Have we become a nation of fat overweight drunks?

kjl

Now I'm not a fat hater, but has anyone noticed that everyone seems to be overweight now. Every time I go out all I see is parades of fat horrible looking women and men. Maybe it's always been like this, and when I was younger people seemed skinner because they didn't have 10 years of drinking and eating shít under their belt.

I am normal weight, and some girl had the audacity to tell me I was too thin, yeah only because she was the same weight as an elephant.

Any fattys out there want to comment on why you let yourself get like this?

<Im sure someone will coment "here we go again" but it needs to be discused>

monosharp

Because there's f-all to do except wait for your dole and eat crap all day ?

x PyRo

No.

/thread.

bobblepuzzle

kjl wrote: »

Any fattys out there want to comment on why you let yourself get like this?

<Im sure someone will coment "here we go again" but it needs to be discused>

Addressing people like that is an absolute disgrace and you should be ashamed of yourself, and you will hardly get any response from "fattys"...

And yes, it needs to be discussed but not like that...

Good day to you sir!

syklops

kjl wrote: »

Any fattys out there want to comment on why you let yourself get like this?

<Im sure someone will coment "here we go again" but it needs to be discused>

Im a fattie, but I dont wish to comment.

lemonjelly

We are not a nation of fatty drunks. All lot of people are but no more than most other countries.

We have just gone towards the apathy drunk route a bit lately,well since about 1200 bc. and that R word has people getting alcho and fatter by the day. No worries it will pass in time. we will get our jobs back and then complain when we don't have enough time time off work again

Mister men

No. Now go away whilst i finish my big mac and beer.

Brendog

drunks - yes

fat overweight - sentence fragment



your argument is invalid

Ash.J.Williams

I did think that years ago but i think we are over the worst of it. Although we pale in comarison to many euro countries and the aussies. For many in ireland sport stops after school/college. This has to change and to be honest people would be a lot happier too.

Yakult

Most people I know who are drunk alot are skinny.

Poor guys dont have any dole money left to buy food.

danniemcq

fat drunks?

hardly, i'm a skinny fecker

bman

lemonjelly wrote: »

We are not a nation of fatty drunks. All lot of people are but no more than most other countries.

Depends on what countries you're talking about. If the US, then yeah, we fair well in comparison. About the same as Oz and England. If you're talking about most continental European, Asian or South American countries then I think we fair very badly.

Overall though I think the bigger problem is actually lack of fitness rather than obesity.

4zn76tysfajdxp

No, we're skinny overweight drunks.

listermint

Speak for yourself !

Im toight

bonerm

I'd say there's some truth to it. I was in America about 10 years ago and was shocked to see how many fat (I'm talking your comedy huuuuugggge fat) people there were walking around the cities. I think the reason for my shock was we didn't have any (or at least many) of this bracket in Ireland the time. Obviously back then you'd have people in Ireland who were overweight, but this image of people practically about to explode out of their skin just didn't exist.

Fast-forward 10 years and you can see plenty of these people on our streets who'd give the Yanks a run for their money. I don't know why this is (my own personal suspicion is it's something to do with food content/quality - rather than actual quantity) but there's defo been a change in the last decade.

starbelgrade

So OP, you say that you're not a "fat hater", yet you refer to others as "fat horrible looking men & women", refer to someone as being "the same weight as an elephant" & refer to overweight people as "fattys".

It sounds to me like you are trying to have your cake & eat it.

Lando Griffin

I did a quick survay in my company, and out of 80 people there are only 2 people struggling with their weight. And they are not really struggling one just eats alot of sweets and chocolate and the other drinks alot of beer hence he has a fine bear belly.
Out of the 80 people, 80 come to work every day sober, except for about the same 10-15 people who might be a bit worse for wear on a Monday morning.
I myself am narrow and dont drink so often now I have parential duties to attend to, so OP no we are not a nation of fat drunks.

vard

I've read that we have the highest calorie consumption in the world.

we've always been a nation of drunks though.

4zn76tysfajdxp

bonerm wrote: »

Fast-forward 10 years and you can see plenty of these people on our streets who'd give the Yanks a run for their money.

I wouldn't've thought any of these people would be running anywhere, tbh.

Definitely a nation of drunks.. There's a few people i'm good friends with and i'd rarely meet them without alcohol being involved.

As far as weight goes, we are a bit.. Takeaways and breakfast rolls playing a big part.

PeterIanStaker

Gotta love all the guilt, I love the "we" part.

Times like this I'm glad I'm not a part of society.

Minstrel27

I don't drink much anymore.

PeterIanStaker

PeterIanStaker wrote: »

Times like this I'm glad I'm not a part of society.

Hmm?

fakearms123

Fat people are annoying... oh wait sorry wrong thread.. :rolleyes:

Banned Account

Seriously - who actually gives a flying fúck? Other peoples weight is none of my business and really doesn't concern me. I can't understand people who get annoyed by this - it's like moaning that someone is unattractive.

None of anyone elses's god damned business and I'm really saddened by the fact that some people are so deeply unhappy with themselves that they need to turn to other people's issues to make them feel better about themselves.

Grow the fcuk up - seriously.

PeterIanStaker

Deleted User wrote: »

Hmm?

tis called cynicism, which you rarely see in AH. .

Banned Account

PeterIanStaker wrote: »

tis called cynicism, which you rarely see in AH. .

I see what you did there

Sykk

OP got turned down by a drunk fatty!

hinault

I have a theory about this (which is probably a bit too serious for AH).

We had rationing in this country well in to the 1950's.
I can't recall ever seeing overweight adults from my younger days (1970/80's).
I see my father and mother and they're still trim and fit looking and they're in their 70's.

Whereas I see lot of young adults and teens today who are definitely overweight.

from a health perspective such obesity is a medical timebomb.

syklops

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

I did think that years ago but i think we are over the worst of it. Although we pale in comarison to many euro countries and the aussies. For many in ireland sport stops after school/college. This has to change and to be honest people would be a lot happier too.

Is the weather not a contributing factor as well? Unlike many European countries and Australia, it rains 11 and a half months of the year here. Hardly conducive to an active lifestyle.

Your point that sports stops around 20 is also very valid.

hinault

syklops wrote: »

Is the weather not a contributing factor as well? Unlike many European countries and Australia, it rains 11 and a half months of the year here. Hardly conducive to an active lifestyle.

Your point that sports stops around 20 is also very valid.

It's been raining here for 11 months of the year for centuries.

bad weather isn't the reason for obesity.

Banned Account

I wonder how many of the "anti-fat brigade" would be willing to post on Know Your Nerd's for us to judge them?

mikom

kjl wrote: »

<Im sure someone will coment "here we go again" but it needs to be discused>

Nah, I was just gonna pick apart your spelling of "discussed".

fakearms123

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

I wonder how many of the "anti-fat brigade" would be willing to post on Know Your Nerd's for us to judge them?

Just because you were chiseled like a Greek God, yeah I saw your picture, doesn't mean the rest of us go around being all Brad Depp and Johnny Clooney all over the place!

syklops

hinault wrote: »

It's been raining here for 11 months of the year for centuries.

bad weather isn't the reason for obesity.

I didnt say it was a reason I said it was a contributing factor.

mickydoomsux

syklops wrote: »

... it rains 11 and a half months of the year here....

Why do people say that? In reality it doesn't rain here that much at all.

But yeah, Irish people are getting fatter and the culture of drunkeness is getting out of hand. Irish people can't enjoy themselves without drink and it's seen by most to be a good time if you get absolutely fall-down embarrassingly drunk.

We have a terrible attitude to drinking and it's only getting worse with the younger folk.

Banned Account

fakearms123 wrote: »

Just because you were chiseled like a Greek God, yeah I saw your picture, doesn't mean the rest of us go around being all Brad Depp and Johnny Clooney all over the place!

I suppose my point was just that we are all far from perfect yet some think it's ok to take pot shots from the long grass without being willing to be held up for judgement themselves.

Personally I really couldn't give a rats ass about looks - we are who wer are can we not just get on with things?

starbelgrade

hinault wrote: »

I have a theory about this (which is probably a bit too serious for AH).

We had rationing in this country well in to the 1950's.
I can't recall ever seeing overweight adults from my younger days (1970/80's).
I see my father and mother and they're still trim and fit looking and they're in their 70's.

Whereas I see lot of young adults and teens today who are definitely overweight.

from a health perspective such obesity is a medical timebomb.

This has a lot to do with the food production processes involved in modern society.

20 years ago, food was supplied directly by (usually) small farms to to the consumer or via local shops. Only food that was in season could be produced & sold and there was no such thing as "food processing" or "food engineering".

Fast forward to today - where farms are mostly run like factories - and the large food processing giants & supermarkets control the markets, almost entirely. Additives, genetically modified crops, processed foods, engineered foods (for both human consumption & animal feed) and even animal cloning, are the order of the day.

The food we eat today is vastly different from what our predecessors ate & it is a lot less healthy than it used to be - even if you go for the healthier choices.

Obesity & diabetes are two of the biggest problems which will future generations will face - not just in the USA, though they are the leaders in this respect.

The only real solution to this, is to source locally grown, seasonal & fresh foods, but as price & availabilty are the two major factors that often prevent this, it is hard to see how we can win the battle against the food giants, who are slowly but surely endangering the health of us all.

jackiebaron

When I return to Ireland (usually at chrimbo) I do notice that a lot of the lads down the pub are bloated, corpulent, red-faced, double-chinned blimps. And these are YOUNG lads in their mid twenties or early thirties. I would expect to see these characteristics on someone who's been on the piss for 30 year but not these young lads.

I do also notice walking around O'Connell street, everyone seems to be coming out of a shop/eatery stuffing their faces with some kind of sandwich/burger/kebab whatever.

I think people eat a lot more crap now than they used to. Back in the 80's, eating at McDonald's or Burger King or the local chipper were considered luxuries. After playing football in the park all day you went home for your dinner at 6pm which was invariably bacon, cabbage, spuds, a plate of stew, shepherd's pie, chops and peas and spuds, maybe a few rashers and tomatoes and bread and tea, whatever. And this dinner or "tea" if you want to call it that was never washed down with Coke or Fanta. A glass of cold milk and that was it.
Breakfast was simply cornflakes or porridge followed by tea and toast/marmalade. Lunch could be anything..beans on toast, a salad, sandwiches and tea. And usually there were apples, oranges and bananas in a bowl for grazing between meals.

Today people eat a lot more processed food and takeaways. They eat a lot more microwaveable stuff and they drink a lot more sugary drinks.
I can't really say if people drink more now. People were pissheads when I was a teenager and they still are. I think the only difference I see in social behaviour is that girls are more sexually aggressive now than when I was a lad (dammit!).
But yeah, to answer your question, I certainly observe people are getting larger.

mikom

jackiebaron wrote: »

When I return to Ireland (usually at chrimbo) I do notice that a lot of the lads down the pub are bloated, corpulent, red-faced, double-chinned blimps..

When I return to Ireland (usually at chrimbo) I do notice that a lot of the lads down the gym are slim, svelte, well-tanned, chisel jawed hunks..

piby

starbelgrade wrote: »

This has a lot to do with the food production processes involved in modern society.

20 years ago, food was supplied directly by (usually) small farms to to the consumer or via local shops. Only food that was in season could be produced & sold and there was no such thing as "food processing" or "food engineering".

Fast forward to today - where farms are mostly run like factories - and the large food processing giants & supermarkets control the markets, almost entirely. Additives, genetically modified crops, processed foods, engineered foods (for both human consumption & animal feed) and even animal cloning, are the order of the day.

The food we eat today is vastly different from what our predecessors ate & it is a lot less healthy than it used to be - even if you go for the healthier choices.

Obesity & diabetes are two of the biggest problems which will future generations will face - not just in the USA, though they are the leaders in this respect.

Believe it or not but France is set to overtake the USA in the obesity stakes in the next decade!

The only real solution to this, is to source locally grown, seasonal & fresh foods, but as price & availabilty are the two major factors that often prevent this, it is hard to see how we can win the battle against the food giants, who are slowly but surely endangering the health of us all.

I think this is certainly a contributing factor. It really comes down to the change in lifestyle that has occured over the last few decades. We have more food available, at cheaper prices and quite frankly there's just so much **** in it. In terms of evolution we are programmed to eat as much as we can when we can. But this system developed at a time when food was scarce and we were on the move a lot. Now food is at such constant proximty that we can have it whenever we want. Further our bodies aren't designed to take all the **** in modern food (1970's onwards) and that's why its often stored as fat.

The other thing is that I found a lot of people I know got quite unhealthy in college. Four years of drinking and eating take aways will have an effect and it also sets a precedent for later life. I know many lads who were shredded during school and early college who thought that they could negate all the damage by working out regularly. That attitude works when you're 18 but once you start getting older and you're metabolism slows that becomes harder. Finally as has been pointed out a lot of people give up sport in their early 20's which doesn't help either.

We'll always be a bunch of drunks though

Dudess

kjl wrote: »

has anyone noticed that everyone seems to be overweight now.

No?

bonerm wrote: »

I'd say there's some truth to it. I was in America about 10 years ago and was shocked to see how many fat (I'm talking your comedy huuuuugggge fat) people there were walking around the cities. I think the reason for my shock was we didn't have any (or at least many) of this bracket in Ireland the time. Obviously back then you'd have people in Ireland who were overweight, but this image of people practically about to explode out of their skin just didn't exist.

Fast-forward 10 years and you can see plenty of these people on our streets who'd give the Yanks a run for their money. I don't know why this is (my own personal suspicion is it's something to do with food content/quality - rather than actual quantity) but there's defo been a change in the last decade.

Overweight is certainly on the increase here, but mostly just chubbiness - the claims of widespread whale-like morbid obesity comparable to America are just not true. It may not be unusual to see a e.g. size 18 woman or a man with a large beer gut, but a massively overweight person is still an unusual thing to see, if not impossible. It's not good that overweight is on the rise though, and while morbid obesity might not be a common sight now, if the pattern continues, it very well could be down the line.

vard wrote: »

I've read that we have the highest calorie consumption in the world.

I don't understand how that is actually possible considering the States.

jackiebaron

mikom wrote: »

When I return to Ireland (usually at chrimbo) I do notice that a lot of the lads down the gym are slim, svelte, well-tanned, chisel jawed hunks..

Don't get their muscles from real work or sports then? And don't get their tans from the blazing sun of the Irish Riviera...Carribean or Far East more likely. Of course these rich hunks can probably afford to pay 35 euros for an organic cornish hen for linch as well. Rich people were only fat in the past.

piby

Dudess wrote: »

I don't understand how that is actually possible considering the States.

This is something I just found after a quick search although it's stats for the mid 1980's!!!

http://www.newint.org/issue151/facts.htm

Either way I have read that we're still very close to the top and with the improvement in personal finance that came in the 1990's I can't see it as having gone down.

jackiebaron

Dudess wrote: »

No?

Overweight is certainly on the increase here, but mostly just chubbiness - the claims of widespread whale-like morbid obesity comparable to America are just not true. It may not be unusual to see a e.g. size 18 woman or a man with a large beer gut, but a massively overweight person is still an unusual thing to see, if not impossible. It's not good that overweight is on the rise though, and while morbid obesity might not be a common sight now, if the pattern continues, it very well could be down the line.

I don't understand how that is actually possible considering the States.

Think statistics, think averages, think per capita. The Americans probably are the fattest people on Earth, but for every morbidly obese person there you've got a kid in Mississippi living below the poverty line and probably eating once a day. In Ireland our fat people are nowhere near the like of the Americans but our calorie intake per perosn could still be higher because we probably don't have the proportion of people living below the bread line or in abject poverty and hunger that exist in the US.

mikom

mikom wrote: »

When I return to Ireland (usually at chrimbo) I do notice that a lot of the lads down the gym are slim, svelte, well-tanned, chisel jawed hunks..

jackiebaron wrote: »

Don't get their muscles from real work or sports then? And don't get their tans from the blazing sun of the Irish Riviera...Carribean or Far East more likely. Of course these rich hunks can probably afford to pay 35 euros for an organic cornish hen for linch as well. Rich people were only fat in the past.

What I meant was that if you look down a rabbit hole expect to see rabbits............ look down a fox hole expect to see foxes.

rossie1977

syklops wrote: »

Is the weather not a contributing factor as well? Unlike many European countries and Australia, it rains 11 and a half months of the year here. Hardly conducive to an active lifestyle.

nah, rains more in western norway than here and i didn't see any overweight locals there

Dudess

jackiebaron wrote: »

Think statistics, think averages, think per capita. The Americans probably are the fattest people on Earth, but for every morbidly obese person there you've got a kid in Mississippi living below the poverty line and probably eating once a day. In Ireland our fat people are nowhere near the like of the Americans but our calorie intake per perosn could still be higher because we probably don't have the proportion of people living below the bread line or in abject poverty and hunger that exist in the US.

There was a series on BBC recently examining the obesity crisis in the slums of Buenos Aires, and the aforementioned Mississippi, one of America's most impoverished states yet also America's fattest state - bizarre. And then you've got wealthy places like Beverly Hills where it's the norm to be rake-thin. Interesting inversion.

Super-Rush

Ènough is enough is enough.