Obesity as an excuse for healthcare rationing

The tone of this article is quite disturbing.

It is quite apparent that obesity is being used as an excuse to save the NHS money. They won't say that because they can't - but that is the simple truth of it.

The issues surrounding obesity are really, really complex. It is not just as simple as "you don't get your op unless you lose weight". The pshycological impact of those sorts of attitudes are likeley to make an individual's weight problem worse.

If it was that simple we wouldn't have overweight people in the first place.

BBC Gets it wrong on obesity

I read this article about healthy eating and junk food yesterday (a subject about which I am a little obsessed at the moment). The article is poorly researched and fundamentally flawed, the BBC should hang its head in collective shame.

There is no comparison anywhere in the article on portion size, so the reader has no idea if they are comparing like for like. More importantly, it suggests that fat in food, per say, is a problem. The reality is that about 20% of our diet should be fat.

The most important difference is in the type of fat, where saturated fats and trans-fats should be avoided - because they are the ones that do damage. It is interesting that, in this respect, the article fits in with the Government's agenda, where their food labelling system makes no comparison between types of fat. This is one of the reasons Tesco stood their ground and used their own labelling system instead of the Government's (and quite rightly too). It is interesting that a flawed BBC article matches a flawed Government agenda instead of challenging it.

I am sure that there are those wondering if this matters? KFC (who feature in the abovementioned BBC article) have recently annmounced that they will be removing saturated fats from their products in the US. Is the fact that the Government are burying their head in the sand on this issue a reason why they have not made the same commitment here? It is certainly true that in America the obesity war has placed a significant amount of focus on trans fats, this has resulted in McDonalds, Wendys and KFC making changes to how they cook their food.

Stomach Stapling for Overweight Teens

I hope this report from the Guardian is just speculation. It suggest that the National Institute for Medicine Rationing (laughingly also known as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) is set to authorise stomach stapling surgery for overweight teens. This at a time when it has banned Alzheimers Drugs.

I would be interested to see the long term success rate of stomach stapling. My instinct is to suggest that it will be limited because such drastic solutions shortcut the basic issue with weight gain, which is that in order to turn it round you need to eat less calories than you use up (the theory of weight loss is that simple - the practice however.....). Without ensuring that message has been learned properly any other solution and/or diet is doomed to failure.

I should add that I have lost nearly 4 stone this year, so I do speak from a position of at least a little authority on this.