To think that people pretend not to understand obesity

Another example of money widening the health gap between the rich and the poor.

People aren’t saying that exercise doesn’t help with depression, just like people know that eating less will help to lose weight. Just knowing these things to be true isn’t enough for many people to actually be able to do it though. In the throes of depression, just going out for a walk around the block feels like too much, similarly at the peak of obesity skipping one chocolate bar isn’t going to immediately lose 5 stone so “might as well eat and enjoy it…” and so the mentality goes. It’s hard to break the cycle.

private prescriptions are not 'no questions asked'

Not entirely, but claiming your BMI is <30 and sending a couple of photos is far from rigorous.

As always if you have the money you can access far more treatments.

Hmm, I have no skin in this particular game having been slender all my life, but I think it's somewhat disingenuous to compare nicotine or alcohol addiction to food addiction.

You know how difficult it was to give up smoking, but the ultimate solution was to not smoke. A person can't not eat, so a person with a compulsion to overeat is faced with their addiction multiple times a day. You can't avoid food as you can with alcohol or nicotine, so I imagine it's a much tougher nut to crack.

Who is eligible for MJ on the NHS? Do you have to be a certain weight/BMI?

And are people who don’t fit the NHS criteria able to buy it with no questions asked?

The difference is that with smoking you can completely stop. With eating you cant. It’s different. How many ex smokers say they’d be back to 20 a day if they had just one? Now think about that for meals.

Read what you replied t9 again. Yes, obviously overweight people are eating too much. It’s not because they are lazy fuckers with no willpower though (usually). It’s a chemical and emotional addiction.

Well exercise really can help with depression. It’s often the first thing a good GP will ask about when someone presents with low mood. Rather than reach for the ADs they may suggest a programme of exercise and to then review in a week or two.
Not all obese people have deep seated psychological issues or an addiction or have tried all the other weight loss methods, and could be supported in ways other than injections.

Which is why she is doing it SLOWLY over a year to gradually reduce the portion size rather than cutting them to a normal size straight away.

It is an addiction but there is always still a choice. Some people are just not good at helping themselves.

Either you are over eating or genuinely dieting. Diets do work. They fail because people cannot stick to them due to food addiction.

It's like any addiction. It takes effort to beat them. Mine was with nicotine. I had to WANT to stop to be successful and would make excuses why I needed another. I've had that battle with my head and won. Eventually.

When you WANT to do something you will.

Yes I can see it must be horrible for people who have some sort of medical reason for not being able to lose weight or gain weight too quickly. The problem is the vast majority of overweight people are like that due to the food they eat, the amount of food they eat or the lack of movement.

Which is why she is doing it SLOWLY over a year to gradually reduce the portion size rather than cutting them to a normal size straight away.

It is an addiction but there is always still a choice. Some people are just not good at helping themselves.

Either you are over eating or genuinely dieting. Diets do work. They fail because people cannot stick to them due to food addiction.

It's like any addiction. It takes effort to beat them. Mine was with nicotine. I had to WANT to stop to be successful and would make excuses why I needed another. I've had that battle with my head and won. Eventually.

When you WANT to do something you will.

Who is eligible for MJ on the NHS? Do you have to be a certain weight/BMI?

And are people who don’t fit the NHS criteria able to buy it with no questions asked?

I had an obese friend who did tell me BMI was not indicative at all and fit men here prefer bigger girls (so they have something to hold onto) so she likes being large. I do think some people don't mind being large which is up to them. I have seen her consume breakfast, then mcdonalds chicken nuggets, Greg's sausage roll and a full packed lunch of noodles all in one sitting, then go onto to eat a full dinner to maintain her weight. She often pats her stomach in satisfaction.

I don't think they're pretending. I think if you've never struggled with your weight then you're not going to understand obesity. It must seem such an easy solution - just eat less!
It's a bit like people who've never struggled with their mental health telling people who are depressed to go for a walk.

Sorry but you don’t get it at all. Saying obese people just don’t want it badly enough or they would lose weight is ignorant and offensive.

Which is why she is doing it SLOWLY over a year to gradually reduce the portion size rather than cutting them to a normal size straight away.

It is an addiction but there is always still a choice. Some people are just not good at helping themselves.

Either you are over eating or genuinely dieting. Diets do work. They fail because people cannot stick to them due to food addiction.

It's like any addiction. It takes effort to beat them. Mine was with nicotine. I had to WANT to stop to be successful and would make excuses why I needed another. I've had that battle with my head and won. Eventually.

When you WANT to do something you will.

Obesity is so multi faceted, there is no one fix.

Yes of course, how much and what we eat is a key factor. And exercise plays almost no role at all in weight loss. It's great for health of course. But to lose weight? No.

But so are hormones. Any woman in or past the menopause will tell you, they can practically fast and the weight won't come off. I've experienced this. With GP support.

Hormones change for a period after weight loss surgery (got this from the horses mouth, from one of the UK's leading weight loss surgeons) and this is what makes weight loss surgery work. It's also why the effect of the surgery wears off after a few months, despite still having a hugely reduced stomach size.

Insulin resistance. Makes losing weight very very hard, regardless of calorie intake. Another reason that WLI work. Because they're designed for diabetics. It isn't just about the appetite suppression.

When losing weight, the body is designed to try to cling onto the weight. Losing just 3 percent of your body weight can result in a 17 percent slowdown in your
metabolism – a body-wide starvation response that blasts you with hunger hormones and drops your internal temperature until you rise back to your highest weight.

So no one is saying that eating junk food, drinking fizzy drinks loaded with sugar, high fat, high fat and crappy food isn't too blame. But it isn't the whole picture. ~

And people that have never been obese aren't experts. All this calories in, calories out crap is just that.

If you talk to a REAL expert, they know this.

So do people with this problem have to stay on MJ for life because if they stop the food addiction will begin again?

Again - addictive foods are made that way - to trigger the pleasure pathways in the brain - you don’t need a “medical condition” you just need a brain that is more susceptible to reacting strongly to these substances either through genetics or just the way your brain is/biological variations.

So yes it is partly the food they eat (which is designed to be addictive) and partly how their body metabolises and stores food - and it is way more complex than calories in/calories out.

Here is just one short quote which might help people understand why obesity is very complex - people can google “NAD” to understand better if they want to help the obesity epidemic rather than just victim blame.

“NAD+ plays a crucial role in metabolism and energy production, and its levels are often reduced in obesity, potentially contributing to metabolic dysfunction and insulin resistance. Boosting NAD+ through precursors like nicotinamide riboside (NR) or nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) may help improve metabolic health and combat obesity.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37761000/#:~:text=Adipose%20tissue%20plays%20a%20key,;%20sirtuin;%20type%202%20diabetes.