Obesity is a disease.

[greenman]

What I would question I spose is whether focusing purely on "weight" is a good idea? what I found most useful for losing fat was actually putting on muscle, not of the brolift steroid fueled level, never stepped into a gym but some smaller weights at home and body weight exercises. I didnt really lose much weight overall but I definately did lose fat and looked thinner even if the muscle balanced that out.

It just seems so much easier in terms of will power than calorie burning exercise, the amount of time you need to devote to that is so great really I think its much better as a lifestyle shift, walking to work, taking up some kind of hobbie, etc were as spending 5-10 mins a day building some muscle thats going to be eating calories 24/7 is much easier to stick to.

[Dex Sawash]

I am HGV positive

[Kankurette]

I'm not delusional enough to think exercise will make me lose weight. It's more the whole keeping active thing that is important (and I don't like sitting on my arse for long periods, it makes me feel a bit stiff). Apparently if you have fibromyalgia or similar you are expected to keep reasonably active and just do low impact stuff like swimming, yoga etc. which is why running is off the agenda, as is shit like burpees. I don't always get the endorphins when I exercise, but I have enjoyed it of late because I was bogged down with work last week, I had a couple of work-related meltdowns, and it's just a relief to be up and moving.

[Blue Jam]

I could understand the 'cool girl' idea if it were sexual. Like,  I can imagine that a lot of women feel pressure to conform to the porn-addled desirescapes of clueless blokes. Stuff like keeping yourself shaved, watching porn,  wearing complicated uncomfortable lingerie etc but food? Do blokes actually give a shit about what it is that their girlfriends eat and if so,  is the pressure to eat more? I could even understand it for booze as people who get pissed a lot do exert pressure on other people to drink with them but the rant touches on the sex stuff but also on eating pizza and stuff like that and I can't help but feel that that us a projection of internal insecurity rather than a real thing in the world.

The "Cool Girl"/"I'm Not Like Other Girls"/"Pick Me" thing absolutely can be about food and sex and more besides. It's internalised misogyny, women declaring that they're risen above their weak, pathetic femaleness and learned to become more like strong, stoic, sensible, rational men. Women who aren't like those vain, high-maintenance sluts who wear short skirts and heavy make-up (but will still make an effort to look feminine enough for the kind of men they're trying to impress), they're not into girly stuff like mainstream music and shopping but stuff like sports and video games (but they're careful never to beat a man at pool). Women who aren't obsessed with dieting and will happily have a beer and a burger with the guys (but then secretly starve themselves the next day), women who aren't prudes and totally cool with porn and anal (but again, they're not sluts like Other Girls)... the big problem with this is of course that they're trying to be unicorns, to live up to something which is unattainable. And the kind of sexist men they want to get in with are more likely to buy into "All Women Are Like That" than "Not Like Other Girls".

The 'I eat shit and am still thin'  vibe is more of a beauty/foid/fashion influencer thing than a thing blokes want thing.

"foid"?

I can remember this way before influencers were A Thing. In the 90's you'd often see supermodels claiming they ate loads of junk food or lived on burgers, and there'd be all the "ladette" TV presenters and frontwomen of Britpop bands claiming they loved a pint or four... and yet they would all stay miraculously slim. It was all part of a carefully-cultivated public image, but not sending out a great message. With models at least I think part of it was down to 90's hysteria over anorexia, celebrities not wanting to be seen as a bad influence and doing a bit of damage limitation, much like musicians pretending they didn't take drugs.

Incidentally I think lad/ladette culture was a lot more like good clean fun than what we have now. Men and women were all welcome to join in and no-one would judge them for it and they'd respect each other as equals. I guess the name "ladette" might be a bit problematic but it seemed to be more about lifestyle than a negative judgement on women who were more stereotypically feminine. Put it this way, Loaded was more fun than Nuts and Zoo.

[touchingcloth]

What I would question I spose is whether focusing purely on "weight" is a good idea? what I found most useful for losing fat was actually putting on muscle, not of the brolift steroid fueled level, never stepped into a gym but some smaller weights at home and body weight exercises. I didnt really lose much weight overall but I definately did lose fat and looked thinner even if the muscle balanced that out.

It just seems so much easier in terms of will power than calorie burning exercise, the amount of time you need to devote to that is so great really I think its much better as a lifestyle shift, walking to work, taking up some kind of hobbie, etc were as spending 5-10 mins a day building some muscle thats going to be eating calories 24/7 is much easier to stick to.

Weight is a good proxy of overall health for some people. I know that muscle is denser than fat, but measuring fat ratios accurately at home is more of a ballache than weighing yourself. The main thing I focus on besides my weight is my waist measurement, because that's one of the biggest markers for risk of heart disease and insulin resistance among other things.

[Largely Babble]

I'm sure there's a simple explanation and I'm being a dense dick, but, if we're all eating so badly and obesity is on the rise etc. why are average lifespans in the West still on their endless journey upward?
I'm sure there's something vital I'm missing (like I know medicine has got better) but if our lifestyles are so bad, why do we live on average around 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago?

[JaDanketies]

I'm sure there's something vital I'm missing (like I know medicine has got better) but if our lifestyles are so bad, why do we live on average around 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago?

When you're talking about average life expectancies from early or pre-medicine, you've gotta account for the massive infant death rate.

Some other factors might include not putting lead and asbestos in everything and not smoking 40 a day.

[Largely Babble]

When you're talking about average life expectancies from early or pre-medicine, you've gotta account for the massive infant death rate.

That's proper going to skew it isn't it? Good work.
As you were everyone.

[purlieu]

Also, health conditions relating to diet tend to rear their heads later in life a lot of the time.

Fewer people working down coal mines sucking dust into their lungs (and similarly dangerous jobs) these days. Similarly, introduction of the five day week, shorter working hours, more holidays, etc.

[Blue Jam]

...and more recently, HIV no longer being a death sentence thanks to antiretroviral drugs that knock it down to undetectable levels, and cancer survival rates increasing with the introduction of novel treatments like immunotherapy and stem cell transplants.

We've yet to see the effects of PrEP and vaccination against HPV but they may nudge the average lifespan a bit further upwards. Not to mention the potential for "biologicals" like mRNA vaccines and siRNA for Alzheimer's.

[greenman]

Weight is a good proxy of overall health for some people. I know that muscle is denser than fat, but measuring fat ratios accurately at home is more of a ballache than weighing yourself. The main thing I focus on besides my weight is my waist measurement, because that's one of the biggest markers for risk of heart disease and insulin resistance among other things.

I wouldn't disagree but it does seem like a lot of focus is purely on weight which I'm not sure is ideal. I'd guess it is very dependant on metabolism/body type but I would say the gym image perhaps paints muscle gains as rather harder than it might be for many people, the focus on people who are already carrying large amounts of muscle so need to work very hard to maintain it and add more were as working from a relatively normal base adding smaller amounts doesn't always need nearly as much work.

[flotemysost]

The "Cool Girl"/"I'm Not Like Other Girls"/"Pick Me" thing absolutely can be about food and sex and more besides. It's internalised misogyny, women declaring that they're risen above their weak, pathetic femaleness and learned to become more like strong, stoic, sensible, rational men. Women who aren't like those vain, high-maintenance sluts who wear short skirts and heavy make-up (but will still make an effort to look feminine enough for the kind of men they're trying to impress), they're not into girly stuff like mainstream music and shopping but stuff like sports and video games (but they're careful never to beat a man at pool). Women who aren't obsessed with dieting and will happily have a beer and a burger with the guys (but then secretly starve themselves the next day), women who aren't prudes and totally cool with porn and anal (but again, they're not sluts like Other Girls)... the big problem with this is of course that they're trying to be unicorns, to live up to something which is unattainable. And the kind of sexist men they want to get in with are more likely to buy into "All Women Are Like That" than "Not Like Other Girls".


I can remember this way before influencers were A Thing. In the 90's you'd often see supermodels claiming they ate loads of junk food or lived on burgers, and there'd be all the "ladette" TV presenters and frontwomen of Britpop bands claiming they loved a pint or four... and yet they would all stay miraculously slim. It was all part of a carefully-cultivated public image, but not sending out a great message. With models at least I think part of it was down to 90's hysteria over anorexia, celebrities not wanting to be seen as a bad influence and doing a bit of damage limitation, much like musicians pretending they didn't take drugs.

Exactly this. I read an interview with Mischa Barton of The OC fame the other day, which reminded me of the horrible early-mid 00s media fixation on female celebrities being size zero - there seemed to be a morbid glee in expressing scorn and disgust at these supposedly crazy, off-the-rails young women (fwiw a US size zero is a UK size 4, which is still tiny of course, but it's not as dramatic sounding as "zero" - these women occupy negative space!) and a truly unsavoury lack of sensitivity around discussion of eating disorders or mental health. But within the same era (and indeed many of the same media outlets), fat shaming was very much the norm, any perceived weight gain in these celebrities would be met with equal ridicule, and anything resembling diverse or plus-size representation was pretty much unheard of.

Incidentally that was around the time that I developed a dodgy relationship with food myself, and in hindsight I wonder how much of a role that stuff played. I mean, it's not like I just saw a picture of Paris Hilton one day and decided to hock up my tea, but there was most definitely a pervasive sense in popular culture that being very thin was the goal but God forbid you ever admit to actually dieting, or essentially making any sort of effort/sacrifice to achieve it. Blue Jam's post pretty much nails it, but it's taken me a long time to realise just how confusing and frustrating that message was.

Re: weight - I don't weigh myself at all these days because I know for me it's a slippery slope. I can tell by looking in the mirror if there's a bit of extra squidge creeping in, so I'll just deal with it as and when and try not to make too big a deal of it. I think especially if you're on the shorter side (as I am) it's easy to get disheartened by what you see on the scales, as it can often look much higher than what you hope or think it should be (and I'm no expert, but I've heard there's been lots of criticism of BMI being too simplistic and misleading for the same reason).

However everyone's different and I can understand that for some people, especially if they're aiming to lose a significant amount, it's a good way of measuring your progress and keeping motivated, particularly at a stage where it's not necessarily visually obvious that fat is being lost.

[jamiefairlie]

Regarding living longer, whilst that is true, for many people those years are a kind of living hell riddled with very poor health and kept alive by drugs but not really living a full life. The average age of onset of this type of sickness (like diabetes) is becoming younger and younger, hence the concern over obesity levels.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

for many people those years are a kind of living hell riddled with very poor health and kept alive by drugs but not really living a full life.

But to say one is Scottish, and not British and Scottish, that would make it all worthwhile.

[Blue Jam]

Regarding living longer, whilst that is true, for many people those years are a kind of living hell riddled with very poor health and kept alive by drugs but not really living a full life.

Well I at least hope Prince Philip is still feeling good.

[Icehaven]

On the flipside, it also reminds me of the weirdly eroticised praise heaped on conventionally attractive slim women who supposedly have big appetites - I don't mean kink stuff, just the mainstream culture of straight men being in awe of women who can "keep up with them" in guzzling beer and unhealthy food, but remain physically tiny (as referred to in the infamous "cool girl" interlude in Gone Girl), or even the countless quotes from slim celebrities and models who insist they eat loads, and get praised for how relatable and down to earth they are. Not only do you have to stay acceptably slim, you have to also defy the laws of biology in order to prove just how effortless it is for you to look hot, apparently.

I saw a TV documentary years ago about people who can seemingly eat whatever they want and stay slim, and the upshot of it was that they had very small appetites and 'whatever they want' just wasn't very much. One thin couple said their occasional big pigout was sharing an entire box of Jaffa cakes, which is about 300 calories and 6g of fat each, which in pigging-out terms is sod all really. It would be great to be like that, feel you were eating anything you liked as much as you liked even though compared to most people it was very moderate, but I don't think it's all that common. As has been said, a lot of people who claim to be like that are a lot hungrier than they're admitting, and they might cheerfully scarf a burger down in front of their mates but it'll be salad the rest of the week.   

[Blue Jam]

^^^I think I may have watched the same one, icehaven. I think it was on iPlayer and I vaguely remember a slim and healthy looking man who went to the McDonald's drive-thru quite a lot, but would have fast food in place of a proper meal, and there was a bloke who never cooked and ate out with his family several nights a week but didn't drink alcohol at all, and not sharing a bottle of wine is obviously going to make a difference.

I remember going to a lecture on obesity research where the speaker discussed a few studies that suggest all these skinny people who eat lots of junk food remain thin because they're eating snacks in lieu of proper meals rather than in addition to them (partly thanks to them just not wanting to eat very much, as you said). A Mars bar may not be the healthiest lunch option but it would still give you just 230 calories. Compare that to one of those meal deals where you get a sandwich plus crisps and a drink, a meal with a snack thrown in. Have one of those every day for a year and then have a Mars bar every day for a year and you might see a difference.

I do have to wonder if these people who can live off snack foods really do have some differences in their metabolism though. If I ate a Mars bar for lunch I'd just be wanting another one to alleviate the inevitable blood sugar crash an hour later.

[touchingcloth]

^ snacking culture is quite mad. I remember my school lunch box used to have a "lunch" of a sandwich plus a fromage frais and a piece of fruit, and "snacks" of a bag of crisps, and/or a Pengin, and/or Sunmaid raisins. Would I have suffered without morning and afternoon snacks, given that I was having breakfast and an early tea every day at that age? It's a very recent phenomenon for it to be such a ubiquitous thing for humans to graze throughout the day, and arguably stems from modern Western diets in general containing lots of refined sugars and carbohydrates in most meals leading to sugar crashes that people in earlier times wouldn't have experienced on their more fatty and proteiny but less sugary diets.

[JaDanketies]

For me, a McDonalds is a snack. It seems like I need a volumetrically large amount in my stomach to feel satisfied, but it doesn't matter if it's salad leaves or a cake.

[popcorn]

yes McDonald's is somehow the impossible meal, I have a coke, a burger and a load of chips and I feel like I've just inhaled a mass of tasty high-calorie air.

[touchingcloth]

yes McDonald's is somehow the impossible meal, I have a coke, a burger and a load of chips and I feel like I've just inhaled a mass of tasty high-calorie air.

There's an oft-cited experiment with rats where researchers fed them on a diet of sugar, and the rats ate until they were sated and then stopped until they were hungry again, and fed a separate group on fat and they did the same thing. They gave a third group sugar mixed with fat, and they just kept eating, and eating, and eating. I think certain foods have very similar effects on humans as well, whether it's due to interfering with the brain receptors that receive feelings of satiety or stops other parts of your body from sending out the "moar food" signals. Pasta does that for me, and I can eat it until the entire pan is gone or until I'm physically incapable of fitting more inside myself.

[Icehaven]

yes McDonald's is somehow the impossible meal, I have a coke, a burger and a load of chips and I feel like I've just inhaled a mass of tasty high-calorie air.

A while back I became partial to the McDonalds breakfast bagels, a more greasy, cheesy, fatty breakfast item you could not find, and it was iirc significantly bigger than a McMuffin, I dread to think how much fat and calories must have been in them. Anyway after I'd had them a few times I started to notice I was still hungry, despite my brain knowing I'd just eaten a fairly big chunk of bread, meat and cheese. Like all successful drugs what it really did was make me want another one, so I quit them.