To think the injections for weight reduction should be offered to the unemployed?

[llizzie]

The Government has just announced the intention of offering weight reducing injections to those unemployed who are obese?

AIBU to think it might backfire and cause more problems?

There isn't a shortage of Mounjaro, and there is no current shortage of Wegovy, both of which are for weight loss not for diabetes.

The govt aren't going to be handing out weight loss injections, it was an opinion piece by one MP about possibilities. What is happening is a privately funded trial of weight loss injections, in Manchester, where one of the outcomes that will be looked at is whether losing weight helps people with finding employment amongst other outcomes. Journalists have taken those two things and made a headline grabbing crappy article out of it.

Well personally I don't want my tax from working to go to this cause, not that I have a choice, but I think it's a ridiculous waste of money , I'd rather the money went to fund many other worthy causes so get a job, get the gym and if you still want it pay for your own.

Thank you so much for pointing out that 'diet and exercise' are the ways to lose weight. People who are obese probably already have heard this. They need medical help. Do you also tell people who are depressed to 'cheer up'?

We need to have more sympathy with people who struggle with their weight. Enough with the judgement.

I don’t even know anything about weight loss injections but surely this is about whether people actually want to work or not rather than being too overweight to work? I know plenty of overweight people working perfectly fine.

@SpudleyLass what kind of time frame do you imagine that obese people need to use these injections for in order to get to a healthy weight? Wondering what your definition of a "quick fix" solution is?

I agree with this.

Are you happy with your taxes going towards the large NHS bill treating people who live with obesity?!

The cost of weight loss drugs are probably a drop in the ocean to how much people who have obesity cost.

Again and again the judgement around people who have obesity is awful. If medication can help people maybe they are in a situation that is beyond their control? Just like other addictions or mental health issues.

I don’t agree with the jabs full stop as all I see is how unwell some people are on them.

Probably going to get flamed but the best way to tackle being overweight is to diet and exercise. There really are no short cuts.

I’m not going to flame you at all, but over a certain BMI (roughly as different bodies behave in different ways) it’s far more difficult to lose weight and maintain it. The whole physiology changes and the way hormones work and interact with each other changes, and it’s then very difficult to diet.
Add in the psychological issues that many obese people have which have likely led to obesity in the first place, it’s been shown in research to be very very unlikely for people to lose weight effectively and stay that way.

@StarDolphins and @johnson39 don't worry, your taxes are safe. No money will be wasted on those dreadful fat people just yet. The govt isn't running this scheme, it's a privately funded research project run by a health science organisation and the manufacturers of the Mounjaro weight loss injection. No taxpayers money being spent on it at all.

@Thegoodenoughwife
These injections are a temporary fix they don't last a life time , we don't know what the side effects in ten years will be.
No matter how much we cover it, no one will permanently lose weight without changing diet and exercising more, maybe we should have counselling for people who are that obese to get to a point where they are able to do this , rather than these injections, there are also gastric bands ... will these injections change peoples mindsets going forward to eat less and do more when they stop using them or will they need them forever ?
No one will want a job with all these benefits, I'm beginning to wonder why I work at all ..

That's good to know , what happens when the funding runs out .... though.

Do you think that about every prescription (or OTC) medicine that makes anyone unwell?? Do you disagree with paracetamol because so many people die from paracetamol poisoning (261 in 2022)?

You can't sack people for putting on weight.

@johnson39 when the funding ends when that research project ends. The private company will continue to pay for further research - drug manufacturers spend huge amounts of money on R&D, endlessly.

I'm not saying obese people shouldn't be helped, but I don't personally think the injections are the answer, I get that obese people's bodies work differently , but surely there is another way ... gastric band for example , I do also understand how much they cost the nhs and yes it can be classed as an illness but these injections surely aren't the quick fix they need. Again just my opinion.

Replace weight loss drugs with...

Why are people who are depressed on antidepressants? Don't they know it isn't a long term fix? Can't they just walk out in the sunshine and cheer up? No one knows the long term side effects?

Stop! Have some bloody sympathy for people who find themselves living with obesity. It isn't a great way to live. The likelihood of addressing it themselves with diet and exercise (as someone has said) is infinitely small (like 1%). They need help and now medical help is available. Good.

(Also these drugs have been around for a while for diabetics - are you stopping those people in the street and scaremongering the side effects to them? Or do you feel they are more 'deserving'?!)

Does it matter what I think? I have reservations. It is an announcement without researching the subject or thinking it through.

The PM knows there is a drug which helps diabetic patients lose weight. Did he think 'eureka' an answer to the unemployment budget?

The assumption is that obese people are unemployed because no one wants to employ a fat person. Is there a suggestion in this that anyone out of work and looking for a job has to be weighed and measured and someone has to decide if they are obese or not? Is it left to the unemployed to apply to go on the injections, and be questioned as to their dieting and exercising? How would that go down with the ECHR?

Does any government have the right to propose or even suggest that drugs should be taken by unemployed people to make them employable, before there has been any research on the subject?

My reservations are whether an employer should be told the applicant was having the injections, and that if an unemployed person agrees to have the drug, and gets a job, then puts the weight back on, will the employer be able to sack them?

What on earth are you talking about?

There is no policy that has been announced to give unemployed people weight loss injections.

Helping people get back into work was one potential benefit of weight loss injections that was listed in an article by Wes Streeting. That's it. There is research being done into the injections, and not just effectiveness and side effects but wider benefits to people. But no one has suggested any policy to single out unemployed people and give them the injections, let alone make it a condition of their employment!

@thegoodenoughwife
I do have sympathy but again not everyone is obese because it's a medical
Condition, some people just eat crap.
Anyway as long as it's not my taxes then that's fine. We will just support them to stay unemployed instead cause if they ever work they will have to pay for it , what a mad world we live in.

Of course your views are relevant! You started the subject. Jeez, do you talk like this with others. I can’t imagine ever saying a line and then ‘discuss’, unless I was a secondary school teacher 😂

I know people using weight loss jabs and the benefits are way beyond weight loss - all day the food noise is switched off, some I know have adhd (suspected or diagnosed) and find that weight loss injections suddenly mean they can focus better and are more motivated to exercise, and that their work productivity is better without the low energy slumps and adhd paralysis.

My concern about it becoming a government led thing is that it’ll turn to shit like everything else they touch.
I also fear it’ll create more barriers to getting back into work - if you know you’ll have to start paying for it once working and you know that this is perhaps your only way to effectively lose weight it takes away incentive to work.

Everyone who could benefit from it should be able to access it, 15 years of research is showing them as relatively safe compared to surgery. Being obese is not just about being fat and lazy, there’s far more to it, and the expectation that fat people need to suffer when there’s an effective option seems cruel.

You’ve been told several times that it’s not an announcement and not. Policy, but that it’s a privately funded research study, one part of which will be to look at the impact of weight loss on ability to work. That’s all. Streeting just commented that if it shows that it makes people healthier and fitter that could take some burden of the NHS and get people off benefits.

Everybody else getting worked up about it needs to read the many posts that have pointed this out too.

@johnson39 if you wonder why you bother working, can I suggest you quit your job and live of the amazing generous benefits that will immediately flow your way.

I think you are right. It will not work because no one has studied the connection with obesity and unemployment.

No spur of the moment suggestion can hold water. If it was presented later, when research can prove the connection, then it had a chance of working.