Michael Buerk - Wtf is he thinking?

[Sparklfairy]

He never struck me as the type to come out with antagonistic Katie Hopkins-esque crap...

news.sky.com/story/michael-buerk-let-obese-people-die-early-to-save-nhs-money-11778620

Vulpine
Because we lose it when we get older/poorly. Its actually better to have fat on you because you will last longer. Its called the obesity paradox. If two people get sick, one fat one thin, the fat one will have better odds at survival because the body has reserves.

So the consensus is that obesity is similar to alcoholism?

Butter - so all those centenarians used to be over weight? All these years i thought keeping slim fit and healthy would give me longevity.

Vulpine my clumsily made point was more that obesity is blamed on the obese, whereas alcoholism is viewed as a disease. The burden of responsibility is different and obese people are blamed in a way that alcoholics maybe aren't. Yet the behaviours of both can be similar and yes an addiction to sugar etc can (will) cause obesity. But fat people are just viewed as greedy and lazy.

Vulpine absolute luck and genetics keeps us going over the age of 100!

I've had relatives reach their 90s despite never having a 'healthy' diet, never exercised, smoked, drank. Ive had friends parents die in their 50s and 60s despite being teetotal non smoking marathon runners.

There are no guarantees other than no matter how much lettuce or gin you drink you will still die.

Sparklfairy its because you can visually see someones 'flaw' with fatness. Thats why its always demonised differently to alcoholism etc.

Plus, body currency. Thin people feel like they have 'earned' a better place in society than fat people. Thats why people get so angry at the body positive movement!

Butter - we all know smokers who live forever and young people who have died of cancer. It's not exactly science based evidence though is it.? But basically you're saying that old age is a cure for obesity cos it helps you lose weight even though being over weight is not bad for you in the first place?

Good point butters

The title is click bait & misleading.
He’s really saying obesity isn’t a disease, stop trying to fix it, leave obese people alone. He says there is no evidence that obesity costs the NHS extra because they simply die of different diseases from a slim person who gets just as expensive diseases like dementia.

Obesity isn't a choice, it's a symptom. I've struggled with it most of my adult life. I've been told I'm greedy, lazy, disgusting, a drain on the NHS, and much worse. My obesity was caused by sleep apnea. Since diagnosis and treatment the weight has fallen off me and it won't be long now until I reach my goal. For 20 years I was told it was my fault and it wasn't.

The recent Cancer Research campaign about Obesity hasn’t helped and they were wrong

How were they wrong? As I understand it, a fairly clear causal link has now been established between obesity and cancer, and people who are obese are at a higher risk of developing cancer in the same way that smokers are at a higher risk of developing cancer?

Is this not correct?

Some people who smoke all their lives don't develop cancer, because cancer often occurs when different things comes together. But being a smoker massively increases your risk of developing cancer, therefore they say that 'smoking causes cancer'. No one really has a problem with the assertion.

The same is true of obesity as I understand it, although the risk factors are not as high. I think people are just more sensitive about it because weight is a far more emotive issue.

The main reason that more people are obese now is nothing to do with the 'morality' of people now, but that we have almost unlimited access to delicious foods that our bodies werent designed to process in such vast quantities. And we are far more sedentary than we ever evolved to be, for lots of reasons.

In fact, I'm sure experts have said that what is really surprising is that more people aren't obese!

I agree with Widdlin Diddlin
Where exactly do we do we draw the line. After all most illnesses are caused by choice and life style. If he is saying gay people should die a decade earlier. What’s he suggesting. That all fattiest top themselves to save the NHS money It could be taken that way.
I quite liked Michael Buerk up until then.
He’s living up to his name, now though.

hes damn right why should people that make healthy choices and pay there tax pay for healthcare for people that abuse their body

Everyone's choices make them I'll sooner or later. Too much booze/fat/sports injuries/ fags/sunshine/driving badly/ living by a busy road all can cost the NHS money.

Ill not I'll.

Erm we all pay our national stamp. Not just those with perfect modelle figures

There is a difference between causation and correlation.
One of the factors for example of why a fat person may have a higher mortality rate in cancer is because they are too intimidated to seek help because of poor treatment by healthcare professionals. There have been several studies to show this.

Disagree with him all you like but the insults directed at him are pathetic.

The work he has done as a journalist reporting on and exposing apartheid and the Ethiopian famine make him anything but a 'berk'.

Maybe seeing an entire nation starving to death and making sure the world knew about it gives him the basis of an opinion on how we use our resources

Although there are people who exist who have made life choices that have meant they are much less of a burden on the nhs their whole life.

My obesity was caused by sleep apnea. youre obesity was caused by having a calorific surplus not losing weight was due to not burning more calories than you consumed. many people with sleep apnea are not obese all obese people are obese because to put it simply they ate to much and exercised to little

Here come all the mumsnet doctors

Just admit to hate fat people and move onto another thread 😂

@themmatricc. Is that you, Michael

I'm fat, a combination of a painful disability, meds for said disability and being a bit of a cake Baker/eater.... I'm not lazy though. How about banning charity parachute jumps? They cost the NHS a fortune. For each pound raised, it costs the NHS. £13.75... www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10476298/

*I'm fat, a combination of a painful disability, meds for said disability and being a bit of a cake Baker/eater.... I'm not lazy though. How about banning charity parachute jumps? They cost the NHS a fortune. For each pound raised, it costs the NHS. £13.75... thats no what the 20 year old study says at all. but for what its worth i think the nhs should be an insurance based system