I realise you know I’m quite chunky all over but that’s what makes me, me. And no matter I’ve been on every single diet known to man, for the entirety of my life trying to make myself slim, but to be honest that just makes me really unhappy cos I’m always calorie counting, always looking at packets, and everybody else is just there enjoying, they can eat as many burgers as they like, I only have to look at a slice of cake or a burger, and I put on about a stone. it’s, [laughs] it’s just the way that our family works, everyone in our family is large, I just have to accept that, you know, the amount of fruit and veg I eat is also important, I suppose, but no matter what I eat I’m always me, and I know I’ve got a big tummy and a huge arse, but, you know, that’s me, and somebody loves me for it so, I don’t have to change for anyone now.

You think it’s an issue maybe about your metabolism, maybe that’s what caused it?

Well I can’t think of any other reason than that for if I eat so much less than for instance, my sister, we both do no exercise, and , she’s always been a very thin child and I’ve always been a bigger child. I mean I was, I was more interested in eating when I was younger than her, I loved my food, so did my brother. She wasn’t really interested, she just, it was sort of more of a chore for her, but now, I think she loves it more than me, and I can’t see any other reason why, why there’s that difference, other than perhaps metabolism.

I mean I’m not, I’m not saying that it’s only my metabolism, I just happened to learn that because perhaps I have a slower metabolism than other people, that I’ve had to eat, I’ve had to eat differently and eat less. Which I wasn’t something I wanted to realise before, so I mean obviously it’s just if you, it’s simple that if you eat more calories than you burn off, you put on weight. Yeah.

Some of the other factors that people think might be important are things like, maybe you have a genetic predisposition, or?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I’ve got a, yeah I think that’s definitely an issue for some people. I can’t say it is for me. My Mum was the same size as my sister until she had children and then slightly bigger but she’s very, very slim still for a woman of her age. My Dad was very, very thin until he was in, you know, in his adult years, and now I think he struggles with it a bit too. But I think that I certainly don’t have a genetic disposition towards it, but I think a lot of people do, but then I guess that it’s always the question about whether is it genetics or is it the, the environment that you’ve been raised in, and the environment that you are in. And yeah, I don’t really know.

And one of the other theories is that, maybe it’s something to do with, what your Mum did when she was pregnant with you, and the kind of things that she fed you when you were a baby, like a very small baby. And that sort of thing, I mean what do you think?

Not particularly, ‘cos I mean I was her third child, and she did everything the same with my pregnancy as she did with my brother and sister’s, and there’s not, I can’t see anything that would explain the variance, and again she treated us, we were all quite young, I mean my brother is six years older than me and my sister’s four years older than me, so she had three kids under the age of 6 at the same time, and she did everything the same for us, so our packed lunch was always the same and so on. Things like that. So I don’t think that I was treated any differently when I was, when I was younger, than my sister was.

I think there is some people who are meant to be big, like there’s not, there’s people that look fat if you like and aren’t actually fat they are just like meant to be as big as they are, if they, if they went skinny they’d look atrocious kind of thing and that girl in my class she did everything to eat healthy and she just didn’t lose weight I think she was just meant to be that kind of weight kind of thing, she was a big baby, she was a big girl, she was just like big right the way through kind of thing she wasn’t meant to be a skinny person so not all people that you look at are fat, some of them are obese but some of them are just meant to be like that.

So are you saying there is a difference between sort of people that are meant to be kind of bigger?

Big.

and then

And then people who are obese.

people who are

Yeah.

obese?

Because obesity is brought on yourself I think, obesity is like when you’ve got eating, bad eating habits and you don’t exercise whereas just some big people just, maybe they do eat a bit more than say you and I but they just like, they are meant to be like quite big because they look kind of ill if they didn’t look that as big as they are.

So in those two groups of people then does, there’s like different causes for them being bigger?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so with the obese, obesity group they, it’s because they are?

Less active and they don’t really tend to watch what they eat.

Okay and then what about with the other group then?

The other group, I would say they weren’t active, they wouldn’t be as [noise] active as say, I’m just using myself as an example, but they would sort of, the wouldn’t be as active and they wouldn’t watch what they eat as much as other people but they do seem to do more about it than obese people.And I think obesity has got, there’s not always but sort of quite a few times there is a reason behind obesity like comfort eating and stuff like.

And so why do you think you had gained all of that weight? What do you think made that happen?

Well I think it was mainly the fact that I just used to eat whenever I was bored or whenever I felt like it, and I’d not, I never did exercise. The only time I’d do exercise is a couple of times in the summer when I was going on my bike or something like that, or play, it got, it got harder as I got older because I became less like playful and going outside to play and stuff like that. So that’s when it becomes hard for you, is when you don’t go outside and play with your friends, or you’re not energetic anymore.

And so the weight sort of gradually increased then?

Yeah.

Okay, and so how much did you weigh when you first came here (Shine Programme)?

Well when I first came I was 11 stone something, but because I’d lost a little bit of weight when we got the letter, so when I started losing weight I was actually 12 stone. Which is, was a bit of a shock for me ‘cos I never used to weight myself either. So, I think it, that was a bit of a shock for me.

And you’ve lost weight?

Yeah.

And how much did you lose?

30 pounds.Which I think if you convert it into stones, that’s about 2 pounds and, 2 stones 2 pounds I think.

Okay, yeah.

I think roughly. And so now I’ve gone from like 12 stone to like 9 stone 7 so, and it feels great as well.

How do you explain your weight problem? I mean what do you think caused it?

I think it was sheer the lack of exercise, that just spiralled and spiralled. Obviously because I weren’t going out in primary school and running around like the other kids and playing games like other kids were and things. It were just the sheer lack of me wanting to get involved and do exercise because even as a kid I was never the really confident person that a lot of primary school kids are when they mix with each other, and things. I were never that confident in myself anyway. So, I just tended like from the very, very early on I tended to try and stop out of going out at break times, try and get out of doing PE, try and get out of doing other things that involved ex-, anything to do with exercise and things because I just didn’t have the confidence to be able to try and do something, and… I would, I just had the feeling that other people were gonna laugh at me if I failed.

Oh right. Okay. And, I mean so you think it was more about exercise and not so much about what you were eating, or how much you were eating, or?

I mean there was times at secondary school where I’d get like big jars of Nutella and I’d have a little bit, and the next thing I knew I’d eaten a whole jar.

So there were issues like that where I would turn to food. And I would eat things that are not necessarily the healthiest option. So I have done that as well.

And so what was it that you got from food? How did it help?

I don’t know, I just think, I think sometimes it just made me, it gave me something to do.

Right.

If I, like, I wouldn’t go out so I’d bury myself in my work. But if I were bored with my work, I could always turn to food and eat.

I mean I think that the physical side of eating and overeating sometimes it is a personal, you know, it is a personal choice that if you, you eat it that’s it, but most people don’t know the reason why they do.

I don’t think because I didn’t, I just thought ‘oh I, it follows in my family that we overeat so that is clearly in my genetics so I was born to overeat’ so most people don’t know the cause of why they are overweight and I think that, I think that the majority of it is probably an emotional factor, I don’t think, I know that there is genetics and all the other things that come into it, but I think that the emotional side of it is quite a huge factor and, as a personal choice, I mean it is hard to fight bad habits and fight, you know, the fact that why you over ate in the first place but I think once you come to terms with that that is when you start making your own personal choices because, you know, it, it is the individuals choice to overeat or to do something about it but I think you have to reach a certain state of mind, like I have, I know the reason why I overeat and I tackled it and maybe I haven’t overcome it because I still have the days when, you know, I think ‘I’m stressed so I’ll eat’ but then I’m trying to replace that with ‘I’m stressed so I’ll relax’ or something like that, so yeah I think in, in order to be able to make conscious personal choice of what you really want to do the emotional side has to be tackled because, I mean, you know, a lot of people don’t really know the cause of it which I think is a problem, so yeah.

I wouldn’t say the sort of eating behaviour is necessarily has sort of been, shall we say, having a genetic influence. I mean I do think when it comes to sort of body shape and, and things like that there is a genetic element to it. So for example I mean I’m, you know, the shape I am. My husband is not skinny either, he’s a certain sort of shape and sort of stocky I suppose. So I think there’s an influence there but I do very much feel with diet that you can change, change things and, and do that. Now, I mean whether, I mean I know people will say, Oh, it’s your metabolism. But whether there is a genetic element to that I’m, I’m not quite sure really but I mean I do feel if you eat sensibly and exercise then you can keep a healthy weight. I mean I think maybe to expect to be very skinny when it’s kind of not your build then I think that could be difficult. I mean but no generally I wouldn’t view eating behaviour, for example, as, as kind of having a genetic element at all. I think that’s something that you can certainly do something about. I mean I see strong kind of psychological [laughs] element to it in terms of, you know, eating behaviours being affected by mood and everything but not so much genetic. In that sense, I don’t think you’re born to be fat. I don’t believe that really, you know.

My daughter’s always been overweight she was born quite a big baby, not massive but quite big8.3. And went onto, she was breastfed to start with quickly that was not enoughand went onto formula quite early and got permission from the doctors to put her on the follow on milk very fast. Has always been very, very attached to food from, literally from birth it seems. What could be part of that actually, which was an interesting thing I’ve been thinking about recently since we started talking about what could have been the start of that because my experience with her, her entire life has been around food. When she was, when she was very, very small she had a reflux problem, the muscle at the top of her stomach didn’t, hadn’t properly formed, which apparently happens quite often, and if she was laid flat after food she would be sick and so for the first year and a half of her life she spent with the prettiest bibs you could imagine, we had a full array of bibs [laughs] and she literally rotated around them she could project-, projectile vomit also she is very, very good at that as well. So basically we had a lot of issues with food right from very early on but it settled down reasonably, it was copable that kind of thing. Also a very low patience threshold even as a small child and as a small child, I can see it now how I built into it when we were out shopping or something like that she was quite a fractious child and would cause mayhem basically. And I would basically keep things with me healthy things but nevertheless food and as we were going round I would, it would be a drip feed to keep her quiet basically as we were shopping and that kind of thing.

So looking back on it now you think oh you can see the sort of seeds of that right from the very beginning and take your responsibility for that. She also had very definite tastes from a very early age, she’s a very, very strong character, she’s a very, very strong character and very early on she knew exactly what she wanted and what she didn’t want and what she would have and what she won’t have.

As I say got a very strong personality very loud when she wants to be, actually she’s very loud full stop [laughs] when she doesn’t want to be she doesn’t know the meaning of quiet, well she doesn’t have an indoor button. And very early on we saw problems with her, she was a chubby child, she has an elder brother whos three and a half years older than her, who was always a lot more active as a child right from the beginning he was very, very active right from the beginning, was the kind of child who in retrospect was more like, in inverted commas, you know, more normal if you like in terms of eating habits, ate sometime didn’t other times and sometimes you’d get worried because he wasn’t eating enough, never had that problem with my daughter, she always wanted to eat, she could always eat.

The other issue that came up about the same time is that my mother, who had retired, I was running a market research company at that point, and my mother who had retired spent a lot of time with us. When I had a big project she would come down and stay with us for literally months on end. She and my daughter have a very close relationship, did right from the very beginning, they just are very, very close. And my mother being of the war generation basically equates love and food, that’s it the two go hand in hand that’s all she’s interested in basically. And she, to be honest, we have had more fights and run-ins over the years than I care to, it’s on a regular basis and still is because she will, she would, she doesn’t understand that food, you don’t give food as treats and I picked, I got that fairly early on with daughter becauseI realised fairly early on that this was not a good thing to be happening.

My son, was diagnosed with kidney problems in when he was in the womb. At a very early stage and at birth various things were carried out, various tests and after a period of three to four years weight gain became apparent. Only very slightly as part of his growing, his development and it was it was noticed at a fairly early stage by health visitors and that sort of thingbut it was thought to be just a developmental issue which would disappear as he grows and this sort of thing. As he grew older and older and older it became apparent there was more to the weight gain than was first thought. And despite various attempts to lose weight he hasn’t been able to control it, we haven’t been able to control it and hence he has reached the stage where fairly drastic forms of action have to be taken now to have to try and reduce the impact it’s having on his life.