NHS where does it stop funding?

Quite right!
I remember finally getting day surgery for a knee problem, having suffered months of "well, you're 2 stone overweight, what do you expect" from the consultant and then realising that the two young men either side of me had caused their own injuries by, in one case, playing football, and in the other by falling down while drunk! :evil:

Hi dabbit,
Read this article on obesity.

"The obesity epidemic isn't just about willpower."

http://www.usnews.com/health/bernadine- ... power.html

The last line says it all, "solving the problem will take far more than blame".

Catherine.

They should also take into account exactly how some of us became overweight in the first place.
My weight was fine until I went to an NHS funded GP many years back with stress related 'heart problems' and after visiting several 'consulting specialists' I was advised I was suffering from a deep depression with related high blood pressure and was prescribed beta blockers together with a long list of anti depression drugs one after the other. . . . all of which caused weight gain, but at the time this was an acceptable (their terms) side effect. I am sure I was not the slightest bit depressed, but they were right about the stress. To combat the weight gain I was eventually prescribed Phentermine (a sort of speed) that eventually gave me a heart arrhythmia and I was put on a different beta blocker (sotalol) and straight back came the weight and a certain amout of inactivity.
On my own volition I dumped the antidepressants and the weight gain stabilsied but did not fall. Since then I have gone from 'pre-daibetic' to a full blown T2 that at last is being controlled thanks to the new injectable med, Victoza, which is now also helping with weight loss
So all those who shout about some of us who are overweight (ok, fat maybe) should look deeper and find out the underlaying causes, because very few are overweight purely due to 100% compulsive overeating.

The NHS should not charge anyone for treatment at least until the root cause of their condition is 100% proven to be their fault. Unfortunately you can't see the cause of someone's obesity just by looking at them. Genetic testing for all patients would be needed, which might cost more than all the treatments they wanted to charge for. So many things are now implicated in discoveries that charging people for what seems to be a "self-inflicted" health problem would be like convicting someone for a crime with no evidence they comitted it.

My brother in law (who hasn't worked in over 20 years) is currently 6 month residential rehab (he went horse riding with them this week if you please) for illegal drugs.. If a person gets overweight because they do too much of something which we all need to do to survive, then the fat person seems to be more demonised than he is!
GRRRRRR :x :x

dabbit said:

We pay for anorexic people to get the help they need. :!:

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anorexia is a mental illness as is any eating disorder. Obesity could be classed as that as well.

I agree with you though. If funding is an issue and they want to start looking at who deserves treatment then it's opening up the BIGGEST can of worms ever. You could argue that drug addicts don't deserve treatment, alcoholics, people who take silly risks after watching some stunt on the TV.....but then how do you establish who does deserve to be treated.

Bottom line is the NHS is NOT free. You only have to look at your pay slip each month/week to see that. We are paying for this service and no matter what happens to me or how I come to end up requiring treatment then I expect to receive it. Rip out the silly levels of management in the NHS and we'll save a lot of money, not by refusing to treat certain factions of society.

All sorts of things are causing a stretch on the NHS - people living longer, developments in medicine which allow illnesses to be treated (not so long ago diabetes would have been a death sentence), the list goes on and on. However, over the years we have paid more in taxes...where is the money going? Iraq/Afghanistan/nuclear weapons......hmmmm. And now university funding is being cut by £1million a year.

When Gordon Brown & the likes of Tony Blair were growing up they could receive the treatment they needed in hospital and freely go to university......

Sorry for the rant, I can't stop once I get started. None of us should feel guilty for making use of a resource that we PAY good money for!!!!!!

Jenni

How about putting a tax on foods that tend to lead people to gain weight
i.e pizza , ice cream , pies etc
then if you choose to eat these foods to excess you will at least being paying towards your subsequent care

catherinecherub said:

Hi dabbit,
Read this article on obesity.

"The obesity epidemic isn't just about willpower."

http://www.usnews.com/health/bernadine- ... power.html

The last line says it all, "solving the problem will take far more than blame".

Catherine.

Click to expand...

Should we tax antidepressants, steroids, people with PCOS.?

If you read this article then you will see that it is a complex issue. Labelling people and being convinced that it is all about eating too much is too simplistic.

I don't know if anyone else has come across this but I am constantly coming across the "obese" label mainly due to BMI.

As a healthy 38 year old who runs 20 miles a week, weight trains twice a week (on the advice of my consultant) and follows a healthy diet - I get very annoyed when I get labelled "obese" (my BMI is 30.2). My fat ratio levels are normal and I am a size 12/14 - but I am constantly told that I must lose weight!!

I am getting more and more concerned that we are labelling people with a calculation that clearly doesn't work for everyone. I have even had a referal to a dietician from work because of this obese label - unfortunately I seemed to know more about nutrician than she did.

Has anyone else come across this problem?

I too am classed as obese.
I have a HUGE bust~ 38H. I estimate that with an average sized bust, I would be merely overweight.
I am large, that's true, Dress size 18, ( below bust level) and 5 feet 7 iinches tall. I kid myself I don't look particularly big. I certainly don't have to wobbling bits I see on people on TV( below the waist anyway! )
BMI is not a sensible way to label people. I believe that most professional rugby players would be classed as obese by that ruler.
Our society loves to blame people. It makes the blamer superior. Thus a skinny kid, who has never achieved anything, can be superior to an overweight PhD or professor.
Hana

...and I remember watching a prog with Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall last year. They compared a rather large rugby playing bloke, BMI about 30 with an underweight student BMI about 17.
The thin student had a body fat level that was alarmingly high; the rugby playing sturdy lad's level was very low.

To me, BMI means nothing other than a vague guideline

wiflib

BMI is JUST a ratio. Weight to height. If you made a model of a man out of lead, and one out of feathers, they'd be exactly same size (and have the same "BMI")... But the lead one would be much heavier.

BMI is a load of rubbish.

I agree most whole heartedly with what has been said.

Regarding the reasons for more overweight people - it's not very long ago I saw a documentary on this subject which pointed out that the use of palm oil in 80% of our food manufacturing is a great cotributor to this as it is very hard for the body to digest and therefore becomes stored as fat. Yet since then nothing has been done about it in fact quite to the contrary. Only a week or so ago it was being put forward as a much better way to bring prices down as it's so cheap :!: :!: :!:

foxglove said:

I agree most whole heartedly with what has been said.

Regarding the reasons for more overweight people - it's not very long ago I saw a documentary on this subject which pointed out that the use of palm oil in 80% of our food manufacturing is a great cotributor to this as it is very hard for the body to digest and therefore becomes stored as fat. Yet since then nothing has been done about it in fact quite to the contrary. Only a week or so ago it was being put forward as a much better way to bring prices down as it's so cheap :!: :!: :!:

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Hi Foxglove,

It would seem you are right to be concerned about the use of palm oil, as it is very high in saturated fat, here is a article that suggests its use in food manufacturing is putting our health at risk:

http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/pages/health.html

Nigel

Oh dear! The Fat Police out again...


It's just much easier to charge everyone for food at NHS hospitals.

- It would raise £m's. And improve the quality if everyone had to pay for it.

It's all down to "worshipping" skinniness. It's now allowable to be rude to fat people. Certainly some eat junk food constantly, but I'm fat[3stone less than I used to be though] and Ieat very little and exercise lots and I'm not alone.
Hana

you can't win either way when I was 23 stone all I heard was "lose weight or die" so I did and now that I'm 9 stone 4 all I'm hearing is " you really need to get some weight on" blah blah blah I was fitter and happier when I was huge. I played rugby walked everywhere now I am using a wheelchair and really can't be bothered so where's the happy medium. Fat but healthy or skinny and crippled hmmm pass me the cheesecakes :lol:

mrsmousemat said:

Oh dear! The Fat Police out again...


It's just much easier to charge everyone for food at NHS hospitals.

- It would raise £m's. And improve the quality if everyone had to pay for it.

Click to expand...

Where I live (France), you pay for 'board and lodging' in hospital unless you have a long stay. Most people are able to reclaim this on private top up insurance (available to those on very low incomes free of charge). It means that at my local hospital single rooms with 'ensuite' + reasonable quality fresh food are the norm.
Having said that my parents have both recently had knee replacements at the NHS hospital in Bournemouth; they too had single rooms, ensuite and reasonable quality food at no extra charge.