AIBU - With this new data on obesity and the NHS is it time to have some honest and difficult conversations?

[IAmADancer]

New data from a ‘landmark study’ has show that obesity costs the NHS around 14billion a year and that 2 out of 3 adults are obese.

I know this is a difficult subject but the numbers are pretty clear. With the cost of living crisis and a general requirement for both parents to work now to support themselves how do we support people to make the right choices and tackle a growing problem?

Im really interested to hear people’s opinions on what we can do with such stark figures laid bare.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/17/cost-of-obesity-twice-those-who-are-healthy-nhs/

Some thyroid conditions are autoimmune and can be treated but not cured. They do not occur as a result of an unhealthy life style. Like type 1 diabetes. This is the trouble with sweeping statements.

Veg also goes off much much quicker e.g I brought tomato's on Sunday. By Tuesday they'd gone soft and squidgy

There are lots of tips and tricks for getting the best out of veg that I think should be more widely known, not only for the health benefits but also for waste purposes.

For instance, tomatoes are best stored at room temperature, not in the fridge. If they go soft they are great fried with a little olive oil and salt, then put with a fried egg, had on toast, or stirred through pasta. No need to throw them out.

I read a great cookbook called ‘Use it all’ last year and since then I have been keeping my veg fresh for longer and using more of it up. I know it’s not the whole solution, but little things like this all contribute to the bigger picture.

Europe and the USA have completely different systems and each US state has different rules concerning insurance and obesity rates.

Pay people a fair wage so that they don't have to do multiple jobs to break even. The inequalities in this country are appalling. The greed and I don't mean in terms of food, astounding. That way they can do things like shop, cook and exercise.

I’m not saying it’s always cheaper to cook from scratch than buy value ready meals. But I’m showing that it is totally achievable within a low budget.

A poster up thread said that eating healthily was ‘extortionate’.

I’m proving that it’s not.

If you add the green beans to your family meal they come out around the same price, no?

That aside, I do happen to agree with you that the unprocessed food should be much, much cheaper than the UPF meal. The economics of healthy/unhealthy food promotes obesity and I would fully support tax and subsidies to rebalance this, along with other educational and behavioural change measures.

It's not 'easy and pleasurable' to become obese, if you do not like the sensation of being too full, you could equally say its easy and pleasurable to exercise, which it is

Our cheapest shops happen to be the times when our salad drawer is most stuffed after putting all the groceries away, and when we’ve got plenty of fresh, colourful stuff in the trolley. I know you need to add protein too to veg and salad etc which brings up the cost but I still agree with your point. When we go shopping and have a less healthy week of meals planned, we spend more.

A lot of it is attitude and education.

The UK population is really quite lazy. So many people don't exercise enough at even a basic level, starting in childhood. My friend's daughter is 10 and can't do an hour's walk without whinging about being tired. That's ridiculous. I stated on a caravan site (just an average family friendly one) and people were driving to the entertainment complex in the middle. It wasn't more than 7/8 minutes in any direction to get there.

How many people eat their 7 portions of fruit and veg a day?

Children are fed absolute rubbish. I detest taking my children out for a meal as I refuse to feed them fish fingers/ nuggets and the "healthy" option being some pasta with a splash of tomato sauce and a corn on the cob.
At home my children only eat what we eat. Never ever seperate children's processed rubbish.

We need to learn to budget, cook properly and what nutrition actually looks like. We need to stop thinking that parents that feed their children porridge and vegetables and don't own a chicken nugget and chocolate cupboard are fun sponges. We need to instill the need for exercise from a young age.

We need to stop normalising excess drinking and all pub meals coming with chips.

Yes, and different European countries have different systems too!

I've seen it suggested that we've still not adapted as a species to the abundance of available food. We've evolved to gorge when possible to keep us sustained until food next becomes available, which in centuries past wasn't always 3x a day or a few minutes from the urge to eat arising.

The weather in UK is another reason, the Med, etc, gen easier & more pleasant to exercise after work & eat more lightly.

I'd say in general more people find it easy than hard to cane a shitload of chocolate.

I used to be obese.
Made all sorts of excuses.
Looked to blame everybody / everything else.
One day just realised it was all down to me.
Hardest thing I ever did, but with mammouth amounts of will power I did it, lost the weight. And I cannot put into words how much better I feel mentally and physically.

Difficult conversations with whom?

Fat shaming is stopping doctors from helping overweight patients

I think taxing the overweight would probs sort out this country quicker than taxing the rich tbh.

Autoimmune issues for me which come in groups I have
Hidradenitis supprativa - my mum also had this
Cholinergic urticaria since I was 11 (effectively an allergy to exercise/heat)
Hashimotos - my mum and gran also had thyroid issues
Neutropenia (autoimmune form)

Are you thin and wealthy, by any chance?

That'll work well
I'm already on min wage so I'll have even less money to buy food, which means it'll be cheaper for me to go to Iceland and live off beige food rather than batch cooking because I won't be able to afford gas and electric too
But at least I'll be thin even if I then can't afford my exercise membership and I'm malnourished

People act like the obese are gasping after a set of stairs, unhealthy, thick and all sit eating biscuits all day. I'm a pretty functioning human who exercises regularly, eats fruit and veg, has good bloods (tested every 12 weeks) and a low resting HR and perfect blood pressure. Just happen to be a size 16 and not built like the average woman

I'm thin and very strong but not particularly wealthy.

I’m allergic to carbimazol and had an awful reaction to ptu, it put me underactive within days. I agot horrible side effects from levo, so as of just now the advice of the nhs endocrinologist and the private one is I have to ride it out as I go from over to under.

whatever weight I lose during an overactive phase is not enough to combat the weight gain when under as when under I can’t stop sleeping so am like a sloth, when over active exercise makes my heart rate spike. I swim, it’s about all I can manage.

some of us have the most horrific battles, and the one thing that absolutely doesn’t bloody help, is someone telling you you’re fat. I bloody know I’m fat.

I honestly hate most of the stuff I eat, it’s like being punished for being sick, even worse as I have to bloody cook it from scratch so I’m wasting time and money on crap not even the cat would eat.

@Antisocialfluffmonster

I'm sorry to hear that it's been such a struggle, that sounds truly awful. I was curious because I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's nearly 20 years ago and basically have no thyroid function left at all, but after a few years didn't do very well on levo. I've been on Armour for about 12 years and even now post-meno don't really struggle with my weight, which is one reason I had an awful time trying to get anyone to take my symptoms seriously - I wasn't diagnosed until I was about a week away from a myxoedema coma.

Hope you at least feel better soon. It's infuriating how little even good endocrinologists really understand thyroid issues.

My dogs will happily accept whatever your cat won't, by the way 😂

The NHS budget is £180bn, so £14bn on obesity is a not insignificant 7.8% and this is being viewed as "preventable". Coincidentally another recent report shows £14bn/year are payments for medical negligence (plus unknown costs for resulting medical treatment) which is also "preventable". Other significant "preventable" costs born by the NHS are workplace accidents/ill health, road traffic accidents, pollution from traffic, injuries from sports and hobbies and so on. Health spending on many of these is increasing, although spending due to tobacco and traffic pollution may be expected to decrease in the future.

I think there needs to be more 'personalised' medicine and health.

About 1 year ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I did a lot of reading and watched a few TED talks.

Then I got a Libre 2 - you can get a free sample, you have a sensor you put on your arm and use your smart phone to take reading of your interstitial blood glucose.

It meant I could track how my body responded to different foods. Or at least how much glucose got in to my blood.

And guess what caused a spike? A banana.

12 months later I eat protein for breakfast and a low carb diet, not no carb. This has actually increased my use of processed food simply because it is easier to measure 20g of carb if it is in the form of croquet potatoes or other potato products.

So some swaps, instead of low fat yoghurt with fruit for breakfast I now may have high fat Greek yoghurt with nuts.

I've lost 10 Kg, my A1C was 36 last week.

I’m not saying it’s always cheaper to cook from scratch than buy value ready meals. But I’m showing that it is totally achievable within a low budget.
I agree.

I also find that when I cook from scratch rather than using convenience foods will will have enough food for a freezer portion or for lunches. We also weigh out our rice and pasta. If we buy a ready meal the family size tray will always get eaten.

The other thing is about making swaps where we can. Cooking from scratch will add up if people want meat with every meal, but it's entirely possible to make healthy meals with low meat or no meat on a budget.

We don't put a whole pack of mince in each time we do Bolognese. Sometimes we use none at all and grate vegetables in, others we use meat substitute, other times we do half mince and half veg.

I think time is the bigger issue than cost. If people are in long hour jobs and they've not got a range of quick meals they can do, convenience foods will win.