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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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Wheeliebin30

Just look at the sheer amount of take away establishments around.

Think of how many you know within 1 mile of your house.

Stonedpilot

Claude Wilton wrote: »

In London some time back some fella thought it was great crack to hand out cards on the Tube to random women of the plus size variety.

At least here if someone tried that stunt on the Dart or Luas they'd get a well-deserved advisory chat. Well, maybe not a chat.

What did the cards say? Get well soon?.

Stonedpilot

mrsdewinter wrote: »

I do think we are too tolerant of obesity but I can't think of instances where it's celebrated in Ireland. I'll be controversial here: I think obesity levels are higher in the west of Ireland, partly because people are so dependent on their cars. There. I said it...

Look at Midday on TV3 any day of the week and you will see bunch of bitter witches sitting around expressing how proud they are to be overweight like its winning olympic gold.
In fact think they are contracted to talk on this and whinge about men only.
Shudders.

Hitman3000

mrsdewinter wrote:

I do think we are too tolerant of obesity but I can't think of instances where it's celebrated in Ireland. I'll be controversial here: I think obesity levels are higher in the west of Ireland, partly because people are so dependent on their cars. There. I said it...

Yeah, you said it now care to back it up with a peer reviewed study or are you just making up stuff like a couple of previous contibuters?

mrsdewinter

Stonedpilot wrote: »

There has been several examples on Irish TV and press where (usually women) in fairness are expressing how proud they are to be overweight. Like the Late Late Show example I gave.

I do think we are too tolerant of obesity but I can't think of instances where it's celebrated in Ireland. I'll be controversial here: I think obesity levels are higher in the west of Ireland, partly because people are so dependent on their cars. There. I said it...

[Deleted User]

I see there's mention of a sugar tax in the indo re budget 2018.
I wonder what the extent of it will be. Just bars and drinks? Cereal and yogurt?

Bigbagofcans

New Look's plus-size range used to be called 'Inspire'.
Inspire what? Inspire women to keep piling on the weight?

Their new plus-size range is now called 'Curves', from size 18-32. :rolleyes:

Claude Wilton

In London some time back some fella thought it was great crack to hand out cards on the Tube to random women of the plus size variety.

At least here if someone tried that stunt on the Dart or Luas they'd get a well-deserved advisory chat. Well, maybe not a chat.

givyjoe

B0jangles wrote: »

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?

For precisely the same reason you are charged more if are driver with penalty points or have had previous accidents.. you would considered a great risk of causing an accident and therefore costing the insurance money to pay out claims.. Obese people are far more unhealthy and likely to develop complications of this, therefore costing the the insurance company more than the average non obese person.

Not sure how or why you think everyone is supposed to pay the same for insurance.. do you think it works that way for home insurance too?

Bambi985

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but I always notice more overweight people when I'm back in Ireland than here in the US, especially kids. Obviously you don't see many hugely obese people in Ireland like here but there seems to be a large number of people ranging from overweight to obese and not many fit and toned looking ones

Yeah that would be my experience too. America is a land of extremes and the level of obesity you'll see on the streets is genuinely shocking at times, but you'll also see plenty of super-toned gym-honed fitness obsessed celebrity look-a-likes power-walking about the place, there's a lot more on both sides of the coin than the few-stone-overweight, beer-bellied middle that seems to predominate in Ireland.

Obviously the US is huge and it entirely depends where you are too, somewhere like NYC or San Fran will have a lot fewer 30-stone bodies walking the streets, I feel distinctly average-sized anytime I'm there as a 110 pound lady whereas back in Ireland I'd be significantly smaller than the majority of women I'd see.

Plant yourself in a smaller town in Mississippi or West Virginia or even a city like Texas and the scale of obesity can be quite shocking, bigger people the likes of which I'd never seen before I set foot in the states.

ceadaoin.

sibergoth wrote: »

have you been to America ?

Maybe it's just me but I always notice more overweight people when I'm back in Ireland than here in the US, especially kids. Obviously you don't see many hugely obese people in Ireland like here but there seems to be a large number of people ranging from overweight to obese and not many fit and toned looking ones

greencap

Stonedpilot wrote: »

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

to catch a cake her mate threw?

Pero_Bueno

Boom_Bap wrote: »

I think a better question is "Why are people obsessed with other people's appearance?"

Because in this case its a dangerous message to send that this is a healthy lifestyle - when it clearly isn't.

No one is saying fat people should be ridiculed, but the PC nonsense that is going on with this "Body positivity" crap.

Stonedpilot

ED E wrote: »

Lived abroad, came back. For the first few weeks I noticed it constantly.

The concept of "fat shaming" needs to be abandoned. If somebody has cancer we pity them, say get well soon. If somebodys fat we say "you be you". No, get healthy soon, thanks, HSE has enough problems as it is.

American on the train the other day literally could not fit down the aisle, how does one get to that point....

How can ya equate being obese to having cancer in any way shape or form?.

ED E

Lived abroad, came back. For the first few weeks I noticed it constantly.

The concept of "fat shaming" needs to be abandoned. If somebody has cancer we pity them, say get well soon. If somebodys fat we say "you be you". No, get healthy soon, thanks, HSE has enough problems as it is.

American on the train the other day literally could not fit down the aisle, how does one get to that point....

Stonedpilot

EndaHonesty wrote: »

"median average" :pac:

Haha yep!.

Im not condemning cos I was podgy once. When I got beer gut and podgy I lost the weight and I was pretty darn lazy at that time.
Point is I find it bizarre some obese people will do nowt about it.

Stonedpilot

Katgurl wrote: »

Why did you focus on women in the OP?

I didnt my former housemates did.

EndaHonesty

"median average" :pac:

LirW

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.

+1
This is exactly it. It's such a taboo to talk about obesity in person to a specific person.
For some reason, people get comments for being really skinny suddenly, smoking a lot, drinking a lot, but never once I've heard someone being asked why they are so fat. I'm not talking about making fun of anyone.
These comments are made when something seems unhealthy to the majority of people but for some reason you just can't say it to a fat person because it can hurt their feelings.
Same people don't seem to care about the feelings of very skinny people, smokers, drinkers or pretty much anything else that's proven to be unhealthy for someone.

Also one thing that I noticed about obese people is that they're using being obese as an excuse or hiding behind it. I experienced it in a way that people have sh1tty behavior but if you call them out you're suddenly mean to them because they're fat and everyone ever has always been like that. Very hard to reason with people like that.

RoisinClare6

wakka12 wrote: »

Plenty of countries, UK canada USa to name a few, are easily as accepting of it.
Who says nobody cares about the obesity in ireland? Id bet my life every single obese person in Ireland has been verybally abused by drunk strangers several times in their life, and I bet many of their friends and family make snide remarks or pokes about their weight or imply mean things.
I used to be obese as a child and people commented on it regularly, men women children young old, everyones thinks its their problem too when youre fat. And they arent nice about it, make no mistake

Very true. My own mother told me as a teenager that no one would love me Because I'm fat. Also had a great aunt who told me I looked like my mother's sister because I had a double chin, I think I was 10/11 at the time

Katgurl

Why did you focus on women in the OP?

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.

LirW

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

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.

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.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

[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.

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?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

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

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.