Is obesity the responsibility of the NHS?

[snookspooks]

I've read a few posts lately where posters say the NHS isn't doing enough to combat obesity. As far as I am aware people are taught from pre-school age upwards about healthy eating and the importance of exercise and a healthy lifestyle. This continues through secondary school. I don't know about in further education but I don't remember any from my own FE days. We have access to NHS information online about healthy lifestyles, and the information is repeated in pregnancy and post-natal days by midwives and health visitors (that was my experience but I appreciate it might not be the same for others). We are given the information and it's up to us as individuals what we do with that information. The idea is we use it to prevent getting obese in the first place.

If people do get obese, through whatever factors, and there are many that contribute to this, is it up to the NHS to fix this or should the onus be on individuals? What happened in countries without an NHS style system?

Cancers are mainly preventable but the NHS provides treatment for those but then we can't fix cancers by ourselves, or heart disease, or strokes, but obesity is something we can treat ourselves. I'm not saying it's easy but it is possible. Of course obesity is linked to those diseases/conditions so it's not straightforward.

Is too little responsibility put on those who are obese?

I don't think it's straightforward and I think it's impossible to give treatment for some partially or completely self-inflicted conditions but not others. It's an ethical nightmare. What do other countries do?

It’s all going Wall-E and nothing’s going to change it.

There we all are, sat in our little cars 😁

@QuertyGirl you spend a lot of time on Mumsnet for someone who goes on about sitting down and not doing very much 😊

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, internet use accounts for 3.7% of global emissions.

So instead of preaching up there on your high horse. Come down and make some friends.

You do come in flocks I suppose

@pncr From Oxford...

(of an event, situation, or condition) not occurring very often.
"a rare genetic disorder"
Similar:infrequentfew and far betweenscarcesparsescatteredthin on the groundgoldenlike gold dustas scarce as hen's teethoccasionallimitedoddisolatedsporadicintermittentunaccustomedunwontedout of the common
Opposite:commonfrequent

• (of a thing) not found in large numbers and so of interest or value.

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As i said, we are lazy/take easy way out (some) its not the employers job to make people move about and eat less, thats down to us.

It is employers job to let us have our lunch break
To let us stand and move for a few minutes every hour
If people feel they can't it is an employer problem

What? you work at place were you have to sit and can't even walk to the loo/drinks machine? how do you get there? or leave?

Its a legal requirement to have regular breaks

Many offices are on dangerous roads where there's nowhere safe to walk or take breaks. So yes that is an employer problem.

There was a thread last week on MN about how insulting it was for colleagues to bring in their own scales.

Sounded like they were keen to look after themselves and many people on MN said it was inappropriate for the workplace...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Our local LA is in between a busy A road and a motorway. There is no outside space apart from a dodgy carpark. It's noisy and it's polluted too. No benches or seating (you wouldn't want to sit outside anyway!)

So people sit at their dark and dreary desks away from any sunlight for 8 hours a day (desks arent allowed to be near windows).People get depressed which harms motivation.

And that's how the government look after staff health and wellbeing....

No vending machines and you'll get "questioned" for too many / too long toilets or kitchen trips.

Slip road to get there and leave from the carpark. Pedestrians tend to get killed.

Unfortunately not all office environments are equal.

Jesus imagine doing 10,000 steps going to the bog and back. Take that Jeremy Hunt! 😂😂 shove your productivity up your arse

Also to add the menopause, that is awful for weight issues - on balance,in women, I reckon that you would find a large % of these health conditions in the overweight and obese population, much more than people think -.or like to think, as if you accept that people are impacted by health conditions it undermines the hatred that the like to spout about the "lazy greedy fatties".

So why are so many more women obese now compared to previous generations if it's all pure biology ?

They smoked

And would be prescribed 'diet pills that'll give you a bit more energy' if they were struggling. Or, as they are known these days, amphetamines.

Purely coincidentally, there's a massive surge in women just that bit too young to fall within that diet pill prescription era being diagnosed with ADHD now.

@NeverDropYourMooncup my mum was on diet pills and diazepam.

Very few women smoked

They got down on their hand and knees and scrubbed the floors. Oh boy, it is a good work out.

Obesity is way before smoke abuse, drug abuse and alcohol abuse in the NHS “merited” treatment in my view

Rubbish. Almost as many women as men smoked for most of the twentieth century; particularly from the 1920s up to and including the 1970s. Many people handed round the cigarettes like sweets and would light up anywhere without asking whether anyone else minded. In the 1970s, when I was a child, many a living room would have been incomplete without an enormous chrome ashtray on a pedestal. It was only in the eighties that larger numbers of people started to seriously give up smoking as the dangers to health of smoking related illnesses and passive smoking were becoming obvious. From the nineties onwards smoking was being banned from more and more places as it was truly seen as the antisocial health hazard that it is.

Bloody hell! blame obesity on lower smoking rates!!! i ve heard it all now! what about all the obese people who still smoke?

How about taking responsibility for the fact that people eat too much and eat too much rubbish?

Yes for some poor people thats down to the fact they don't know/can't afford better choices.

But the vast majority of the over weight/obese are well off, still eat crap and still wont exercise.

There will be very few work places that are at the side of the M1/A5 slip and have no outside space.

Yes Govts can take some action e.g. i'd like to see the number of fast food outlets slashed but we will never reduce obesity unless people start taking responsibility for their own actions.

They smoked

Smoking did usually take the place of lunch when I was a teen. I think people generally ate less and walked more as well. Also food was less processed.

On average over the last century you can't attribute womens lack of obesity to smoking even if you smoked

I haven't said it is ALL pure biology, I have said a certain % is and i suspect that it is likely higher than people think imo.

I would also suspect that some conditions are more prevalent today possibly and there are women surviving that may not have before.

It is a huge and complex issue with many roads leading to a weight issue, not just laziness and greed which is the narrative that gets pushed here a lot.

It's all biology

I am not saying it's easy to avoid - modern society , the food industry , the diet industry and modern work, means today you have to fight against obesity whereas historically it was hard to become obese

There is more money in fat unhealthy people and they will tend to die younger once they become unproductive so savings all round for the exploiters of humanity

I am not saying it's easy to avoid - modern society , the food industry , the diet industry and modern work, means today you have to fight against obesity whereas historically it was hard to become obese

True. But given that most other countries are faring better than the U.K. on this point, it's worth thinking about what's the differences are.