Tax the Fizz!

[Aggers]

Something is going wrong and needs to be addressed.

When I was young fat people were extremely rare.

They were something to laugh at in the circus or on the silver screen.

If one takes the trouble to read the small print on the things they put into their shopping basket,
one would see what's making them fat. We buy practically nothing in the way of food from Marks
and Spencer, for example. If we did then we would be joining the ranks of the obese. No thanks!

[Kaz]

Even when I was a youngster it was rare Aggers........I'm talking the 60s and 70s As a young teenager I felt I was plump and actually was a bit bigger than most of my friends, but looking at old photos I was a perfectly normal size, 9st at about 5ft 4 at 13........which nowadays would be considered slim Everyone was slimmer, and as you say a very fat person was rare............now you will see very fat people everywhere you go. It can't just be the food, it must be lifestyle too

[Suff]

Simply put, if you push 10 days worth of energy into a body you will gain 9 days of energy in fat.

It really is that simple. Children, today, intake massively more energy than even 40 years ago and they also use less of that energy. It is no surprise that they get fat. The majority of this energy intake is from chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks. Fatty foods and junk foods are just icing on the cake.

[JoM]

I'd have thought that lack of exercise and overuse of cars is as much to blame, not just for obesity in children but adults too.
I have no qualms about walking two miles to the nearest town, yet we see neighbours jump into their cars to go to the shop which is a 3 minute walk away With adequate exercise you can get away with eating fatty foods on occasions or drinking fizzy pop but consume that and take very little exercise and you have problems.

My 16 year old son has joined a gym in the last week, and has paid for a 1 year membership out of his birthday money - he's in his GCSE year at school and whereas when I was his age we still had weekly PE lessons, it's not the case anymore. He could use the school gym but most of the equipment is awaiting repair, and the same goes for the school swimming pool which is closed until £500,000 can be found for repairs. He's decided to get off his backside and get some exercise but what about others his age?

[TheOstrich]

I think that one other factor in the rise of adult obesity, often overlooked, is the decline in smoking .....

[Workingman]

I think that we are all singing from the same song sheet in that lifestyle is as much to blame as anything and that means that taxing everything in sight will not work.

I hated it when my parents used to hark back to the 'good ol' days' and I have tried not to do it to my children, but there is an interesting contrast. The childhood of my parents was not that much different from mine, but the difference between mine and that of my children is immense.

We didn't have supermarkets, we had the Co-op. Sweets, tobacconist and newsagent shops shut at 6 or 6:30, just enough time for dads coming home from work to get an evening papers, some fags... and if we were lucky, a treat. Off-licences, pubs and off-sales were the only places to get booze, and they only opened in the evenings. Sunday's were shop-free days apart from the morning newsagents. We had children's hour TV then it shut down till the news at six - two channels. No iThis or iThat, no computers or X-Boxes, With all of that there was plenty of time for us children to make our own entertainment, we had to. Most entertainment consisted of running round like berserkers, riding bike or bogies or playing ball.

We didn't have time to get fat.

Interesting point about the smoking Ossie. It is almost a natural law to give up smoking and put on weight.

[Fugitive]

I loathed gym at school! Those wall bars, the horse, coconut matting, dangling from ropes, team games, shorts, bouncy boobs and I was always 'well-covered' though, like Kaz, when I look back at school photos I was actually slim but didn't think I was. I did like tennis, hurdles and high jump and now I do my Gillian Michaels' '30 Day Shred four of five times a week at home using weights for strength, doing cardio and floor crunching.

I have always had a big appetite so felt permanently hungry as a child even though we were well fed but no treats between meals, mum counted the biscuits in the tin, chocolate was for Christmas and Easter, crisps were for when we went to the seaside along with a fizzy drink of lemonade or cream soda. Candy Floss was a wonderful treat when the fair came to town once a year.

I still have an enormous appetite but control it all week with healthy WW style eating, quite happily, then on Sundays go for it with a Full English, carrot cake for coffee break and a hearty Roast. I even like fat on my bacon, fat on my meat I could eat like a Sunday all the time for pure pleasure but my metabolism won't let me and neither will my vanity. I would be very unhappy ending up feeling like a beached whale.

[Workingman]

The one thing I have always failed to understand about the grossly overweight is why so many of them wear one-size-too-small skin tight clothes - men and women. You would think that self-esteem and practicality would kick in and make them go for something more comfortable.

[Oojamaflip]

The one thing I have always failed to understand about the grossly overweight is why so many of them wear one-size-too-small skin tight clothes - men and women. You would think that self-esteem and practicality would kick in and make them go for something more comfortable.

A burka would do it.

[Suff]

At 10 we moved off quarters and down to where my parents still live today. At the bottom of the one "hill" in lincolnshire, known as the Lincolndshire edge. All my friends were at the top. I learned to cycle up the hill developing large leg muscles.

At 14 I discovered that I was slow over 10m (primary distances for running), but actually fast over 100 and very fast over 200. Also I discovered Rugby. By the time I was 16 I was a county class athlete, member of an athletics club and a long standing member of the shool rugby team.

However by the time I was 18 and in the army, any pleasure I had out of sports was killed off.

After my divorce and having to eat in the cook house, I found a liking for large quantieis of carbohydrates cooked in fat and swimming in butter. Hog heaven but also 3 stone more weight.

After leaving the Army I manage to lose the 3 stone working very hard manually for a year. But, again, from my 30's, I've been on an upward spiral. It's hard to keep the weight off when not excercising.

I'd love to go to the gym and probably will but not before this weekend's ball in Freiburg, where I'm simply going to suffer as my Achilles fails again... Also not helped by the fact that I tore something in my right knee this weekend. The two pains are warring right now.

Even then I'd need to do at least 3 hours a day in the Gym with rigid diet to see some reduction in the weight...

Very frustrating and mainly down to the fact that my body simply won't lose weight unless I'm hungry, or working so physically hard that I'm almost collapsed, which does not go well with being a bright and intelligent techie in my current job. Sadly I don't do hunger well or I would be fairly thin.....