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Are We Really Fatter Nowadays?

Floyd1 said:
You can't come to work drunk (unless you're an airline pilot of course) - in any case there wouldn't be much work done as I'd just fall asleep.
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I serve lots of people in the shop, who buy a bottle of vodka (at least one) per day. Most of these people are doing jobs that wouldn't be monitored for alcohol intake (supervisors, some grandparents who look after children, things like that. Builders, painters and decorators, people running their own businesses). People buying ten packs of beer, half bottles of scotch. This is EVERY DAY. Some I charitably assume share with partners, but even so, you are never going to tell me that alcohol is out of their system by the time they go to work the next day.
 
catseye said:
I serve lots of people in the shop, who buy a bottle of vodka (at least one) per day. Most of these people are doing jobs that wouldn't be monitored for alcohol intake (supervisors, some grandparents who look after children, things like that. Builders, painters and decorators, people running their own businesses). People buying ten packs of beer, half bottles of scotch. This is EVERY DAY. Some I charitably assume share with partners, but even so, you are never going to tell me that alcohol is out of their system by the time they go to work the next day.
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You've only got to look in peoples recycling boxes as you walk down the street on bin day. I know there's always one house where they're just full of coke cans (weirdos), but we're a nation of alcoholoics. I mean look at this lot on here......
 
And also, circling back to the topic of the thread, alcohol has a LOT of calories in. People seem to forget that those cans of lager will be helping them pile on the pounds.
 
catseye said:
I think you may be astonished (and probably appalled) at the number of people who work drunk or on a considerable amount of alcohol even nowadays.
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Hmm. I could get myself in to a lot of trouble here.

There are people I have known who can drink prodigious amounts of alcohol and are still functional. They tend to be manual workers with very physical jobs. There are other people I have known who can drink nearly as prodigious amounts of alcohol and stay perfectly functional and live in to their eighties - some of them French. There are other people who shouldn't drive or be allowed out in to public after a large glass of sherry.

Again, we come up with the ridiculous generalisations and categorisations that have plagued the last 50 years or so. I bet a good half of the Battle of Britain pilots were sozzled by modern standards when they were scrambled the following morning.

Can you walk a straight line or repeat a tongue twister (or shoot down a Hun) is a much better judge of functional sobriety than any arbitrary alcohol limit - especially given for some people in some of the more restrictive countries their own body is able to produce enough ethanol to put them over the limit without imbibing a drop.

Every one is different. Every context is different. Arbitrary limits are an embarrassing abdication of humanity. They are the precursor of hive culture and robotic post-humans.
 
Cochise said:
Hmm. I could get myself in to a lot of trouble here.

There are people I have known who can drink prodigious amounts of alcohol and are still functional. They tend to be manual workers with very physical jobs. There are other people I have known who can drink nearly as prodigious amounts of alcohol and stay perfectly functional and live in to their eighties - some of them French. There are other people who shouldn't drive or be allowed out in to public after a large glass of sherry.

Again, we come up with the ridiculous generalisations and categorisations that have plagued the last 50 years or so. I bet a good half of the Battle of Britain pilots were sozzled by modern standards when they were scrambled the following morning.

Can you walk a straight line or repeat a tongue twister (or shoot down a Hun) is a much better judge of functional sobriety than any arbitrary alcohol limit - especially given for some people in some of the more restrictive countries their own body is able to produce enough ethanol to put them over the limit without imbibing a drop.

Every one is different. Every context is different. Arbitrary limits are an embarrassing abdication of humanity. They are the precursor of hive culture and robotic post-humans.
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MrsF will drink a bottle of wine and possibly some cider/beer/whiskey and the next morning go out for a run.
 
Cochise said:
Hmm. I could get myself in to a lot of trouble here.

There are people I have known who can drink prodigious amounts of alcohol and are still functional. They tend to be manual workers with very physical jobs. There are other people I have known who can drink nearly as prodigious amounts of alcohol and stay perfectly functional and live in to their eighties - some of them French. There are other people who shouldn't drive or be allowed out in to public after a large glass of sherry.

Again, we come up with the ridiculous generalisations and categorisations that have plagued the last 50 years or so. I bet a good half of the Battle of Britain pilots were sozzled by modern standards when they were scrambled the following morning.

Can you walk a straight line or repeat a tongue twister (or shoot down a Hun) is a much better judge of functional sobriety than any arbitrary alcohol limit - especially given for some people in some of the more restrictive countries their own body is able to produce enough ethanol to put them over the limit without imbibing a drop.

Every one is different. Every context is different. Arbitrary limits are an embarrassing abdication of humanity. They are the precursor of hive culture and robotic post-humans.
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These people will be high-functioning alcoholics. They can function well with lots of alcohol in their systems (they are over any necessary limit, regardless of how well they are functioning) because they cannot function without that alcohol.

It is a slippery slope. See also how many people tell you they drive better with a drink or two in their systems.
 
catseye said:
These people will be high-functioning alcoholics. They can function well with lots of alcohol in their systems (they are over any necessary limit, regardless of how well they are functioning) because they cannot function without that alcohol.

It is a slippery slope. See also how many people tell you they drive better with a drink or two in their systems.
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Well, maybe.

Without offence, I knew someone would claim that. And yes, alcohol is addictive.

Or maybe just their constitution is less affected by alcohol than others.

It's a bit like 'smoking will kill you' Except like my Granddad who smoked rollups like a chimney ever since the trenches until his death - worked for WD & HO Wills, got free tobacco. Died at 77 dancing the Twist at a holiday camp. Smoking might have been part of it. Also being gassed in 1916.
 
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I've always corrected the "smoking will kill you" declaration; it's too simplistic.
It increases the chance of getting a fatal disease like lung cancer. My Dad never smoked and died in his old age from lung cancer. My Mum smoked 20-a-day Woodbine untipped. She lived for longer than my Dad but died with emphysema.
Like anything, public advice is generalistic and simplistic - they know their audience. K.I.S.S. No professional dictated the precise number of '5 fruit an' veg a day' ... but it increased the amount of fruit and veg consumed which is a good idea in general.
So looking at the 'recommended unit intake' of booze, it's more of an ambition. Humans aren't alike and their constitutions differ. In general, lots of booze is bad so any reduction is fine.
I consider public health 'guidelines' to be more aspirational than regulatory. Mainly because if it were regulatory, they'd need to back it up with science-based evidence*.

* Though that can be problematic as we see in the continued use of the widely-discredited BMI measurement of 'correct weight'.
 
This is a CONSPIRACY THEAD.

The 'signalling' comments about interfering government are a waste of time and have been removed.
 
I'm about to turn 76.
I smoked cigarettes for about 30 years, and was never overweight, always under 9 stone .
Then with great difficulty and misery I managed to give up smoking, and gradually put on weight.

Now, 25 years down the line, I'm 12 and a half stone, with high blood pressure and a couple of other problems.
I do drink alcohol, quite a lot if given the chance (!) but have never found it as addictive as cigarettes.
I give it up for Lent each year, mainly to prove to myself that I can.

I would still love to smoke -in fact, when I gave up, my daughter said "You can smoke again when you're 70" .
But it has become horrifically expensive and totally socially unacceptable.

Would I still be alive now, if I was under 9 stone and smoking? Who knows?!!

p.s I've been veggie for 65 years
 
Recycled1 said:
I'm about to turn 76.
I smoked cigarettes for about 30 years, and was never overweight, always under 9 stone .
Then with great difficulty and misery I managed to give up smoking, and gradually put on weight.

Now, 25 years down the line, I'm 12 and a half stone, with high blood pressure and a couple of other problems.
I do drink alcohol, quite a lot if given the chance (!) but have never found it as addictive as cigarettes.
I give it up for Lent each year, mainly to prove to myself that I can.

I would still love to smoke -in fact, when I gave up, my daughter said "You can smoke again when you're 70" .
But it has become horrifically expensive and totally socially unacceptable.

Would I still be alive now, if I was under 9 stone and smoking? Who knows?!!

p.s I've been veggie for 65 years
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Its the statistical fallacy. Just because professionals misunderstanding statistics say that having above some mean figure means 'your gonna die' doesn't actually mean you are going to die. Only if you are displaying symptoms or other notifiers do they become relevant.
 
Cochise said:
Its the statistical fallacy. Just because professionals misunderstanding statistics say that having above some mean figure means 'your gonna die' doesn't actually mean you are going to die. Only if you are displaying symptoms or other notifiers do they become relevant.
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Actually, you're gonna die. Where, when and how are the variables. Think I posted on here somewhere about a radio news item which said that doing or not doing something would "......reduce your risk of dying." No it won't
it's 100% - sorry!
 
I talked to my mate John the other day. He's 80. Can't stand unaided, can't walk without a walker. Has various health conditions which mean he's on morphine, has a restricted diet and is doubly incontinent.

Forty years ago he smoked constantly, drank a bottle of whisky a day, ate whatever he liked and his idea of exercise was a round of golf.

I asked him if he'd known how he would end up (and yes, most of his disabilities are linked to his past life choices which have led to strokes, heart problems etc) would he still have lived the same hedonistic lifestyle that he enjoyed from his late twenties until his early sixties. I genuinely thought he'd say 'yes, it was all worth it to have had the memories he had.'

He said no way. If he'd known how he would end up, dependent, unable to go to the toilet by himself and having to crawl up and downstairs to get to bed, he would have given up everything far far sooner.

So. Just one person's view, but his evident sadness at how he has to live now has made me think.
 
catseye said:
I talked to my mate John the other day. He's 80. Can't stand unaided, can't walk without a walker. Has various health conditions which mean he's on morphine, has a restricted diet and is doubly incontinent.

Forty years ago he smoked constantly, drank a bottle of whisky a day, ate whatever he liked and his idea of exercise was a round of golf.

I asked him if he'd known how he would end up (and yes, most of his disabilities are linked to his past life choices which have led to strokes, heart problems etc) would he still have lived the same hedonistic lifestyle that he enjoyed from his late twenties until his early sixties. I genuinely thought he'd say 'yes, it was all worth it to have had the memories he had.'

He said no way. If he'd known how he would end up, dependent, unable to go to the toilet by himself and having to crawl up and downstairs to get to bed, he would have given up everything far far sooner.

So. Just one person's view, but his evident sadness at how he has to live now has made me think.
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Fair point. But I'm hoping that my lifestyle will mean I go out to something sudden. My mum, who didn't drink at all and only took up smoking late in life, got dementia. My very healthy neighbour got motor neurone disease.

My son had instructions to load me on the Harley and point me off a cliff if something like that happened to me.
 
catseye said:
I talked to my mate John the other day. He's 80. Can't stand unaided, can't walk without a walker. Has various health conditions which mean he's on morphine, has a restricted diet and is doubly incontinent.

Forty years ago he smoked constantly, drank a bottle of whisky a day, ate whatever he liked and his idea of exercise was a round of golf.

I asked him if he'd known how he would end up (and yes, most of his disabilities are linked to his past life choices which have led to strokes, heart problems etc) would he still have lived the same hedonistic lifestyle that he enjoyed from his late twenties until his early sixties. I genuinely thought he'd say 'yes, it was all worth it to have had the memories he had.'

He said no way. If he'd known how he would end up, dependent, unable to go to the toilet by himself and having to crawl up and downstairs to get to bed, he would have given up everything far far sooner.

So. Just one person's view, but his evident sadness at how he has to live now has made me think.
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I've noticed that my bowels already don't have the same control as they used to.......
 
I've noticed from working in the shop, an increasing number of young women who come in carrying newborn babies when I've been serving them for the last six months and not realised they were pregnant. Two, particularly struck me as very surprising, one is a near neighbour of mine. Neither of them looked anything more than just overweight. I wonder whether doctors are noticing this - I remember when I was pregnant with my last child, going for an ultrasound and the ultrasound lady said 'oh, thank goodness, a slim mum, sometimes I have to press so hard to see the baby that I get a bit worried'. I felt a bit smug, but the killer was that I weighed eleven stone, which, at five foot six, did NOT make me anything like 'slim'.
 
catseye said:
I've noticed from working in the shop, an increasing number of young women who come in carrying newborn babies when I've been serving them for the last six months and not realised they were pregnant. Two, particularly struck me as very surprising, one is a near neighbour of mine. Neither of them looked anything more than just overweight. I wonder whether doctors are noticing this - I remember when I was pregnant with my last child, going for an ultrasound and the ultrasound lady said 'oh, thank goodness, a slim mum, sometimes I have to press so hard to see the baby that I get a bit worried'. I felt a bit smug, but the killer was that I weighed eleven stone, which, at five foot six, did NOT make me anything like 'slim'.
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I was always skinny as a stick when younger, my cousin was quite overweight, no matter what she seemed to eat.
After she was married for some time, her vision bothered her badly and she ended up at the eye doctor. He examined her eyes and told her she had better see a gynocologist because she was pregnant.
She didn't believe him at first, but she was more than six months along, even though it wasn't noticeable, and her obesity caused her early death.
 
catseye said:
I serve lots of people in the shop, who buy a bottle of vodka (at least one) per day. Most of these people are doing jobs that wouldn't be monitored for alcohol intake (supervisors, some grandparents who look after children, things like that. Builders, painters and decorators, people running their own businesses). People buying ten packs of beer, half bottles of scotch. This is EVERY DAY. Some I charitably assume share with partners, but even so, you are never going to tell me that alcohol is out of their system by the time they go to work the next day.
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I bartended for some years and found there are different types of drinkers.
Those who have a few all night and are happy, those who drink quite a bit and are even happier, some who drink all night and get nastier as the night goes along and pick fights over absolutely nothing, and those who shake uncontrollably until they have a few shots, and some who change into someone else after just one drink. I never knew if I'd be talking to one personality, or another, so I was nice to all of them!
And alcohol can be strange in that some people become immune to it - there are many people who can have a dozen drinks and more, and be absolutely fine. Of course, they might be in 'blackout' mode.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
And alcohol can be strange in that some people become immune to it - there are many people who can have a dozen drinks and more, and be absolutely fine. Of course, they might be in 'blackout' mode.
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I agree that people can become habituated to alcohol. But I would disagree that they would be 'absolutely fine.' Their behaviour may seem to be normal, but if tested, their blood alcohol level would make them unfit to operate machinery or drive or be in sole charge of children etc etc. Their reaction times would also be shot to hell.
 
I worked with someone who was an alcoholic. He was eventually dismissed on sickness grounds even though had he admitted his problem he would probably have kept his job and been offered help.

The booze was affecting his health, he always said it was allergies. However he never had a hangover, in another role he used to attend beer fuelled meetings and while all the others felt terrible the next day he was fine. Because of this he could drink what he liked without the "never again" reaction others normally have. A consequence was that he was addicted, and the stuff was affecting his health in other ways.

I know a lot of this because a relative of his also worked with us and I approached them to see if we could help via another route, but his family were unable to get anywhere either. Even a direct approach,you're drinking too much; the booze can't be helping your allergies, etc. got nowhere.

When he was at work he was entirely competent, although I don't doubt he was technically drunk, and a really nice guy. I still think that if he'd had a hangover or two earlier in life he may have avoided the alcoholism.

Back to topic though, he was too thin and a sallow colour, the calories weren't helping him.
 
catseye said:
I agree that people can become habituated to alcohol. But I would disagree that they would be 'absolutely fine.' Their behaviour may seem to be normal, but if tested, their blood alcohol level would make them unfit to operate machinery or drive or be in sole charge of children etc etc. Their reaction times would also be shot to hell.
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Tunn11 said:
I worked with someone who was an alcoholic. He was eventually dismissed on sickness grounds even though had he admitted his problem he would probably have kept his job and been offered help.

The booze was affecting his health, he always said it was allergies. However he never had a hangover, in another role he used to attend beer fuelled meetings and while all the others felt terrible the next day he was fine. Because of this he could drink what he liked without the "never again" reaction others normally have. A consequence was that he was addicted, and the stuff was affecting his health in other ways.

I know a lot of this because a relative of his also worked with us and I approached them to see if we could help via another route, but his family were unable to get anywhere either. Even a direct approach,you're drinking too much; the booze can't be helping your allergies, etc. got nowhere.

When he was at work he was entirely competent, although I don't doubt he was technically drunk, and a really nice guy. I still think that if he'd had a hangover or two earlier in life he may have avoided the alcoholism.

Back to topic though, he was too thin and a sallow colour, the calories weren't helping him.
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:nods: High-functioning alcoholics. There are a lot of those in my family.
I'm not one, having seen enough drunken relatives staggering about looking like stupid twats to put me off. :chuckle:

There are plenty about. My current job was kindly donated by the previous incumbent who'd been so devoted to the sauce, he'd bunk off to pubs during working hours.
This baffles me. You'd think he'd just carry a half bottle of vodka to swig.
 
catseye said:
I agree that people can become habituated to alcohol. But I would disagree that they would be 'absolutely fine.' Their behaviour may seem to be normal, but if tested, their blood alcohol level would make them unfit to operate machinery or drive or be in sole charge of children etc etc. Their reaction times would also be shot to hell.
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And yet it's surprising that my best friend and I would go out and have a few dozen (between drinks and shots), and according to the pub owner, my friend would barely stagger out the door at the end of the night, and I walked out looking the same as when I walked in.
I was always asked about that, but it was simply that I had built up an immunity to it, what with bartending. I would have six shots of Seagram's Seven to start. I suppose my Polish heritage kicked in. And before I played a game of pool, I would have several drinks, I always played better.
And I was up bright and early the next morning at 5:30 a.m. to get to work.
Then I got married and simply lost my taste for drinking, even cigarettes.
The funny part was, the more I drank the thinner I got, while my girlfriend gained weight. Couldn't figure that out either, alcohol affects everyone differently.
 
A MacDonalds “ Big Mac “ by itself will give you 25% of your daily calories and 40% of your daily fat intake.

When you add fries, the calories shoot over 1,400 when a person should only eat 2,000 calories a day.
 
charliebrown said:
A MacDonalds “ Big Mac “ by itself will give you 25% of your daily calories and 40% of your daily fat intake.

When you add fries, the calories shoot over 1,400 when a person should only eat 2,000 calories a day.
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In general the fries are pretty much in the same range as the burger's calories. In McDonald's defense they provide calorie counts.
 
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