To think excess skin removal should be available on the NHS?

[TheGoodEnoughWife]

I know being fat is seen as being self inflicted although I don't agree that it is and that people over eating should be taken as seriously as people under eating. But that isn't necessarily my point here..,

I am very overweight (about 6st overweight but am tall) and one of the things in the back of my mind is that if I lose weight my saggy skin will be awful. The reality is my 'strain' on the NHS being overweight has the potential to be great - surely encouragement to lose weight would cost the NHS less in the long run?
It would be helpful maybe to me and others who need to lose a lot of weight to know that treatment for excess skin would be available to them?

Now I may get flamed about self inflicted and so on but if I drive a car badly and crash I would be treated on the NHS, if I drink like a fish and cause myself illness I would be treated on the NHS, if I go about extreme sports and hurt myself I also would get treated on the NHS.
(I don't do any of those things!)

Any one see where I am coming from?

Yes it is a postcode lottery. 12 weeks slimming world if you get free prescriptions. Otherwise diddly squat. Far better when they had a nurse led program for all.

Yes, maybe a lack of effort or unhealthy choices but Why? Why would someone choose to be fat and/or unhealthy?

Yes, maybe a lack of effort or unhealthy choices but Why? Why would someone choose to be fat and/or unhealthy?

In some cases laziness or preference of instant gratification. it is easier to make bad choices and sometimes cheaper and less effort than to make healthy balanced food choices.

The NHS should fund surgery for medical issues only. If excess skin is so extreme that it is causing true psychological ill health which is having a significant impact on day to day life or causing or likely to cause physical ill health, then yes I believe surgery should be funded. I don't believe it should be funded just because someone perceives they need it. Sounds harsh but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.

Yes, maybe a lack of effort or unhealthy choices but Why? Why would someone choose to be fat and/or unhealthy

Wrong question, being asked of the wrong people. IMO.

Relatively few people choose to be fat and unhealthy. Ditto black of lung and unhealthy. Ditto constantly chastised and living in a sea of rampant disorganisation/procrastination. Ditto bleeding of finger tip with a gob full of finger nail.

What we choose (IMO) is the avoidance of the discomforting, painful, marathon-esque nature of breaking & changing habits. And the avoidance of the utter fucking itchy slog of sticking to new behaviours that resist becoming habits... so you end up spending far too much of daily life being intentional to be properly comfortable. Which is knackering on its own, even before you plonk the gnawing "I'm missing what I am denying myself" on top.

And the reason there's no point looking outward for answers is because the only person who can dump avoidance and fairly bad temperedly, and not exactly consistently in my case choose the frustrating, itchy slog of change, rather than the feather bed of "what I have been doing for quite a long time", is the person who is unhappy with the status quo caused by their behaviours.

Note- (us = people unhappy with status quo caused by their behaviours... but are not exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of uncomfortable/painful change)

Looking outwards leaves us wide open to the siren song of those who would tell us we are powerless and doomed to failure. It's a seductive message because ...

it waggles the avoidance of uncomfortable/painful change as the only sane option

AND

tells us we have limited responsibility, this is something that has happened to us. Not something we are doing to ourselves

AND

reframes every other bugger who does not fall into line (patting our heads and saying "poor you" and "anyway you are perfect as you are"), who instead insist we do have a choice, we do have the power to make changes and we do have some responsibility for our status quo .... as monstrous bigots. Not quite on a par with members of the KKK and The Eugenics Fan Club, but definitely somewhere up high on the scale of GitFaced Prejudiced JudgeyKnickered Bastards. Which kind of helps mute their message nicely. Being as they are oh so immoral and all that jazz.

Once the siren song has done its job, there is often a worsening of the status quo that was causing unhappiness, because the little self control being employed previously is dropped in the excitement of "It's not me, it's THEM ! Let's talk some more about how awful THEY are and how I am both amazingly strong/powerful AND a helpless victim ... all at the same time"

Looking outwards for an answer to the wrong question carries a heightened risk of humans like me i.e.

rather flawed

prone to avoiding things I don't enjoy (especially changing of habits and mindset)

devoid of Will Power Of Steel That Kicks In On Demand And Self Maintains Its Throttle qualities

prone to maintaining a vice-like grip on "stuff I like"

capable of generating inordinate amounts of self pity if it will help me achieve my "avoiding things I REALLY don't like" objective

....to a life that can become less about living, and uncomfortably close to a form of slow, drawn out suicide.

IMO & IME

Bloody brilliant post ipost

It's impossible to change if you don't have the tools.
And those tools are different for different people.
Some people believe they have the 'locus of control', others that it is outside. That's just the way it is.
There needs to be intervention medical, psychological and social.
It's not about not wanting to go through the process of change.

It Is frustrating to listen to empowered people in control of their behaviors with using their own experience and opinions on the subject telling people they are lazy and unwilling.

You write beautifully and passionately Ipost and I understand why you think the way you do, most people would agree.
But people suffering with obesity can tell you what you are saying is only a grain of truth, and the whole truth it is much more complex than that.

So Sally should qualify cloud but she doesn't. That is wrong imo.

Very eloquently written iPost

I thought a similar way when I was fat and recognise this way of thinking in some overweight people I know. Quick to blame others rather than themselves.

Reasons such as big bones, blaming it on thyroid (one person I know keeps blaming it on her thyroid even thought tests have shown her thyroid is fine!), food companies, hidden sugars

There was an interesting study that showed people regularly underestimate the amount of calories they consume. So people think there diet isn't working, but it is because they eat a lot more than they should.

I think that lose skin removal should be the second part of the process. I think it's cruel to help a person get slim and then leave them with loose unsightly skin as a reminder of how they used to be.

I don't see how we can do otherwise.

There are so many millions wasted in this country. Someone should sit down and see where they could trim the waste from , then people could get the help and treatment they need.

I work for a very small charity who are struggling the same as all small charities are.
The ceo and another top member of staff over a course of a week sat down and pared outgoings down to the bone and saved a phenomenal £40,000.

That's what needs to be done. That's where the fault lies.
( I'd love to get my hands on it...me and a few other mumsnetters I bet.)

For some us us, excess skin is NOT simply a cosmetic reminder of our fatter days. I have lost 6 stones and kept that weight off for more than 10 years.

I exercise (really properly exercise, very hard work) 5x a week and I am constantly fighting off sores and skin splitting in the my excess belly skin. Because I am very vigilant with treating (and trying to prevent) the skin splitting, they are usually quite superficial (lasting a week or so), but they are nevertheless painful and irritating. I would get them less often if I stopped exercising, but I'm not going to stop.

Nothing is going to change this, other than significant surgery (not just skin removal but also abdominal wall repair in my case), and I realise it's pretty unlikely to get that on the NHS. I'm seriously considering going private, but I have no idea how to find a good surgical team (uk), I've heard enough horror stories about private medical providers in the UK to be quite wary.

"Attending diet clubs can sometimes lead to eating disorders."

What a ridiculous and inaccurate - as well as borderline offensive - statement about mental illness. It is never one thing that leads to an individual developing an eating disorder. If is a complex psychiatric problem that is caused by a combination of social, cultural, psychological and biological issues.

Doggity i have attended Slimming World and lost 10 stone. But i am under no illusion about what toxic environments these meetings can be.

FAST weight loss is pushed, encouraged and rewarded. Ive already explained why fast weight loss is dangerous and unhealthy. But it also creates a competitive environment where slower losers can feel like failures.

Ive seen this lead to disordered eating with my own eyes. I also went to see a GP because the second time around my weight was coming off slowly. She told me that she didnt like slimming clubs for the same reasons ive stated and that my weight loss the second time around was coming off at a NORMAL HEALTHY SPEED and that peoples perceptions get skewed at these clubs. She also mentioned disordered eating is what it can sometimes lead to.

Im stunned that ive had to write a whole bloody paragraph to explain the obvious.

I had a 4 stone regain to lose the second time because i regained that when my DH got ill.

I never put the whole 10 stone back on.

Well this is interesting. Im sure my cousin will be pleased to learn this Because im willing to bet the money he is saving the NHS by caring for both his elderly parents at home is a bloody sight more than what he is costing them.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/03/hospitals-to-cut-costs-by-denying-surgery-to-smokers-and-the-obese?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=188773&subid=12996225&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Perhaps he should phone then today and tell them to come and get his parents as he now wishes to focus on his own health.

My experience of slimming clubs is very different. I wa supported to lose slowly. Sorry but I've seen too many young women die from anorexia to accept flippant comments any more.

It wasnt flippant. I had a medical professional tell me that obesity and anorexia are two sides of the same coin.

What part of the medical profession do you work in?

There are lots of people that die for anorexia. Lots die from being obese too.
You would be hospitalised for the former...

*from

There are lots of people that die for anorexia. Lots die from being obese too. You would be hospitalised for the former...

You seriously suggesting we start hospitalising obese people and forcibly reduce their calorie intake?

Helena. Interesting what you have heard about anorexia and obesity being 2 sides of the same coin. I used to subconsciously control food intake as a child. I had no control over my life and so I controlled my food and was ridiculously skinny I my teens. Now I'm the opposite. I had an ex, who introduced me to eating chocolate to numb my emotions and from that point, my waistline grew.

We hospitalised people who are reducing their food in take to levels dangerous to their health.

People who are increasing their food intake to levels that are dangerous to their health we leave to get on with it. And tell them they are lazy and have no self control.

I strongly believe over eating is similar to self harming and we have a lot more sympathy to people who self harm.

Is that how you feel TheGoodEnoughWife? Like you have no control over your eating?