Why aren't "we" allowed.tomsuggest peole need to take some responsibility for their own health?

[Holidayfix]

Another one on the benefits issue.

My position is I'm surprised by these cuts and I absolutely support a benefits safety net, and where people have been unfortunately enough to have poor health dealt to them I feel it's absolutley necessary that "we" support them.

However, like it or not, a lot of what affliction people, mentally and physically, in the modern world is lifestyle related and there are very many things that many people could do to help themselves.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but why is it unacceptable to suggest that people could help themselves by doing the recommended things that support.mental and physical health?

My sister is a nurse; they advise so many obese people to lose weight but few do. So yes as the OP said many people's health issues are caused by their lifestyle choices.

OP is correct. It may well already be taught in schools now that research has shown there to be no safe amount of alcohol to drink as it is as carcinogenic as asbestos. Red meat also has been proven to cause cancer. I think public awareness is there about how lifestyle choices affect health but I think they need drumming in to us more.
Fewer kids are drinking and smoking now ( vaping is another matter).

And why do you think they “don’t bother” to lose weight? Because it’s extremely hard and our national diet has become poor - is full of ultra-processed ingredients etc.

How you speak to someone about their weight matters too - shame them and they will react against it. Probably they feel trapped in their obese bodies and unable to become slim overnight to suit the “health police”.

To lose a substantial amount of weight you need to throw everything at it - diet, exercise, a major lifestyle change and an understanding of your metabolism and the resolve to pretty much shun most of the food in the supermarket!

Traditional diets where you lose a few pounds over a few weeks do not fix a major long-term problem. Of course now there is the option of weight loss jabs - they still have to be used along with diet and exercise. And getting them on the NHS is like trying to get blood out of a stone but they would be much cheaper for the NHS than having an obese population.

What are you talking about then?

I think it would be more helpful to provide low levels of easy part time work. When I had chronic fatigue and depression I still would have been able to do something productive and low impact. Maybe make cups of tea in a hospital or help with paperwork for a few hours a week. I think it would have been better for the government to provide opportunities for me to stay involved but on a much lower level instead of paying me to do nothing

Mental health problems have a real impact. It’s not just a question of snapping out of it. And when young people are suffering that can impact on parents too. The question is, though, whether the massive jump in numbers is due to the impact of social media and covid or because some people are scamming the system. I don’t know the answer to that.

Who says you're not allowed to discuss this @Holidayfix?

I suppose the OP is really referring to illnesses which are the result of smoking, drinking and obesity. We all have our poison. Don’t forget non-smoking, rake thin teetotallers also get ill and eventually die. You can’t regard all illnesses as self-inflicted

I have to strongly disagree, I have a close relative who I support. She was once thriving, did so well at school, was working her way up the career ladder, active social life, had so many ambitions. She suffered a very traumatic still birth in 2020 followed by COVID which left her in ICU followed by breathing issues and other things which have never really gone away.

She has gone from an outgoing, clever, ambitious young woman to a shell of a person who has piled on weight, probably over 20 stone now as she's too terrified to leave the house as she could pick up another illness, coupled with the shame she feels about her weight gain. It's a fact that obese people are treated terribly in society and this is something she has expressed extreme anxiety about.

She will definitely lose her entitlement under the new rules. We had a conversation about it this evening and she said why would she choose to have this life, she's just existing. She would be earning far more in her career than she is on benefits. She'd love to go on holiday and fall in love or have a family.

She is only 26 and is having weekly therapy sessions and is taking medication. She told me this evening she would rather be dead and I'm honestly scared these changes will push so many people in similar circumstances over the edge.

OP, I am severely disabled but I completely agree to be honest.
things like:
junk food
microplastics consumption
not walking / no exercise
feeding children UPF laden diet

most people know now what ‘healthy’ is, they just choose not to do it.
Before I was disabled, I walked everywhere. Same with my children. Most people would actively drive less than 2 minutes to a corner shop etc. constant snacking, tv dinners, vaping smoking etc, drinking to excess. The list goes on.

i completely understand where OP is coming from.

Frustrated that MN deleted some of the nasty ableisism on earlier threads OP so you decided to try to find a way around it for more of the same?

I don’t think anyone is choosing to make themselves ill. There are some lifestyle factors but it’s more complex than that. And all of us can have health problems. We’ve an aging population for a start.

I think you need to do a bit less suggesting and a bit more listening OP.

Yes it is hard. I had to lose 5 stone through 100 small lifestyle changes that added up to the change I needed to make. Your response is a classic response that it is not fat people's responsibility to lose weight but instead it's the NHS' fault for not giving them Ozempic! Precisely proving the OP's point.

Precisely. Most people know what they should eat and should do to get themselves as healthy as they can be... but choose not to. I was one of them and turned my life around, far healthier for it. But people choose to smoke, eat UPF, eat too many calories etc. It's a choice not helped by parents who raise their children this way.
It is far harder for some than others (being disabled makes it massively harder, but still doable).

Sometimes people could be encouraged and supported more to help themselves. I have a relative who stopped working at around 50, over 10 years ago, who has no intention of working in any way again or any interest in recovering. Being ill seems to have become her identity.

She has arthritis and fibromyalgia and struggles with pain and joint swelling and those are real issues. However, she drinks alcohol every night, on top of a combination of very strong painkillers that she has been on for years, is very overweight and she doesn’t do any form of even light exercise at any time.

She hates all the healthcare professionals that she comes into contact with and is furious if they suggest reducing painkiller use, going to a group to support people with ongoing pain conditions etc..

I think that she is addicted to pain medication and is trapped in a spiral, so that brings us back to mental health then I suppose. But there isn’t even a chink there where she is open to help or looking at things differently because she has set on her way of living that includes meds, drinking, vaping and blaming illness for everything - and that is the end of it.

This isn’t the case for everyone of course but it actually is for some. This woman has siblings who are all very overweight with the same type of health issues and they have all been “signed off” for years, it’s very much the norm in the area that they grew up in, and that makes a difference to lifestyle approaches and treatment choices too.

Source?

US National Institutes of Health says up to 65% of BC cases in men and fewer in women can be primarily attributed to smoking. A lot, but nothing like 98%.

If one reads the OP carefully, I think a good point is buried in there. It is easily lost or misconstrued, however.

We haven’t really addressed the fact that one reason people find it difficult to take responsibility for themselves is a lack of resources. Crappy, fattening, unsatisfying food is cheap. After a long day at a a job with the type of stress that comes from being at the mercy of others (and pays badly) I think people just seek ease. Nicotine and cheap booze probably help. The NHS isn’t able to offer much preventative care. Etc

Loads of people could save more by spend less on non-essentials (perfume, makeup, fancier car, homewares, plants, etc). Loads of people could do more exercise, eat more vegetables, drink less alchol, quit caffeine, drink more water, whatever. I find it hard to believe there are any who never spend frivolously, never miss out on the best savings deals, exercise properly every day, sleep adequately every night, never eat crap.

Blaming ill people for their illness is a bit like blaming someone for being human.

No, I myself have twice lose eight stone through diet and exercise. What happened in between? Life caught up with me. I’m saying it doesn’t work to shame people - that usually makes matters worse. A person who has not struggled with their weight does not truly understand what a battle it is.

The biggest single factor with weight loss is time. It takes immense time and patience and dedication. As a lifelong fattie all I ever wanted to do was get an instant result to please the shamers. And every time I tried, I failed. So that didn’t help me one jot.

As for Ozempic or other injectable treatments, it does make me frustrated that now there is an effective treatment the NHS will not prescribe it. Instead all of us as taxpayers will be funding more cardiac treatment, hip and knee operations, diabetes monitoring, cancer and dementia treatment, the list is endless. I don’t think anyone truly chooses all that when they decided to just have that “one” biscuit.

Our lives are so different from those of the generations before us - less exercise, different foods, more additives. A bit less blaming and more understanding would help.

And lots of people do ask for help to quit alcohol or nicotine, or ask for advice about weight loss or exercise, and try to accept the help or follow some of the advice.

Agree. Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone.

I think there's a big case for earlier intervention.

When depression is still mild things like walking, wild swimming, exercise, group sessions etc are important.
I think we do lack a bit of mental (and physical) first aid.

I think everyone has tendency towards depression at times. If I don't leave the house even for one day I feel my mood darken. If I go more than one day it's worse. If I don't force myself out then full depression would take little time to take hold. Same with not eating well or failing to shower. It has a negative effect that doesn't take much to cross over and I suspect this applies to most people.

We are told not to discuss weight. Wasn't an approach my mum took. She did tell my sister when she was gaining weight around 17. She was working in MacDonalds at the time and eating their meals every day and piling on weight. She made her packed lunches instead and it dropped off because it's much easier at that age and where there is an obvious contributing factor. My sister was decidedly unimpressed at the time but has since remained slim her entire adult life.

I have poor joints and my husband has had back surgery. I have to be careful with weight gain, cold water swimming helps and we need to improve core strength to compensate. It won't work forever but it makes things manageable.

I do think there's a lack of intervention but I also think there's a degree of personal responsibility in this as well as professional help required.

Weight is also often linked to mental health, not just greed. I think I was self-medicating with food - I’ve never had a day off for stress so it worked to an extent.

I had a period of being really ill last year. If I could have accessed the treatment I needed sooner. I either could have stayed in work or been off a shorter time then I was. I didn't need to claim benefits luckily as I was being paid sick pay by work. But many people in my situation may have needed to claim benefits.

Really if we fix the NHS their are probably many people like me who want to work and could work given the right treatment. In the end I had to initially pay privately so I could be well enough to go back to work. The NHS is now paying for my treatment but I would have been off sick even longer if I hadn't gone private. Not everyone can afford to do that. If people who have health conditions can access the right treatment in a timely manner then we might have more people in work anyway.

I'm one of 'those' people. I have adhd/ autism

I once had a career I 'excelled' at. It was effortless but see below.

I have a string of qualifications. I tend to excel at everything I put my mind to.

I'm highly organised, super -efficient thanks to pattern recognition, memory and hawk like attention to detail.

I enjoy working on my own and supporting others to achieve their aims. I am personable.

If people don't know me well, they assume I'm clueless, disorganised and lazy. They doubt I can achieve what I say I can. They think my previous achievements must a) be a lie b) be a mistake.

In order to prove myself, my effort has to shift to doing things their way in order to produce mediocre results. They will be satisfied but suggest ways I can improve. My own input is irrelevant. This will be relentless, the work will be effortless but dull. The stess of masking in order to be a mediocre normal person will be overwhelming. I'm screaming inside to be allowed to do a good job. Occasionally this weirdness will leak out, i'll do things my own way and knock the ball out of the park. Everyone is giving me the side eye trying to work it out. Life is miserable.

I get a new job. Repeat....ad finitum.

Any suggestions how I can help myself OP? I've been trying for 40 years and getting nowhere.