[Closed] Fatistics

Six pages.

The 150 employees based in my office are now munching their way through [b]18kg[/b] of free sweets, provided by the company, [b]each week[/b].

😯

that's 120*gm of sweets each, it's not "masses" in a week

Unless Tracey from accts has managed to get in before the rush...

*edit, can't add

Do you work for Haribo?

Who do you work for, company making elastic for trousers or manufacturing false teeth?

120 grams each per week?

The greedy animals.

It's not actually that much a week, it's hardly anything a day, but over the course of a year...

Pah!

That's only 120g of sweets per week or 720 calories

I get through more Haribo than that in an afternoon

my Swedish father in law went to England and said 'why is everyone so fat'. I took a while to explain and I didn't think I covered it all.

if you had your share each week (assuming 46 week year) that'd be over 5.5kgs of sweeties...

that's actually quite a bit!

my Swedish father in law went to England and said 'why is everyone so fat'. I took a while to explain and I didn't think I covered it all.

Theres an element of tragedy to that statement. Because I genuinely think its become evident that the average Brit is a fatty in comparison to many European counterparts.
I regularly travel to mainland Europe, and im usually the biggest chap that I come across - in Oslo last summer I felt very concious of my size.

Indeed, for some reason us Brits have nmanaged to create an incredbile carb-laden landscape that is more prevelent than anywhere else i've travelled with perhaps exception of the US.
Every petrol station, supermarket, leisure centre, DIY store(!), virtually every premise you can think of has a row of crisps or sweets vying for your instant gratification purchase.
The amount of money we spend on presenting our 'food halls' as modern/clean/stylish/trendy is staggering also. Ie, visiting a supermarket in Spain, Italy, Germany is generally a much more low key affair.
It boils down to easy profit and great marketing - I wish we werent so darned good at making multipack toffee crisp offers seems so normalised.

Do you work for Haribo?

Not as an employee - more as a 'test subject'.

Its not consider PC to test your produce on animals anymore so initiatives like this are a work-around and keeps PETA and the like off your back.

Due to mounting consumer pressure I was told I had to stop testing our products on animals last year. I work in a dildo factory.

Possibly most surreal response I have seen on STW, yet.

For the old timers who don't understand this stuff 120g is approximate to a quarter of Kola Cubes

For the honed athletes who don't understand this stuff 120g is approximate to four or five gels

For the honed athletes who don't understand this stuff 120g is approximate to four or five gels

Which is approximately what finely honed athletes consume on a 1.5-2hour ride.

Theres an element of tragedy to that statement. Because I genuinely think its become evident that the average Brit is a fatty in comparison to many European counterparts

This.

Me and her spent six months travelling around Europe a few years ago. When we came home, our initial impression was how unhealthy the general public look in the UK. It's quite hard to describe, because it's not just about weight, but in general people just looked 'ill'.

You don't notice it when you're in it, but go away for a while and come back it's quite shocking.

I agree (obviously).
Try South Wales for a double eye opener.

Indeed, for some reason us Brits have nmanaged to create an incredbile carb-laden landscape that is more prevelent than anywhere else i've travelled with perhaps exception of the US.

Places in Europe are indeed thinner than we are, but not everywere is. Plenty of fatties in the rest of the world too.

If you go to a European capital, you'll find lots of public transport usage, which makes people thinner everywhere. Just go to London.

First time I noticed it 10 years ago coming back from Norway which is largely a land of fit healthy well educated folk to Britian which is largely a land of globular, wheezing bigots.

When I returned from Oz after 30 years, I thought all you Poms looked flabby.

Discovered it's contagious. 🙁

maccruiskeen - Member
...Due to mounting consumer pressure...

Yep, our lifestyles have changed a lot in the last generation or so, to the point that it is now responsible for the majority of premature deaths.

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/over60s/pages/the-top-five-causes-of-premature-death.aspx

The worst offenders being (in no particular order):

1. Smoking
2. Overweight
3. Inactivity
4. Diet (too much salt and/or sugar)
5. Booze

my Swedish father in law went to England and said 'why is everyone so fat'. I took a while to explain and I didn't think I covered it all.
Theres an element of tragedy to that statement.

yes as I mentioned the conversation lasted for most of the night. I mean as far as I am aware the general trend for obesity in Europe is on the up, but for some reason the UK has exploded. purely anecdotal, I don't have any stats to back it up, but just an impression.

A great deal of the stuff I mentioned to him happens in Sweden too, I mean they eat insane amounts of sweets and cakes, apparently they sit down the most in Europe or something, drink like fishes and so on.

There are two real differences that I see. one is the obsession in the UK with the cost (of everything actually) but especially food. Everything has to be cheap and ergo low quality to make it cheap. Here that isnt the case.

The other is sport and an general love of being outside. for example now it's half term. It's name is 'sportlov' and basically everyone goes sking. it's almost a social no no if you don't.

The other is sport and an general love of being outside. for example now it's half term. It's name is 'sportlov' and basically everyone goes sking. it's almost a social no no if you don't.

The worst offenders being (in no particular order):

1. Smoking
2. Overweight
3. Inactivity
4. Diet (too much [s]salt and/or sugar[/s] junk carbohydrates)
5. Booze

Just go to London.

Yes people on average are a bit skinnier in London but a lot of this is down to the fact that there are a lot of tourists and recent arrivals from foreign shores who haven't quite caught up with the natives in the pie eating stakes.

Yes people on average are a bit skinnier in London but a lot of this is down to the fact that there are a lot of tourists and recent arrivals from foreign shores who haven't quite caught up with the natives in the pie eating stakes.

I don't think it's just that. You're also on foot a lot more, and generally at speed. London's fabled public transport system means that people don't generally walk very far, but when they do it's dashing between Tube stations, bus stops, home, work and leisure activities, and it adds up. I reckon your average Londoner easily gets half an hour of brisk exercise every day.

Compare that to your average town where people get pissy if they can't park directly in front of their house, or have to use the third row back in a car park when doing their monthly shop. Even when they do walk anywhere it's at a glacial pace, bimbling around a supermarket like a 45 record playing at 33. I'm not a huge fan of London but one thing it has going for it is I don't spend half of my life waiting for people to get out of the bloody way.

It's no wonder waistlines are expanding, no-one's [i]doing [/i]anything any more. You don't even have to get out of your car to buy your extra large Big Mac meal FFS.

isn't London slimmer as the inhabitants are by in large richer? I seem to remember Richmond and Chelsea being cited as being healthiest in the country

isn't London slimmer as the inhabitants are by in large richer?

But in london you can be rich and still barely able to afford to eat 🙂

I reckon your average Londoner easily gets half an hour of brisk exercise every day.

Large mochachino on the train : 350cal
Cheese/ham croissant from Pret for breakfast : 450cal
A few cheeky office Haribo: 200cal
Pop down to EAT for lunch with colleagues for soup and sarnie and a Fanta: 1200cal
Nip to bar after work for quick artisan ale and peanuts: 750cal
Home for tea..

I don't think travelling around London has much to do with it, unless perhaps you're a bike courier. More likely the social constraints of trying to fit in with the beautiful people encourage the upwardly mobile to hit the gym/drop the carbs

Just been watching 'Further Back in Time for Dinner'.
This week set in the 1940's and the interesting point for me was that in the late 40's, after almost a decade of harsh rationing combined with scientific nutritional education the British people were the healthiest they had ever been.
Fast forward 80 yrs & look at us..

[img] [/img]

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Anybody ever had the pleasure of a food industry product managers company?

Like any product manager their(well paid) role in life is drive down costs and increase profit and sales volume.

We usually recruit the sharpests types from our universities to do the job and work with equally sharp people in marketing, accounts, production etc to create the cheapest possible food and shift it by the ton.

Then the other side of the coin cars have become an extension almost a replacement for the human body which only realy needs thumbs now to update facebook. For lots of people moving outside under your own power is a totally alien concept.

So we got fat but before we got fat we had to thick or greedy or lazy or all three.

Gosh this is sobering reading.
Just 5 Weetabix for me in the morning methinks

People who don't eat sweets die, every day

sobering

Large mochachino on the train : 350cal
Cheese/ham croissant from Pret for breakfast : 450cal
A few cheeky office Haribo: 200cal
Pop down to EAT for lunch with colleagues for soup and sarnie and a Fanta: 1200cal
Nip to bar after work for quick artisan ale and peanuts: 750cal
Home for tea..

Holy crap - do people really do all that!?
Just reading it makes me feel a bit queasy.

Just reading it makes me feel a bit queasy.

Yes.

I inhaled two packets of Haribo reading this thread.

I imagine tonight, I will feel guilty, then drink 8 cans of some silly strong IPA, and eat all my kids sweets in the fridge, and look guilty tomorrow morning when she gets up to have her weekend treat

There's definitely a problem with people being sedentary these days. If you drive everywhere and have a sedentary job, a couple of gym sessions a week isn't going to cut it.
I started a debate on FB about how we might reduce car use, especially for short journeys and although some of my friends agreed, many others were outraged at the thought of a 1-mile each way walk to the shop, or made loads of excuses. You can make excuses all you like, but it's your health not mine.
A woman at work has been using a fit bit or something, which tells her what and when to eat, and she goes to some fancy exercise classes but struggles to walk up the small hill to our office.

I don't think travelling around London has much to do with it, unless perhaps you're a bike courier. More likely the social constraints of trying to fit in with the beautiful people encourage the upwardly mobile to hit the gym/drop the carbs

You really think only Londoners are vain and shallow enough for that?

There's definitely a problem with people being sedentary these days

Agree with this, you only have to see people driving their kids less than half a mile to school each morning to see how bad the problem is.

If kids start out like this, it will be normal for them and things will never change.

It's much much more complex than sedentary lifestyles (there no real evidence that we are significantly less mobile than our forefathers).

The Food industry has provided us with cheap plentiful and energy dense food, and eating habits have changed massively to take advantage of it. Hormonal changes make losing weight harder for people who've put on weight in the first place

It's society that will have to change, not just individuals

Large mochachino on the train : 350cal
Cheese/ham croissant from Pret for breakfast : 450cal
A few cheeky office Haribo: 200cal
Pop down to EAT for lunch with colleagues for soup and sarnie and a Fanta: 1200cal
Nip to bar after work for quick artisan ale and peanuts: 750cal
Home for tea..

But those are choices, I counter - and I've been travelling this week a lot:

Large Americano with a splash of semi skimmed - 20 cals
Pret Protien pot - 260 cals
Pret/Eat/Sainsburys Boiled egg with spinach pot + chicken & chorizo sandwich + crisps - 500 cals
Fruit - apple/banana 100 cals
...leaving over 1000 cals for dinner to get to a 2000 daily total, just make different choices.

FWIW the Spanish aren't much thinner than the British, looking around my office most people around my age (45) are overweight. Not quite as pasty looking though 🙂

As ever the cause won't be one thing but a combination of factors: easily available energy dense food; lazy lifestyle choices; more sedentary jobs (forty years ago who'd have thought that most men would spend their days in offices typing?); getting older; etc. Our bodies have had a couple of million years to develop, the modern lifestyle has been around less than fifty, it's going to struggle.

This comes from someone who definitely has a sweet tooth - any excuse to have a cafe stop on a ride 😆