Half ton hospital

[gunnlass]

Anybody watch this programme last night, it was quite disturbing to see and realise how many people die from obesity in USA.

[George Brims]

Would it disturb you to know that on average people in the UK are now more obese than in the USA? Living in the US and visiting home now and then, it is really striking how many grossly fat people there now are in Scotland compared to 20 years ago. Scotland still tops the world rankings in deaths from heart disease.

[sweetpea]

What gets me every time is, if someone is so big they can't move where do they get the food from? must be people there feeding them.

[wavy davy]

What a quandary for our beloved politicians.

I don't have anything to back this up, but I'll stick my neck out and say that obesity costs the NHS more than smoking.

Yes, there are some people who are overweight because of a medical condition but most obese people I know are obese because they eat too much and don't exercise - pure and simple.

Smokers were easy targets, what are they going to do about the fatties? A saturated fat tax? A BMI tax? The mind boggles.

[Margaret M.]

Would it disturb you to know that on average people in the UK are now more obese than in the USA? Living in the US and visiting home now and then, it is really striking how many grossly fat people there now are in Scotland compared to 20 years ago. Scotland still tops the world rankings in deaths from heart disease.


I so agree, George. I remember when I first came to the US, I was mortified to see so many obese people and it was such a stark contrast to the folks back home. Unfortunately now obesity is also a common sight in the UK. It is troubling to see so many school age children very much overweight in the US.

[JAWS]

The only reason there are more "Obese" people around nowadays is that previously they were called "Stout", "Plump" or "Well-built".
I can't really say that I have noticed that the variety in the shape people are has changed much over the decades. The main difference now is that there has been a decision that there should be a "Uniform" or "Ideal" Weight to Height Ratio or BMI which everybody should conform to.

What I do not understand is that we are constantly being told that almost everything we do to ourselves is unhealthy and that more and more people are living "Unhealthy" Lifestyles yet at the same time we are being told that people will have to work to a later age because people are living longer and longer.
We are busily shortening our lives but are succeeding in living longer? Somebody has got something wrong somewhere.

[wild1]

I don't mean to sound harsh but when these people are so overweight and can't work where on earth do they get all the money for buying all the food they eat ie junk food. I was very surprised to see that in one episode of this programme one patient was getting takeaways delivered to the hospital that they were in supposed to be having a operation, there should be strict rules so that the patients can't have access to phoning there local takeaway and getting food delivered.