Why do the majority of the great British public...

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13/09/2012 at 17:53

Once you become a lard arse it takes a lot of guts to then get out there and exercise. I know it sounds odd but women I know who could do with getting out there and walking the miles, let alone running the miles, feel self concious about it. Well that's what they say.

13/09/2012 at 18:22

My mother in law and brother in law are both extremely unfit and unhealthy - both obese, mother in law is a type 2 diabetic and only a matter of time before the brother in law is a well.  Fortuneately my wife is a very active dancer and is a size 8.

My in laws believe that any physical effort is inherently unhealthy and to be avoided if at all possible as is any fruit or vegitables etc.  They subsist on a diet of M & S ready meals plus cakes. They think I am weird excerising at all never mind the 6-7 hours a week that I do.

I think I lot of it has to to with upbringing coupled with negative reinforcement - some famlies are just brought up to be unhealthy and if the children remain close to their parents when they grow up they will remain unhealthy.




13/09/2012 at 19:31
No Piers, not a lard arse. lardarse
13/09/2012 at 23:31

...with nothing to look forward to in life except becoming worm food.  Probably better for them than ready-meals though.

14/09/2012 at 07:39

you can train your body to eat more like you can train your body to run more. You eat a big meal and you're stuffed, next time you eat that same sized meal you'll feel a little less stuffed etc etc. The problem is the large amount of refined sugar used in everything and sedantary lives - driving to an office job. Many people now have lunch at their office desk - and so that's it - they're on that seat all day.

Edited: 14/09/2012 at 07:40
15/09/2012 at 10:37
Sussex Runner (NLR) wrote (see)
If becoming lardarse doesn't put people off then nothing will

I'm so hurt. Yet touched that you remembered me

15/09/2012 at 12:19
15West wrote (see)


I pick up litter in the street where I live, and a large proportion of it is plastic bottles and cans for sugary drinks (like lucozade) and stimulant drinks (like red bull)

I used to see people in the office drinking full sugar lucozade with their lunch. People that do no exercise.

16/09/2012 at 12:35
Dicky M wrote (see)

But, look around properly - it's becoming the norm now.  The 'Great British Public' are bigger than they were, and it's only the extreme examples that are now subject to comment.

When I changed doctor a year or so ago after moving to a new area, I had to go in for a check-up appointment and an asthma review. Got measured and weighed. Said to the doctor 'I know I'm overweight but I'm dealing with it' (I'd been out of training for a while due to injury) I'm 5'6" and at the time weighed about 12 stone. Had a visible pot belly and muffin top, and she said to me 'No, you're fine. Not overweight at all.'

A nurse at the same surgery told my partner (5'8", nearly 20 stone, seriously obese) that BMI charts were no use for 'chunky' built guys and told him he could do with losing "half a stone or so..." Problem is, he took her advice as gospel and now refuses to accept he is unhealthily fat!

'Average' size now means overweight. And most people are so used to seeing it that they just don't realise what's going on. Look at 1950s footage of folk on the beack at Blackpool. They're almost all all rake-thin. Hardly an even slightly chubby person to be seen!

16/09/2012 at 13:46
Runs-with-dogs - I agree.

Also, I found friends and family being concerned for me when I went from being a couple of stone to a more healthy weight. This is despite the fact that I felt and (in my view...) looked better than I had for a long time. Like you say, people are conditioned that larger sizes are 'normal'.
16/09/2012 at 20:14

Yes my school photo (1956) shows me as second tubbiest child in school .  Nowadays I would be average.

16/09/2012 at 20:40
Or maybe even slim!
16/09/2012 at 20:54

16/09/2012 at 20:58

- that was actually me thinking that I might at some stage be described as slim!

IronCat5    pirate
16/09/2012 at 21:07
runs-with-dogs wrote (see)

Similar to the bolleaux about BMI and it not counting for Rugby players. Yes they may be fit in the muscular and CV way. And I understand that muscle is more dense than fat. But the body is not designed to be loaded up with 16st of anything, fat or muscle, or lead.

In the run up to my IM plenty of people were concerned about my eating and how I look. In the last few months I was eating 4-5 correct meals a day and grazing in between and still only managing to stay level. I was a little concerned, but knew it wasn't long term. Mrs Cat5 tried to create an anorexic by suggesting I go sub 10st!

I put on about a stone after what, and now I'm training again it's dropped a little. People say I look healthier now, though I'm sure if I hadn't had the drop to IM weight first they'd whine about how ill I look.

It was funny visiting customers abroad, whom I hadn't seen for some month. MOst assumed I'd been seriously ill.

17/09/2012 at 09:27


male babies, often winged, as represented in art.


 Babies were fed on a syrup of sugar and water to make them chubby. This was considered to be healthy. Unfortunately these babies died. Can't find any references during a quick search right now.

This suggests that chubby has been considered healthy in the past.

17/09/2012 at 09:36
Still is, in some places. I can remember reading about certain cultures where the parents feed up their daughters and limit the amount of exercise they get in order to get them looking plump and affluent and therefore more marriageable. Exactly the opposite of most western chicks who diet to get into a smaller wedding dress - these girls are chubbing up to fill out a bigger one!

From memory, the article I read mentioned Western Samoa and several African countries. Poorer countries where being fat was equated with being well off.
17/09/2012 at 09:44

I imagine any culture that is prone to poverty or famine would easy view carrying weight as a sign of health and wealth. In those cultures availability of food equals life.

If you think about it you really need to come from a culture of food opulence to even consider diet and body shape as any sort of factor in your life.

18/09/2012 at 09:51

My sister is massively overweight. At a recent family meal we all sat down in a restuarant and order our meal. I had my usual STaeak and Chips with peppercorn sauce, she spent 5 minutes talking to the waitress telling her how she wanted her chicken and potatoes cooked without skin and butter so she ended up with what looked the most bland meal i have ever seen. She then sat there looking pleased as punch with herself. After the main course we decided to not have desert apart from my sister who had one of the largest ice creams with chocoalte and marshmellows and sauce all over it. She couldn't see that she was wasting her time pretending to eat healthy. 

18/09/2012 at 10:01
I must confess that I have been known to display what could be described as odd behaviour. I.E., in the past, after a couple of months of exercise and hitting training goals and target weight I felt the need to celebrate..... by going out and having a massive meal
18/09/2012 at 10:04

I see it everyday. I'm a good stone over weight, BMI just under 26, yet the other night I had a "discussion" with an enormous woman about how I was wrong to say it's calories in vs calories out, that i'm going about it all wrong, and she was basically accusing me of having body dismorphia because I can see subcutaneous fat on my body, yet she seemed to think it's loose skin and I could "tone it up", well you can't tone up fat!

She said "i've got a book downstairs on it", I thought you obviously haven't read it!

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