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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Obese Britons don’t think they have a weight problem
(120 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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SCOTLAND’S health boards have shelled out at least £7 million giving more than 1000 morbidly obese people weight loss surgery in just five years, according to new figures revealed today."
Doesn't actually seem that much.
Posted 9 years ago # -
£7m may not be a lot in the grand scheme of Government budgets (Even the £11m true cost that the article mentions isn't)... but it could build a good few miles of world class segregated cycling infrastructure which would benefit far more people and likely lead to greater overall weight loss.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Scottish health survey reveals risk of childhood obesity
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Posted 9 years ago # -
Personally, I'm sceptical of the health survey's findings that the levels of obesity have stabilised, especially when waist measurements seem to be increasing. For that not to lead to rising obesity, as measured by BMI, would imply people are also getting taller. Since people aren't getting taller, I'm thinking it suggests some kind of bias.
It's hard to tell from the wee graph they were tweeting today but it looked to me like the stabilisation occurred since 2011. That's significant because 2012 was the first year of a new contract which brought in an important cost-cutting change in how the survey was done. Used to be trained nurses did all the measuring - waist, height, collected blood samples, saliva. That stopped in 2012 and social survey interviewers started doing more basic measurements. I have to wonder whether survey interviewers do it properly or as well as trained nurses.
Also, and probably more importantly, comparing the 2010 survey and the 2012 survey, in both years men were less likely to participate in each of the biological measurements than women and between 2010 and 2012 the proportion of both men and women participating fell from 43% of men and 50% of women in 2010 to 39% of men and 44% of women in 2012. It would hardly be surprising (and would be consistent with my original theory that they know fine they are overweight but simply won't publicise it and accept the labelling) if, overall, heavier respondents were less likely to be weighed and measured.
Posted 9 years ago # -
This sounds like one of the reasons that supermarket veg is so expensive.
Obscene quantities of veg being dumped because it doesn't look perfect enough.
Outrageous.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Another reporty thing has been published, this time about the food that is bought for Scottish households. Doesn't cover takeaways, eating out etc but I think I will have a look through the full report later out of interest.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Speaking as a person who is currently trying to get from the obese side of the scales to something a bit better I think that it's probably true that whilst I knew for ages I was overweight, I didn't know to what extent that was.
Its not something that you necessarily think about day-to-day and even not really something you notice happening, a bit like getting old, it creeps onto you gradually and then one day you notice that your face is wrinkly or your trousers don't fit very well.
I think why is harder to answer. I'd say its a combination of all the things that are mentioned - sedentary and boring/repetitive work - where you find yourself going to the vending machine and buying chocolate just to get away from your desk for a bit or poor food choices - eating a ready meal from the supermarket because you've got home late and can't be bothered standing cooking.
I think as well that sugar is quite a problem, it can be obvious that its in the food/drink you are having but also it can be quite hidden sometimes (given it has a hundred different forms/names). Once you are used to eating food that contains it, the taste of food without it can be quite different - maybe similar to the change if you start/give-up smoking, that also takes some getting used to.
I think that promoting exercise is the most important. Losing weight by monitoring food intake is only really doing half the job, its important to be active but I think that often gets a bit lost in the general condemnation of us fatties :-) it tends to focus all on the overconsumption of food.
Posted 8 years ago # -
One of my mates got a mountain bike for his 50th of his kids. He was that unfit he pulled a muscle getting on it and has never been on it since. Sad but LOL
Posted 8 years ago # -
Thread necro but I am guessing folk would still be interested in this subject. I am currently reading Shopped by Joanna Blythman (will be available from Central Library once I have finished) and I can really recommend it. (Swallow This is very good too) It does confirm a lot of stuff you already know, like how come supermarkets get to build more of themselves where ever they like and no-one can stop them but it also points out stuff that I had only hitherto suspected like how supermarkets control 80% of the UK food supply and the fact that they sell only expensive, tasteless fruit and veg just might have a lot to do with the fact people have pretty much stopped eating it in favour of processed food.
I also learned that the Germans call supermarket tomatoes "wasserbomben". Germans have all the best words!
Posted 6 years ago # -
they sell only expensive, tasteless and unripe fruit and veg
FTFY
Last night, my boy bit into a supermarket peach and it went crunch!
"Peaches shouldn't crunch!", I said.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Min Jay Rayner's A Greedy Man in a Hungry World tries to debunk some entrenched ideas about food. I don't think he's always successful but it is an interesting read. For example he suggests supermarkets should get credit for freeing people (in his youth almost entirely women) from the daily hike around high street shops.
Posted 6 years ago # -
FTFY
Last night, my boy bit into a supermarket peach and it went crunch!
"Peaches shouldn't crunch!", I said.
Ha, yes indeed! That is part of why they are tasteless in the first place. And we all know that if he had left that peach any longer it would have gone from CRUNCH to MOULD overnight. As Blythman points out, foods like peaches should be a pleasure to eat but they are not. No wonder most people would prefer a zingy, carefully taste-enhanced bag of crisps that are supposed to go crunch than take the chance of a revolting peach shaped object that would put you off ever eating a peach again.Posted 6 years ago # -
I also learned that the Germans call supermarket tomatoes "wasserbomben". Germans have all the best words!
Spot on. And yet, go to a French supermarket and they have fantastic ripe flavoursome tomatoes, cherries, peaches, etc. Some of it is clearly cultural too.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Min Jay Rayner's A Greedy Man in a Hungry World tries to debunk some entrenched ideas about food. I don't think he's always successful but it is an interesting read.
Sounds interesting, I will see if the library has it.
For example he suggests supermarkets should get credit for freeing people (in his youth almost entirely women) from the daily hike around high street shops.
That is certainly how the supermarkets would like us to see it. :-) They have also freed us from food that tastes of something and from burning off some calories getting it. I am not convinced it is a fair trade.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Our local shop is a giant Tesco. It's an eight minute walk away across a road congested with drivers going to and from said Tesco and constantly blocking the PELICAN crossing. I tried giving up using Tesco for a month. Cookery books now assume access to a supermarket. So for example to make a white chocolate and mango cheesecake I had to walk as far as Lucca's at the other end of town for the chocolate and I had to cycle to Portobello for the mango. It took a whole day and I still ended up using the Day Today store. So I would add most cookbooks and tv cookery shows to the list of factors distorting our eating habits and waistlines.
Posted 6 years ago # -
So for example to make a white chocolate and mango cheesecake I had to walk as far as Lucca's at the other end of town for the chocolate and I had to cycle to Portobello for the mango.
It becomes self-perpetuating. Pre-Tesco you probably had shops close by that would have provided those things but independent shops don't really need to lose all that much business to end up going to the wall. Certainly much less than half. So the majority of their customers could still shop there but end up losing that shop anyway because 15-20% (or whatever) went to the Tesco. Tesco wins. Always (other supermarket giants are available).
Posted 6 years ago # -
Pre-Tesco you probably had shops close by that would have provided those things...
Pre-Tesco I hadn't actually heard of mango, and I'm not sure I'd heard of cheesecake.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Is it bramble time yet?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Still a bit pink but nearly there.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Cyclingmollie
Hardly. Had a sign-language conversation with a new Scot ensconced in a bramble patch the other day. Learned that he was intending to make wine, advised him to wait four weeks.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Is it bramble time yet?"
Certainly is on Roseburn Path.
Ripe, easy pick and sweet at Murrayfield Station.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"freeing people (in his youth almost entirely women) from the daily hike around high street shops"
In my pre-youth I toured the single product range village shops.
Potatoes straight in the shopping bag.
Bought a pomegranate - must been the most exotic thing available then.
Butcher killed animals (legally) round the back.
Different days (good and bad).
Posted 6 years ago # -
Brexit Britain leading the world in....women too fat to give birth conventionally.
It's like an epidemic of self-hatred.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Report comparing UK with OECD countries and averages is here:
http://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Key-Findings-UNITED-KINGDOM.pdf
Posted 6 years ago # -
I was shocked by New Zealand's obesity ranking in @crowriver's link. All the Kiwis I've ever known are hyperactive. But then....
Posted 6 years ago # -
“
Britain has the unhealthiest diet in Europe – significantly increasing the risk of obesity, heart attacks and strokes, an alarming new study finds.
Ultra-processed ‘junk’ food such as crisps, chicken nuggets and poor-quality ready-made meals now make up just over half of the meals consumed in the average household. These contain little, if any, unadulterated food.
“
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/official-britain-worst-diet-europe/
Posted 6 years ago # -
Here's the article that report is based on, which is slightly less sensationalist. Seems to be based on data from surveys carried out in individual years, ranging from from 1991-2008. I would imagine those countries surveyed a long time ago have different percentages now...
Posted 6 years ago # -
Posted 6 years ago #
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