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Diabetes Risk Score Assessment Tool

DavidGrahamJones

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3,261
Location
Hazlemere
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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I initially saw this story on the front page of The Times (I say saw, because I didn't buy it), then I noticed the others were carrying a similar story.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4886224/Diabetes-test-40-revealed-officials.html

I think I've got it right but the jist of the story is that those obese people most at risk from Diabetes will be sent on cookery classes and exercise classes.

I might have things over simplified in my head, it's not how to cook but what to cook that would make a difference to those most at risk, and that assumes that only those with a poor diet become diabetic. I'm appalled!

To make matters worse there's a form that can be filled out to calculate the risk. I tried to have a look. Thanks Diabetes UK but "Page Not Found" isn't a lot of help.
 
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It was working earlier, maybe they have been overwhelmed with demand .

Given they will be taught how to cook whilst avoiding red meats, saturated fats, embracing whole grains, fruit and vegetables me thinks its not going to be money well spent even if they do persuade anyone to actually cook.

Quite why the establishment is being so willfully blind on all this is beyond me. In the end it doesn't matter how much money you get bribed with by the food/pharma industries - if your populace will insist on getting terminal/ progressive diseases they expect you to sort out - the money supply is never going to be big enough - I guess if they can persuade us all to just die quickly that might help.
 
Madness - but not all madness - some sense in what they say.
The problem though is with all these facts here you do not know which ones are the ones you should follow. Cooking your own food and exercise - big box tick. Fats - not such a big tick.
 
CherryAA said:
It was working earlier, maybe they have been overwhelmed with demand .
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Thanks, I phoned them and got another link. I just wanted to confirm what I thought or otherwise. I was right, absolutely nothing to look at what people ate. It also seems that there is emphasis on weight so they would never have seen my father's diabetes coming, he was as skinny as a rake and I'm sure he's not alone.

I do feel that a lot of homes have to have two people working to pay the bills and because of that there COULD be some inclination not to cook an evening meal from scratch and MAYBE menu choices COULD be better, but teaching people to cook isn't going to help.

I'll be very surprised in teaching people to cook will do any good whatsoever. I did see a figure of £435 quoted. I wonder whose idea that was, the people who run the courses? Just been looking at some local courses, so called Healthy Cooking (they could be) and the most expensive one was £379 and for that you get a Diploma. That particular course stood out because of it's cost, most were a lot cheaper. Sounds like a racket to me.
 
Fleegle said:
Cooking your own food and exercise
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Are they really suggesting that most of us don't know how to cook? I know such people exist, I even know somebody who doesn't know if their cooker is gas or electric.

Although I have no problems with exercise classes, I've learned a lot from personal trainers, swimming classes, Tai Chi, and I'm no stranger to using the fascinating machines in the gym on a regular basis for several years, what troubles me is are they saying a brisk 30 minute walk every day isn't any good and I HAVE to go to an exercise class. I've checked my calendar, it's not April 1st. Walking doesn't have to be brisk either, anything to get round the block or wherever.
 

I don't know what they are suggesting. But I don't think it is a bad thing to offer simple help to people who might struggle.
I would go as far to say that people on this forum are probably more enlightened as a result. But I think we all agree there are many out there who need help - those not on this forum and if a 1% of daily mail readers start to cook their own food and exercise more then not a total loss I don't think. But it is just my humble opinion. Obviously I wish they had written about low carbs and no satins - but that is quite controversial stuff - even on here.

As I say - madness but not all madness.
 
Fleegle said:
But I don't think it is a bad thing to offer simple help to people who might struggle.
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I'm struggling . . . . . . . . to understand how big a problem this is. I'm struggling to understand how anyone can . . . . . . . Wait a minute, I do remember a young lady I worked with who said that her fiance couldn't cook anything more than beans or toast, not and, or. If people are struggling to cook now, will they accept going to cookery classes? I think it's idiotic and a waste of tax payers money, especially in the present day climate. Give the money to the nurses and tell people what to eat and not how to cook it. Then we're faced with the problem of what they're going to be told to eat. 1/3 calories in the form of carbs? Great!

I think we should make sure it's in the school curriculum straight away before the situation gets any worse, and the powers that be have been talking about this for 10 years at least. Although in 2008 Ed Balls was saying that 85% schools were teaching cookery and that the remaining 15% would do so by 2011.

The one thing we haven't touched on is personal choice. What's the good of spending money on teaching someone cookery, if they don't want to do it?
 
Sometimes I wonder who is it in a position of power who comes up with these ideas. BTW, true story about cooking beans or toast but not together. I was definitely lucky because my mother made sure that we could cook a Sunday lunch/dinner by the time my brother and I were 11 (mid 1960s). Might not have been Cordon Bleu, but we wouldn't have starved. Obviously the carb thing is going to be different for everyone and that's another problem we (the people) have, we're all different, one size does not fit all.

Despite cookery classes in school, I've heard some horror stories, like cooking apple pie and just turning up with a tin of apple and pastry in a packet because the lesson is only 40 minutes. The microwave has a lot to answer for, when I first moved in with wife I gained 3 stone in 3 months and we were supposed to be eating sensibly. WW meals and believe it or not, the dietician I was referred to said that was the problem, too much salt and other preservatives. I can also see that with both partners working . . . . . . been there and done that. We never resorted to takeaways except for special occasions.
 
I tried the test and got a risk score of 14, of which 13 points were due to my age and the remaining point was because I am male. I clicked though to the recipe suggestions in the hope that they might tackle my age problem or my maleness. Unfortunately the first recipe for Andean Style Quinoa had 54 grams of carbs per portion so it seems I will have to remain old and male.
 
There may be a more up-to-date version of this but this document from 2014 gives an idea of the thoughts processes involved in producing a recommendation aimed at offering interventions to reduce obesity:- https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ph53/resources/costing-report-pdf-69241357

One point is that public health is concerned with health at a population level, not at an individual level. No-one (currently) knows of any intervention that would reduce the risk of thin people getting type 2 diabetes and although it is known that a fair proportion of obese people do not develop diabetes, it is not (currently) known which obese people are at risk of developing it. An intervention which is successful at reducing the numbers of people who are obese will reduce the total number of people who develop type 2 diabetes. Thus the incidence of type 2 diabetes at a population level would be reduced even though the intervention has no effect on the obese people who would never have got diabetes in the first place or the people who were thin and not targeted by the intervention.

Going back to the NICE report from 2014, you can see that their calculations are based on only a small percentage of obese people actually taking up the offer. They say, " Preventing a 1% increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese could save the NHS and local authorities around £97 million per year."

It seems quite plausible that at least a small percentage of obese people don't actually know how to cook 'real foods' and rely on snacks and ready meals and that this may be contributing to their obesity.
 
Dark Horse said:
An intervention which is successful at reducing the numbers of people who are obese will reduce the total number of people who develop type 2 diabetes.
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I believe that some effort is required in identifying why all obese people are obese, we should not assume that they all overeat. If I use the Harris Benedict Formula I should be eating 2800 calories a day. Just as well I don't follow that advice, my weight would be a lot worse than it is. I wonder how many people eat no more than their piers and just store it as fat? There will be those that eat more than they should, but there are other causes for obesity. If we only want to help those that eat too much I'd be very surprised if teaching them HOW to cook would help. WHAT to cook and HOW much to cook would be a better idea. Instead of using something like the Harris Benedict Formula we need to be able to tell people exactly how much they can eat.
 
I would imagine the emphasis on cooking skills arose from research like this:- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20923598

This could be an interesting read:- http://www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/can-cooking-skills-be-the-key-to-health
 
Dark Horse said:
I would imagine the emphasis on cooking skills arose from research like this:- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20923598

This could be an interesting read:- http://www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/can-cooking-skills-be-the-key-to-health
Click to expand...

Both very interesting reads, thank you. I expect my hatred of Ready Meals started with my experience of Weight Watcher Ready Meals and a weight gain of 3 stone in 3 months and that was in 1989. The joke, if I can call it that, is that my wife was telling me that after we started living together in 1989 I wasn't going to have the rubbish meals like I did when I was a bachelor.
I think something else that's being overlooked is that quite often both people in a relationship will go out to work. Certainly in my case we were both leaving the house at 07:30, I'd be home by 18:30 and my wife 19:30 so Ready Meals was the answer until we saw the effect it was having and we changed to meals prepared from scratch, the simpler the better so quite often boring but we had much more control over things like fat and even cholesterol (in the early days when we were being told we should avoid it).
I could really start a riot if I suggested that one person is going to have to stay at home and spend much more time prepping and cooking, but you'd know I was joking . . . . . or am I.
I'm pretty sure I can cook an unhealthy meal just as much as buy an unhealthy meal, it would just take longer to prepare and I'm guessing but time plays an important part in all of this.
 
I wonder how many obese chefs there are out there. I suppose they could teach them all nouvelle cuisine.
 
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