UK large-scale study on the impact of weight-loss surgery

[screamifyouwanttogofaster]

'screamifyouwanttogofaster', believe it or not, I also wish you well in your endeavours to follow a healthy lifestyle.

I have no wish to belittle you, personally, in any way. If I have given that impression, I apologise wholeheartedly.

Nevertheless, I am also entitled to my views based, in part, on the personal experiences of friends and former colleagues, many of whom work within the NHS.

I have also read any number of articles on the subject of obesity over the past twenty years and remain convinced about the urgent need for change in our Western diet and lifestyle.

Thankyou.

You are entitled to your views, of course. However, from my personal experience, the experience of others I have been fortunate enough to meet whilst working on my health issues via the internet, and my own research into the subject of obesity, I disagree with you.

I agree there is an urgent need for change in our Western diet and lifestyle. Though I suspect we would disagree on exactly what that change should be, I think there would also be a fair amount of common ground as well.

However, I cannot support the idea that the answer is to lecture fat people as if they are stupid, and accuse them of being lazy and gluttonous, or give support based on the assumption that they live on ready meals and junk food any more than many thin people do. Or that a calorie counting and low fat, high carb diet is the solution.

In addition, there are plenty of thin people who eat unhealthily and are reaping the consequences (you don't have to be obese to get type 2 diabetes from a high sugar diet, for example). Targetting the obese and ignoring everyone else does not seem a reasonable approach to me. That is what I was saying in my previous post which you quoted. The emphasis on thin= healthy/ good seems unhelpful, in fact even harmful. It concerns me deeply that kids are being taught in school that obesity is the number one health evil. Schools may also be teaching healthy eating (albeit based on a faulty food pyramid), but the focus on weight encourages kids to grow up with body hang ups and to get into the kind of unhealthy attitudes and lifestyles that lead to eating disorders and other such problems (smoking in hope of eating less for example). Kids as young as 5 and 6 are dieting these days. I don't think the problem is that we're not demonising fat enough!

I threw out my scales a couple of weeks ago. I am determined to focus on health- in eating, activity and other lifestyle choices, and on enjoyment of life, my family and contributing something positive to the wider world. As for my weight, I will continue to strive to be as healthy as I can be, and what will be will be.

[UndercoverElephant]

It is a shame if we allow intelligent discussion to be shut down by those who for some reason choose to keep themselves ignorant. Can any of them explain how my weight was stable at 9 stone and then at the same time as my other symptoms began (fatigue, joint pains, digestive problems etc), I started to gain a steady 2lbs a week even if I ate less than before? Or why the only sedentary person in my household, who also makes no particular effort to control food intake, is actually underweight? No of course not.

I don't want to see any discussion shut down either, but there are two sides to this. I do not know about you and your own case apart from what you've posted on this forum. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of very fat people in this country who make all sorts of excuses as to why they are very fat but don't count "I eat too much and don't exercise enough" as one of the causes. This is a generalisation, it is not an assumption about your case, but it is also a pretty reasonable generalisation I think. The vast majority of people who make these sorts of excuses are talking cr*p. If you are feeling harshly treated, perhaps you might consider laying some of the blame at those people's doors because, in effect, their collective "crying wolf" is what leads some people here to doubt your own version of events in your life. There clearly are some medical conditions which cause people to gain weight, but this is not the main reason for obesity in the UK. I'd also that most of those medical conditions are not mysteries - if you are suffering from them then the medical profession ought to be able to provide a diagnosis.

[screamifyouwanttogofaster]

Thin, then possibly dead, depending on how badly you starved me? lol

Sorry, to expand on my prior point.

Scream claims to have some sort of medical whatsit that means her body shuts down if not over fed.

Now, if shes correct, then in the wild, she would be unable to feed her bodies oversized apetite and she'd die. Which is consistant with no fat animals.
If shes wrong, she needs to man up and put down the fork. Sadly, this is also consistant with no fat animals.

No, I didn't say my body shuts down. There are two issues. One is that if I don't eat a certain amount and regularly then I become hypoglycemic. I'm not diabetic, it's not going to kill me directly, but it is very unpleasant and affects my ability to function in terms of doing my job, taking care of my family and so on. If you have never had a blood sugar crash, well all I can say is that you're fortunate! In addition, repeated blood sugar crashes cause the body to over-produce stress hormones which affects health in a multitude of ways. Not how I want to live.

The other is that even if I do go hungry I don't lose weight, or only lose very little and then plateau after a few weeks.

In the wild, I wouldn't die. But I wouldn't function well if I didn't eat regularly. However, in the wild I wouldn't have these problems, since they were caused by eating according to conventional wisdom, dieting as a teen, a period of binge eating disorder in my 20s and damage caused to my body by severe gluten intolerance and other food intolerances, and so on. In the wild I would not have been exposed to eating gluten or other types of grains, refined sugar, dieting, antibiotics or anything else that has played a role in my health problems.

I'd like to call my condition "modern living syndrome". I'm glad I now know how mistaken and misled I was, and hope that it's not too late to heal my body.

It is pointless to say "man up" because if I could have, I would have. I tried that approach for many years. To be honest, I am glad I couldn't do it. Because if I had I'd have been stuck for the rest of my life on a restricted low cal diet, getting sicker and sicker, or maybe yoyoing up and down every year (which studies have shown to be more damaging to health than being overweight). Instead I was forced to look outside the box and identified my gluten intolerance and other issues which were contributing to my situation. I wouldn't trade places with someone like Kate Moss, staying thin eating a quarter of a McDonalds and taking cocaine. Or even Gwyneth Paltrow with her "healthy" diet which eating disorder experts have pronounced to be equivalent to a food intake which would justify a diagnosis of anorexia. I wouldn't mind trading with someone who stays thin whatever they eat, but then again there are advantages to being forced to eat heathily because of my weight, intolerances and other health problems which I am also dealing with. And anyway, I have to live with the body I was born with and all I can do is my best to help it to be as healthy as it can be.

[Aurora]

A final thought.

Perhaps PO & CC will force the change in our dietary habits that I, for one, would dearly like to see. The following article is well worth reading:

http://www.ogilvie.fastmail.co.uk/healt ... akoil.html

Also: http://www.ogilvie.fastmail.co.uk/healt ... rates.html

[UndercoverElephant]

However, I cannot support the idea that the answer is to lecture fat people as if they are stupid, and accuse them of being lazy and gluttonous...

That is also a generalisation, and IMO not a reasonable one. As stated in the previous post, I believe that the primary reason why people in the UK are overweight is because they are gluttonous and physically lazy. I'm a hard realist in every other sphere of life, and I don't so why I should make an exception here.

In addition, there are plenty of thin people who eat unhealthily and are reaping the consequences (you don't have to be obese to get type 2 diabetes from a high sugar diet, for example). Targetting the obese and ignoring everyone else does not seem a reasonable approach to me.

I'm not personally interested in "targetting the obese." I will respond to them if they say something I disagree with, though.

That is what I was saying in my previous post which you quoted. The emphasis on thin= healthy/ good seems unhelpful, in fact even harmful. It concerns me deeply that kids are being taught in school that obesity is the number one health evil.

What do you think is the number one physical health evil (for children) then?

Schools may also be teaching healthy eating (albeit based on a faulty food pyramid), but the focus on weight encourages kids to grow up with body hang ups and to get into the kind of unhealthy attitudes and lifestyles that lead to eating disorders and other such problems (smoking in hope of eating less for example). Kids as young as 5 and 6 are dieting these days. I don't think the problem is that we're not demonising fat enough!

I think you're mixing up several different problems here. There is a genuine health issue regarding obesity, but there is a much wider problem in society regarding "body image". This applies to both men and women but much more so in the case of women. The problem is that the "perfect female body image" being sold to people is either a skinny-as-a-rake Kate Moss version or the dumb-blonde-with-big-tits Pamela Anderson version. This has little to do with reality. If you did a survey of what men actually find attractive then the results would not be Kate Moss and Pamela Anderson but girl/wife-next-door of every sort imaginable, including fat women, older women, short women, etc... I don't like this imagery any more than you do. The male version is epitomised by Gillette adverts - to be a real man you have to look like a Gillette man. The only reaction such adverts produce in me is one of nausea.

[screamifyouwanttogofaster]

I don't want to see any discussion shut down either, but there are two sides to this. I do not know about you and your own case apart from what you've posted on this forum. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of very fat people in this country who make all sorts of excuses as to why they are very fat but don't count "I eat too much and don't exercise enough" as one of the causes. This is a generalisation, it is not an assumption about your case, but it is also a pretty reasonable generalisation I think. The vast majority of people who make these sorts of excuses are talking cr*p. If you are feeling harshly treated, perhaps you might consider laying some of the blame at those people's doors because, in effect, their collective "crying wolf" is what leads some people here to doubt your own version of events in your life. There clearly are some medical conditions which cause people to gain weight, but this is not the main reason for obesity in the UK. I'd also that most of those medical conditions are not mysteries - if you are suffering from them then the medical profession ought to be able to provide a diagnosis.

Ah yes, it's other fat people that are to blame lol!

In fact I don't feel harshly treated, I don't take this kind of thing personally. It's not about me.

I can't remember how many lots of blood I have had taken or all the tests I have had. I even paid privately to be tested for autoimmune thyroid disease because my doctor wouldn't based on my TSH being in the normal range. I know many other people in similar situations. My doctor didn't even identify the gluten intolerance that was causing symptoms including asthma which had me taking ventolin 4 times a day (I have been almost completely asthma free since one week after stopping gluten). After my tests came back clear, my GP offered me... antidepressants!!! I had said I was feeling low but who wouldn't if they'd gained 10 stone in 3 years (I was 19 stone at my heaviest) and were also suffering with chronic fatigue, insomnia, gut problems, joint pains, difficulty concentrating and thinking etc whilst trying to care for 4 young children! Medicating myself to make my illness easier to bear was not on my list of ideas! When I went back after going off gluten and explained what had happened, all she said was "Oh, you must have been gluten intolerant all along". Yeah thanks. I suppose it could have been worse. At least she believed me! Well, my point is, mainstream medicine doesn't have much to offer people like me. Yet.

As for the people you are referring to, I don't know anyone like that so I don't think I can really say much. I find it hard to believe that is the majority of obese people in the country. But even if it is, I still think it is valid to say that we shouldn't make assumptions about any obese individual based on a generalisation. Even if people just said "some fat people" instead of "fat people" when they make these kind of statements, that'd be nice... and a lot more accurate.

[UndercoverElephant]

I'd like to call my condition "modern living syndrome".

There's a lot that could come under that bracket, certainly including depression, alcohol and drug abuse, "hyperactivity"....

Humans are not supposed to live like this, on that much I can certainly agree.

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't want to see any discussion shut down either, but there are two sides to this. I do not know about you and your own case apart from what you've posted on this forum. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of very fat people in this country who make all sorts of excuses as to why they are very fat but don't count "I eat too much and don't exercise enough" as one of the causes. This is a generalisation, it is not an assumption about your case, but it is also a pretty reasonable generalisation I think. The vast majority of people who make these sorts of excuses are talking cr*p. If you are feeling harshly treated, perhaps you might consider laying some of the blame at those people's doors because, in effect, their collective "crying wolf" is what leads some people here to doubt your own version of events in your life. There clearly are some medical conditions which cause people to gain weight, but this is not the main reason for obesity in the UK. I'd also that most of those medical conditions are not mysteries - if you are suffering from them then the medical profession ought to be able to provide a diagnosis.

Ah yes, it's other fat people that are to blame lol!

Well, you do appear to be trying to defend fat people in general rather than just your own particular case, and this rings alarm bells for me. If you aren't willing to accept that most obese people simply eat too much and fail to take enough exercise then it will tend to make me suspect your own account is not entirely accurate either.

As I said...generalisations don't apply in every case, but they can still be reasonable generalisations.

As for the people you are referring to, I don't know anyone like that so I don't think I can really say much.

Then I'm going to have difficult believing your story, Scream. What you are saying about your own case may well be entirely accurate - I certainly have no way of knowing that it is not - but what you are saying about the wider problem of obesity does not ring true with my own experience of living in the UK. I know plenty of people like that. They aren't bad people, but they eat too much and don't exercise enough.

I find it hard to believe that is the majority of obese people in the country. But even if it is, I still think it is valid to say that we shouldn't make assumptions about any obese individual based on a generalisation.

Of course. But you are not just talking about your own individual case, are you? You're also disputing my generalisation - you're making a case that most fat people are fat for reasons other than overeating and underexercising and I can't take this seriously.

[screamifyouwanttogofaster]

I'm not personally interested in "targetting the obese." I will respond to them if they say something I disagree with, though.


What do you think is the number one physical health evil (for children) then?

I think you're mixing up several different problems here. There is a genuine health issue regarding obesity, but there is a much wider problem in society regarding "body image". This applies to both men and women but much more so in the case of women. The problem is that the "perfect female body image" being sold to people is either a skinny-as-a-rake Kate Moss version or the dumb-blonde-with-big-tits Pamela Anderson version. This has little to do with reality. If you did a survey of what men actually find attractive then the results would not be Kate Moss and Pamela Anderson but girl/wife-next-door of every sort imaginable, including fat women, older women, short women, etc... I don't like this imagery any more than you do. The male version is epitomised by Gillette adverts - to be a real man you have to look like a Gillette man. The only reaction such adverts produce in me is one of nausea.

Now that I wholeheartedly agree with. I think that the problems I am "mixing up" are related though. And I personally see obesity just as one symptom of our Western diet and lifestyle problems, not a root cause of ill health.

When I said targetting the obese I mean the government, health education, medics etc, focussing on reducing obesity, rather than on increasing healthy living. You may say those two things are the same, but the majority of people I have known who have lost weight have done it in less healthy ways- restricted low cal dieting for example. 95% of people who lose weight on a diet will regain it within the next few years and most end up heavier.

Number one health evil, well it's not a physical characteristic. Hmm, I'd probably say refined sugar and chemical laden junk food.

[screamifyouwanttogofaster]

I don't want to see any discussion shut down either, but there are two sides to this. I do not know about you and your own case apart from what you've posted on this forum. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of very fat people in this country who make all sorts of excuses as to why they are very fat but don't count "I eat too much and don't exercise enough" as one of the causes. This is a generalisation, it is not an assumption about your case, but it is also a pretty reasonable generalisation I think. The vast majority of people who make these sorts of excuses are talking cr*p. If you are feeling harshly treated, perhaps you might consider laying some of the blame at those people's doors because, in effect, their collective "crying wolf" is what leads some people here to doubt your own version of events in your life. There clearly are some medical conditions which cause people to gain weight, but this is not the main reason for obesity in the UK. I'd also that most of those medical conditions are not mysteries - if you are suffering from them then the medical profession ought to be able to provide a diagnosis.

Ah yes, it's other fat people that are to blame lol!

Well, you do appear to be trying to defend fat people in general rather than just your own particular case, and this rings alarm bells for me. If you aren't willing to accept that most obese people simply eat too much and fail to take enough exercise then it will tend to make me suspect your own account is not entirely accurate either.

As I said...generalisations don't apply in every case, but they can still be reasonable generalisations.

As for the people you are referring to, I don't know anyone like that so I don't think I can really say much.

Then I'm going to have difficult believing your story, Scream. What you are saying about your own case may well be entirely accurate - I certainly have no way of knowing that it is not - but what you are saying about the wider problem of obesity does not ring true with my own experience of living in the UK. I know plenty of people like that. They aren't bad people, but they eat too much and don't exercise enough.

I find it hard to believe that is the majority of obese people in the country. But even if it is, I still think it is valid to say that we shouldn't make assumptions about any obese individual based on a generalisation.

Of course. But you are not just talking about your own individual case, are you? You're also disputing my generalisation - you're making a case that most fat people are fat for reasons other than overeating and underexercising and I can't take this seriously.

I don't quite understand your logic here.

I know very few obese people IRL, there are very few where I live and I don't have any obese friend. I can't see what bearing that has on the truth of my story. Except that if I don't have any fat over-eaters around me surely that'd make me less likely to be choosing to live like that. Most people here are slim and the in thing is to be at the school gate decked out from top to toe in expensive running gear!

I defend fat people in general, not by saying that none of them eat junk food or sit around not caring about their health, but by saying that each fat person is an individual and a generalisation can't tell you anything about an individual. That is why I use myself as an example. I didn't say most fat people don't eat too much and no exercise, I said I didn't know but found it hard to believe that it is the majority. But like I said, my experience and knowledge on that front is fairly small. It sounds like you know a lot more obese people IRL than I do, so maybe you know better than me.

The obese people I know are those I have met online through my own health struggles. So unsurprisingly they are people who have similar issues to those I have.

It is a mystery to me why you think I would come here and spend all this time explaining my views if I knew the whole thing was in fact a lie!

Maybe my OH will pop in some time and vouch for me. Though I suppose his words couldn't be trusted. After all I might just have forced him to lie for me by threatening to sit on him if he doesn't do as he's told .

[UndercoverElephant]

It is a mystery to me why you think I would come here and spend all this time explaining my views if I knew the whole thing was in fact a lie!

You are human, Scream. Most humans do stuff like that. It is how they cope.

As I keep saying...I am in no position to make a judgement about the details of your particular case.

[screamifyouwanttogofaster]

It is a mystery to me why you think I would come here and spend all this time explaining my views if I knew the whole thing was in fact a lie!

You are human, Scream. Most humans do stuff like that. It is how they cope.

As I keep saying...I am in no position to make a judgement about the details of your particular case.

Well that we agree on.

Obese people come to these kinds of threads and spend 2 days explaining the details of their health issues knowing that they're actually making it up? Hmm okay.

I am human, but I am a human who is very hung up on honesty and authentic living. My goal is to be healthy in every way and I strive to minimise denial and mind games. I also have better things to do with my time! But of course you can believe whatever you like. Maybe I am some kind of freaky troll who spends my time going round messageboards posting lies about why I am fat in the hope of feeling better about myself lol!

I wonder if your obese friends are mostly men? It occurs to me that being an obese man and being an obese woman are different. The stigma and judgements are not as bad for men. Being an obese woman in a very appearance and health conscious middle class town is not something I can imagine someone choosing due to not being bothered, and everyone I know here who has any kind of weight issues certainly takes it very seriously, but of course there are many different places to live and types of people out there. Things are becoming more equal for men and women now, though not in the way we'd hope!

And on that note, it's time for me to bow out of this thread. I've spent a lot of time explaining my story and there's not much else for me to say. And I don't want to get even fatter due to spending all day sitting at the computer lol.

I think I may ask my OH not to email me links to obesity related threads on PS in future

[vtsnowedin]

As it happens back during the holidays the tests from a regular office visit came back with the news that I was well on the way to being a type 2 diabetic. As this runs in the family and killed my mother at the age of 50 it was not to be ignored. My choices were to go on medication or to first try a diet and exercise to lose a considerable amount of weight. I chose the later. They wanted me to get down to 2200 calories a day and no more then 250 grams of carbohydrates. Considering that my beer consumption alone amounted to 1000 calories a day and 150gm of carbs. this was going to take some doing.
I cut out almost all potatoes, white bread, second helpings etc. , reduced the size of first helpings, switched to the lightest beer I could find and tried to cut down on the amount consumed as well, then got away from the computer desk and the TV and walked or tread milled two miles a day any day I wasn't equally active.
I've lost twenty five pounds and a pants size. My AIC has gone from 8.0 to 6.6 with <7 being the goal. My fasting blood glucose level has droped from highs above 200 to 106 this morning. with <120 being the goal. As a bonus I've gone from taking two different blood pressure meds a day down to only one.
So far so good but the easy weight is gone and further reductions will get harder as I get bored with dieting and my summer work schedule will disrupt everything if I let it. That little meter that tells you your blood sugar level on the spot gives you the control over your own future.
A little will power is a good thing. People should try it.

[UndercoverElephant]

It is a mystery to me why you think I would come here and spend all this time explaining my views if I knew the whole thing was in fact a lie!

You are human, Scream. Most humans do stuff like that. It is how they cope.

As I keep saying...I am in no position to make a judgement about the details of your particular case.

Well that we agree on.

Obese people come to these kinds of threads and spend 2 days explaining the details of their health issues knowing that they're actually making it up? Hmm okay.

I am human, but I am a human who is very hung up on honesty and authentic living.

Maybe you are, but I have no more way of passing judgement on the accuracy of that claim than any other claim you've made about yourself in this thread.

I wonder if your obese friends are mostly men?

No. About 50/50.

[2 As and a B]

So far so good but the easy weight is gone and further reductions will get harder as I get bored with dieting and my summer work schedule will disrupt everything if I let it.

Well done vtsnowedin. I found a great way to reduce my portions when I was losing weight a couple or so years ago was to cook with vegetables from the garden. A small portion of veg was of great worth to me if I knew that I had grown them - and had to stretch them out . I did it though - lost a lot of weight (2st) and didn't need to buy any veg except potatoes, which I didn't grow at that time, mushrooms and out of season tomatoes.