No 10 wants people to lose weight before the second wave

[Redolent]

What could possibly go wrong with encouraging people to go on a quick crash diet??

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As well as longer-term proposals to reduce the incidence of obesity, government officials are having urgent discussions about how to persuade people to lose weight in the next few months, before an anticipated resurgence in coronavirus cases in the autumn.

In England, 64% of adults are classed as overweight or obese and 29% as obese as measured by BMI, among the highest levels in Europe.

One official involved in the emergency planning said the government was alarmed at the possible death toll from a second wave. A programme is expected imminently, possibly within 10 days, based on encouraging people to reduce their calorific intake and lose weight rapidly.

Yeah the proposed new trade deal with USA will really help, importing loads of crappy junk food into the UK will work wonders for the country's health, just look how slim the Americans are.

@WorraLiberty no it didn't work because it was a temporary fix. It wasn't sustainable long term and it didn't help with eating properly.

They can't win! Tell people overweight ( I am too) to lose the fat and it's ' it's the nanny state' ! I'm no fan of this government but whatever they suggest is met with derision. It is hard for some people to lose weight : medication is a big factor for many for example , so I can all sides to this argument. It's not black or white.
Yes to Dom having relatives in the health food business or gyms etc ! I bet he has shares in something health related ! 😀

But still go and buy those muffins and sugar laden coffees people : we need to get the economy moving. It is double standards at times !

It's summer, people really don't need gyms to be fit or to lose weight.

you also dont need your park runs, those doing that are fit and slim anyway!

run on your own for pity sake

I am all for being healthy but we need to have an environment which incentivises healthy choices!
We need places where we can exercise comfortably, with enjoyable activities, outdoor spaces which have room for runners, walkers, cyclists, dog walkers, not badly maintained narrow short pathways where these different groups have to wrestle for space🧐

@CrowdedHouseinQuarantine

i dont think gyms should necessarily be reopened, perhaps outdoor gyms, but most gym users are not overweight in the first place!

Gym users are not overweight because they go to the gym regularly that's why we need gyms to be open, so that people can go to the gym regularly and not be overweight

There are some people on this thread who obviously have never suffered from compulsive eating disorder. That's brilliant, but please try and show some kindness. Move more and eat less, yes this is all it takes to lose weight, but for a lot of people food is a life-long battle.

Totally agree @MsJuniper and @itsthefinalcountdown.

I’m obese and know it’s because I eat too much, I’m not thick. Nor am I lazy, weak willed, or anything else. I don’t blame anyone else or abdicate responsibility for my own problems.

So much ignorance on this thread as elsewhere around the complexities of obesity and the causes of disordered overeating.

I actually lost about 9lb in lockdown, eating better and exercising more. Then I lost my job and my self esteem, self worth and motivation went through the floor. I already suffer from long term depression and anxiety. It’s so much easier to lose motivation than it is to get it in the first place. People aren’t going to be able to get into the right mindset to lose weight when people are telling them they’re stupid, lazy, lack self discipline etc. I’m trying to get it back, out doing couch to 5k etc, but it’s slow and it’s hard. I swing between being determined to come out of this pandemic a better person than when I went into it and it wallowing in fear, worry, self hatred and self pity. No ones going to successfully lose weight when they are in the latter mindset.

As for eat less move more. We know, we aren’t fucking thick. But again it’s complex when one has a disordered relationship with food. It’s like telling an alcoholic to “just stop drinking” and I think most people would realise that’s just hopelessly naive.

A word of warning as well when I was young and slim I would never have imagined I’d end up like this. It’s easy to be smug up there on a high horse but you can easily fall off.

god what a moany thread

we need to lose weight to fight Covid-19

it is not fat shaming it is life saving.

I'm not against losing weight but I'd be more reassured if No 10 were working to prevent a second wave. Or are they trying to shift the blame as normal.

@MarcelineMissouri

So op, you’re basically focused on the word ‘rapidly’ in that article, which didn’t even form part of an official quote from the government.

Obesity and being overweight have been shown to be significant risk factors, and are perhaps an easier one to try and do something about in the short term than some of the others.

Posting negatively about a government drive to get people eating more healthily and losing some weight seems slightly ridiculous to me. Especially as we haven’t even seen what this project will entail.

Well the article makes it clear that they’re expecting the second wave to start in the autumn. So people have less than two months. That’s pretty rapid to me.

@YangShanPo

I'm not against losing weight but I'd be more reassured if No 10 were working to prevent a second wave. Or are they trying to shift the blame as normal.

and how do No 10 prevent a second wave?

we know what we need to do and being fit is one of them, as is washing our hands, social distancing, wearing face coverings.

spark, I said some people are overweight because of certain conditions. But this is not what this thread is about.

But it's face it, 64% of the population are not obese as a result of an eating disorder. Most people are obese because of lifestyle choices and not because of medical conditions.

I don’t remember the govt saying go on a crash diet.

Maybe eating healthier, cutting alcohol and taking more exercise is their advice.

And they’re right, no matter how inconvenient or irritating that is. As a country we are pretty overweight, making ourselves ill and costing ourselves a fortune for no good reason.

I have PCOS and fibromyalgia. I am overweight, not obese but definitely carrying more weight than I should.
I am on Amitriptyline to help me sleep.
This is one of the reasons I have gained weight. I know this because I was on a different medication before and managed to lose weight and stay that way for over two years. But then that medicine, which helped me sleep, was identified as being the reason that my voice wasn't working properly (which made my job really fucking difficult) so I had to stop taking that.
I would love not to be so fleshy and jiggly, I am trying intermittent fasting (haven't eaten since 3pm yesterday and that was about four strawberries) but I know that due to the medication I am on, the weight is not going to fall off and I need to sleep more than I need to be less curvy.
So Number 10 can go do one quite frankly.

Most of the people who died were obese though,

Really? Do you have a link to that?

Most people who died were over 85. Most of them were in care homes. Are there huge swathes of obese over 85 year olds in care homes? Because I’ve actually been in quite a few and never noticed such a pattern.

Of course obesity is a risk factor; as is being older; male, BAME, poor etc but it’s by no means a certainty that obese people will die.

Well the alternative is to ignore the problem and have lots of people die purely because they’re overweight in the next wave. Better to just stop eating for a couple months to avoid carrying excess weight during an untick of infections surely.

@CrowdedHouseinQuarantine

Have a proper ‘test, trace, isolate, support’ strategy as opposed to the current mediocrity of our contact tracing process.

So this is clearly the government’s plan then. We will do fuck all to mitigate against the risk of a second wave so we can blame the fatties who die as we told them to lose weight.

No the government aren’t responsible for people’s weight but they are responsible for their pathetic and reckless response to the pandemic which caused it to be so bad in the first place. A second wave is not an inevitability but it takes the government to actually put some effort in to try and mitigate it.

@Redolent
“ Well the article makes it clear that they’re expecting the second wave to start in the autumn. So people have less than two months. That’s pretty rapid to me.”

I’m sorry, I must have missed the line where it specified that you would be asked to lose 20% of your body weight within the next two months.

The article says over a few months not two months, and plus this is surely the start of a programme, not ‘lose all the weight by September’ or die. Surely anything that tries to encourage people to be more healthy should be supported rather than derided before you’ve even actually heard any of the official details.

Or should the government make no plans to try and mitigate one of the more serious risk factors for Covid? Obesity is a major risk factor. What else are they supposed to do about that apart from try and encourage people to lose weight?

I do run on my own (for pity’s sake) but my kids enjoy parkrun, it’s a family activity we have always enjoyed

Tackling weight related concerns means preventative too.... so yes, not many overweight people in gyms but they may use them as their maintenance

Same with park run.

dairy but obesity is caused by disordered eating... So, an eating disorder. I'm not aiming this as you personally, but people need to stop being so judgemental as to why some people are obese. Mental health plays a huge part.

[quote mylittlesandwich]@WorraLiberty no it didn't work because it was a temporary fix. It wasn't sustainable long term and it didn't help with eating properly. [/quote]
The diet did work. It did what it was supposed to do - to get you to lose weight.

You put it back on but that wasn't the fault of the diet itself.

If the government do come up with a plan to help people lose weight quickly, they can't then be responsible for people to choose to pile the pounds back on.

@FizzFan I was wondering that too.... where’s the link to back that up?