. But I think if we don't or can't do those things then we need to get into calorie control or we'll end up podgy! Oh and I think there is also an important psychological perspective to this. people to often worry about how they look and what other people think of them. That's counterproductive cos in the end we are all beautiful. We need to aim more for how we feel - ending a meal that little bit hungry feels odd at the time - but boy do you feel more alive and alert than when you are well podged out. And when you lose a bit of weight - you get that same sense of wellbeing - physical jobs become less tiring, its easier to run and dance, you back hurts less, your legs ache less when you do stuff. That's incentive! |
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| Fee |
I remember your avatar now
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| Behemoth |
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| Sidoni |
I was taking part in a Beachwatch for the MCS and the SAS for beach litter in the marine environment. |
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| mark |
aha - now you know why i had to take my hat off for people to recognise me at the skill sharing weekend. mark |
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| Azura Skye |
I agree Mark - on the comments on running (and also the hat comment ; )
I think muscle really helps. At the moment I'm rather under muscled what with sitting on my butt all day at the office and only now recovering from eating cooked food in my diet up till recently - that really made me sluggish. When you eat heavy foods, like I did not so long ago - I couldn't believe the lack of energy I felt - I just didn't want to exercise. When I eat fruit I have unbelievable energy, I just don't WANT to sit still, I actually WANT to go out and run!! Which I find is crazy, but true. It's like I can feel all the energy there waiting to be used up. Eating shit makes you feel so heavy that all the energy just goes to digestion and goes to your brain in the excuse making department of why you don't want to exercise right now : D you can be slim and eat poop, sure - but you might still feel absolutely rubbish. and be undermuscled too. the only way to be truly fit and healthy AND slim is to adhere to all natural principles of the ways humans ought to live, diet being only a part of this. Social contact, sunlight, warmth, human touch, happiness and laughter, simple natural food, pure water if needed, fresh air, time away from chemicals, pollutants etc, time away from fake lights and computers, harmony in nature, contact with animals, puropose of life, daily bodily exertion, proper elimination of waste (not sitting on toilets, but squatting etc) adequate rest and daytime naps... I really believe all these things are needed for us to feel really human, and in tune with what our bodies are telling us. When we listen I think we relax - and with that comes fitness which is usually well muscled slimness too. |
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| Stacey |
I'm not that keen on holidaymakers myself but I wouldn't go so far as describing them as litter
Mind you......... |
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| Azura Skye |
to add to my rant
if we think we can eat crap but exercise and take tablets and medication and still be healthy - I think we are grossly mislead. Food doesn't make one healthy. Exercise can never RID us of disease. Tablets will never FIX us. Health only comes from rest, rest from over eating, rest from over exertion, rest from unnatural substances. When the body is rested= when we give it time, it can heal itself. Only the body heals us, nothing else, but if we keep overloading it with stress and stimulants in any shape or form (from telly, internet, food, drink) we can't be healthy because there is no time for the body to regenerate. Addictions are a modern day disease ! terrible thing ; ) |
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| cab |
And fat southerners gorge themselves on pasties. |