Are Irish people getting fatter?

ian_m

Studies around the western world show obesity on the increase. Do you think this is the case in Ireland?

EdgarAllenPoo

Simple answer - YES. When I was a kid which isn't that long ago going to Burger King or McDonalds wasn't a daily occurance as it seems to be now.

I suppose it also has to do with the fact that people want value for money - why have the medium when the large is just a few cent more.

We are becoming more and more like America all the time.

King of Kings

no they're not. it's all media crap aimed at scaring us into thinking the world is ending.
fat people are getting fatter but look around your office. the regular sized people are stay - well regular.

How Strange

Definitely. Go on holidays to France, Italy, Spain and when you come home what do you notice? That the Irish people are fatter than their European counterparts. We are too reliant on convenience food and the result is a hug belly and love handles sticking out over trousers and thunder thighs flapping off each other.

rubadub

King of Kings wrote:

no they're not. it's all media crap aimed at scaring us into thinking the world is ending.
fat people are getting fatter but look around your office. the regular sized people are stay - well regular.

There are figures you could look at, like dress/clothes sizes. Dress sizes get bigger all the time, i.e. a size 16 in the 60's might now be a size 12 or 14. I still have to lose some weight yet am finding that the small size is the one that fits best.

I see relatively few children walking/cycling to school these days compared to when I went.

I notice far more mates getting way fatter, who in their teens & early 20's were very active sports wise (thought that probably happens everywhere).

The media does love all this crap though. And of course they probably use BMI's too, and there is probably far more muscle on the average person now than in the 50's.

Waist size sold in shops is probably the best way to go, although it also can vary, i.e. I am about 33", yet can fit in 30" jeans.

transylman

I was told by a friend a while ago that the Irish do the same amount of physical activity as Americans. The only difference was that we ate a lot less. Obviously this is now changing with more money being spent on fast food and you can expect obesity levels to reach the same figures as in america :eek: .

rubadub

transylman wrote:

The only difference was that we ate a lot less.

I think we were second highest in the EU for calorie intake, average was 4000kcal if I remember. There might be more in gyms nowadays, but for every person in a gym there is another buying up the entire eurosaver menu and drinking crates of 1euro beers.

And the average was 4000kcal, so for every 2000kcal person there might be a 6000kcal person

EdgarAllenPoo

If I ate 4000kcal worth of food every day I'd be huge. I'm not majorly active at the moment but I eat very little. I think it's about 1200-1300kcal a day.

CerebralCortex

What I can't get over, when I go out, is how high the body fat % of girls are even the thin ones. Don't know what the reason for that is, but I think in Ireland it has to do with, not volumes of food eaten, but attitude to exercise and healthy eating. IMO it goes for both men and women.

nesf

GDM wrote:

If I ate 4000kcal worth of food every day I'd be huge. I'm not majorly active at the moment but I eat very little. I think it's about 1200-1300kcal a day.

I think the average is strongly adjusted upwards due to alcohol consumption on weekends plus the junk food afterwards. I could easily add 2,500 calories to my intake on a night out between pints, shots, kebab etc. It'd be rare for me but I know a few people who would do that every weekend at least once if not twice.


To answer the original question, I think in adults purely anecdotally from looking around that there are more overweight people but obese people are still unusual enough. Morbidy obese people are very rare. It hasn't really changed that much in my generation at least imho. It's the kids running around that puts a chill down my spine, the amount of really heavy children is definitely much higher than when I was young.

estariol

I'll second the apparently thin girls with high bf, you notice it when they strut around in cropped tops, when static or looking in a mirror they prob cant see it but once they are moving!!! eugh.

And I'd believe the 4000 cal a day intake I'd imagine mines is about the same if not more, it's easy when you have a 4-5 pints 4-5 nights a week with food on the way home!

Khannie

nesf wrote:

It's the kids running around that puts a chill down my spine, the amount of really heavy children is definitely much higher than when I was young.

QFT.

My sons school has a "no running in the yard" policy. Does my head in.

rubadub

nesf wrote:

It's the kids running around that puts a chill down my spine,.

More like the kids NOT running around.

I checked online and saw 3500kcal quoted by concern, might have been some years ago.

If I ate 4000kcal worth of food every day I'd be huge.

It sounds a lot, but once you are fat you have increased your metabolism a lot, 4000kcal just becomes maintenance amounts.

adjusted upwards due to alcohol consumption

True, and as studies and my own experience has shown, calories from alcohol are over-rated, i.e. 3500kcal from alcohol will not put 1lb of fat on the average person.

MisterAnarchy

Not only are people geting fatter they are getting haggard and worn looking alot earlier in life.
Alot of my friends are in their late twenties yet look about 40.
Their disregard for their figure is alarming.

estariol

rubadub wrote:

More like the kids NOT running around.

I checked online and saw 3500kcal quoted by concern, might have been some years ago.


It sounds a lot, but once you are fat you have increased your metabolism a lot, 4000kcal just becomes maintenance amounts.

explain???

True, and as studies and my own experience has shown, calories from alcohol are over-rated, i.e. 3500kcal from alcohol will not put 1lb of fat on the average person.

Yeah, but it's not the alcohol that contains the fat its the rest of the diet and the kebab on the way home

nesf

rubadub wrote:

More like the kids NOT running around.

I checked online and saw 3500kcal quoted by concern, might have been some years ago.

Well, when I said run I really meant waddle...

Hanley

CerebralCortex wrote:

What I can't get over, when I go out, is how high the body fat % of girls are even the thin ones. Don't know what the reason for that is, but I think in Ireland it has to do with, not volumes of food eaten, but attitude to exercise and healthy eating. IMO it goes for both men and women.

That's a great point. THere's so many skinny fat people around today.

Another thing that I think causes it is we don't have a beach culture here. Look at europe.... great weather and lots of beaches. Both girls and guys would probably be more aware of their appearance knowing that they're going to spend a goood 3 to 4 months of the year strutting around in bikinis and shorts... The girls and guys here can jsut cover up and not have to worry about it!

ali.c

rubadub wrote:

There are figures you could look at, like dress/clothes sizes. Dress sizes get bigger all the time, i.e. a size 16 in the 60's might now be a size 12 or 14. I still have to lose some weight yet am finding that the small size is the one that fits best.

I am not sure the shift has been that great, certainly not across all brands. but i think marliyn monroe the poster girl for cury women would be a size 12 in todays measurements. i remember reading somewhere about the whole quest for size zero and it said that fundamentally most irish women do not have the bone frame that would allow them to be a size zero.

I dont think its dress size thats important tbh, there are women who are toned size 10, 12, 14 its not really a reflection of overweight or not. Equally there are large chested but skinny girls who have to go up a size or two and get the rest of the dress/top adjusted.

This is all a bit of an aside though, yes Ireland as a nation is getting fatter, but i see it more reflected in the rise of childhood obesity than in the adult population.

I remember being a lot young say 8/9 (early 90's) or so and seeing girls around my age now and thinking wow they got to the "fat" age. So larger people and all the rest did exist back then but not one person in my school was obese. Now it seems that there are more and more obese children waddling around

AudioMove

Thw whole drinkin/kebab saturday nite that puts on all the weight is bollox. Many gym instructers will tell you to have at least 1 free day during the week where you dont have to watch every gram of food and the numbers on the back of the pack.

I do beleave we are more overwight than before but so am I, but at least I'm doing something about it. I still think their are planty of thin people around and its exagerated a little too much by the media.

pwd

In the last place I worked nearly everybody who had been in the department more than a short time was obviously overweight - and one of the two exceptions was almost definitely anorexic.
Long commutes and long hours in an office make people tired without any physical exercise being done.
Lack of time and boredom make people more likely to eat lots of junk food.
It will filter down to the children too.
The increasingly corporate materialistic culture has a lot to do with this phenomenon.
So I agree we are becoming more american.

Hanley

AudioMove wrote:

Thw whole drinkin/kebab saturday nite that puts on all the weight is bollox. Many gym instructers will tell you to have at least 1 free day during the week where you dont have to watch every gram of food and the numbers on the back of the pack.

Ummm no. It's not "bollox".

Would it be totally ok to have one day where you consume like 5000kcals in about 4-5 hours on top of your normal eating for the day too. Sure what's 7000kcals gonna do to you when it comes to putting on weight anyway.

Not watching every gram of food and binging like a maniac because you have a free day is NOT the same thing.

nesf

Hanley wrote:

Not watching every gram of food and binging like a maniac because you have a free day is NOT the same thing.

QFT. Regardless of your level this is something you need to get into your head imho.

cowzerp

AudioMove wrote:

Thw whole drinkin/kebab saturday nite that puts on all the weight is bollox. Many gym instructers will tell you to have at least 1 free day during the week where you dont have to watch every gram of food and the numbers on the back of the pack.

I do beleave we are more overwight than before but so am I, but at least I'm doing something about it. I still think their are planty of thin people around and its exagerated a little too much by the media.

im a personal trainer and can tell you straight out that people are getting fatter-the 1 free day your talking about is the free day that stops people getting in shape-in my experience people struggle to lose weight while boozing, and this is down to the excessive calories that all turn to fat.

Hanley

nesf wrote:

QFT. Regardless of your level this is something you need to get into your head imho.

Me specifically?

ANyway I have this really simple theory when it comes to how I eat... I train very ****ing hard. And right now I'm pushing as hard as ever. Double sessions, 3+ hours a day etc. I NEED the kcals to support this. I don't care where they come from. If I'm not eating enough, I'm not able to recover. If I can't recover, I can't train as hard as I want to. If I can't do that then I might as well not train at all. /tangent

rubadub

ali.c wrote:

I am not sure the shift has been that great, certainly not across all brands. but i think marliyn monroe the poster girl for cury women would be a size 12 in todays measurements....
This is all a bit of an aside though

There was a thread a while back about this, I think MM was a size 16 in her day, which I think is a UK size 18 (yet size 12 today). I dont think it is an aside since many people will judge there size by dress/clothes size. It makes perfect sense for companies to drop sizes constantly, people will conciously or subconciously go for the smaller brand, eventually the size gets copied by others and they all drop. I cannot see any reason a brand would go up in size.

i.e. woman goes in to get her usual size 12 levis jeans, now discovers she needs size 14, could subconciously go for another brand where she fits into a size 12 still, or better yet, goes into a brand which she fits in a size 10. As I said I fit in 30" waist levis, yet am around 33". Makes people feel good. I shoudl be a medium in my mind, but small fits better. Large is really extra large now.

I am really just saying if you do not believe the media then actual sales figures might show the truth. Womens bra sizes are going up over the years, some make it out as though boobs are getting bigger (more developed), but it is really more overweight women causing fatter boobs.

BMI is not a good figure, measurement ratios are better, and clothes sizes show this better- though as mentioned a sales figure of 30" jeans does not reflect people with 30" waists. And with sizes dropping it is hard to compare average sizes from now to 10-20 years ago.

EDIT: just found the term "vanity sizing"- great name!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_sizing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_standard_clothing_size

At least something is being done
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EN_13402

nesf

Hanley wrote:

Me specifically?

Nah, I was more trying to get at this is something that people at low levels with modest goals need to think about. A lot of fitness stuff (like very strict diets) only become necessary at low body fat percentages or when you've progressed a fair bit into weightlifting etc.

Hanley wrote:

ANyway I have this really simple theory when it comes to how I eat... I train very ****ing hard. And right now I'm pushing as hard as ever. Double sessions, 3+ hours a day etc. I NEED the kcals to support this. I don't care where they come from. If I'm not eating enough, I'm not able to recover. If I can't recover, I can't train as hard as I want to. If I can't do that then I might as well not train at all. /tangent

Well, to an extent that's true but if you weren't having the chicken fillet in the morning etc it'd affect your gains. You can train off a lot of stuff if you train very hard but building muscle with a low protein intake isn't so doable.

ali.c

rubadub wrote:

There was a thread a while back about this, I think MM was a size 16 in her day, which I think is a UK size 18 (yet size 12 today). I dont think it is an aside since many people will judge there size by dress/clothes size. It makes perfect sense for companies to drop sizes constantly, people will conciously or subconciously go for the smaller brand, eventually the size gets copied by others and they all drop. I cannot see any reason a brand would go up in size.

But but, ..... nah i dont know that much about it so i went to look it up, apparantely her hips were 35-37 inches which hips wise would put her in a size 10-12 US (Size frame) which is (14-16) in the British measurements. But her waist was tiny 22 inches in comparision. No idea how good the source is, but it definately mentioned that clothes has changed not only in size but in shape too. http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.asp

Its not what you are saying is invalid, but by that reckoning a size 8 today would of been a size 12 back in the day so it IMHO it hasnt gone up proportionally across all dress sizes.

Speaking from personal experience, i could go into a shop and try on 2 identical pairs of size 12 jeans, they have in the past not been identical sizes, even though they were the same size. I do definately agreee with you that waist and hip ratios are a good indication. Though this ratio is not reflected in womens clothes sizes. I know people with larger hips who cant get jeans to fit as their waist is too small. Equally Breast size and hip size are not always proportional either.

The FitnessDock

AudioMove wrote:

Thw whole drinkin/kebab saturday nite that puts on all the weight is bollox. Many gym instructers will tell you to have at least 1 free day during the week where you dont have to watch every gram of food and the numbers on the back of the pack.

It's not just ONE day though, is it? You're very unlikely to get back on track right away the very next day. You may wake with a hangover and your sleep pattern (its quality) will be severely affected.

When instructors recommend one FREE day per week, it's usually as a means of relieving the diet mentality of "being good". I remember Dorian Yates used to treat himself to a ice-cream once a week, even when preparing for a contest. He'd then get in the gym the next day and train like a maniac!

PAUL

lizzyvera

I would definitely agree with the jeans size thing- Topshop's smallest jean size claims to be 25" but it's just right on me and I'd call myself a size 8 or 10 sometimes.
I'm guessing that since jeans are worn lower now, they just have to estimate what size hips someone with a 26" waist would have, and hips can be anywhere between 5" and 15" bigger than your waist.


Maybe the flab you're talking about on thin girls is loose skin. It's very stretchy and pinchable stuff, sometimes with horizontal lines through it under the belly and on the inner thighs. Do men not get this when they lose weight?!

smellslikeshoes

estariol wrote:

Yeah, but it's not the alcohol that contains the fat its the rest of the diet and the kebab on the way home

Rubbish, beer has a huge amount of calories, Its not the fat in food that makes you fat its the amount of calories taken in versus the amount used by the body.
But saying that the kebab would have a decent amount of calories too.