Diabetes will bankrupt the NHS
Discussion
964Cup said:
The trouble is that modern people don't want to be told that anything they do, or want, or are is wrong. It has to be someone else's fault or better still blamed on some ill-defined "thing" like "big food", "the elite", "structural something-ism".
A return to shame and an idea of what constitutes normal might help, but that way also lies a great deal of bigotry and suffering, so it's not simple.
The reality, of course, is that there are no fat people in labour camps (except the guards). No one has some kind of magical metabolism that stops them being thin, but most people lack the discipline to eat as little - and as healthily - as their largely sedentary lifestyle requires. After all, you can eat anything you like - although ultra-processed foods will still be bad for you in other ways - if you do enough exercise. Just look at pro cyclists, who eat something like 7000 calories a day when racing, and most of that is carbs. Indeed a fair share of the carbs are sugar.
But for most of us, who aren't digging ditches or carrying hods of bricks for a living, we need fewer calories than even the daily recommendation *and* we need to get off our backsides more often. The value of exercise seems continually to be questioned by all sides but all I can say (apart from reference to the first law of thermodynamics) is that when I was doing 200 miles a week on my bike I could (and did) eat whatever I liked and stay at 80kg. Now that I mostly sit in aeroplanes I have to constantly watch my diet and am nonetheless up to 86kg. By the same token I challenge anyone to do 12 hours of hard physical exercise a week and stay fat unless they actively try to.
The only thing we can do is fight back against the "fit at any weight" nonsense with public health campaigns that are as aggressive and uncompromising as the ones we ran for AIDS, heroin and cigarettes. Even then we needed legislation to make a real dent on smoking - but legislating in that way on food is much more complicated.
Imagine NHS adds fat shaming people! It’s just never going to happen and in the meantime we have Greg’s on every street corner and inside Primark! McDonald’s inside Sainsburys and in most towns and cities filthy food 24/7 delivered lukewarm to your door. A return to shame and an idea of what constitutes normal might help, but that way also lies a great deal of bigotry and suffering, so it's not simple.
The reality, of course, is that there are no fat people in labour camps (except the guards). No one has some kind of magical metabolism that stops them being thin, but most people lack the discipline to eat as little - and as healthily - as their largely sedentary lifestyle requires. After all, you can eat anything you like - although ultra-processed foods will still be bad for you in other ways - if you do enough exercise. Just look at pro cyclists, who eat something like 7000 calories a day when racing, and most of that is carbs. Indeed a fair share of the carbs are sugar.
But for most of us, who aren't digging ditches or carrying hods of bricks for a living, we need fewer calories than even the daily recommendation *and* we need to get off our backsides more often. The value of exercise seems continually to be questioned by all sides but all I can say (apart from reference to the first law of thermodynamics) is that when I was doing 200 miles a week on my bike I could (and did) eat whatever I liked and stay at 80kg. Now that I mostly sit in aeroplanes I have to constantly watch my diet and am nonetheless up to 86kg. By the same token I challenge anyone to do 12 hours of hard physical exercise a week and stay fat unless they actively try to.
The only thing we can do is fight back against the "fit at any weight" nonsense with public health campaigns that are as aggressive and uncompromising as the ones we ran for AIDS, heroin and cigarettes. Even then we needed legislation to make a real dent on smoking - but legislating in that way on food is much more complicated.
Evanivitch said:
Vanden Saab said:
How far back are you going. 60 years ago my mother had terrible problems because I was a normal not fat baby while babies with rolls of fat were considered healthy. 40 years ago I had the very same issues with my daughter. fast forward another 20 years and my daughter had the exact same thing with my grandkids. Until we accept that fat babies are not healthy and that feeding babies excessively is wrong nothing will change.
If you teach parents that they need to double their child's weight every month what exactly do you expect when they are older.
I don't think this is true in the NHS today where WHO health charts are used.If you teach parents that they need to double their child's weight every month what exactly do you expect when they are older.
But yes, often formula fed babies have significant fat roles.
BoRED S2upid said:
Imagine NHS adds fat shaming people! It’s just never going to happen and in the meantime we have Greg’s on every street corner and inside Primark! McDonald’s inside Sainsburys and in most towns and cities filthy food 24/7 delivered lukewarm to your door.
they don't fat shame but they won't hesitate to tell people they are overweight or obese Hoofy said:
fido said:
How about public information adverts to target diabetes using the same teams that scared us sh8tless during Covid?
STOP EATINGPROTECT THE NHS
SAVE LIVES
?
https://time.com/5872175/boris-johnson-weight-loss...
WyrleyD said:
There's something that happens way before (can be as much as 20 years before) diabetes manifests itself and that is insulin resistance. I tried to have a discussion with the phlebotomist at my surgery when I had my last lot of bloods taken for the cholesterol and Hba1c testing, I asked her to include a fasting insulin test as well and got a flat "no" and when asked why she said she'd never been asked by the doctors for that kind of test and said that she didn't know what it was anyway.
I did a lot of research into why my last tests in May were so bad with raised glucose and very high triglycerides and out of whack HDL and LDL. I concluded that I was insulin resistant, and had been for many years which explained how I had developed liver problems some 20 years ago and then went on to becoming Type 2 Diabetic in 2014. As a result of the research I embarked on a time restricted diet and after just 3 months my glucose was down to the pre-diabetic range and the cholesterol and triglycerides were in the normal range and liver readings were OK.
I don't think that GP's will do anything other than dish out the drugs like Metformin rather than catch this disease years earlier by testing for insulin resistance and explaining to the patient just what will happen if they carry on in the same old way.
Absolutely this!I did a lot of research into why my last tests in May were so bad with raised glucose and very high triglycerides and out of whack HDL and LDL. I concluded that I was insulin resistant, and had been for many years which explained how I had developed liver problems some 20 years ago and then went on to becoming Type 2 Diabetic in 2014. As a result of the research I embarked on a time restricted diet and after just 3 months my glucose was down to the pre-diabetic range and the cholesterol and triglycerides were in the normal range and liver readings were OK.
I don't think that GP's will do anything other than dish out the drugs like Metformin rather than catch this disease years earlier by testing for insulin resistance and explaining to the patient just what will happen if they carry on in the same old way.
It drives my wife (a T1 diabetic who volunteers to help T2 diabetics) up the wall.
Unfortunately, big pharma make lots of money from things like statins and metformin and bugger all from testing for insulin resistance.
That is then of course compounded by the product development and marketing budgets available to the processed food industry which dwarf anything focused on promoting the sort of healthy eating and lifestyle which might just eliminate the need for insulin resistance testing in the first place.
Evanivitch said:
There are so, so many issues connected to obesity that are costing society massive amounts. From diabetes (medicine), heart disease (surgery), mental health and stroke.
Boris Johnson was briefly obsessed with it, lasted for about 5 minutes, and obviously anything that increases the cost of food is a trap for the poor.
parkrun is one thing that has probably done a small miracle for public health. Get people running, socialising and you can slightly ease the pressure on calorie control.
Boris Johnson. Obsessed with food. Yes. I can see that the fat lazy tBoris Johnson was briefly obsessed with it, lasted for about 5 minutes, and obviously anything that increases the cost of food is a trap for the poor.
parkrun is one thing that has probably done a small miracle for public health. Get people running, socialising and you can slightly ease the pressure on calorie control.
t probably is. Hugo Stiglitz said:
People with cars drive locally to the supermarket and back
People without cars get a taxi back from the supermarket.
I walk as taxis aren't cheap. I walk home as taxis aren't cheap. When Iived in London - tube and then walked between areas and bars.
People drive to the drive thru.
People get their takeaway delivered (yes it's always happened) but it seems to have gone into convenience overdrive.
My sons friends get dropped off and picked up from school daily 400ms from their house.
Supermarkets food is 90% wrapped in plastics and with vast fridges covering upto 40% of the store of pre-prepared food.
Takeaways, kebab shops, burger places side by side competing for business on every shop strip in every town on every street.
Everyone is tired, stressed and time poor with no time to prepare and cook.
And now our new generation are using electric scooters so no need to walk anywherePeople without cars get a taxi back from the supermarket.
I walk as taxis aren't cheap. I walk home as taxis aren't cheap. When Iived in London - tube and then walked between areas and bars.
People drive to the drive thru.
People get their takeaway delivered (yes it's always happened) but it seems to have gone into convenience overdrive.
My sons friends get dropped off and picked up from school daily 400ms from their house.
Supermarkets food is 90% wrapped in plastics and with vast fridges covering upto 40% of the store of pre-prepared food.
Takeaways, kebab shops, burger places side by side competing for business on every shop strip in every town on every street.
Everyone is tired, stressed and time poor with no time to prepare and cook.
98elise said:
Electro1980 said:
98elise said:
Poor people can't afford fruit and veg? Fruit and veg is very cheap, and normally it's right at the front of the store. We cook the majority of our food from fresh and it's cheaper than processed crap.
It's not big food that's the problem. They sell what people want.
It’s not cheap though. Not for an actual balanced diet. A few potato’s and carrots might be cheap, but that’s not all someone needs to live. It also requires time and work. The fundamental issue is lack of time and resources. Too many hours working, too much stress. People struggle to cook because they simply don’t have the time. They eat too many carbs because that’s what you crave when you’re tired and stressed.It's not big food that's the problem. They sell what people want.
Continuing to treat it as a moral issue
What fruit and veg in a balanced diet is expensive?
Far too many people today just didn't have that advantage. Both parents worked and often haven't been taught to cook themselves, so there is an increasingly large sector of society who just wouldn't have a clue what to do with fresh vegetables and raw meat.
Digga said:
lornemalvo said:
Our local hospital has a wing purely for diabetes cases, which is on the increase. There's plenty of education/advice about losing weight and weight is a factor. However, I think there should be more education about how harmful sugar is. The obvious sources of sugar but also the hidden sugar in processed foods and the way carbohydrates turn into sugar in the body. I imagine many people aren't aware that carb reduction can prevent a lot of issues.
I think our local hospital's diversity matrix has led to them employing roughly 50% obese staff. Attended A&E a few years back for head injury and, in the various bits of wait with my wife who had to drive me, we observed, certainly in terms of nursing staff, a significant number were easily into the territory of being unhealthily large.sugerbear said:
JagLover said:
98elise said:
Again I cannot see how that's true. Even when my wife and I were both working, and had teenage kids doing multiple after school activities we still managed to cook and eat. A lot of the time we simply used a slow cooker and cooked in batches. Our home cooked meals came in at about £1 per serving.
What fruit and veg in a balanced diet is expensive?
Yes What fruit and veg in a balanced diet is expensive?
It is very possible to eat well for £2 a serving, which is much cheaper than a ready meal for one, or a takeaway.
It is more a change in mentality and training that is needed.
IroningMan said:
LTNs, Schools Streets, Cycle Lanes, Bike Hangars, changes to the Highway Code... Perhaps you can suggest some means of encouraging walking and cycling that hasn't been or won't be seized upon as targeting motorists?
I think you are defining "encouraging" something by making the alternative more difficult or expensive, as you are citing the example of LTN's whose sole purpose is to block side streets to create more congestion on main roads. All this does is make life more difficult and stressful, it doesn't encourage anything. So you can encourage walking and cycling by making the built environment for both more pleasant and accessible. In relation to which it should be pointed out that very many people drive to the place they will carry out this activity.
Kermit power said:
It has sod all to do with a "diversity matrix". Go and look at the food available to hospital staff, especially when they're working a night shift. It's generally woeful, and often comes out of vending machines.
Take a healthy packed lunch then, like every other that doesn’t need have state sponsored, spoon fed help to figure their life out.Before you get uppity. I have 3 friends who are nurses. None are fat. It’s not compulsory.
Hospitals are very poor examples of good food. I am trying to lose some weight. I am doing that by cutting right down in carbs and it works very well. Anyhow, I went to visit a relative in hospital last week. To kill some time whilst waiting I thought I would grab a coffee and maybe something to eat. The only food available was in a branch of Costa. I kid you not there was not one thing in there I could eat, not ONE. Everything was just a sugar sandwich, and the amount of strips going into some of the coffees was eye watering.
They could start by allowing in franchises that sell proper food. If there are any
They could start by allowing in franchises that sell proper food. If there are any
JagLover said:
IroningMan said:
LTNs, Schools Streets, Cycle Lanes, Bike Hangars, changes to the Highway Code... Perhaps you can suggest some means of encouraging walking and cycling that hasn't been or won't be seized upon as targeting motorists?
I think you are defining "encouraging" something by making the alternative more difficult or expensive, as you are citing the example of LTN's whose sole purpose is to block side streets to create more congestion on main roads. All this does is make life more difficult and stressful, it doesn't encourage anything. So you can encourage walking and cycling by making the built environment for both more pleasant and accessible. In relation to which it should be pointed out that very many people drive to the place they will carry out this activity.
*an LTN is created*
"Not like that!"
Astacus said:
Hospitals are very poor examples of good food. I am trying to lose some weight. I am doing that by cutting right down in carbs and it works very well. Anyhow, I went to visit a relative in hospital last week. To kill some time whilst waiting I thought I would grab a coffee and maybe something to eat. The only food available was in a branch of Costa. I kid you not there was not one thing in there I could eat, not ONE. Everything was just a sugar sandwich, and the amount of strips going into some of the coffees was eye watering.
They could start by allowing in franchises that sell proper food. If there are any
It does amaze me that hospitals who are all about health have mostly either Costa or vending machine foods.They could start by allowing in franchises that sell proper food. If there are any
Digga said:
Kermit power said:
It has sod all to do with a "diversity matrix". Go and look at the food available to hospital staff, especially when they're working a night shift. It's generally woeful, and often comes out of vending machines.
Take a healthy packed lunch then, like every other that doesn’t need have state sponsored, spoon fed help to figure their life out.Before you get uppity. I have 3 friends who are nurses. None are fat. It’s not compulsory.
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