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Why is it normal/OK to be obese in Ireland?.

Stonedpilot

A genuine question.

The amount of people that are gargantuan on this Island is so high I'm surprised the island doesn't sink. It's seen as like a disease by many. I remember living in a houseshare with Eastern European girls and they often commented at how absurdly fat they thought Irish women are.

It's bizarre to me that in other countries it's seen as a problem and thus people try and sort it but here the people whom are tremendously overweight are seen to have an ailment,disease, are poor unfortunates etc like its the same as leukemia or something.

I remember Katie Hopkins was on the Late Late Show making the point you can't be happy and fat (I don't know I don't care frankly) but they cut to a obese lady in the audience who had only just opened her mouth and the audience were in rapturous applause. No matter what she said they would have clapped.
Katie asked the question 'Why are you clapping?. Are you clapping because she is overweight is that it?.'

That kinda sums up the attitude here. Being fat, unhealthy and obese is something to be proud of and God forbid anyone point out it's lunacy to be the size of a manatee.
Strange. Now I will say I have all the respect in the World for people who do something about it work out, eat healthy, get involved in classes, long walks etc. Fair play to them and well done. But then there are other folk whom see it as a God given right to be obese and to be angry with everyone, and to take up a seat and a half everytime they sit on a plane,bus or train squishing whomever is unfortunately beside them.
Had a few incidents recently where I seen very overweight people be angry with total strangers.

I mean I attended a talk recently and the guy doing it was so overweight he got tired standing up and walking around the lecture room!.

As far as I'm aware no country is as tolerant to obesity as Ireland, no way does France,Italy,Spain etc see it as the norm here.

Odd.

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Stonedpilot

pilly wrote: »

If you don't have a clue you can't go around making sh1t up "pal".

You Can't?. I stand corrected please forgive me.Haha need to take a long hard look at that ego pal!. 2052ac7d59c9a8a88356e4bc60aabdad--false-friends-quotes-being-ignored-quotes.jpg

2052ac7d59c9a8a88356e4bc60aabdad--false-friends-quotes-being-ignored-quotes.jpg

Electric Sheep

Day Lewin wrote: »

Have you ever visited the United States, OP?
They're huge,, they're all huge.
The United Kingdom?
Massive.
Take my word for it - if you travel a bit in those countries, you'd come home to Ireland and find the population pleasantly normal-looking.

In my experience of the US, people in the Northeast and the West Coast tend to have much lower rates of obesity,

There is not one obese person in my workplace at the moment. In the 20 years I have worked here, there has only been one obese person.

When I travel to our Mid Western office, I am always struck when waiting for my flight back in the airport how very very much heavier people are there.

seamus

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Uh-oh, "Socialism" alert!

Let's not forget that US has no socialised health care yet somehow spends more taxpayer money per capita on it than anywhere else.

This is not a financial burdens issue, it's a social burdens issue. Like anything which has significant effects on health - be that obesity, stress, smoking, drinking, reckless driving - there comes with these an enormous burden on society, and an enormous cost to society regardless of whether the state is paying for the person in a hospital bed, or the person is dying in the gutter.

I don't care what people look like, but I do care about their efforts to offload the medical costs of their obesity related illnesses onto others.

Which logically follows that you think fat people should pay more for insurance, or be denied insurance. Which, if followed through, logically allows for coverage to be increased or denied for a whole host of things. Like drinking. Or stress. Or depression. Or post-partum complications.

And one way or another the state will have to shoulder the burden. They will either pay for a hospital bed, or have to deal with people dying in the street of preventable illnesses.

The fantasy that if people have to pay for their own healthcare they'll suddenly become really intelligent and careful, is just that - a fantasy.

If the cost to the state is your concern, then the cheapest option by far for the state is to pump money into fighting obesity on all fronts. Forcing people to shoulder the cost of their own obesity related illnesses will counter-intuitively cost the state a whole lot more.

B.A._Baracus

Could it be that certain people's definition of "fat" is way off?

If you're out and about then just look at the amount of people that pass you who are fat. Most people ain't fat. Some are. Most not.

Having a couple of extra pounds does not make you fat.

topper75

The Irish don't do self-control very well.

The item isn't the issue (fat, carbs, sugar, booze, buy-to-let houses, bets at the bookies).

The issue is the inability to say to themselves "I've probably had enough there now for the moment. Let's leave it there".

MonkieSocks

Sugar, processed food,take aways and microwave meals combined with lack of physical activity is the problem.

Portions should never be more than twice the size of ayour fist.

Watching a good docu on it last night called "Miso Hungry"

Obese guy goes to Japan to try there way of living and eating.

While they were eating healthly, the Japanese put it mainly down to exercise.

Mostly walking almost everywhere they to go.

Permabear

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Hitman3000

Permabear wrote:

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Which demonstrates the necessity of a sugar tax.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Stonedpilot wrote: »

As far as I'm aware no country is as tolerant to obesity as Ireland, no way does France,Italy,Spain etc see it as the norm here.

You're obviously not aware of the socially accepted and, indeed desired, obesity in Palau, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu or Fiji.

And obesity levels in Spain are just slightly above those here.

B0jangles

Permabear wrote: »

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So why has the US got such an obesity problem, given that the majority of people have to pay for their own healthcare? If your theory is correct, wouldn't the majority of the population be as slim and fit as possible to avoid having to pay large premiums, or to avoid being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions?

Sam Quentin

Skinny girls think they're fat,, fat girls think they're skinny and obese girls think they're super models :-)

B0jangles

Sam Quentin wrote: »

Skinny girls think they're fat,, fat girls think they're skinny and obese girls think they're super models :-)

And Sam Quentin thinks he's a comedian.

hytrogen

bluewolf wrote:

I much prefer boiled broccoli to crunchy broccoli. And I'll happily eat a plate of it. There, I said it.

Call Kenny loggins

Hitman3000

Sam Quentin wrote:

Skinny girls think they're fat,, fat girls think they're skinny and obese girls think they're super models :-)

Does this apply to fellas aswell? women don't have a monopoly on obesity.

Cheerful Spring

If you exercised you be slim. The Obese people i have met don't exercise.

Electric Sheep

Hitman3000 wrote: »

Does this apply to fellas aswell? women don't have a monopoly on obesity.

Fat men don't think they are fat. Some men call women that have a lower BMI than they do fat.

I know fat men who say they would not date a fat woman.

Harry Palmr

I remember the 70's/80s we were all skinny feckers in drainpipe denim's.

The Irish have got fat on (relative) success and modern life there is no way around that observation. Far fewer people work in the fields, no child walks far to school, we 'all' sit in front of screens snacking away without a thought. Luckily my metabolism is rampant so I'm still the width I was when a 20 year old but anyone who doesn't burn through carbs is doomed to become a lump unless they live a deliberate and conscientiously healthy lifestyle.

Hitman3000

Cheerful Spring wrote:

If you exercised you be slim. The Obese people i have met don't exercise.

Simplistic statement tbh. I regularly run marathons and you get to know other people who do them regularly aswell. Quite a few if you saw them on the street you would describe as obese.

pjohnson

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

If you exercised you be slim. The Obese people i have met don't exercise.

I think John Hayes was technically Obese but he excercised.

Permabear

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B0jangles

But why is the US nearly the fattest on earth? Surely somewhere like Luxembourg should top that particular list, given that they have excellent and socialized healthcare?

If the cost of healthcare to the individual directly affects the obesity rate, that it.

McCrack

Madam Oblong wrote: »

I never realised obesity only affected Irish women! The men are all in great shape I take it?

Its adds character to a man

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

B0jangles

What is the point of health insurance at all if you have to pay extra for every characteristic that make your care more expensive than someone elses? My understanding of insurance is that the risk, and therefore the cost is spread across the entirety of the customer base so that insurance is affordable to everyone.

At that rate, surely it's be simpler to get rid of the whole system and just charge people for every aspect of treatment they need? A lot of people would just die because they can't afford to pay, but is that very different from the current system?

[Deleted User]

Obesity among under 30s is much less common now than during the 2000s which I think was a peak decade for obesity as diets featuring lots of hyper-pallatable, calorie-dense foods became normalised rather than the treats they were in the 1990s. Prior to the 1990s there was usually some noteworthy reason as to why a person was overweight eg. working in a chipper, genetically very predisposed to it, rich family etc. The increase in awareness of peoples' appearance (their own and others) which followed the coming of social media, particularly since 2011/12 and the coming into common usage of smartphones, led to people being more conscious of avoiding becoming overweight. In 2005 most adults thought very differently about their appearance than they do now, hence the less self-conscious fashions, less aesthetic/fine-tuned haircuts etc. So obesity was more common and tolerated by people in themselves.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

tonycascarino

Feckoffcup wrote: »

Either you go to the gym or you're overweight. That's the way the majority of Irish women. It's rare to see someone who doesn't work out and have a flat tummy especially over 30.

You don't even have to go to the gym. Just go for a walk regularly.

LirW

Permabear wrote: »

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Within a year without a claim of having health insurance my renewal went up 30%. After I got turned down for one query that they should have covered. Needless to say we're not doing business anymore.

Bambi985

Boozing and eating shyte junk food is a big part of Irish culture, and then the weather means we don't have a tendency to be outdoorsy types, and then you add ignorance about how much we actually need to eat and what the right foods to eat are and of course a high percentage of people are either overweight or obese.

A large majority of overweight people I know are perpetually either on or about to start some faddy eat-nothing-but-the-steam-of-your-own-tears diet and constantly joining gyms or exercise programs but never going and it feeds into this starve-binge cycle that fcuks with their metabolisms and leads to a "fcuk it I'll always be fat" mentality and round and round they go.

I can't purport to be a shining beacon of health and fitness, my diet's been atrocious the last while due to stress and circumstances but I'm tiny so I get no abuse, just compliments and comments about how lovely I look despite the fact that they've been some of the worst months of my life. I'm not complaining, it's nice to be complimented but it just shows you how weight is very much a status symbol in western countries and the fatter you are, the less valid or respected a human you are - the less of a "woman" you are to a lot of men, as documented on threads like these. So inevitably there can be some over-protection when it comes to policing the way that we talk to and about overweight people - which can be counter-productive when it means that we're no longer straight-talking about this obesity problem and instead we're dancing around the root causes to prevent against hurting people's feelings.

The majority of people who are overweight are that way because they are eating the wrong foods and too much of them. In Ireland we drink too much and we eat too much starchy, stodgy and sugary foods. As a result most of us are sugar-addicted and/or drinking ferociously unhealthy amounts on a weekly basis, therefore we are fat and getting fatter. That's about the crux of it.

Katgurl

Why did you focus on women in the OP?