Weight in the UK

It has been an awful long time since I updated here. I have found myself inundated with things to do, and this has been pushed to the bottom of the pile.


But for my return to the site, I've gone for a large topic which often dominates my life. Don't be surprised if you learn one or two things about me you didn't know before.


As the title suggests, the topic is the subject of weight in the British public. I've got a whole list of things that I want to discuss but I chose this one today because last night I watched Britain's Biggest Babies on ITV2 (there wasn't much on!) and most of it was discussing obese mothers and their subsequent and rather predictable obese babies, rather than rare and surprisingly big babies. According to this programme, one in five British pregnant women is obese, and it's the problem we'll face more among the next generation. This morning I caught a glimpse of Supersize vs. Superskinny and the segment they have on people fighting anorexia, and they discussed some of the shopping habits. I found myself identifying with some of them.


I seem to notice this kind of weight discussion all the time. I'm not sure whether it is because I'm someone who actually has been seriously overweight, and did something about it, and I now have a hang-up about it, or whether it just actually is the case. Obviously I didn't live in the 1950s, so I don't know first-hand how the two periods compare, but it seems as if everyone is obsessed with it nowadays. Perhaps there's a need to be because of the dramatic extremes of weight that there is now, but it feels like an endless circle, and television programmes and magazine articles do not help: some people read them and watch them and assume it's not about them and finds them entertaining - I always used to. For other people, it just cements the issue in the mind.


I fit into this second category. I don't go a day without considering my weight and what techniques work for me to make sure I don't overeat or how I can counteract a previous day's overeating. I know that it's crazy, but I also know that it's a conscious effort to make myself feel positive. What kind of fun is that at nineteen years old? What kind of fun is that for anyone? I heard figures today that suggest around a third of ten to fourteen-year-old girls (I forget exact figures and it was a brief comment on the radio) want to lose weight. I'd have been in that category too, and I hate that.


This is somewhat of a ramble, and I don't have a solution, and I can only speak for myself, but surely we do need some kind of return to sensible eating, sensible parenting (on the TV last night a mother said she couldn't say no to her five-stone three year old...) but even more so less of a hype about both extremes of weight? I hope any of my potential children of the future don't have as much of a fixation as I and the rest of the world do.