A Maximum BMI for nurses

The problem is that the NHS is getting the messaging wrong. People taking umbridge at an OW nurse discussing weight loss would be no more receptive to it from a thin nurse, because the problem is what is being said, not the appearance of the speaker. All that's happening with OW nurses is their appearance provides an easy target for the offended to lash out in retaliation.
Rather than trying to change the messenger in the hopes the audience will be receptive, they need to change the message. The general consensus is that vanishingly few OW people need to be told they are OW, that being OW carries a health risk, or that diet management and excercise are the first resorts to address being OW. If a person is OW its reasonable to assume they know all this but are OW despite it. So the solutions are trying to address the wrong problem.
It would be a great deal more helpful to offer a dialogue starting with, "Would you like to discuss any issues around diet?" And address this to everyone. Because there are plenty of other issues people may have related to food and nutrition that isn't just about being OW, like diet in menopause, or diet to manage specific health conditions.

I think this is the answer, really. A sort of nostalgic, cartoon version of what people think a nurse looks like. Probably somewhere around 1962.
Tattoos at that time would have been an absolute no-no and dyed hair, similarly. Some people are of the same mindset now. before anyone jumps down my throat, DD has both tattoos and green hair.

Thing is society wants these perfect, slim nurses who 'practice what they preach' but they also want the nurses to not take the breaks because someone is pressing their buzzer, there aren't enough staff and the patients should come first, to work the 12 hour shifts, to work the night shifts, provide flawless care (and then the unpaid overtime to get everything done) but then to eat well, take exercise and get enough sleep as well - so they can do it all again the next day but be thin while they do it.

You can't have a culture where hcps are not given the time and resources to look after themselves, an attitude where they must come last in every scenario and put everyone & everything else above their own wellbeing and then be surprised that the hcps are not looking after themselves and one of the results is obesity and the health issues that brings.

I mean sure, let's get rid of all the overweight hcps. That's what the NHS needs, less nurses. What a smashing idea. Let's not look to change the culture that has led to this in the first place, let's just rid ourselves of the concequences of it and carry on regardless.

It can be quite galling to have a clearly overweight medical professional tell you to lose weight and that will fix a lot of your problems.

But that sort of thing just makes me smirk internally. I know I have a medical condition which makes weight loss very difficult if left untreated. I'd assume that the nurse may have similar condition or be grabbing a quick snack between patients and long shifts which means healthy eating plans aren't always achievable. It boggles my mind that the nhs as an organisation doesn't permit structure to practise what they preach, with proper rest breaks. Access to gyms etc.

At least my work facilitates gym use every lunch time, with a mandatory hour lunch break, ranging from yoga to circuits. We also have a monthly wellbeing hour where we are encouraged to participate in sport or other mindfulness activities.

Maybe it’s your knee-jerk attitude that you are being lectured not advised that is the problematic issue here.

Anyway when do all these fat lectures take place? I’ve never walked into a hospital and been cornered by a nurse telling me to lose weight. I’m guessing it’s when operation waitlists mean the hospitsl has to save face by saying “ well you need to lose weight first anyway,” in which case the issue is the patient’s “wait” not the nurse’s weight.

Oh the irony. “Not holier than thou about it” my substantial hypothyroid arse.

Oh don’t even start! You’ll bring out the “ society has lost track of what healthy looks like. Ribs should be protruding” brigade, who, I might add, ply their craft with no thought whatsoever for those with body image struggles and eating disorders.

Very well said . “ Their job is … not to demonstrate their marvellous thinness.” 😂

It absolutely is.

How and why people can’t see that I cannot begin to fathom.

I think with so many avenues for discrimination shut down these days, ( which I agree with), this leaves behind a group who itch to discriminate as part of their very nature so they have to direct their proclivities with full force at obesity because it is one of the last remaining discriminatory outlets sanctioned by society.

I’m always a bit repulsed by how predictably posters will try to shut down use of words like wrinkly or scrawny on these threads discussing things like “grossly overweight” and muffin tops because thin people don’t deserve such awful language. The hypocrisy inherent in the weight threads is rife.

Hilarious concept. Wd already employed mostly women into these underexposed and underpaid posts, why don't we reduce the numbers even more 😂

A 14-16 could be obese if you're quite short. I'm 5ft8 and currently a size 18(ish) and I'm obese. Only just, my bmi is 30.5 but it's still classed as obese.

That's not to say someone with that BMI cannot manage being a nurse. I work in a hospital and I spend all day running around and up and down stairs and I manage just fine, thanks.

I don't want to move or exercise when I get home but I cope at work without any issues, even when carrying heavy equipment around.

If anything I'm coping less well after loosing weight because I'm in a calorie deficit and therefore have less energy to spend on moving around.

I believe the workload of the NHS makes it hard for staff to maintain healthy weight. So how is penalising overweight staff going to help? Ps, are you sure 14/16 is obese?

I don't mind being given weight-loss advice by a fellow fat person. I'm in my 50s and have always been fat and know what I should be able to do to reduce it. An overweight HCP likewise knows they are overweight and what to do about it, and knows that I know the theory, too, after 50 years of hearing it. None of it is news to either of us. Their job is to give me advice, not to demonstrate their marvellous thinness, and I prefer to receive that advice from someone who has the same struggles as I do, rather than from some snotty, skinny, 'massive salad'-eating, lollipop head who regards me with revulsion and disdain.

It's called goady shite and best ignored.

IME, the role of a community nurse is not physically demanding - they are mainly concerned with assessments, changing wound dressings, emotional support to people, reporting back to district nurses for any further action.

@setmestraightplease In between catheter changes, nephrostomy care, Picc line care and disconnecting chemo therapy, dealing with complex wounds that require NPWT, palliative care, doppler assessments and compression bandaging, draining pleural effusions and abdominal ascites, I have been known to change the odd dressing

It's the Telegraph, just ignore it.

Surely it’s about being physically fit enough to do the job rather than about looks? But BMI alone doesn’t tell you anything about a person’s fitness so it’s still a bollocks idea.

I'd love to see the lawsuit on this! Massive sex discrimination payout not to mention the inappropriate use of BMI.

Maybe instead of attacking nurses bmi they should look at raising staffing levels so they have time for a proper break and provide healthy options to eat in hospitals.
Of all the issues in the NHS this can not be even in the top 50, article is bizarre

When I started my training (pre-university nursing), there were height and weight limits!
You had to be a minimum of 5'2" and and appropriate weight for height (under or overweight)
This was for practical reasons - lifting for example (yes, I know that aids are available now, this was over 40 years ago) and based on the fact that no-one is going to take dietary and nutrition advice from an over/underweight professional.
Now, nobody gives a damn because "i can have a jab to take it away'

Like we have such a huge surplus of excellent nurses that we can pick and choose what they look like?!

This is just ludicrous! And hideous discriminatory fat shaming I am afraid. I guess the telegraph must be desperate to resort to this kind of journalism, and I do read it occasionally and will be rethinking my options.

In 2022 to 2023, 64.0% of adults aged 18 years and over in England were estimated to be overweight or living with obesity. Not sure why they are focussing on nurses being fat. I doubt that having lean and hungry nurses is going to inspire the other 64% of the population to stop eating far too many calories.

The "ideas to fix the NHS" thread on here was basically the same thing, i.e. people's personal pet peeves, most of which would cost rather than save money.

Staffing on the ward I used to work on was three nurses plus one clinical support worker. Having even one nurse who was unable to do certain tasks would have an impact. I don’t work on the wards any more but am in a similar sized team now. One of my colleagues has various health conditions, including obesity. There are a few tasks she struggles with that usually fall to me. It’s starting to be expected that I will just do certain things because I’ll be quicker than she will. I often have to interrupt what I am doing to go and help her and it is really starting to have an impact on my ability to keep up with my own workload.

A maximum BMI is not the way to go. Too simplistic. But I do believe nurses should be physically capable of doing their jobs. It’s not fair to expect others to pick up the slack.

But, as you say, there is a shortage of nurses so there’s no guarantee we could replace her were she to move to another role that would suit her better. I’m not sure what the answer is.

It's a contentious issue but we continually told that obesity costs the NHS a vast deal of money with the implicit suggestion we have a national duty to lose weight to protect the NHS. I think this attitude gets people's backs up and they look at overweight nurses and start to feel there is hypocrisy in the NhS messaging. Orient correct obviously but this perspective exists.

I think also there is a tendency for the middle class including medics to view obesity as the scourge of the feckless poor so there is a stigma that may make its way into the general view of patients. Sometimes I think 50 something well.educated healthy medics with considerable income pontificating about healthy life style can be grating.