[Closed] Fat Kids - whose fault?

Back in the 70s.........

It was a different world with different lifestyles and expectations and not comparable at all.

deadly Darcy such as?

More dogma from a mental health professional? Sometimes I really do despair 😐

That bariatric consultant had some interesting points on the "Britain's Fattest Man" programme regarding our attitude to food. It is actually ok to feel hungry sometimes. We've become such a slave to our feelings. For anyone who thinks it really is cheaper to eat healthily ie by cooking all your food from first principle and freezing it etc, I'd say take a trip to Iceland (the shop).

Rubbish trailmonkey - absoloute piffle. What do you do now that we didn't do then? Apart from ferry your kids around in a car which is a part of the problem

You said there was not time with two working parents to cook properly. Of course there is - I know families who do so now and that was an example of a family who did.

DD - I agree there are serious contributing factors but they are not fundamental.

Maybe it would simplify things if we just called advertising and marketing education as well then it would be simpler to understand the relative strength of each competing message.¨The free marketeers could then not hide behind to freedom of choice malarkey.

DD - I agree there are serious contributing factors but they are not fundamental.

Ah right TJ, we're into semantics now. What I'm trying to say is that, no matter how much you bleat on about your calories in equals/not equal to calories out equation/inequality, that message is not getting through. There are fundamental attitudes to food with which we're now raised that should be changed.

(to bring this on topic and inject a little Friday fun)

I blame Lazio!! If he wasn't too busy crying over his "lost" subs copy, he would surely of been standing outside supermarkets/shops wearing a sandwich board and angrily waving his copy of the Daily Mail at those responible for obesity!!! (and the Nazi's and the death of Diana)

id rather eat something out a box than a defrosted, reheated lasagna i made a week ago, always, always tastes vile, despite tasting excellent the day of cooking, so batch cooking is waste, nothing tastes the same once frozen and defrosted

I find the opposite dirtyrider, I find the huge lasagne I cook fairly dull on the day of cooking, but once it's been stewing in the fridge for a few days it just tastes better and better. Having said that I'm not actually freezing, just chilling, so that might make a big difference to the taste.

so batch cooking is waste, nothing tastes the same once frozen and defrosted

Most foods taste better when they've been left to cool, then freeze. Their texture can suffer at times, but generally most stuff gets more flavoursome. But even if you do believe it tastes worse (I disagree entirely) you're a parent and on low income, do you choose food that tastes slightly worse than original but is healthy and cheap, or do you buy crap and feed it to your fattening kids?

And there's not even any need to freeze it, something like a lasagne, or a pasta dish etc, will remain covered and edible for several days.

The parents and their lifestyle, and not in a way that provides them with an abundance of junk food. How about the parents aren't at home when he gets back from school, so the kid just eats what he can without cooking because he's too young to prep and cook - cheese, bread etc what ever is there. The parents get home a couple of hours later and maybe go to the pub straight away, then return say after 9pm to start cooking their food. Make some for the kid at the same time, although he's already eaten cheese and bread and anything he can when getting home from school alone - because he was hungry. Perhaps they live in a flat with no garden to play footie or generally burn calories doing kids stuff, perhaps he has no siblings to play with - burn calories and competition for food etc. That's how it was for me anyhow. Basically it is the parents in one way or another.

It really is simple - if you eat more calories than you use you get fat - me I am at least 10 kg overweight

For anyone who thinks it really is cheaper to eat healthily ie by cooking all your food from first principle and freezing it etc, I'd say take a trip to Iceland (the shop).

There's one near my work - I avoid it at all costs I admit, mainly because the last time I went in there it was bloody expensive on the good stuff and packed out with tat. If you shop at a decent shop it's somewhat more level.

Rubbish trailmonkey - absoloute piffle

Speaking from your broad experience of raising a family ?

ferry your kids around in a car which is a part of the problem

Part of what problem ? I don't have overweight kids. Ferrying them to football training or horse riding stables keeps them fit, but nice of you to assume that my kids are fat.

Lifestyles have changed, more of us live in expanding villages which have next to no public transport, the taxi of mom and dad is a lifeline to the development of lots of kids and not always a negative impact on their bmi.

Stuff you'd know from experience rather than conjecture and google.

you're a parent and on low income, do you choose food that tastes slightly worse than original but is healthy and cheap, or do you buy crap and feed it to your fattening kids?

i never buy cheap food, never, so just because i think things taste worse once cooled and reheated by myself im suddenly poor?

yes i am a parent, but he's only 5 weeks old and seems to be enjoying what comes out of mum,

@ian - yes lasagna is an exception, tastes better and better the days after

Trailmonkey You said

Time is much scarcer when you've a few kids to ferry around and look after. Cooking properly is time consuming as is shopping at smaller shops for decent ingredients.

I know from personal experience and that of my friends that this is not so

Now what is the difference between the 70s and now
I bet you your lifestyle is no different to that of my family back then

I think having time depends on every individual household's lifestyle, commitments etc. To say 'I know people who do find time' is easily argued with 'I know people who can't find time'...

Well Dish washers, fridge freezers and tumble driers weren't so common in the 70's for a start 🙂

Fat Kids - whose fault?

Schools.

They need to reintroduce bullying. Verbal bullying to make them see the error of their ways, and physical so they have to run away. Bit of extra exercise then innit.

Time is much scarcer when you've a few kids to ferry around and look after.

I know from personal experience and that of my friends that this is not so

So looking after 4 people and their requirements takes the same amount of time as 2 people ?

Mmmmmkay,

I bet you your lifestyle is no different to that of my family back then

Did you live in rural area with next to no infrastructure ? Did you have as many options as a child as kids do now ? I didn't. Life is just not comparable between one family and another let alone across three decades.

 

Such as? I can't think of one. Its very simnple - you only get fat if you overeat. Calories in / calories out

there is a genetic disorder whereby people are always hungry - but they only get fat if they overeat. If they eat normal amounts they don't get fat.

You cannot get fat from a normal amount of food

Really TJ - I just can not believe you posted that!

I have an underactive thyroid which has resulted in me becoming a bloater. I am eating no more than when I was my acceptable size. My metabolism is completely screwed, as is my autoimmune system.

An eminent expert in thyroid disorders claims that 30% of mid-life people display subclinical symptoms.

Trailmonkey

Yes yes and believe it or not - yes. 🙂

Lived a mile from the village 15 miles from glasgow with hourly buses. Both parents working full time 50+ hr weeks ( part from home)

We ate home cooked food every day. The freezer was used a lot.

Its just piffle to suggest that you cannot eat healthily because you don't have the time. Its about priorities. If you make cooking and eating well a priority you can have the time.

CG - the problem is for you that your metabolism has slowed so your calories out has decreased, Its still an inbalance calories in and out. that is the only way to get fat

I have an underactive thyroid which has resulted in me becoming a bloater. I am eating no more than when I was my acceptable size. My metabolism is completely screwed, as is my autoimmune system.

An eminent expert in thyroid disorders claims that 30% of mid-life people display subclinical symptoms.

Then you're eating too much for your expenditure - cut back. If you are not burning the cals you don't need to consume them. Everyone has the same challenge as everyone has differing metabolic rates, and everyones metabolic rates change as they grow -- I used to be able to have breakfast, eat 3 plates of chips and turkey dinosaus at work for lunch, come home and have a full meal with dessert and then have a few rounds of toast for supper and left my ideal weight. These days if I had any 2 of the above I'd gain weight - "normal" is "correct for you", not "the same as bob".

Home cooked value baked beans.

(do tell me when I have wrung this attempt at humour dry)

🙂

I think some of you guys are mixing up healthy with home cooked.

Home cooked is generally tastier, but not necessarily healthier.

I was told a few years ago that you can train your metabolism, so if you eat small and often your body will grow to know it will be getting food in a bit so can burn off the energy it has just consumed, eat lots two or three times a day and it will store energy as it does not know when it will be eating next, don't know if this is true or not?

Then you're eating too much for your expenditure - cut back

Believe me, I don't overeat cos I don't have an appetite!

Home cooked is generally tastier, but not necessarily healthier.

thats actually a very good point, I make a butternut squash risotto which is lush, but it's definitely not healthy!

Believe me, I don't overeat cos I don't have an appetite!

You do, 'cos you've gained weight 🙂

Its just piffle to suggest that you cannot eat healthily because you don't have the time. Its about priorities. If you make cooking and eating well a priority you can have the time.

Well, I know from the experience of raising a family that it's harder to achieve, so I've nothing left to add.

As for proprities - make a quick meal that may be unhealthier in order to have the time to take your kids to footy training, or eat healthily and miss the exercise, you tell me which you should prioritise.

Now you are saying its harder to achieve 🙂 I don't deny that. Howevr its no excuse for filling your kids full of unhealthy rubbish.

To your conundrum the answer is both. Beans on toast? healthy quick filling. Or you make a quick healthy meal. Get something preprepared (by you) out of the freezer and reheat it

Thats what we did when I were a kid. I went to after school activities at least once a week, played sport on a Saturday, went out two evenings a week and my sister did the same, Both my parents went to various clubs / activities in an evening. we still sat down to a home cooked meal every day

As for proprities - make a quick meal that may be unhealthier in order to have the time to take your kids to footy training, or eat healthily and miss the exercise, you tell me which you should prioritise.

Or, make a quick [i]and[/i] healthy meal?

Beans - healthy?

Well the beans are, all the sugar and salt in the sauce isn't...

Depends on the beans 🙂

Unless the kid has a medical/physcological condition that's turned him into a porker, then it's his parents fault.

No one elses.

If you don't have a medical condition, the only barrier to a healthy waistline is your own willpower/laziness.

Depends on the beans

mastiles_fanylion - Member

Beans - healthy?

Well the beans are, all the sugar and salt in the sauce isn't...

carbs and trans fats are the enemy, not sugar.

When I was little, I used to put sugar on Frosties and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

Those were the days!

For reference:

We have two kids (5 and 7).
Both of us work (me full-time and wife almost full-time but on often unpredictable hours).
We have two dogs to walk.
The next weekday evening where one or more of us isn't involved in some meeting or activity or something is in 3 weeks or so and I'll probably have work to do that evening.
Kids have packed lunches, so they are made on an evening in addition to making our tea.

All of this squabbling also misses the point that better education and tighter regulation of the food industry would result in healthier children.

Although the calories in calories out explains quite reasonably the method that weight is gained or lost. It does nothing to explain why people are eating too much in the first place.
In my very limited understanding your long term hunger levels are controlled significantly by leptin. leptin levels don't directly tell you how full you are, well they do partly but not to the same extent as other hormones such as ghrelin do. Leptin does appear to be a chemical that indicates to an animal how much fat an animal is carrying. Stored fat generate low leptin values and indicates to the brain that it's beginning to starve and needs to start stocking up seriously on fat. There is increasing evidence/speculation that certain food types - specifically wheat and vegetable oils suppress or block the leptin receptor function, so although your body is producing plenty of leptin, the message isn't getting through to the receptors properly and as a consequence your body thinks it's carrying far less fat than it is, and is thus happy to eat far more than it needs.
The rise in vegetable oil consumption has been huge over the last half of the 20th century. I'm so sure that this true of wheat, through plenty of people would claim this to be so.

Anyway, the point I'm making is the "obesity is just calories in calories out and that people just being weak-willed" argument is an over simplification. The human body has some highly evolved survival instincts, and if it thinks it's starving it can quite easily overcome will-power.

5th post

TandemJeremy - Member

Its the advertising industry, supermarkets and fast food places to blame

🙂

so batch cooking is waste, nothing tastes the same once frozen and defrosted

Drivel. Curry gets better left in the fridge for a day or two! (Yes, Mrs PP makes curry too...) And the pies? You'd never, ever notice the difference. Same with my meat.

I buy a load of chops, steaks, chicken, sausages, portion it up and freeze. I go to the butchers on my way home from work. This takes less time than getting a take away, but more planning. Mrs PP buys free range chickens and other stuff on offer for us on her way home from work, from the Co-Op. She goes in most days and has a quick look. Takes 2 mins more on her walk home. Again, good value.... But you have to THINK and PLAN, which is what we do: What do we want to eat this week? What are we short of? Make a list, go shopping. Take note of who does what offers and when. Somtimes cook in bulk and freeze. Think. Plan. Eat nice food. 🙂

I read somewhere that the human mind has evolved to covet fatty foods.

Presumably this is a defense mechanism developed a when we were evolving to counteract the long period of time between meals, or a defense against cold temperatures.

I can't remember where I read or heard it, so I have no evidence to back that up...perhaps I dreamt it.

So again...I blame [s]the Pope[/s] Darwin.

Perhaps the government should concentrate on developing human cloning and create thousands of Jamie Olivers.

So I also blame the government, Jamie Oliver and Molly the sheep for not being a chef.

The human body has some highly evolved survival instincts, and if it thinks it's starving it can quite easily overcome will-power.

We evolved during scarcity, so we're wired to eat when we can.

Indeed we crave fat, salt and sugar as an evolutionary hangover from when food was hard to find and chewing a few roots did not get you very far. The packeaged food folk and fast food folk use this to get us to eat their foods. its known as loading and if you can double load even better.

It makes this sort of food almost addictive.

Its no coincidence that the tighter regulated food industry is the less obesity there is - compare us and the americans to the dutch or french

Isn't the calories in vs calories out over simplifying things. Surely the type of exercise you do will have an effect on [url= http://www.healthfitness.com.au/articles/weights/weightloss.html ]whether you lose fat or muscle[/url]. Maybe people who think it's that simple, do exercise (an inappropriate exercise after listening to bad advice) and don't lose fat then return to their facefilling lifestyle as exercise doesn't work.
You can't just say calories in/out, it needs more explanation.

I think that having the correct balance of calories in and calories out implies that you will be employing an appropriate method of both, i.e. eating the right foods and doing the right exercise.

Perhaps there needs to be more effort to educate families on how to create this balance.

On a bike forum there might be a good percentage of people who have a reasonable understanding of exercise and diet. But the average family might not understand this concept...although my Mum seemed to know what I should or shouldn't be eating.

From a R4 article I listened to recently the overall conclusion IIRC was that exercise in children has almost no bearing on their weight, it all comes down to the amount of calories being consumed. I suppose this applies to adults too.

I think there was an example of one of the previosuly inactive and now active kids in the experiment gaining weight; sounds counter intuitive but the argument was compelling, maybe something to do with an increased appetite due to activity, muscle mass etc.

One has to exercise pretty rigorously in order to burn off a significant number of calories.

You need a quite large number of calories to merely exist, and a growing child has to, well, grow.

So, who's to blame? IMO it's a combo of a lack of parental guidance or example, possibly some genetic or health influence(s), and the food companies that market their sometimes poor quality, hi-cal foods to kids and parents.

increase in fat kids, increase in "plus sized models"....

coincidence? 😈

My wife's aunt constantly buys these kind of drinks for her grandchildren..

[img] [/img]

One of the children ended up needing a couple of teeth removed at 5 years old.

Her father asked the aunt to stop giving them the drinks as drinking too much fruit juice is rotting their teeth...she claimed that it had nothing to do with it and fruit juice is good for you. Which although it is...will rot your teeth if taken in excess.

Some people just don't understand the concept of healthly food and what is or isn't good for you. There needs to be a combination of responsible marketing from food manufacturers and education from government funded organisations.

Everyone knows this, including the manufacturers and the government, and there has been some progress...just not enough.

Apparently the concentrated 'fresh' orange that you can buy has more sugar in it than coke!

so batch cooking is waste, nothing tastes the same once frozen and defrosted

Drivel indeed.

Im currently slow cooking
13 portions of beef, kidney and winter veg stew
6 portions of lamb neck and pearl barley stew

and in a second Ill be off back to the stove to make
9 portions of sausage, mushroom & cider and mixed beans casserole
8 portions of Chilli
and
8 portions bolognese.

All the ingredients of which cost about £60 this morning.
so £1.25 per portion target hit as discussed in yesterday's "how much on a weekly shop" thread.

As for fat kids, I think much of it is down to the lost art of home cooking - understanding quality of ingredients, seasonality and simplicity in recipes. I was lucky enough to have been taught by my parents, they by there's and I will pass it on.

Can't be arsed reading all that so here is my retort to this point:

..a lot of the time they just can't afford higher quality healthier food, ...you'll plainly see how much more it costs too eat healthily and therefore how unaffordable it is for those on low incomes.

This gets wheeled out all the time, but it's only really true if you are comparing value ready-meals to "healthy" ready-meals. If you look at snacks etc it is often cheaper to go for the healthier option.

Mars Bar - 59p
Twix - 49p
Monster Munch (Pickled Onion) - 46p
Total: £1.54

Cox Apple - 24p
Banana - 16p
Large Orange - 45p
Total: £0.85

(Source: prices I just looked up on tesco.com)

I blame the parents or the adults. Simple!

Or their grandparents for not being able to bring up their parents properly.

There is no excuse at all ...

CG - sorry to hear you have a thyroid problem. I was diagnosed in my 20s after several years of related health problems. The replies along the lines of 'you have just eaten too many calories' just demonstrate a lack of understanding of the condition.

When I was diagnosed I wasn't over weight, I was fit and biking off road 4 or 5 days a week (both days at the weekend and Tuesday, Wednesday and often Friday night rides). I had found that to manage my weight I had to stick to no more than 1200 calories per day on average. Unless you have some experience of this, it is difficult to understand how challenging that is. The responses above would suggest that a diet of 1500 calories a day was 'me just eating too much' and is simplistic and unhelpful. It took over 2 years of a good hormone level in my bloods for some of the clinical symptoms to go away too.

In the years since then I have found that I can manage my weight ok as long as I am exercising. If I can't exercise then my weight creeps up. Even a well managed thyroid problem means that it is very easy to gain a bit of weight but the natural process that most people do of balancing it out by being good for a bit does not take the weight back off without extra effort through exercise. This means that people with a thyroid condition have a tougher time staying slim. It certainly isn't impossible but it is harder. Unfortunately as you get older you tend to have longer bouts of no exercise and I have a great deal of sympathy for those with other health problems which restrict their activity levels. Unless you have tried to manage your weight purely by diet,without the benefit of exercise, it is difficult to understand how hard it is.

Having said all this, the research I have read suggests that a person with a thyroid condition can be around 10lbs/1 stone heavier as a direct result of the condition. Larger amounts of weight are more related to the cycle above than directly to the condition itself so people can not really blame it on their glands!

GrahamS I agree 100%, Example meal: beans, baked potato & lettece & tomato less than £1 per head. I grew up poor (for this country) & my parents never failed to provide healthy balanced meals.

Another pet hate is parents saying 'you try getting a kid to eat an apple/orange/banana'

The dog we adopted last spring was overweight when we got her. She's not now. Was it the dog's fault or her previous owners?

When we adopted her, we were told to take her back in a month or two for a blodd test to check her thyroid. The vet took one look when we walked through the door and said it wasn't needed.

She's a lab, so therefore prone to weight gain.

Exercise and portion control...

Labs prone to weight gain. That's genetic isn't it?

Labs prone to weight gain. That's genetic isn't it?

And despite that, she's not overweight.

Still genetic though. 🙂

You're obviously starving her 😛

Genetics influence the base metabolic rate.

If
[i]Base metabolic rate + calories out due to activity = calories in[/i] you (or your kids or your dog) will maintain your weight.

If either side of that equation is unbalanced, you'll lose or gain weight.

She's fed enough to maintain her weight.

"Labs prone to weight gain. That's genetic isn't it?"

I've never known a dog yet that wouldn't eat all day long if they could, and would therefore get VERY VERY fat.

Dogs have small brains and cant comprehend that too much food intake will make them fat and unhealthy. Just the same as kids, they both have to be controlled in what they should eat.

My wife quite regularly has to operate on fat people or not as the case may be if they are too fat. I've asked the question before whether its genetics/illness etc etc and she said as % of population the true number of people who have genuine medical reason is virtually nill. The majority is just people who like too many pies !

Education.

It's not even that there's a massive amount of overeating going on, it's just that a lot of food is very very calorie dense in a way that it wasn't before. Our parents eat meals of 400-500 Kcal (a chop, some boiled spuds and a some peas, for instance). A single portion ready made curry from a supermarket is easily 800-900 Kcal Add to that the fact that it's not that healthy food is any more expensive, it's that un healthy food is cheap (not cheaper, just cheap) add to that a lack of education about what to do with basic ingredients, and you have a real chance of getting chubby without really thinking about it.

Sorry, I withdraw my efforts at a joke. I wasn't meaning to be THAT serious. 🙄

just as it is funny/sad:

[img] [/img]

I've never known a dog yet that wouldn't eat all day long if they could, and would therefore get VERY VERY fat.

Dogs have small brains and cant comprehend that too much food intake will make them fat and unhealthy. Just the same as kids, they both have to be controlled in what they should eat.

Yep.

Our other dog is a greyhound. She eats slightly more than the lab yet is considerably skinnier and a few kg lighter. They go on the same length walks, but the lab runs constantly while the greyhound just walks next to us.

[url= http://static.ow.ly/photos/thumb/6V0N.jp g" target="_blank">http://static.ow.ly/photos/thumb/6V0N.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

People are the same; some need more/less food than others, so recommended calorie intake, etc. doesn't work.

As an individual though, if [i]you[/i]'re overweight, [i]you[/i]'re eating too much for [i]you[/i]. If [i]you[/i] don't want to be overweight, [i]you[/i] need to eat less. If [i]you[/i] don't care, carry on. [i]You[/i] are responsible for [i]you[/i]rself.

Kids and dogs however, aren't responsible for themselves. Parents and dog-owners are.

Sorry, I withdraw my efforts at a joke. I wasn't meaning to be THAT serious.

It's okay, I knew it was a joke 🙂

The kid I saw yesterday was fatter than the boy in rootes1's picture.

The kid I saw yesterday was fatter than the boy in rootes1's picture.

holy crap!

lack of exercise is clearly an issue (not walking/cycling to school) playstation etc etc..

but really as mentioned above it is just the calorific density and availability of food that is the issue..

letting a kid get fat should be an offence like other forms of child cruelty / abuse etc

parents - end of...

I dont normally post in threads like this but over christmas I was introduced to my brother's new 'girlfriend' a 'larger' lady, shall we say.

5 kids (not a crime) between 3years and 25, I only met one that was 16 and the three year old, the 16 year old was big (Im guessing 15+ stone) the three year old... well he was 3 months younger than my son, exactly the same height but was at least twice the size and weight of my boy.. All was revealed over dinner - boxing day so roast beef, potatoes, yorkshires etc...., within two minutes he'd picked a bit of potatoe and them tried to throw the rest on the floor - mum says ''ooh he's a fussy eater..'', and then proceeded to give him a pot noodle and half a family size bag of doritos, which he proceeded to eat with no problem at all... I was gobsmacked, my other half said I literally sat there with my chin on the floor for about quarter of an hour, even my littlun asked me why he had crisps for dinner (after finishing his own and not leaving a scrap).

Ok so we're an active family my little boy loves coming out on my bike with me and takes his balance bike anywhere that'll let him, and then spend the rest of the day chasing his younger sister round while shes on the trike, he loves swimming and indoor climbing, maybe we're the exception, but I would never in my darkest times give trash like that to a child as a main meal, and if I was my parents I would have been massivley offended to boot (which I think my dad was but was too polite to say anything) - and then on top of that they (mum and daughter) worked their way through at least 20 cigarettes in less than five hours...

They seemed to embrace unhealthy living in the same way I do active and healthy living... it was quite sad, andthe child had no real communication skills (just learnedto talk aged three) and interactive skills - just took toys off my two whilst they were playing with them, if that was my son I would be ashamed personally - he was larger than one ofthose kids in that maccy d's photo up there too...

Ive also worked on the calories in less than calories out principal and its worked for me for over 20 years - when I was boxing and had to make weight it always worked and never lost muscle as a result - Ive never heard ofthat before either and dont understand how you can 'work off' muscle - and I wouldnt take anythnig in mens health to support that as any proof either!

Ive also worked on the calories in less than calories out principal and its worked for me for over 20 years - when I was boxing and had to make weight it always worked and never lost muscle as a result

Yup, always worked for me too. My natural weight is 90kgs...always seem to hover around this, but when I need to drop weight for muay thai taking a tighter control of my calories for a few weeks mean I minimise the water weight I need to lose.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I simply can't understand why people can't lose weight if they have no medical or psychological reason. All it takes is a little research and a bit of will power.

dont understand how you can 'work off' muscle

You're right you don't work off muscle; but if you go on a diet i.e. reduce calorie intake and fail to exercise your muscles e.g. by weight training, then the first thing your body will do is 'shrink' your muscles as your brain will think they not needed.

I take it when you were making a weight you still trained? probably lost fat?

yep still trained like a loon, but tbh it was a bit extreme - having to measure out food every meal, making sure you ate at the right time, trained at the right time etc...

Always wanted to apply the same kind of thinking and training principals to xc racing, but as there's never been a headcase trying to take my head off my shoulders on the startline I was never as strict on myself!

McHamish totally agree with this:

[i]Maybe I'm being unfair, but I simply can't understand why people can't lose weight if they have no medical or psychological reason. All it takes is a little research and a bit of will power.[/i]

what people dont have is willpower, or want to do it badly enough, me included sometimes...

ok then, after reading all this thread it would seem that most of us agree that the problem is down several factors, bad parenting, bad advertising, poor quality food, lack of excercise, poor skills in the kitchen etc. I have always thought being overweight however is not such a bad thing (within reason of course) if you get plenty of excercise to keep yourself reasonably fit eg, i weigh in at 18st and i am 5'9" tall i have a 48-50" chest depending on current weight and i cycle to work everyday, do night rides and weekend rides, i am now 41 years old and i feel that i am one of the healthier men in my age group ( i know i don't compare to most of you on this site tho) i am rarely ill, i almost never see my doctor or need hospital treatment and feel that my extra wieght is not doing me much harm, would you say that my wieght is an issue? am i a fat bastard who costs the nhs money thru my own self neglect? what are your opinions? be honest please! i'm pretty thick skinned so i won't take offence.

am i a fat bastard

That reminds me of one of my favourite Carter USM CDs, which starts:

You fat bastard
You fat bastard
You fat bastard...

Back to the question; dunno, I'm 45 years old, 5'9", 12.5 stone, 44" chest - does that make me a skinny bastard??

Its no coincidence that the tighter regulated food industry is the less obesity there is - compare us and the americans to the dutch or french

erm? French are getting fatter... well the dutch are just the dutch 'chocolatey sprinkles'..

not just regulation but also culture

ps chocolate sprinkles on everything is an ace idea!