Irish men rank first in Europe for BMI

osarusan · 01-04-2016 11:48AM

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Fair play.

livedadream · 01-04-2016 11:49AM

osarusan wrote: »

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Fair play.

thanks im one of those super annoying people now that run 5ks and expect all my friends to like the photos of my salad or aubergine pizza on facebook hahahaa

it was hard, it was the hardest thing ill ever do BUT dying before your 30 is properly a bit **** so i figured it would be a good time to start.

Zillah · 01-04-2016 11:55AM

ken wrote: »

I'd rather die fat and happy rather than skinny and miserable.

Fat people don't die happy, they die wheezing after decades of pain and immobility, where they struggle to enjoy the normal joys of day-to-day life. I've heard people say life is too short for eating a healthy diet and exercising.

Life is too short to waste it away in an overweight body.

MightyMandarin wrote: »

It's 100% down to our traditonal diet and lack of people playing sport past their 20's and 30's.

Absolutely nothing traditional about the about of sugar and fast food we're eating.

Irishcrx · 01-04-2016 12:02PM

Broken Hearted Road wrote: »

I think something else that plays a part is a long, busy and hectic schedule.

I've been on the big size since my teens. I was a size 14 to 16 in secondary school. I'm now a size 20. So what changed for me? Work. I'm on the go from early morning til late evening and I'd be lucky if I'd be home at 8pm. When you're in home so late there's little time to yourself before before you fall into bed to do it all over again the next day. Weekends then are catching up with jobs around the house that should have been done all week. And that's weekends when I'm free. Some weekend I work.

I have an aunt who is obese too and she has similar busy and hectic schedule all week long.

A grocery shop for me, doesn't contain junk except for white bread for toast and sandwiches. Fast food and take away - I never go there. A lot of my diet consists of eggs - for breakfast and it's great for dinner too - like scrambled eggs for dinner. That's if I'm not too tired for dinner. There's definitely room for improvement in my diet like I enjoy a can of coke a day for a boost.

Honestly though , and I'm not trying to be harsh but a hectic lifestyle and schedule are not an excuse for over eating. I don't get that in the slightest.

It could be used as an excuse for under eating as in you don't have as much time to sit down and eat food during the day so you may miss meals and instead have a coffee or something , but how does it excuse over eating??

FTA69 · 01-04-2016 12:08PM

Broken Hearted Road wrote: »

The average work day can be anything from 8 to 12 hours a day but sometimes it can go over and have weekends thrown into the mix too. A few weeks ago there was one night when I didn't finish up til 10.30 at night and that's in work since morning and another night not finishing up until after 9pm.

Get back to me next time you work 3 weeks solid with 8 to 13/14 hours a day and let me know how you get on. You won't be bouncing around with energy that's for sure.

It's difficult no doubt. The biggest factor in you losing weight will be your diet and what you eat and you can control that more than you think. It's easy to subsist off sandwiches, snacks and other sh*te but this will simply lead to slow, incremental fat gain. Educating yourself about what is genuinely healthy and beneficial is a step you need to take and implementing it is even harder again. Preparation is absolutely key and I find batch-making healthy foods and bringing them in to work in Tupperware will save you making bad decisions on the hop when you're busy and hungry. Consistently making good decisions is the basis of losing weight in my opinion.

If you can set aside a few times a week to get some training in at the gym featuring resistance exercises and a bit of cardio that isn't intensive on your joints you'll fly it.

You're right though, when you're balled under in work things such as losing weight etc aren't nearly as easy as people are making it out to be.

livedadream · 01-04-2016 12:08PM

Irishcrx wrote: »

Honestly though , and I'm not trying to be harsh but a hectic lifestyle and schedule are not an excuse for over eating. I don't get that in the slightest.

It could be used as an excuse for under eating as in you don't have as much time to sit down and eat food during the day so you may miss meals and instead have a coffee or something , but how does it excuse over eating??

i agree about the schedule but to be fair she may not be overeating, we are all assuming she is over eating,she may not be gaining weight, she might just not be losing it.

if you have gained weight and are then trying to be more concious of your eating you might just not have a deficit of calories, therefore stay the same size.

she never said he was gaining or over eating, so lets not jump to conclusions.

Irishcrx · 01-04-2016 12:15PM

livedadream wrote: »

i agree about the schedule but to be fair she may not be overeating, we are all assuming she is over eating,she may not be gaining weight, she might just not be losing it.

if you have gained weight and are then trying to be more concious of your eating you might just not have a deficit of calories, therefore stay the same size.

she never said he was gaining or over eating, so lets not jump to conclusions.

No but I'd have to assume that at that size maintenance calories even would be high enough , so that alone would constitute a fair crack of eating throughout the day...

Elemonator · 01-04-2016 12:15PM

We won something? Can we have a medal?

rubadub · 01-04-2016 12:25PM

Zillah wrote: »

Fat people don't die happy, they die wheezing after decades of pain and immobility, where they struggle to enjoy the normal joys of day-to-day life. I've heard people say life is too short for eating a healthy diet and exercising.

Life is too short to waste it away in an overweight body.

I know plenty of obese people who are prefectly mobile and take part in sports and have no problem with day to day life.

A 5'10" man at 15 stone is obese, google says the average height of Irish men is 5'7", it is 13stone 8lb to be obese at that height, others say 5'9". When people hear "obese" many picture some lad from US tv shows, having to be transported to hospital on a truck, carried out be 10 lads etc.

You mention overweight, a 5'7" person at 11stone 4lb is classed as overweight. A 5'9" person at 12stone 1lb is overweight. I imagine most at that weight & height do not think they are wasting their life away or stuggling to do day to day tasks.

livedadream · 01-04-2016 12:27PM

Irishcrx wrote: »

No but I'd have to assume that at that size maintenance calories even would be high enough , so that alone would constitute a fair crack of eating throughout the day...

well thats the beauty of assumptions i suppose isnt it

if you have a weight problem, due to over eating, hormonal imbalance, genetics, other issues such as medication or illness or just being over weight for a long period of time maintenance calories wouldnt come into it, as the OP states she has been overweight for a significant period (or a size 14-16 and then progressing to a size 20).

if you dont have a deficit, you wont lose weight, and the deficit would have to be pretty substantial for a serious weight loss for someone who has been overweight for a long period without doing any physical exercise.

livedadream · 01-04-2016 12:29PM

Elemonator wrote: »

We won something? Can we have a medal?

your prize is: you can have an extra large pizza with everything on it... oh and a diet coke

Agricola · 01-04-2016 12:31PM

Affluence country = more fat people. Compound this with a prevailing culture of fatty food, heavy drinking and a fairly sedentary population. Long dark wet winters where hiding indoors is the norm.

01-04-2016 12:36PM

Wibbs wrote: »

i'd reckon genetics have a fair bit to do with it, but diet on top of that is a huge influence. Irish people tend towards being "solidly built" and broader in a very general way(ditto for our island neighbours). If you go further south in Europe, say Italy, yes you will most certainly see stocky men and women, but you also see more delicately built smaller men and women too. As a mate of mine commented when clothes shopping in that neck of the woods; "jesus the clothes sizes here make me feel like a heifer" and she most certainly isn't. Can depend on age too. I remember reading a Europe wide women's clothes sizes survey and your average Spaniard at 20 was a good few sizes smaller than your average English woman, but by 40 they were the same size.

The recent television of 1916 had no fat and obese Irish people in it. Look at your people in prosperous areas Dublin 4 and 6 and see a lot of slender people out excersising, but where I live in 22 and 24 almost all are fat and lazy.

Genetics give a predisposal for sure but not a definition. I hope I make sense

Richard Hillman · 01-04-2016 12:38PM

The only negative i see about this story is that the health fascists will be getting more tv and radio work to tell us how dreadful we are.

Anyway, can't stop to chat, I have a 3rd easter egg to eat

Shurimgreat · 01-04-2016 12:39PM

When you think about it, we are almost guaranteed as a nation to be obese given our love of chocolate, easter eggs, taytos, Guinness and other alcohol, cheap fast food and drive thrus, ice-cream, big traditional dinners and big fry ups and stuffing ourselves at Christmas. We're not exactly known as a nation for our athletic ability either.

nhunter100 · 01-04-2016 12:40PM

No offence, but what has the length of your working day got to do with weight gain?

01-04-2016 12:40PM

Broken Hearted Road wrote: »

I think something else that plays a part is a long, busy and hectic schedule.

I've been on the big size since my teens. I was a size 14 to 16 in secondary school. I'm now a size 20. So what changed for me? Work. I'm on the go from early morning til late evening and I'd be lucky if I'd be home at 8pm. When you're in home so late there's little time to yourself before before you fall into bed to do it all over again the next day. Weekends then are catching up with jobs around the house that should have been done all week. And that's weekends when I'm free. Some weekend I work.

I have an aunt who is obese too and she has similar busy and hectic schedule all week long.

A grocery shop for me, doesn't contain junk except for white bread for toast and sandwiches. Fast food and take away - I never go there. A lot of my diet consists of eggs - for breakfast and it's great for dinner too - like scrambled eggs for dinner. That's if I'm not too tired for dinner. There's definitely room for improvement in my diet like I enjoy a can of coke a day for a boost.

This is going to seem unkind, but you wouldn't be so tired if you were not so heavy. The coke is also not a boost, it puts a strain on your system to process all the sugar. How do you get to work? Maybe walk or cycle.

Galwayguy35 · 01-04-2016 12:43PM

I was fat as a kid, eating all the wrong stuff and while I was active the fact is you can't really do much carrying a spare tyre around you, I changed my diet and walked everyday and have remained the same healthy weight since.

In the majority of cases it's just being too lazy to exercise and eating the wrong foods.

HensVassal · 01-04-2016 12:48PM

FlowerPower1 wrote: »

I don't it's one thing, it's a huge range of things that is making us fatter and fatter. Both parents working, less home cooking, more disposable income, fast food and takeaways everywhere, too much salt/sugar/processed food in our diets, every celebration/special occasion is now an excuse to gorge ourselves on copious amounts of junk. The list does on. I do think we need to cop on a bit as a nation. I really despair when I read that 1 in 4 toddlers are now obese. That's just pure abuse to me.

I remember when I was growing up we never had fizzy drinks or "minerals" unless it was a birthday or Christmas and then the red lemonade and biccies would come out. Otherwise it was just not in the house (unless my ma was an expert at concealment). The only soft drink other than tea/milk/water was Mi-wadi, Ribena or Robinson's Barley and you really only had this on a summer's day if you were gasping.

People nowadays seem to drink fizzy, sugary drinks like Coke, Fanta, etc. practically everyday. I'd say we definitely exercised more in the past albeit out playing from morning till sunset. People (will kids anyway) seem a lot more sedentary today what with unlimited TV (music channels) and computer/video games.

Zillah · 01-04-2016 12:53PM

rubadub wrote: »

I know plenty of obese people who are prefectly mobile and take part in sports and have no problem with day to day life.

I imagine these are young people. Give them a few more years and their weight will take its toll.

jam_mac_jam · 01-04-2016 12:56PM

Its two things in my opinion, diet and car dependency. We need more bikes and walking. we drive everywhere. A lot of people's diet is dreadful which does not help.

When you see the things that people eat for a normal lunch massive chicken rolls and a packet of crisps. European people don't eat that **** on a daily basis. Maybe in the UK but it would not be normal in France or Spain.

Also, the fat countries in Europe are the Northern countries. So maybe beer rather then wine has something to do with it. I think drinking does contribute. We also eat a hell of a lot of bread and processed foods.

conorhal · 01-04-2016 01:03PM

waffleman wrote: »

I'm fat coz I'm sad

I'm sad coz I'm fat

Majority of fatties wont change unless they are forced

A flat sugar tax is unfair - there should be the regular shop price and an obese price

double sounds about right

Is there anything to be said for another Mass Father? tax Minister?

Initatives like these are only designed to make the tax take a bit fatter.

rubadub · 01-04-2016 01:11PM

Zillah wrote: »

I imagine these are young people. Give them a few more years and their weight will take its toll.

most would be 40-50, still very active.

At what age do you think a A 5'9" man of 12stone 1lb (overweight) will "struggle to enjoy the normal joys of day-to-day life", and at what weight do you think that 5'9" man at the same age would not find it a struggle?

Coffee Fulled Runner · 01-04-2016 01:19PM

Shurimgreat wrote: »

When you think about it, we are almost guaranteed as a nation to be obese

No we're not. Just another lazy excuse.

Zillah · 01-04-2016 01:25PM

rubadub wrote: »

At what age do you think a A 5'9" man of 12stone 1lb (overweight)

It's a little dishonest to use measurements for a person on threshold of the "normal" BMI category when we're talking about the consequences of being obese.

BMI is also only useful for national averages. A person could technically fit into overweight (or even obese for body builders), but it's because of massive amounts of muscle. Those are the exceptions and not the kind of person we are talking about.

Superhorse · 01-04-2016 01:27PM

It's been a long hard road but i'd like to congratulate the men of Ireland over this fantastic honour. We've come a long way since the famine lads.

Spunge · 01-04-2016 01:27PM

BMI is nonsense.
Maybe we're all bodybuilders ?

HensVassal · 01-04-2016 01:28PM

Broken Hearted Road wrote: »

The average work day can be anything from 8 to 12 hours a day but sometimes it can go over and have weekends thrown into the mix too. A few weeks ago there was one night when I didn't finish up til 10.30 at night and that's in work since morning and another night not finishing up until after 9pm.

Get back to me next time you work 3 weeks solid with 8 to 13/14 hours a day and let me know how you get on. You won't be bouncing around with energy that's for sure.

What is it that you do for work? I could easily continue working well into the night in my job but I refuse. It can wait till the next day. I'm not killing myself for some corporation.

NomadicGray · 01-04-2016 01:30PM

irelandrover wrote: »

If only it were possible to be skinny and happy.

Incompatible with being an Internet forum moderator

robbiezero · 01-04-2016 01:31PM

An unfortunate consequence of keeping fit, wearing lycra and taking great care with diet in middle age is that the most annoying people in the world are now living longer.

Irish men rank first in Europe for BMI

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