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?

Did you disable voting because you're fully aware that YABVU?

İ think there would be a lot to be gained by treating obesity as a public health issue.

I think you are showing your ignorance here. You’ve made it all sound so simple whereas the reality is people living with obesity need help mentally too. A lot of over eating is emotions based and I say this from experience. It’s not as simple as eat clean and healthy there’s so many other factors.

Giver and = government

@Fundays12

Which has nothing to do with fat people being allowed to think they're beautiful.

As @Tinybrother we're in absolutely no danger of it ever being desirable to be fat.

It's also hugely patronising to presume that fat people aren't aware of the health risks. They are

I totally agree. Education should be tailored to the audience.

Absolutely. Sure start centres were set up to try to combat the problems in the more deprived areas.
I guess that that’s gone now with the years of austerity.
From personal experience, it’s much easier to exercise and eat healthier when you’re not constantly worrying about making end meet.

There's increasimg understanding of obesity ads a disease which effects certain people and not others. Who may have similar lifestyles. So I think the basis of your argument is flawed in that it's not just a personal responsibility thing. So therefore should be treated. I'd also look t other issues which are supposed to be self caused eg eating disorders and addiction which I'd never call self caused. Do you suggest they aren't treated?

Nasty goady thread. I hope you and your loved ones don't have to go through dealing with any of these issues people will cry are self induced.

Also, as an overweight person, I don't necessarily want the NHS to fix me, but it would be great if it was not so damn hard to eat well.
DH and I were visiting Newcastle last week, looking for somewhere to have a substantial healthy lunch. That is, sit down meal, reasonably freshly made, plenty of veg or salad, not too much processed or fried stodge. We walked past all the outlets in the shopping centre (Costa, tgi Friday, burger places) Italian restaurants, wetherspoons, eventually ended up at a hipster health food place that did great food but we had to eat it from a cardboard bowl! Not even a Leon branch.

That's not health freaks looking for weird fussy food. Just bog standard food in line with healthy diet guidelines. That should not be hard to find or the expensive option.

In France there would have been dozens of restaurants with a daily fresh cooked lunch menu to choose from as well as the burger places.

You can’t provide people with what is essentially a drug (sugar) and then refuse to deal with the consequences.

You won’t get many responses that agree with you because people don’t like to take responsibility for themselves. It’s too easy to blame the system or poor me I didn’t know eating fatty foods make me fat!! Most of these also don’t bother to exercise. There is no excuse for being obese. Same for smoking, you know it’s disgusting and really bad for you and you carry on doing it so can’t complain when you get sick.

I'm massively obese. I've been fat my whole life, I've no idea what it would feel like physically to be a healthy weight, never mind the social benefits.
I'm smart, I have two degrees. I KNOW what I eat is terrible. I also remember being forced to eat monster munch through my tears when my nana died aged 8 - being told it would make me feel better. Every night I tell myself I need to change but the emotional attachment to food is too much. I don't think the nhs can help tbh.

I'm obese due to disability. I have multiple disabilities and the drugs I take to enable me to (barely) function and have a job (that I pay taxes in) make me put on weight. Plus I can't exercise due to my disabilities.

I also had cancer.

You're ignorant and naive.

Well, all I can say is that in my local Sainsbury's the small pots of fresh fruit were £2.50 per pot. Packet of biscuits 90p.

63% of adults in the UK are overweight or obese. We are far beyond arguments about personal responsibility and will power- we are in the midst of a crisis caused by our increasingly obesogenic environment, in particular the heavy marketing of UPFs, increased reliance on cars, increase in sedentary indoor lifestyles. Would recommend the Van Tulleken's podcast series and also Giles Yeo. Also worth a read up on limbic capitalism.

I'd like to see many UPFs treated as the health risk they are and have their sale taxed and restricted, just as we do for other harmful and addictive substances like fags and booze, the money raised to fund a massive public health campaign around fresh food and exercise. Ultimately I'd like to see certain UPFs banned. I think future generations will look back in utter bafflement at the fact that we fed this stuff to our kids. At least the Victorians could say that they didn't know giving opium to babies was a bad idea, the Romans didn't know that lead pipes weren't great- we know the food we're eating is killing us but we're still doing it.

You do realise there are medical conditions that cause weight gain, medications that cause weight gain and lots of disabled people who can't exercise 🙄

@habbiespond you think that plenty of people can never eat carbs and must restrict to 1200 calories a day for the entire of their lives in order to not gain weight?

You think that plenty of people have diagnosable, medically provable metabolic disorders that have already been tested for and proven but for which the NHS refuse to provide treatment?

It’s a public health issue and ought to be treated as such, imo. As it stands gov’t supports large-scale manufacturers who shovel shit at the supermarkets. And then we berate the poor time-strapped people who make bad choices from what’s available.

I run a food bank which operates on a supermarket model (ie people choose items for themselves from what we have in). We have a few customers who stick to white bread, jam and crisps, but many more happily using lentils, wholegrains, different vegetables and fruits. Anecdotal but there you go.

We live in an obesogenic environment that has arisen through the processing of food to extract more profit. So it’s industrialised food production and, essentially, regulation (or lack of it) that’s responsible, not the NHS.

It's expensive to eat a zero carb diet without starving yourself. Unprocessed meat and cheese has gone up in price, and you need relatively large amounts if you can't bulk your plate out with rice or potatoes; no cheap breakfast options such as cereal or toast - eggs are another thing that have rocketed in price.

I blame the overwhelming availability of highly palatable food coupled with lack of provision for enjoyable and accessible exercise

Despite your feel sorry for me tone, they're not medical marvels, they can't defy physics. Energy in, energy out.

It's the responsibility of the individual, but if they want help with managing obesity / losing weight, then there should be support to do that if they can't do it alone.

This isn’t a hot take. You buy the whole fruit, not in the plastic pot and cut it yourself.

Schools /colleges should be providing healthier tasty nutritious foods on the school menu,
Plus Home economics should be compulsory until at least the age when decided what GCSCS subjects going to take up or ditch,

Also NHS should invest look research preventive destructive life styles initiatives to address this holistically,