So no extra funding for MH conditions or eating disorders just weight loss jabs!

The Government announcement has nothing to do with mental health or Ehlers-Danlos syndromes. A big deal has been done with pharmaceutical giant Lilly to invest in the UK. Clearly part of that deal is some kind of trial of weightloss injections. This won't be Government funded. There is no money to be freed up for other things. Lilly make weight loss injections, they don't treat mental health or EDS.

There is a conflation of issues here with the OP thinking that the Government is spending tax payers money on this, when it is unlikely that they will be. It will be Lilly.

Some of the posters are a little harsh on op. Her daughter has the most dangerous mental health condition of all, which statistically kills the most people. She is not getting the help she needs and if help doesn't come her daughter will die. She will already have caused irreversible damage to her body. There is very little funding and help available for anorexia, and op is clearly desperate. Personally, I can fully understand her despair.

On the flip side, I've seen first hand that obesity is resulting in more strain on the NHS than pretty much anything else. If anything can be done to genuinely reduce this then perhaps money can be freed up to tackle other things.

Sign, yes stress, poverty etc can all cause weight gain. But let’s be hugely honest, so can sitting on your arse too much and eating too much. And for a huge amount of people that’s the issue. I’m one of them. I’m not poor, I’m not stressed, I don’t have any mental health problems. But menopause, and working from home has made me change my lifestyle habits and gain. And I can honestly say it’s the same for every single one of my friends suffering from weight gain.

that doesn’t mean obesity doesn’t have other causes, but no one is going to buy those are the main causes. So yes. Weight loss injections fixes the root cause. Not the symptom for those millions of people.

You mention cancer. Prolonged stress (eg. caused by poverty) can increase the risk of cancer.

Addressing poverty - including the urgent need for more council housing, would help people re their health - and reduce NHS costs, so saving the economy billions.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/cancer/prolonged-stress-may-increase-the-risk-of-death-from-cancer

What do you think is the cause of it?

@TheBoldHelper

secondly obese people cause the nhs so much money

Nope. The NHS delays and misdiagnoses and doctor fobbing off culture costs people their health - including healthy weight - and as a consequence costs so much money.

Costs so much money, due to people being left waiting so long for diagnosis and treatment. So they're in worse health and in need of more (and more expensive) and longer term care, by the time they're actually correctly diagnosed and treated.

This includes the many people who gain weight because of limited mobility (so unable to exercise) due to pain. Or gain weight as a symptom of their health condition. Which then increases their risk of the conditions you mentioned, i.e. diabetes. All because of being left waiting too long for diagnosis and treatment

Like you say the need is to fix the cause, not the symptom. And in many cases (of course, not all cases) the weight loss jab is doing the opposite. It's fixing the symptom, not the cause.

And as you can see from the link I gave in my previous post, chronic stress can cause weight gain. And a major cause of chronic stress is poverty. Linked to that is housing.

Want to save the economy billions? Then address poverty and housing issues - including more council housing asap. (NB. As published in the British Medical Journal, bad or insecure housing harms health - so costs the economy a significant amount of money).

This is illogical.

firstly these type of drugs have been used for years for other ailments, namely diabetes.

secondly obese people cause the nhs so much money, from anything like the blood pressure meds, to a knee replacement or cancer treatment. So curing it at its source will reduce those needing treatment, thus reducing and likely removing waiting lists, and free up resources for enhanced treatment for other ailments.

what you’re saying is fix the symptom. What the medication does is fix the root cause.

Separately one of the biggest causes of obesity is poverty.

Poverty causes stress... which causes weight gain, due to increased cortisol. It's also harder to eat healthily, because unhealthy processed food is often cheaper, and because poverty often means limited cooking or storage access (so, eg. no cost saving batch cooking).

Re the links with mental health (and poverty):

Stress really can cause weight gain — and it's not about eating

Constant stress can pump up the number of fat cells we generate, a lab study suggests.

https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna126249

Weight loss drugs might help some people in some circumstances, but they won't help with the issues above. Not on individual levels, nor with the economy.

To address mental (and physical) ill health, and poverty, one of the biggest priorities needs to be more council housing asap. Because bad or insecure housing is a major cause of ill health. And separately (but related), these housing issues cost the economy billions.

Haven't read the thread but I agree with you OP.

I'm not necessarily against access to weight loss drugs (although I do have concerns re potentially as yet unknown long-term health effects) but only when appropriate. And definitely not as an ineffective alternative to prompt access to effective healthcare - physical or mental health.

Millions of people are on NHS waiting lists. Related to that there's people who are more ill and in need of more and longer term healthcare due to the delays and/or misdiagnoses and doctor fobbing off. Addressing this will help people's health (and save the economy £££££).

Many of those people on waiting lists gain weight...due to limited mobility caused by pain, or by other symptoms of their health conditions.

This is part of a massive package of investment by Lilly with the UK Government. It isn't really about tackling mental health problems, it is about Lilly investing in the UK and bringing jobs with it. I'm guessing part of the package is for Lilly to fund a small trial of weightloss injections.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-collaboration-with-largest-pharmaceutical-company

You lost 6 stone in 4 months?

Oh OP, I've had a severe eating disorder since I was 14. I'm 41 now. From June to October last year I lost just over 6 stone, my hair fell out, I was admitted to hospital for the results of what I was doing and my mental health was and still is on its arse. There is nothing to support me with the cause of it. There is nothing at all for women like me in my area. I'll kill myself with it one day. But I can't dwell on what's fair or what's not fair because it'll never change.

I think you could be right here.

Anecdotally, I was in inpatient treatment with several anorexia patients who had previously been overweight / obese.

I became first bulimic, then obese as an adult.

And I think the inverse is also true. This is obviously just anecdotal but I spoke to a colleague working in ED a few years ago who said they had a significant number of service users presenting with anorexia nervosa who had previously been morbidly obese then had gastric surgery which was successful so they lost lots of weight but were then having the same urges to eat excessively that they had before, were terrified of going back to their previous way of eating and putting weight back on, so restricted and restricted to the point they tipped over into anorexia and all the cognitions surrounding it.

It remains to be seen if that could be a side-effect of these weight-loss jabs but the early indications suggest it is unlikely as it removes (for many, not all), the urges.

The way I read it, and there clearly is a minority of people taking significant and issue, but from what I can see:

people who have struggled all their life to stay slim, successfully but it’s been hard, now thinking everyone can do the same thing, with a drug, whilst they struggle on. any sense of superiority will go. If everyone is slim, is it something to envy, it becomes the norm, but these folks need to keep struggling.

peopke who want the drug, won’t qualify and can’t afford it. Resenting the fact others will get it for free, or even can afford to buy it privately.

there is a lot of these people hoping it won’t work, or the weight will come back on, or that there will be horrible side effects for many, possibly as a way to feel better about it.

overall it’s quite sad, but human nature never fails to disappoint.

Why do people always see public sector workers and "people who eat crap" as a separate entity to taxpayers? Most of us are taxpayers. Most of my taxes are being spent on other people - drivers, other's children and, yes, people who need health treatments. I also seem to partially fund my own salary since I am a public sector worker. So what? That's society. Unless you live sustainable off-grid lifestyle, I am afraid "the taxpayer" pays for you to function in society too. And I would be interested to hear what you had for breakfast today. Was it a raw vegan affair or did you manage to sneak some "crap" cereal in?

OP, my daughter has anorexia, as did I as a young adult. You don’t seem to understand the relationship between anorexia and obesity. Anorexia isn’t the only ED, and sufferers commonly move between ED’s throughout their lives. Those with anorexia are at a higher risk of future obesity than the general population. If your dd becomes one of those people, you will likely want her to have the help to manage it.

The Minnesota Starvation Study is a good place to start to understand the physiological and psychological effects of food restriction.

Whereas in reality this jab will save the NHS significant amounts of money in not treating obesity related co-morbidity. That’s all the Gov wants to achieve. It’s not that they’re all heart.

Because people want to be angry at fat people.

Thread after thread has always been how terrible fat people are because of the cost of their fatness to the NHS.

Now we have a much more cost-effective way of managing obesity and not leading to further complications down the line.

So the fat-haters just find a new angle to be angry about fat people.

Boring.

Probably less than the cost of treating obesity related health issues?

To be fair I do think you’ve accidentally answered your own rage….

Obesity is an eating disorder and a mental health issue. If you look into the reasons people get overweight- you can see a clear cycle.

I say this as someone who struggles with weight and is not lazy or poor and can’t afford decent food.

I exercise daily, eat a healthy well balanced diet , I do have PCOS however. I tried everything diet to lose weight- I’d lose the weight my under eating my calories then go into maintenance calories and ooof 😅 straight back up. Then I went onto Mounjaro - I pay for it myself and woah it’s a game changer! I figure this must be how normal people feel?!

So yeah obesity really isn’t someone say eating cream cakes and stuffing their faces- they’ve found genetic reasons for why some people gain and others don’t. And these drugs could actually save people’s mental health long term and reduce the burden that way.

From the OP title and this:

People dying of EDS. Because there are no inpatient beds and huge waits for treatment but apparantly we can fund weight loss jabs to anybody who wants them. 🤔
Even though we know very little about the long term impact.

Oh of course this is a thinly veiled thread about the 'ills of weightloss jab' and the taxpayer funding them for the 'lazy fatties'.

I also never said it belongs on that board - it certainly belongs here where it's been put as a klaxon for more wlj discussion as the thread will definitely descend into.

Most of those struggling with obesity have an ED.

This isn't a thread about using weightloss jabs or losing weight though. This is a thread discussing a news report and proposed NHS/Government initiative. That's appropriate for AIBU.

I don't think threads like this should be moved to the weightloss board.

People smoke and the NHS cough up.
People drink (not just addicts, glasses of wine every night are detrimental) and the NHS coughs up.
People speed and crash their cars and the NHS coughs up.
People get piercings and tattoos that get infected and the NHS coughs up.
People take drugs and the NHS coughs up.
People self harm and the NHS cough up.

All self inflicted.
But it's just the fatties that don't deserve treatment?

You you honestly think that people reach 250lbs plus from just being greedy with no other mitigating factors?