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Originally Posted by Tomkat
The north and Scotland are poorer (in general) than the South, which means they're not as well educated in terms of health and foods.
Generalising completely there but it is true  |
It's not really about education, I doubt there are many people who seriously don't know that eating a lot of burgers and chips help make you fat, or that not exercising doesn't help your weight.
There are economic reasons (although these are sometimes exaggerated, as people have noted - it is possible to eat cheaply and well) and sometimes these are more indirect than anything else (e.g. where I used to live in Camberwell the nearest supermarkets were Iceland and Somerfield which seem to stock a disproportionately high number of high-fat foods compared to supermarkets in wealthier areas, but that's cause and effect).
I'd say the largest single reason for difference in weight is a general attitude to life / self-discipline. It's the same reason that (on average) there are more smokers among the poor than the wealthy - its not that poor people can't read the warning labels that are printed in size 48 on every packet, it's more they don't care as much or they "need" the stress relief more or something.
It's difficult to explain but it's a sort of horrible short-termism which leads to essentially irrational behaviour to make one feel better. Every single member of my family that I can think of as some sort of outlet which makes them feel better but is essentially self-destructive (pointless shopping, comfort eating, gambling, substance abuse, etc).
Obviously everyone has these behaviours, but they seem worst amongst poorer people, or people who used to be poor when they were kids. From an early age there seems to be a more general trend towards short-term gratification (e.g. feeding kids high-sugar high-salt foods regularly) which everyone knows is kind of harmful, but it's not really ever confronted (or "we'll worry about it later"). Maybe that is an educational point though, I'm not sure.
But perhaps it's also a reaction to the pressures (or perceived pressures) of everyday life. To take two extremes ; one of my colleagues at work comes from a poor family (youngest of ten kids, council house in some shithole, etc). He earns reasonable money now (£35k or so) but has massive consumer debts he struggles to repay. One of the reasosns why is he spent £10k+ on one holiday to America for his family (him, his wife and three kids). All on credit. Because once you're on holiday, you kind of want to escape from it all, life is shit and hey, let's have some short-term relief from it all. So let's go to Disneyworld and every other tourist trap and not worry about how much it costs. He knew it was stupid, but he pushed those thoughts away.
Compare that to holidays undertaken by my ex's family (who are all reasonably well off, Oxbridge educated, etc) - usually some kind of sort of cycling holiday in York where they stay in cheapish hostels and don't really "splash out" on anything - why would they? Life is quite nice, so of course neither of her parents smoke and are reasonably active, etc.
Obviously I'm generalising massively too and I'm not saying that these mentalities only stem from income differentials (or historical income differentials) but that it doesn't exactly seem to help either.
From what I can tell, people over-eat not because they think they need to eat loads of fatty crappy foods, but because (upto a point) it makes them feel better. Not because it's satisfying hunger most of the time, or their bodies need it, but because when you eat chocolate or whatever you genuinely feel a buzz (albeit temporarily). Chronic over-eaters are probably easiest to think of as drug addicts than merely people who are confused over the nutritional content of lard.