Snapshot of _Why are we so ill? The working-age health crisis_ :
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The phychological toll of poverty effecting us all
Poor nutrition and lack of healthy avaialable options at affordable prices
A neglected NHS has resulted in a convoluted system for all that we underutilise often for avoiding apparrent wastes of time that later result in more serious issues
A narrative or culture of not being medically seen to
The move within the medical system of fixing as much as possible with medication when therapy and social integration os whats actually needed
Eh, everything else yes, but pollution's much better than it used to be.
I remember how awful it was back in the 90's; most vehicles would belch out visible fumes on the road and it was considered normal instead of a sign that something was wrong. Walking down a main road was like smoking a cigarette.
And yet in Pembrokeshire people are getting sore eyes due to a cloud of stink from a waste dumping site, that's been visiting villages depending on which way the wind is blowing.
There's also been a huge push for both partners in a relationship to work full time - it was supposed to improve everyone's lives and set people free but costs kept increasing and now you need to do so just to maintain the same standard of living. Since having a child my partner and I cobble together our own meals each evening, and just about manage to go the shops at the weekend, with what little time (and energy) we have left.
> The phychological toll of poverty effecting us all
Yet people in countries with far worse poverty have far less mental health problems.
I personally think it's much more about lack of community and social isolation in western countries and social media as well.
It’s less about poverty and more about social inequalities. The UK is one of the worst countries in Europe for social inequalities. There are more impoverished countries that fare better but that’s because the gap between rich and poor is smaller.
Source: Book called Spirit Level which does a great breakdown of all the research in this area.
So people are more anxious and depressed not because of their wealth but because of others? I don't buy it.
I just think countries with a strong focus on community and family have more support networks and have very little social isolation so can help each other. Social media also seems to give a false sense everyone elses lives are so much better.
Yeah it is more complicated than simple A+B=C however the data seems robust. Have a look at the spirit level book honestly, it convinced me (and I couldn’t see how this made sense).
Edit to add, you’ve touched on it with your social media comment. It’s comparison to others that feeds the misery. That’s social inequality!
> It’s comparison to others that feeds the misery. That’s social inequality!
I think it's more about the fakery and people using social media to show a false side of yourself than the actual level of wealth they show
Also, anecdotally, I am never not mentally at work in some regard. If I stop for a single moment my world will shatter. It’s great.
I am absolutely not the only one.
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I guess you walk there and back in the rain and snow with no shoes on then aswell you pillock.
Get a job closer to home if you only have 50 quid to spend on food.
We have a massive problem with hidden carers in our country. Lots of people caring for older family / partners etc so they go to work all day, come home and then into their role as unpaid carer.
I've never heard such bullshit as this blokes talking about. 500 grams of mince to make a 6 portion lasagne that he keeps in the fridge from Wednesday to Saturday. Yeah right. Notice there's no ingredients for his 'sushi' or half the shite on his list. No lunches or breakfasts.
If he thinks it's suitable to live on leftovers then I'm glad I don't have to live like that and actually wear it as a badge of honor.
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I'm fully believing this guy is a complete troll. He said he works 48 hours a week. I didn't see his budget for food for being out the house that long. Or is he reusing tea bags from the bin and scrounging off coworkers.
£25 quid a week would leave you seriously malnourished and to claim if you bulk buy, everyone does that aswell it's called "the big shop"....
I don't know why he's fighting the strangest battle on the planet but if he's under that impression good luck to him.
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The fk are you eating? Beans on toast for every meal? What about cleaning products and laundry pods etc?
I don't get why people are so proud of living a life that's utterly breadline and not striving for anything better. What a depressing person you must be.
Assuming I'm not a good cook and bragging you spend 50 quid a week mate. Seriously.
Enjoy your beans on toast
Edit. Also please send us povvos your idea of a weekly food plan if its that gourmet at 50 quid for 2 people.
I'm sure we're all ears 👂
Assumptions all over the place there. Can I have the 7 day meal plan so I can follow in your footsteps then please or are you as contrarian ad your username suggests
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Just checked my records, I have spent £1755.78 on grocery shopping in the last 12 months, which includes cleaning products, toiletries etc. That's under £35/week for me, a single person (which makes things more expensive pp), and I eat meat everyday, rarely any of the cheap cuts, have steaks and lamb often.
I can absolutely agree that £50/week is achievable for two people for food, especially if you don't insist on having meat every day and more expensive cuts or animals (like lamb)
As someone who doesn't live in the UK anymore, UK groceries are soo cheap, even after the price rises of the last few years.
If you buy the cheaper items, like rice, veg, lentils and the cheapest cuts of meat then it's not difficult. The biggest problem however is people don't have the skills to come up with healthy cheap meals, and instead go for the processed cheap stuff.
> The biggest problem however is people don't have the skills to come up with healthy cheap meals,
which is depressing, because those things are a quick google search away.
i'm almost certain there are websites that will give you recipes based on the ingredients you have.
shit, 30 seconds on google and i found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/sqhcmw/are_there_any_sites_that_give_you_recipes_based/
man i'm not the best at cooking, but it isn't hard to cut things up, put it in a pan, and stir it around
i have learned that almost everything is a stir-fry if you suck enough.
you don't need skill to cook, you just need to accept you're not going to win a Michelin star.
Sure, YOU'VE cracked the code and make more effort than anyone else because you dont have a problem affording food, bravo!
Please, go ahead and inform tye ministry for health im sure theyd love your input
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Why? Didn't you?
"Access to health care has become more difficult, while those fundamental building blocks of health - such as good housing and adequate incomes - are under strain."
And opt for saltier, fattier foods.
Not to mention the fact that people are both money and time poor, so opt for takeaways.
There are definitely cultural issues that predate covid and austerity, but it's largely covid and austerity.
Actually, you do
Poverty and chronic hunger have been shown in studies to result in people binging on food when it's available, a sort of attempt to take on stores while it's available
As the food that's usually available to people in such situations isn't usually nutritionally balanced, binging on such foods can result in diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and tooth decay (especially when hygiene isn't accessible)
>Poverty increases the risk of obesity in industrialized countries through several
routes: A number of environmental factors associated with poverty result in decreased
opportunities for physical activity – crowding, substandard housing, unsafe neighborhoods, poorer school infrastructures, few child care options, and lack of leisure time conspire to make healthy levels of physical activity difficult.
[The Paradox of Hunger and Obesity](https://escholarship.org/content/qt0gh838zs/qt0gh838zs_noSplash_e533b34e002d655dc8299025ce18a3c6.pdf)
>Chronic variations in food availability may cause people to eat more when food is available than they normally would, ultimately resulting in weight gain. Finally, when diets are not consistently adequate, physiological changes may occur to help the body conserve energy. The body may compensate for periodic food shortages by becoming more efficient at storing more calories as fat.
[The Hunger–Obesity Paradox: Obesity in the Homeless](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3531350/)
Poor healthcare will help with that. And when you’re constantly stressed and have no relief (especially not any that you can afford) then you can get quick happiness in the form of cheap, nice-tasting but deeply unhealthy food.
> Almost 75% of adults are fat.
Ah yes, I'm sure that has nothing to do with [austerity measures](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/29/how-a-decade-of-austerity-has-squeezed-council-budgets-in-england).
> After taking inflation and population growth into account, net spending on sport and leisure facilities fell to £7.09 per person in 2022-23 – down 44% from £12.66 when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government took power. England has lost almost 400 swimming pools since 2010.
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Off the top of my head? State funded obesity clinics with support groups, exercise groups and facilities.
But it doesn't really matter, my inability to think of a systemic solution doesn't disprove the need for one.
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Subsidies for fruits and vegetables grown at home (as in, in the UK, not "victory gardens"), meaning they don't taste like sad water by the time they're sold in supermarkets.
Educational campaigns in schools to normalise whole foods and stigmatise microwave meals and take outs.
Education in schools to understand how weight gain, weight loss and fitness works.
Economic conditions which enable one parent in the family to stay home and cook meals from scratch, therefore normalising this for the next generation. (Or economic conditions enabling families to support another family member or a paid professional to do so.)
Economic penalties against companies which engineer addictive, hyper-processed, zero-nutritional-value "food".
Public campaigns emphasising the value of fitness and health. Influential spokespeople coming from a place of positivity and aspirational encouragement rather than fatshaming.
Increasing infrastructure in cities which facilitates walking and using public transport. Subsidising sport facilities, including public parks and other green spaces.
Support the creation of "third spaces" to facilitate people having hobbies outside of eating take outs and drinking alcohol. Support an environment where people aren't so exhausted from work, childcare and chores that the only hobbies they have is eating take outs and drinking alcohol.
Undertaking research to understand _why_ obesity rates are increasing and tackling the underlying issues rather than shrugging and pinning the sudden, alarming, society-wide increase in obesity rates on personal responsibility. If a person doesn't want to be obese it's their personal responsibility to fix that. If we don't want _society_ to be obese then we have to create a society which isn't obesogenic.
Clear labels on ultraprocessed food - no more of this traffic light bullshit.
Remove ultraprocessed food from school menus, replace with whole foods.
Remove ultraprocessed food from hospitals, replace with wholefoods.
Prevent food companies from lobbying and remove food companies from projects aiming to find solutions.
Stop advertising ultraprocessed food.
> Clear labels on ultraprocessed food
how much clearer do you want it to be?
labels already literally list the grams, % of RDA, etc. on the label. there's literally no more information you can put on there to make it clearer.
The level of processing is not captured by labels which talk about the nutritional break down.
Eg - cold pressed olive oil vs palm oil. Similar nutritional breakdown, % rda etc, but one is ultraprocessed and one isn't.
Diet coke - absolutely ultra processed, but has 5 green traffic light labels. That's not clear labelling (if you believe that ultra processed food is the problem, which I do).
There's a seminal study which got participants to eat a diet which was matched for salt, fat, sugar etc. The people eating ultraprocessed versions ate more and gained weight.
if people want to eat more calories than they need, there's nothing you can do to stop them unless you follow them around all day swatting food out of their hand.
At my local Tesco as soon as you walk through the doors you're forced into a gauntlet with the sweet bakery items on one side and boxes of special offer crisps on the other. You can't avoid it, you *have* to walk through it to get to the rest of the shop.
There's legislation against this but [supermarkets ignore it and no one cares.](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/03/supermarkets-in-england-blatantly-disregarding-rules-over-where-they-place-crisps-sweets-and-fizzy-drinks)
Unhealthy food is addictive. Addiction is lucrative.
Because people still go and eat calorific food despite leading very sedentary lives.
You could eat a bacon roll for breakfast every single day if you worked in manual labour, be it mining or whatever. Doesnt work when you sit in an office or WFH.
You don't see many fat builders for a reason.
>What causes that behaviour in people?
People have got used to cheap easy dopamine hits from sitting on computer games and eating shit sugary food. Why bother going for run when you could play Minecraft for two hours and eat a pizza that you stick in the oven for 20 mins?
>What can we do about it?
As I said it's literally self discipline in most cases. We shouldn't expect the state to nanny adults. However if you wanted to do something you'd have to force people to be slim. Cutting benefits or medical cover for people that are obese without medical reason would be massively unpopular. That said Japan have made a law to penalise companies who's employees are fat.
It indirectly means people will stay thinner as the don't want to no be employed for being fat. I think the chances of something similar being approved in the UK is zero. Because it might hurt some feelings.
Essentially People can't be fucked doing exercise. It's easier to do nothing.
Before we go down the "we don't have time" road I work 40 ISH hours a week with a shit tonne of travelling. I spend my day sat on my arse, so when I arrive at a place I go for a run. Or gog before work in the morning. You know what I often can't be bothered but I make myself go, because I don't want to be a fat knacker.
The cost of access to running is effectively nothing as most people own a pair of trainers. And outside is a free commodity. When I travel I try and avoid takeaway as much as possible. When I'm home I make my own food that's largely vegetarian or something fish here or there.
I agree with literally everything you've written here.
i know it's true. I went from 146kg (no, that's not a typo) down to 80kg.
it's exactly as simple as you have said; eat less, move more.
if you give a shit about your health, you'll make the time. nothing worthwhile happens after about 8pm. go to the gym at the end of the day, or go to bed early and go in the morning (that's my preference, your day can only get better when you start a day off with some heavy squats). Another favourite of mine is going on the way home, i almost guarantee that most people have to travel past a gym on the way home. that's how I started - i told myself i wasn't allowed to go home unless i went to the gym after work.
you can't make people lose weight, unless they want it. they won't want it unless they feel a consequence for not doing it.
i love that this makes people *so angry*, that they are downvoting it.
>the solution to this problem actually has to be personal responsibility
How is "personal responsibility" a solution?
What does that actually mean in policy terms?
It's not really.
You can do nudge nudge behaviour economics - basically tax fat etc. but that has enormous problems because at the end of the day it disproportionately targets the poor who generally have access to poorer nutrition anyway.
It will also have weird unexpected effects where food manufacturers do funny stuff to their products to keep it selling.
I imagine someone will probably suggest we reintroduce rationing......
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I’m not not sure if you’ve been shopping in the last …ten years or so, but shit food you can chuck in the oven and take out half an hour later or so is *far* cheaper than healthy food you have to cook.
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They’re just examples. Which prove my point. Youre getting off subject cause you don’t like it.
None of what you have said prove your point, you’re talking bollocks cause it doesn’t suit your point.
Time, energy, other responsibilities etc are also factors.
I love to make my own chips, bloody fab. But it's hard to beat the convenience of dumping pre prepped chips on a tray and banging them in the oven so you can crack on with other chores, do childcare, go back to work, whatever - life is busy busy busy.with constant need demands.
I don't find people moralising about this stuff helpful at all. Its like back when we used to do reality TV where we took all the food a family ate ina fortnight and dumped it on and then judged them - any amount for food treated and presented like that will look gross.
if you haven't got time to cook properly, just eat less garbage.
it's literally calories in, calories out for regulating your weight and not being fat. you control exactly how many calories you're forcing down your cake hole.
so just stop over-eating. eating less takes less time. so the "i don't have time" thing is just bullshit from every possible angle.
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Years of shite wages, increasing housing costs, hollowed out public services and now insane inflation has destroyed what little hope people had.
Life is that shite for a lot of people they escape into drink, drugs, food etc.
It's clear the people arnt coping. Saying people had it harder is redundant and stupid.
We need to help those that aren't coping. Not point to history and saying "see?"
I agree there has to be personal responsibility, it's a two way contract.
But Start living like a healthy human being.... That's BS.Explain this, my gf exercises, eats healthily, doesn't drink or smoke.
She can no longer work after waiting two years for surgery. How is that not the states fault? Mis management and underfunding.
Education for healthy living is needed.
Good well paying jobs to allow people to eat healthy.
Free education to help upskill those that need it.
Better support for those that need help is what's needed it's basic human compassion.
We're people not profits.
There are people holding down multiple jobs, who are just surviving. The cost of healthy fresh produce far exceeds budget forcing them for basic or non nutritional food
"just have a less shit life" isn't very helpful advice man.
'get more sleep but also spend longer cooking healthier food and work more hours in order to afford ingredients that are more expensive than they were last year but also slightly worse, also find some more time to exercise good luck' is not at all near addressing the root cause of the problems that cause people to be too fat and not sleeping enough etc
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It's an aggressive stance that seems to some like you're poking blame. But I must say it's hard not to agree.
I love the basis of the NHS, I'm proud of it and I don't have any issues paying for others to have health care.
At the same time I see people regularly eating and drinking themselves into obesity by the age of 30 who will need decades upon decades of free health care thrown at them for their poor choices. And that's if they're lucky.
And listen, I have kids in education, they are taught nutrition, they are encouraged to eat well. They are pulled up on bad choices. The idea people just aren't educated on nutrition is utter bullshit. It's printed on every item you buy.
What there doesn't seem to be is a solid understanding that once you're obese, and you're on untold amount of meds to keep things ticking over, you're life is fucked. You are no longer just fat, you're fat and poorly, unhappy and staring at a lifetime of money being thrown at you from the tax payer. I mean it's pretty depressing thought. It's hard to tell people this is the path they're choosing I guess.
It's a very complex issue. Many of the studies/arguments I've read have also brought up the fact that alcohol and fast food are addictive, and the unhappier and more tired we are, the harder it is to resist them. It's also well documented that children will often replicate the behaviour of their parents, so if their parents are giving them poor food, they'll likely grow up eating it and then continue the same when they're independant.
I don't particularly think these bad habits are because people just think "ah it's fine, the NHS will save me" or that they feel apathetic towards the problems of obesity, I think it's more that it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to consistently make the right decisions as human beings. Look at the US for example. Free healthcare aint saving them from diabetes, yet a huge amount of the population are still sending themselves to an early gave despite knowing how dangerous obesity is.
Fuck knows what the solution is, but personally I feel like social solutions (which are not solely the responsibility of the state) are going to be significantly better than the many people just going "well, stop being irresponsible and act better" (not that I'm implying that's what you said).
That's not entirely true.
The NHS has had real terms funding rises every single year of its existence, including in the last 14 years.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/nhs-budget-nutshell#:~:text=18%20December%202023-,How%20has%20spending%20on%20the%20NHS%20changed%20over%20time%3F,masks%20substantial%20variation%20over%20time.
It's the second biggest state expense next to the state pension. If it still can't do what we ask of it, I'm afraid we will have to start de-scoping the range of services offered. The money isn't there.
It is entirely true, because there is also an increasing proportion of its funding being *required* to be spent on private resources from cleaners to agency staff to drugs we could make ourselves but dont.
Austerity doesnt mean spending less money (it never did), it means wasting more money and doing more corruption, giving more money to people who pay and employ or wine and dine politicians.
Funding rises sure, but is it enough?
Using your data since the last labour government, its shown a significant decrease in the average investment.
But also let's look further into the numbers.
There has been an increase in privatisation. The services taken on by these private companies are the easy routine activities yielding high profit margins.
There has been private contracts for the supply of consumables, prices hiked by over 600% in some cases. Items created on the same factory line, to the exact same hygienic spec, have been priced gouged under NHS contracts - they are forced to use these suppliers.
Scandal over PPE, oh look once again public money diverted into private hands. The transfer of wealth is sickening.
And now the use of private companies to recover the NHS backlog. You do realise the con job going on. If the government would have paid staff, we would be better off in the long run with a sustainable NHS. And you know what it would be a damn sight cheaper then having to use private companies for essential NHS services
They've stripped it to the core, all for personal gain, the vultures are circling.
Wake up and see reality mate.
But social services has been cut to the bone. As have council care budgets. As have mental health services and all kinds of other early intervention and community programmes. And if they cannot help everyone who needs it, who has to pick up the resulting debris? The NHS.
Because ill, disabled and elderly people who aren't getting the help they need, end up getting seriously ill and needing hospitalisation. And disabled and elderly people who are well enough to return home but cannot get a home care plan in place...either stay in hospital, or end up back there soon enough.
The NHS is suffering because it's where the buck stops.
Community worker here.
Can confirm we see clients with much worse overall circumstances than we used to.
Statutory services are stretched far too thin, so it’s not unusual to meet someone who has been offloaded onto the voluntary sector because social services or the nhs or social care have no time for them.
One client had asked if home care could come a little earlier in the morning due to also receiving a district nurse visit, home care took that as “declining care” and withdrew. Gentleman’s family had to call the care company and plead with them to reinstate care.
Visited a lady in a tower block in an apartment riddled with damp and black mould, to the point where it made me feel unwell spending 1 hour in there. Lady had cycled through hospital admissions, discharge back home and then her condition worsening again so she ended up being re admitted. Staff were aware of her living conditions and the fact her housing association weren’t taking any action, but the attitude was “what can we do? Housing is a difficult issue.” Literally nobody had thought to submit an adult at risk referral until we ended up doing this.
Also seeing it with family members given inappropriate treatment for illnesses that should be easy to treat and ending up in worse shape, because they were seeing a PA rather than an actual doctor and this person has 2 years of basic training but never attended medical school.
I’ve been on a waiting list for treatment for 4 years. I am told I am now number 4 in the queue.
Not to mention decline in quality of food, cost of living crisis, everything else….
While the first statement about the NHS is factually true, your opinion isn’t well rounded in fact.
The NHS is struggling like never before due to the decline of tertiary services surrounding it that it has no control over, such as nursing homes that cause significant strain and have real terms cuts that have significantly effected their ability to preform.
And is the money there for the alternative - dealing with an increasingly sick population, and the drop in productivity that causes? No? Well, get ready to "de-scope" tax revenue then.
You know what would be an article worth reading BBC?
One where you just lay.out the facts about why we are getting ill, and stop pretending that there's any fucking question about the matter.
We polluted the shit out of our environment, over-stress our bodies and minds and are poisoned daily...
Why are we ill, indeed.
There are things we have tried to minimise damage from, but many, many, many more that we have allowed to poison us all.
One of the few things Blair did that can truly be said to be indefensible - signed off on allowing use of 100k+ products in consumer products without proper testing when he could and fucking should have vetoed it.
Do they know what it’s like to be working poor? I do and you don’t have to be a fucking genius to realise it adversely affects your health. Working long shit hours to be burned out and too tired to cook well, exercise and provide suitable activities for your mental health. I’m not moaning I have improved my situation somewhat but you still can’t buy a fucking house for 4 or 5 times your earnings like certain generations could. The minimum wage does not go up in line with price rises and food gets ever more expensive so what do people do? Buy cheaper food that isn’t good for you.
Poorer, demotivated, overworked, shattered…
Haven’t got time to have a routine of exercise, fuck spending ages making a meal when I’m shattered, can’t afford the health foods.
Most of the nation suffering with apathy, burnout, misery and poor essentially…
Remember Covid when there was hundreds of walkers, bikers and joggers. Lazy bastards should have been working and not exercising eh…
Add in inflation, increasing staff costs due to having to employ agency staff, a tiny thing called the pandemic, an aging population etc etc etc.
It’s never quite as simple as saying we spent more money on therefore it must be broken and privatised.
Another factor is the rules for Universal Credit, which forces claimants yo look for min 30 hrs per week of work. No ifs no buts.
People who have spent years on child tax credits could have a parent not working or working 20 hrs per week. The forced migration to UCnow forces these people into mandatory jobsearch.
Its not really mentioned by anyone, but consider a single parent or a couple with 1 parent prioritising childcare. Even if their children are school age, show me the employer who is happy to have an employee start work after 9am, leave before 3pm and take off 2 weeks at Easter, 2 week christmas, 3x half term and 6 weeks summer. Unless you get a job at a school, what employer accommodates this?
So if childcare were better and actually worked well with the realities of employment, people wouldn't need to find ways to be excused from looking for 30hr per week job (note also the 'free' hours of nursery care is limited and term time only, so doesn't help you if you work a non school job)
We need better childcare provision, or allow families with young children to be relieved or mandatory jobsearch until their kids are at secondary school
It also doesn't help that the jobcentre is the shitest experience - the pointy stick end of the benefits system. They can't help you find a job because no employer looking for candidates goes anywhere NEAR logging it with the jobcentre because doing that is only opening yourself to the craziest spam mailing list of every jobseeker bullied into applying for anything and everything, regardless of how suitable or qualified they are, just to satisfy jobsearch requirements.
This is all a side effect, shooting self in foot, of how the benefits system and UC and inadequate childcare is set up.
I know there's obviously other factors at play too but there is the small matter of the majority of the population having been infected, often repeatedly, and continuing to be infected, with a novel virus that absolutely wreaks havoc on the entire body and leaves many with lasting damage.
Or something.
I’m sick of articles like this one pretending it’s a big mystery when we know Covid causes Long Covid in 10-20% of infections along with increasing the risk for all sorts of other illnesses (including mental health problems), yet we take no mitigations as a society to stop it, whilst simultaneously dismantling our healthcare system so waitlists are huge.
This. 2 million or so with LC (and counting). At least half meeting [ME/CFS](https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Primer_for_the_public) criteria. More than doubling the number with this historically neglected and wrongly psychologised chronic disease. Predominantly destroying the lives of women in their prime.
Novel virus fucked up peoples immune systems and now struggle to find the correct medical help in order to go about our pointless jobs or something like that.
Funny how we've forgotten about covid, and how Long Covid is a thing. But that couldn't be it, right? Because then we'd have to acknowledge that we need to do more to stop it. Like wearing a mask around vulnerable people, or on public transport.
Why do I say this? Because I'm.a vulnerable person, who masks whenever I leave the house. Which isn't very often, because I'm chronically ill with ME and Lyme. 2 diseases which have been ignored for decades in the UK. I'm a 36M, for context.
People getting diagnosed as depressed or anxious might well have LC. They won't know this yet, they might continue to function poorly and get sicker and sicker until they can no longer work, or socialise, or be independent.
As someone who's life has been utterly destroyed by this, I want everyone who reads this to know...
I am saying this with compassion. I don't want anyone else to get sick like I am. I wish I could have stopped what I have through something like a vaccine, or wearing a mask. ME has little to no funding, we don't even know the cause of it, let alone a cure! Lyme was ignored for 20 years because the tests are shit. We know what causes LC, and we are too scared to talk about it.
Please, please, PLEASE consider that You and We need to do more to stop more people succumbing to this.
Stay safe, wear a mask.
You don't want the alternative.
Even when masking up was at its peak, people weren't wearing them right or were using cloth coverings that weren't effective enough to stop them from spreading any infection they may have had. If you're still masking up to protect *yourself*, I'd hope you're using a high quality mask (I assume you are if you're as vulnerable as you say) because in 2020 the masks were about protecting others, not yourself. And it only works well if everyone does it and does it correctly.
As it stands we're never going to see the mass adoption of masks to the level we saw 4 years ago again. I haven't thought about wearing one for years and I rarely see them used by others when out and about.
I'm masking up to protect everyone I come into contact with. It's not just about me, it's about everyone else too. Feels weird to have to point that out, but okay.
And yes, I'm as vulnerable as I say I am. My immune system is piss poor, too busy fighting diseases I was told I couldn't possibly have. Now there's another one thats been here for 4 years and people act like its gone. Including you by the sounds of it.
The people you see wearing masks do so because they
1. Are sick and can't get sicker
2. Know someone who is having to shield because of point 1 and don't want to make it harder for them to live
3. Understand what could happen if they get a disease with no cure
It's scary as shit.
Now I need to use what spoons I have left to defend disabled peoples rights. Should any of you end up in the Chronic Illness Community, we will welcome you with open arms. It's literally life saving.
Have a good day.
> Feels weird to have to point that out, but okay.
This was the point of my post so... I don't know what you're getting shitty about.
> and people act like its gone. Including you by the sounds of it.
It's not gone, far from it. Don't place me in the extremes.
But... I'm not about to start wearing masks everywhere again either.
People have to do what they must. For you and your situation, wearing a highly protective mask obviously makes sense. For me, it doesn't because no one else is.
As I said before, you're never going to see everyone masking up because of COVID again. If barely anyone wears them, I'm not going to either. I've had all jabs I'm eligible for and I've been infected twice. I've not had an in-person discussion about COVID and masks for actual years. The only time I get attacked for not wearing them anymore is on the internet.
The 2010 coalition did austerity, people then felt the true effects of austerity, brexit, and Covid. Due to austerity we don’t have the services in place to deal with the effects of it. Austerity measures exacerbated the effects of the other two.
it really doesn't take long to cook a meal, the time argument is such utter fucking bullshit.
also if people had more money do you really think they are magically going to eat more healthily instead of just ordering dominos instead of lobbing a frozen pizza in the oven?
come off it.
Time is more for leisure and exercise, there is also just the will to do it. I am pushing 40 and have a lot of people in their early 20's who work for me who are just apathetic, they legitimately just seem to believe their future is pretty bleak and I don't blame them.
Terrible diets, majority of the public are overweight or obese and we do no exercise and severely lack in Vitamin D during the winter. We also drink too much.
We do nothing, eat shit, smoke, take drugs, drink too much then want the nhs to medicate us better. I would also add that we are actively encourage to have some sort of mental classification that needs medication.
Maybe the drinking and drugs and comfort eating has something to do with the terrible quality of life people are forced to endure for decades at a time under poor leadership?
Or maybe there’s is something inherently wrong with us. We are chippy, and blame others for our failings. There are murdering dictatorships with better life expectancy than us, but yes, let’s blame the Tories or whoever.
My wife runs a GP practice. The reason you can’t get an appointment is because of season ticket holding patients who are obese/depressed/smoke/addicted or all of the above. Their diet is fine, they don’t drink that much, they haven’t taken drugs in ages and they tried exercise once but it didn’t work. Hypochondriac Africans/Asians are a high proportion of their patients, each of whom require expensive translators.
A vast swathe of our population are lazy and ignorant. The NHS can’t and shouldn’t have to deal with these people. We need to tax fat people in a similar way to how smokers are taxed.
As for the drugs problem, turning Scotland into a decriminalised zone will only lead us down the path of Portland, Oregon.
We since to remember that statistics only tell part of the story. Scotland would have Scandinavian levels of health if you discounted a small part of Glasgow.
Because we can't afford to relax when not working 😂 like it's not that difficult.
Oh ill go work 40 hours a week but I'll get my nice wee flat, have the odd takeout and bottle of booze and swan off to tenerife every 12-24 months. Generally people are fine
Oh ill go and work 60 hours a week and I still can't afford the basics, I'm now ignoring my kids just to keep a roof over their heads and I last went on holiday in 2016. I sometimes get invited out but if I go I probably have to miss out on new work shoes and wear these worn and uncomfy ones. Generally people are upset.
Even at the higher end of the income scale where you should be able to make decisions comfortably you can't anymore. £80k is nothing like it used to.
So why is it a mystery that people are falling ill when even when not working they can't stop worrying about bills
If you look really close, you can see the tail end of New Labour’s brilliant NHS record.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A878/production/_133182134_rtt_england_area_20240411-nc-002.png.webp
And before you say it, the population is bigger and older.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/chart-of-the-week-how-has-the-waiting-list-changed-over-the-years
It's because it was a brand new target, they'd cut both the number of people waiting, and the average length of time, they were able to bring in the 18 week to referral to treatment target.
Strangely it doubled in less than a decade once they were out of power. Almost like it was underfunded and mismanaged. If only governments knew about the population growing and ageing...
Waiting times barely move up and never exceeded a year between 2008 and the following 12 years. That's a system managing just fine, not perfect, but people are being seen within a year. Before and after these dates is a mess.
You want to talk about quantity not quality.
That's certainly a part of it, but also - hasn't there been a jump in locum demand, which is significantly more expensive cost-wise than just having the staff available?
Be use they keep cutting full time medical roles and training roles
Trust insist on spending a portion of budget on bank and agency staff regardless of if any staff would work overtime for less or more hours not even as overtime…
If you don't treat stuff, it gets worse.
Fix the NHS, you fix the workforce. I'm gubbed and it affects my work. Same for millions of others. Lot of wasted potential out there...
What's that I hear? Is it the consequences of running the NHS into the ground and trying to force people back into close proximity with each other during an ongoing pandemic?
Snapshot of _Why are we so ill? The working-age health crisis_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68849843) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68849843) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Have we had collective amnesia of the past decade? Underfunding, stress due to COL and a giant pandemic...
Sorry, what does COL stand for? Thanks in advance.
Cost of living I guess
That makes sense! I kept seeing 'City of London', lol.
Also a great engine of stress.
Vicous cycle that. Get Ill due to stress of cost of living then your off work which hardly helps with the cost of living
The phychological toll of poverty effecting us all Poor nutrition and lack of healthy avaialable options at affordable prices A neglected NHS has resulted in a convoluted system for all that we underutilise often for avoiding apparrent wastes of time that later result in more serious issues A narrative or culture of not being medically seen to The move within the medical system of fixing as much as possible with medication when therapy and social integration os whats actually needed
not to mention the pollution and environmental degradation that can affect your health.
Eh, everything else yes, but pollution's much better than it used to be. I remember how awful it was back in the 90's; most vehicles would belch out visible fumes on the road and it was considered normal instead of a sign that something was wrong. Walking down a main road was like smoking a cigarette.
And yet in Pembrokeshire people are getting sore eyes due to a cloud of stink from a waste dumping site, that's been visiting villages depending on which way the wind is blowing.
There's also been a huge push for both partners in a relationship to work full time - it was supposed to improve everyone's lives and set people free but costs kept increasing and now you need to do so just to maintain the same standard of living. Since having a child my partner and I cobble together our own meals each evening, and just about manage to go the shops at the weekend, with what little time (and energy) we have left.
But it’s great because we have equality…. Just on the model of the lowest common denominator - everyone works - rather than one partner works.
Not to mention the de-sexing of behaviour through corporate conformity rules. Remove the dynamics of life and things seem rather grey.
Oh no, not muh gendered roles /s
> The phychological toll of poverty effecting us all Yet people in countries with far worse poverty have far less mental health problems. I personally think it's much more about lack of community and social isolation in western countries and social media as well.
It’s less about poverty and more about social inequalities. The UK is one of the worst countries in Europe for social inequalities. There are more impoverished countries that fare better but that’s because the gap between rich and poor is smaller. Source: Book called Spirit Level which does a great breakdown of all the research in this area.
So people are more anxious and depressed not because of their wealth but because of others? I don't buy it. I just think countries with a strong focus on community and family have more support networks and have very little social isolation so can help each other. Social media also seems to give a false sense everyone elses lives are so much better.
Yeah it is more complicated than simple A+B=C however the data seems robust. Have a look at the spirit level book honestly, it convinced me (and I couldn’t see how this made sense). Edit to add, you’ve touched on it with your social media comment. It’s comparison to others that feeds the misery. That’s social inequality!
> It’s comparison to others that feeds the misery. That’s social inequality! I think it's more about the fakery and people using social media to show a false side of yourself than the actual level of wealth they show
Also, anecdotally, I am never not mentally at work in some regard. If I stop for a single moment my world will shatter. It’s great. I am absolutely not the only one.
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I don’t think it’s a money issue for many, no. But I don’t think it’s a simple case of laziness either. Time scarcity more likely.
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I guess you walk there and back in the rain and snow with no shoes on then aswell you pillock. Get a job closer to home if you only have 50 quid to spend on food.
We have a massive problem with hidden carers in our country. Lots of people caring for older family / partners etc so they go to work all day, come home and then into their role as unpaid carer.
You could spend £12.50 for 3 healthy meals for 7 days for an adult? Bullshit.
I've never heard such bullshit as this blokes talking about. 500 grams of mince to make a 6 portion lasagne that he keeps in the fridge from Wednesday to Saturday. Yeah right. Notice there's no ingredients for his 'sushi' or half the shite on his list. No lunches or breakfasts. If he thinks it's suitable to live on leftovers then I'm glad I don't have to live like that and actually wear it as a badge of honor.
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£25 a week isn't £12.50 a week like you originally claimed.
I'm fully believing this guy is a complete troll. He said he works 48 hours a week. I didn't see his budget for food for being out the house that long. Or is he reusing tea bags from the bin and scrounging off coworkers. £25 quid a week would leave you seriously malnourished and to claim if you bulk buy, everyone does that aswell it's called "the big shop".... I don't know why he's fighting the strangest battle on the planet but if he's under that impression good luck to him.
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The fk are you eating? Beans on toast for every meal? What about cleaning products and laundry pods etc? I don't get why people are so proud of living a life that's utterly breadline and not striving for anything better. What a depressing person you must be.
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Assuming I'm not a good cook and bragging you spend 50 quid a week mate. Seriously. Enjoy your beans on toast Edit. Also please send us povvos your idea of a weekly food plan if its that gourmet at 50 quid for 2 people. I'm sure we're all ears 👂
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Assumptions all over the place there. Can I have the 7 day meal plan so I can follow in your footsteps then please or are you as contrarian ad your username suggests
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Just checked my records, I have spent £1755.78 on grocery shopping in the last 12 months, which includes cleaning products, toiletries etc. That's under £35/week for me, a single person (which makes things more expensive pp), and I eat meat everyday, rarely any of the cheap cuts, have steaks and lamb often. I can absolutely agree that £50/week is achievable for two people for food, especially if you don't insist on having meat every day and more expensive cuts or animals (like lamb)
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As someone who doesn't live in the UK anymore, UK groceries are soo cheap, even after the price rises of the last few years. If you buy the cheaper items, like rice, veg, lentils and the cheapest cuts of meat then it's not difficult. The biggest problem however is people don't have the skills to come up with healthy cheap meals, and instead go for the processed cheap stuff.
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Denying you eat beams on toast earlier. Hahaha ha.
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> The biggest problem however is people don't have the skills to come up with healthy cheap meals, which is depressing, because those things are a quick google search away. i'm almost certain there are websites that will give you recipes based on the ingredients you have. shit, 30 seconds on google and i found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/sqhcmw/are_there_any_sites_that_give_you_recipes_based/
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man i'm not the best at cooking, but it isn't hard to cut things up, put it in a pan, and stir it around i have learned that almost everything is a stir-fry if you suck enough. you don't need skill to cook, you just need to accept you're not going to win a Michelin star.
Sure, YOU'VE cracked the code and make more effort than anyone else because you dont have a problem affording food, bravo! Please, go ahead and inform tye ministry for health im sure theyd love your input
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You'll get down voted for this, but it's true. Healthy food is more than affordable. People are fucking lazy.
Perhaps austerity measures and stripping every essential service to the bone might have something to do with it?
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Why? Didn't you? "Access to health care has become more difficult, while those fundamental building blocks of health - such as good housing and adequate incomes - are under strain."
You don’t need access to healthcare, housing, or income to not overeat.
But stress will make you retain more weight
And opt for saltier, fattier foods. Not to mention the fact that people are both money and time poor, so opt for takeaways. There are definitely cultural issues that predate covid and austerity, but it's largely covid and austerity.
Actually, you do Poverty and chronic hunger have been shown in studies to result in people binging on food when it's available, a sort of attempt to take on stores while it's available As the food that's usually available to people in such situations isn't usually nutritionally balanced, binging on such foods can result in diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and tooth decay (especially when hygiene isn't accessible) >Poverty increases the risk of obesity in industrialized countries through several routes: A number of environmental factors associated with poverty result in decreased opportunities for physical activity – crowding, substandard housing, unsafe neighborhoods, poorer school infrastructures, few child care options, and lack of leisure time conspire to make healthy levels of physical activity difficult. [The Paradox of Hunger and Obesity](https://escholarship.org/content/qt0gh838zs/qt0gh838zs_noSplash_e533b34e002d655dc8299025ce18a3c6.pdf) >Chronic variations in food availability may cause people to eat more when food is available than they normally would, ultimately resulting in weight gain. Finally, when diets are not consistently adequate, physiological changes may occur to help the body conserve energy. The body may compensate for periodic food shortages by becoming more efficient at storing more calories as fat. [The Hunger–Obesity Paradox: Obesity in the Homeless](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3531350/)
How does this prevent people from eating all pies while browsing tiktok 6hrs a day?
I don't know, but tell me how I can get paid to do that. Sounds a brilliant bullshit career.
Poor healthcare will help with that. And when you’re constantly stressed and have no relief (especially not any that you can afford) then you can get quick happiness in the form of cheap, nice-tasting but deeply unhealthy food.
> Almost 75% of adults are fat. Ah yes, I'm sure that has nothing to do with [austerity measures](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/29/how-a-decade-of-austerity-has-squeezed-council-budgets-in-england). > After taking inflation and population growth into account, net spending on sport and leisure facilities fell to £7.09 per person in 2022-23 – down 44% from £12.66 when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government took power. England has lost almost 400 swimming pools since 2010.
Well what else are they going to do? Night clubs are shut, pub cost to much, travel is bank breaking in price.
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If it were thousands of people, then I would agree with you. 75% though? That implies a systemic problem and needs a systemic and organised response.
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I mean you outlined two solutions that might not work. There may be others that will.
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Off the top of my head? State funded obesity clinics with support groups, exercise groups and facilities. But it doesn't really matter, my inability to think of a systemic solution doesn't disprove the need for one.
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Subsidies for fruits and vegetables grown at home (as in, in the UK, not "victory gardens"), meaning they don't taste like sad water by the time they're sold in supermarkets. Educational campaigns in schools to normalise whole foods and stigmatise microwave meals and take outs. Education in schools to understand how weight gain, weight loss and fitness works. Economic conditions which enable one parent in the family to stay home and cook meals from scratch, therefore normalising this for the next generation. (Or economic conditions enabling families to support another family member or a paid professional to do so.) Economic penalties against companies which engineer addictive, hyper-processed, zero-nutritional-value "food". Public campaigns emphasising the value of fitness and health. Influential spokespeople coming from a place of positivity and aspirational encouragement rather than fatshaming. Increasing infrastructure in cities which facilitates walking and using public transport. Subsidising sport facilities, including public parks and other green spaces. Support the creation of "third spaces" to facilitate people having hobbies outside of eating take outs and drinking alcohol. Support an environment where people aren't so exhausted from work, childcare and chores that the only hobbies they have is eating take outs and drinking alcohol. Undertaking research to understand _why_ obesity rates are increasing and tackling the underlying issues rather than shrugging and pinning the sudden, alarming, society-wide increase in obesity rates on personal responsibility. If a person doesn't want to be obese it's their personal responsibility to fix that. If we don't want _society_ to be obese then we have to create a society which isn't obesogenic.
Clear labels on ultraprocessed food - no more of this traffic light bullshit. Remove ultraprocessed food from school menus, replace with whole foods. Remove ultraprocessed food from hospitals, replace with wholefoods. Prevent food companies from lobbying and remove food companies from projects aiming to find solutions. Stop advertising ultraprocessed food.
> Clear labels on ultraprocessed food how much clearer do you want it to be? labels already literally list the grams, % of RDA, etc. on the label. there's literally no more information you can put on there to make it clearer.
The level of processing is not captured by labels which talk about the nutritional break down. Eg - cold pressed olive oil vs palm oil. Similar nutritional breakdown, % rda etc, but one is ultraprocessed and one isn't. Diet coke - absolutely ultra processed, but has 5 green traffic light labels. That's not clear labelling (if you believe that ultra processed food is the problem, which I do). There's a seminal study which got participants to eat a diet which was matched for salt, fat, sugar etc. The people eating ultraprocessed versions ate more and gained weight.
When you need to work all hours of the week in order to survive, cooking comes low on your list
That's worked really well so far.
if people want to eat more calories than they need, there's nothing you can do to stop them unless you follow them around all day swatting food out of their hand.
Exactly. So that's not going to work as a practical solution. All it's going to do is make the healthy person feel like they're morally better.
So we just spiral into an even more unhealthy and poor nation? I'd rather we find out and tackle what the root causes of these issues are.
At my local Tesco as soon as you walk through the doors you're forced into a gauntlet with the sweet bakery items on one side and boxes of special offer crisps on the other. You can't avoid it, you *have* to walk through it to get to the rest of the shop. There's legislation against this but [supermarkets ignore it and no one cares.](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/03/supermarkets-in-england-blatantly-disregarding-rules-over-where-they-place-crisps-sweets-and-fizzy-drinks) Unhealthy food is addictive. Addiction is lucrative.
Yeah people need to eat less and or do more exercise. It's literally lack of self discipline in most cases of being fat.
Fantastic. Why? It hasn't always been like this. What causes that behaviour in people? What can we do about it?
Because people still go and eat calorific food despite leading very sedentary lives. You could eat a bacon roll for breakfast every single day if you worked in manual labour, be it mining or whatever. Doesnt work when you sit in an office or WFH. You don't see many fat builders for a reason. >What causes that behaviour in people? People have got used to cheap easy dopamine hits from sitting on computer games and eating shit sugary food. Why bother going for run when you could play Minecraft for two hours and eat a pizza that you stick in the oven for 20 mins? >What can we do about it? As I said it's literally self discipline in most cases. We shouldn't expect the state to nanny adults. However if you wanted to do something you'd have to force people to be slim. Cutting benefits or medical cover for people that are obese without medical reason would be massively unpopular. That said Japan have made a law to penalise companies who's employees are fat. It indirectly means people will stay thinner as the don't want to no be employed for being fat. I think the chances of something similar being approved in the UK is zero. Because it might hurt some feelings. Essentially People can't be fucked doing exercise. It's easier to do nothing. Before we go down the "we don't have time" road I work 40 ISH hours a week with a shit tonne of travelling. I spend my day sat on my arse, so when I arrive at a place I go for a run. Or gog before work in the morning. You know what I often can't be bothered but I make myself go, because I don't want to be a fat knacker. The cost of access to running is effectively nothing as most people own a pair of trainers. And outside is a free commodity. When I travel I try and avoid takeaway as much as possible. When I'm home I make my own food that's largely vegetarian or something fish here or there.
>You don't see many fat builders for a reason Are you actually serious? There's fucking loads of fat builders.
I agree with literally everything you've written here. i know it's true. I went from 146kg (no, that's not a typo) down to 80kg. it's exactly as simple as you have said; eat less, move more. if you give a shit about your health, you'll make the time. nothing worthwhile happens after about 8pm. go to the gym at the end of the day, or go to bed early and go in the morning (that's my preference, your day can only get better when you start a day off with some heavy squats). Another favourite of mine is going on the way home, i almost guarantee that most people have to travel past a gym on the way home. that's how I started - i told myself i wasn't allowed to go home unless i went to the gym after work. you can't make people lose weight, unless they want it. they won't want it unless they feel a consequence for not doing it. i love that this makes people *so angry*, that they are downvoting it.
What personal responsibility exists so far in this space?
Not sure how I can possibly answer that quantifiably.
>the solution to this problem actually has to be personal responsibility How is "personal responsibility" a solution? What does that actually mean in policy terms?
It's not really. You can do nudge nudge behaviour economics - basically tax fat etc. but that has enormous problems because at the end of the day it disproportionately targets the poor who generally have access to poorer nutrition anyway. It will also have weird unexpected effects where food manufacturers do funny stuff to their products to keep it selling. I imagine someone will probably suggest we reintroduce rationing......
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"Gov to hire 50,000 sausage slappers to fight obesity"
I’m not not sure if you’ve been shopping in the last …ten years or so, but shit food you can chuck in the oven and take out half an hour later or so is *far* cheaper than healthy food you have to cook.
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I can get a bag of chips that will do me three meals for roughly 2 quid. I can get a salad that will do one meal for roughly 2 quid. How am I wrong?
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They’re just examples. Which prove my point. Youre getting off subject cause you don’t like it. None of what you have said prove your point, you’re talking bollocks cause it doesn’t suit your point.
Time, energy, other responsibilities etc are also factors. I love to make my own chips, bloody fab. But it's hard to beat the convenience of dumping pre prepped chips on a tray and banging them in the oven so you can crack on with other chores, do childcare, go back to work, whatever - life is busy busy busy.with constant need demands. I don't find people moralising about this stuff helpful at all. Its like back when we used to do reality TV where we took all the food a family ate ina fortnight and dumped it on and then judged them - any amount for food treated and presented like that will look gross.
if you haven't got time to cook properly, just eat less garbage. it's literally calories in, calories out for regulating your weight and not being fat. you control exactly how many calories you're forcing down your cake hole. so just stop over-eating. eating less takes less time. so the "i don't have time" thing is just bullshit from every possible angle.
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Oh, ok. But unhealthy food is still cheaper than healthy food. I know this cause I go shopping.
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Years of shite wages, increasing housing costs, hollowed out public services and now insane inflation has destroyed what little hope people had. Life is that shite for a lot of people they escape into drink, drugs, food etc.
All this is made worse by stress at work…and stress at work makes all this worse. This person is so privileged and in denial it’s unreal.
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It's clear the people arnt coping. Saying people had it harder is redundant and stupid. We need to help those that aren't coping. Not point to history and saying "see?"
> The NHS will die if everyone decides it’s the NHS responsibility that they’re sad. it is dying, because they have.
I agree there has to be personal responsibility, it's a two way contract. But Start living like a healthy human being.... That's BS.Explain this, my gf exercises, eats healthily, doesn't drink or smoke. She can no longer work after waiting two years for surgery. How is that not the states fault? Mis management and underfunding. Education for healthy living is needed. Good well paying jobs to allow people to eat healthy. Free education to help upskill those that need it. Better support for those that need help is what's needed it's basic human compassion. We're people not profits. There are people holding down multiple jobs, who are just surviving. The cost of healthy fresh produce far exceeds budget forcing them for basic or non nutritional food
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Whare does the 95% come from. Have you managed to interview over 6 million people to confirm this?
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"just have a less shit life" isn't very helpful advice man. 'get more sleep but also spend longer cooking healthier food and work more hours in order to afford ingredients that are more expensive than they were last year but also slightly worse, also find some more time to exercise good luck' is not at all near addressing the root cause of the problems that cause people to be too fat and not sleeping enough etc
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It's an aggressive stance that seems to some like you're poking blame. But I must say it's hard not to agree. I love the basis of the NHS, I'm proud of it and I don't have any issues paying for others to have health care. At the same time I see people regularly eating and drinking themselves into obesity by the age of 30 who will need decades upon decades of free health care thrown at them for their poor choices. And that's if they're lucky. And listen, I have kids in education, they are taught nutrition, they are encouraged to eat well. They are pulled up on bad choices. The idea people just aren't educated on nutrition is utter bullshit. It's printed on every item you buy. What there doesn't seem to be is a solid understanding that once you're obese, and you're on untold amount of meds to keep things ticking over, you're life is fucked. You are no longer just fat, you're fat and poorly, unhappy and staring at a lifetime of money being thrown at you from the tax payer. I mean it's pretty depressing thought. It's hard to tell people this is the path they're choosing I guess.
It's a very complex issue. Many of the studies/arguments I've read have also brought up the fact that alcohol and fast food are addictive, and the unhappier and more tired we are, the harder it is to resist them. It's also well documented that children will often replicate the behaviour of their parents, so if their parents are giving them poor food, they'll likely grow up eating it and then continue the same when they're independant. I don't particularly think these bad habits are because people just think "ah it's fine, the NHS will save me" or that they feel apathetic towards the problems of obesity, I think it's more that it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to consistently make the right decisions as human beings. Look at the US for example. Free healthcare aint saving them from diabetes, yet a huge amount of the population are still sending themselves to an early gave despite knowing how dangerous obesity is. Fuck knows what the solution is, but personally I feel like social solutions (which are not solely the responsibility of the state) are going to be significantly better than the many people just going "well, stop being irresponsible and act better" (not that I'm implying that's what you said).
That's not entirely true. The NHS has had real terms funding rises every single year of its existence, including in the last 14 years. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/nhs-budget-nutshell#:~:text=18%20December%202023-,How%20has%20spending%20on%20the%20NHS%20changed%20over%20time%3F,masks%20substantial%20variation%20over%20time. It's the second biggest state expense next to the state pension. If it still can't do what we ask of it, I'm afraid we will have to start de-scoping the range of services offered. The money isn't there.
It is entirely true, because there is also an increasing proportion of its funding being *required* to be spent on private resources from cleaners to agency staff to drugs we could make ourselves but dont. Austerity doesnt mean spending less money (it never did), it means wasting more money and doing more corruption, giving more money to people who pay and employ or wine and dine politicians.
Funding rises sure, but is it enough? Using your data since the last labour government, its shown a significant decrease in the average investment. But also let's look further into the numbers. There has been an increase in privatisation. The services taken on by these private companies are the easy routine activities yielding high profit margins. There has been private contracts for the supply of consumables, prices hiked by over 600% in some cases. Items created on the same factory line, to the exact same hygienic spec, have been priced gouged under NHS contracts - they are forced to use these suppliers. Scandal over PPE, oh look once again public money diverted into private hands. The transfer of wealth is sickening. And now the use of private companies to recover the NHS backlog. You do realise the con job going on. If the government would have paid staff, we would be better off in the long run with a sustainable NHS. And you know what it would be a damn sight cheaper then having to use private companies for essential NHS services They've stripped it to the core, all for personal gain, the vultures are circling. Wake up and see reality mate.
But social services has been cut to the bone. As have council care budgets. As have mental health services and all kinds of other early intervention and community programmes. And if they cannot help everyone who needs it, who has to pick up the resulting debris? The NHS. Because ill, disabled and elderly people who aren't getting the help they need, end up getting seriously ill and needing hospitalisation. And disabled and elderly people who are well enough to return home but cannot get a home care plan in place...either stay in hospital, or end up back there soon enough. The NHS is suffering because it's where the buck stops.
Community worker here. Can confirm we see clients with much worse overall circumstances than we used to. Statutory services are stretched far too thin, so it’s not unusual to meet someone who has been offloaded onto the voluntary sector because social services or the nhs or social care have no time for them. One client had asked if home care could come a little earlier in the morning due to also receiving a district nurse visit, home care took that as “declining care” and withdrew. Gentleman’s family had to call the care company and plead with them to reinstate care. Visited a lady in a tower block in an apartment riddled with damp and black mould, to the point where it made me feel unwell spending 1 hour in there. Lady had cycled through hospital admissions, discharge back home and then her condition worsening again so she ended up being re admitted. Staff were aware of her living conditions and the fact her housing association weren’t taking any action, but the attitude was “what can we do? Housing is a difficult issue.” Literally nobody had thought to submit an adult at risk referral until we ended up doing this. Also seeing it with family members given inappropriate treatment for illnesses that should be easy to treat and ending up in worse shape, because they were seeing a PA rather than an actual doctor and this person has 2 years of basic training but never attended medical school. I’ve been on a waiting list for treatment for 4 years. I am told I am now number 4 in the queue. Not to mention decline in quality of food, cost of living crisis, everything else….
While the first statement about the NHS is factually true, your opinion isn’t well rounded in fact. The NHS is struggling like never before due to the decline of tertiary services surrounding it that it has no control over, such as nursing homes that cause significant strain and have real terms cuts that have significantly effected their ability to preform.
With an aging population, “de-scoping” health provision has some frightening implications.
And is the money there for the alternative - dealing with an increasingly sick population, and the drop in productivity that causes? No? Well, get ready to "de-scope" tax revenue then.
Or stop whining about tax raises
The problem is that an ageing and increasingly comorbid population just requires more money spent on health care.
The fact you just used the phrase ‘in real terms’ makes me suspicious you’re a minister undercover..
You know what would be an article worth reading BBC? One where you just lay.out the facts about why we are getting ill, and stop pretending that there's any fucking question about the matter. We polluted the shit out of our environment, over-stress our bodies and minds and are poisoned daily... Why are we ill, indeed.
Isn’t the environment much less polluted than 50 years ago? Banned lead in fuel, Various pesticides etc??
There are things we have tried to minimise damage from, but many, many, many more that we have allowed to poison us all. One of the few things Blair did that can truly be said to be indefensible - signed off on allowing use of 100k+ products in consumer products without proper testing when he could and fucking should have vetoed it.
Add to the fact the majority of things we consume is not actual food
Mostly self inflicted.
Do they know what it’s like to be working poor? I do and you don’t have to be a fucking genius to realise it adversely affects your health. Working long shit hours to be burned out and too tired to cook well, exercise and provide suitable activities for your mental health. I’m not moaning I have improved my situation somewhat but you still can’t buy a fucking house for 4 or 5 times your earnings like certain generations could. The minimum wage does not go up in line with price rises and food gets ever more expensive so what do people do? Buy cheaper food that isn’t good for you.
Poorer, demotivated, overworked, shattered… Haven’t got time to have a routine of exercise, fuck spending ages making a meal when I’m shattered, can’t afford the health foods. Most of the nation suffering with apathy, burnout, misery and poor essentially… Remember Covid when there was hundreds of walkers, bikers and joggers. Lazy bastards should have been working and not exercising eh…
Add in inflation, increasing staff costs due to having to employ agency staff, a tiny thing called the pandemic, an aging population etc etc etc. It’s never quite as simple as saying we spent more money on therefore it must be broken and privatised.
Another factor is the rules for Universal Credit, which forces claimants yo look for min 30 hrs per week of work. No ifs no buts. People who have spent years on child tax credits could have a parent not working or working 20 hrs per week. The forced migration to UCnow forces these people into mandatory jobsearch. Its not really mentioned by anyone, but consider a single parent or a couple with 1 parent prioritising childcare. Even if their children are school age, show me the employer who is happy to have an employee start work after 9am, leave before 3pm and take off 2 weeks at Easter, 2 week christmas, 3x half term and 6 weeks summer. Unless you get a job at a school, what employer accommodates this? So if childcare were better and actually worked well with the realities of employment, people wouldn't need to find ways to be excused from looking for 30hr per week job (note also the 'free' hours of nursery care is limited and term time only, so doesn't help you if you work a non school job) We need better childcare provision, or allow families with young children to be relieved or mandatory jobsearch until their kids are at secondary school It also doesn't help that the jobcentre is the shitest experience - the pointy stick end of the benefits system. They can't help you find a job because no employer looking for candidates goes anywhere NEAR logging it with the jobcentre because doing that is only opening yourself to the craziest spam mailing list of every jobseeker bullied into applying for anything and everything, regardless of how suitable or qualified they are, just to satisfy jobsearch requirements. This is all a side effect, shooting self in foot, of how the benefits system and UC and inadequate childcare is set up.
As if we haven't all survived a pandemic and 14 years of Tories. Who tf is asking this question? Jesus.
I know there's obviously other factors at play too but there is the small matter of the majority of the population having been infected, often repeatedly, and continuing to be infected, with a novel virus that absolutely wreaks havoc on the entire body and leaves many with lasting damage. Or something.
I’m sick of articles like this one pretending it’s a big mystery when we know Covid causes Long Covid in 10-20% of infections along with increasing the risk for all sorts of other illnesses (including mental health problems), yet we take no mitigations as a society to stop it, whilst simultaneously dismantling our healthcare system so waitlists are huge.
This. 2 million or so with LC (and counting). At least half meeting [ME/CFS](https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Primer_for_the_public) criteria. More than doubling the number with this historically neglected and wrongly psychologised chronic disease. Predominantly destroying the lives of women in their prime.
Novel virus fucked up peoples immune systems and now struggle to find the correct medical help in order to go about our pointless jobs or something like that.
Lol
Funny how we've forgotten about covid, and how Long Covid is a thing. But that couldn't be it, right? Because then we'd have to acknowledge that we need to do more to stop it. Like wearing a mask around vulnerable people, or on public transport. Why do I say this? Because I'm.a vulnerable person, who masks whenever I leave the house. Which isn't very often, because I'm chronically ill with ME and Lyme. 2 diseases which have been ignored for decades in the UK. I'm a 36M, for context. People getting diagnosed as depressed or anxious might well have LC. They won't know this yet, they might continue to function poorly and get sicker and sicker until they can no longer work, or socialise, or be independent. As someone who's life has been utterly destroyed by this, I want everyone who reads this to know... I am saying this with compassion. I don't want anyone else to get sick like I am. I wish I could have stopped what I have through something like a vaccine, or wearing a mask. ME has little to no funding, we don't even know the cause of it, let alone a cure! Lyme was ignored for 20 years because the tests are shit. We know what causes LC, and we are too scared to talk about it. Please, please, PLEASE consider that You and We need to do more to stop more people succumbing to this. Stay safe, wear a mask. You don't want the alternative.
Even when masking up was at its peak, people weren't wearing them right or were using cloth coverings that weren't effective enough to stop them from spreading any infection they may have had. If you're still masking up to protect *yourself*, I'd hope you're using a high quality mask (I assume you are if you're as vulnerable as you say) because in 2020 the masks were about protecting others, not yourself. And it only works well if everyone does it and does it correctly. As it stands we're never going to see the mass adoption of masks to the level we saw 4 years ago again. I haven't thought about wearing one for years and I rarely see them used by others when out and about.
I'm masking up to protect everyone I come into contact with. It's not just about me, it's about everyone else too. Feels weird to have to point that out, but okay. And yes, I'm as vulnerable as I say I am. My immune system is piss poor, too busy fighting diseases I was told I couldn't possibly have. Now there's another one thats been here for 4 years and people act like its gone. Including you by the sounds of it. The people you see wearing masks do so because they 1. Are sick and can't get sicker 2. Know someone who is having to shield because of point 1 and don't want to make it harder for them to live 3. Understand what could happen if they get a disease with no cure It's scary as shit. Now I need to use what spoons I have left to defend disabled peoples rights. Should any of you end up in the Chronic Illness Community, we will welcome you with open arms. It's literally life saving. Have a good day.
> Feels weird to have to point that out, but okay. This was the point of my post so... I don't know what you're getting shitty about. > and people act like its gone. Including you by the sounds of it. It's not gone, far from it. Don't place me in the extremes. But... I'm not about to start wearing masks everywhere again either. People have to do what they must. For you and your situation, wearing a highly protective mask obviously makes sense. For me, it doesn't because no one else is. As I said before, you're never going to see everyone masking up because of COVID again. If barely anyone wears them, I'm not going to either. I've had all jabs I'm eligible for and I've been infected twice. I've not had an in-person discussion about COVID and masks for actual years. The only time I get attacked for not wearing them anymore is on the internet.
reddit is absolutely desperate to avoid anyone having some form of personal responsibility for their health.
Or their finances. Or their kids.
Had to scroll an awfully long way to get to the truth!
A decade of shitting on the NHS will make people less well.
The 2010 coalition did austerity, people then felt the true effects of austerity, brexit, and Covid. Due to austerity we don’t have the services in place to deal with the effects of it. Austerity measures exacerbated the effects of the other two.
People are fat because they have no free time or sufficient money to eat well. This is as much a mental health problem as anything else imo.
it really doesn't take long to cook a meal, the time argument is such utter fucking bullshit. also if people had more money do you really think they are magically going to eat more healthily instead of just ordering dominos instead of lobbing a frozen pizza in the oven? come off it.
Time is more for leisure and exercise, there is also just the will to do it. I am pushing 40 and have a lot of people in their early 20's who work for me who are just apathetic, they legitimately just seem to believe their future is pretty bleak and I don't blame them.
i'm probably somewhere between your age and their age - i can understand their attitude, i doubt mine is more optimistic than theirs.
The "blame the government" opinion is quite tiresome
Maybe because of these cruel,dishonest,incompetent people in charge? Ever heard of the NHS waiting lists or the pandemic? Get these fuckers out!
Terrible diets, majority of the public are overweight or obese and we do no exercise and severely lack in Vitamin D during the winter. We also drink too much.
We do nothing, eat shit, smoke, take drugs, drink too much then want the nhs to medicate us better. I would also add that we are actively encourage to have some sort of mental classification that needs medication.
Maybe the drinking and drugs and comfort eating has something to do with the terrible quality of life people are forced to endure for decades at a time under poor leadership?
Or maybe there’s is something inherently wrong with us. We are chippy, and blame others for our failings. There are murdering dictatorships with better life expectancy than us, but yes, let’s blame the Tories or whoever. My wife runs a GP practice. The reason you can’t get an appointment is because of season ticket holding patients who are obese/depressed/smoke/addicted or all of the above. Their diet is fine, they don’t drink that much, they haven’t taken drugs in ages and they tried exercise once but it didn’t work. Hypochondriac Africans/Asians are a high proportion of their patients, each of whom require expensive translators. A vast swathe of our population are lazy and ignorant. The NHS can’t and shouldn’t have to deal with these people. We need to tax fat people in a similar way to how smokers are taxed. As for the drugs problem, turning Scotland into a decriminalised zone will only lead us down the path of Portland, Oregon. We since to remember that statistics only tell part of the story. Scotland would have Scandinavian levels of health if you discounted a small part of Glasgow.
Replace income tax with a fat tax.
Perhaps the increase of obesity and overweight is to blame?
Because we can't afford to relax when not working 😂 like it's not that difficult. Oh ill go work 40 hours a week but I'll get my nice wee flat, have the odd takeout and bottle of booze and swan off to tenerife every 12-24 months. Generally people are fine Oh ill go and work 60 hours a week and I still can't afford the basics, I'm now ignoring my kids just to keep a roof over their heads and I last went on holiday in 2016. I sometimes get invited out but if I go I probably have to miss out on new work shoes and wear these worn and uncomfy ones. Generally people are upset. Even at the higher end of the income scale where you should be able to make decisions comfortably you can't anymore. £80k is nothing like it used to. So why is it a mystery that people are falling ill when even when not working they can't stop worrying about bills
If you look really close, you can see the tail end of New Labour’s brilliant NHS record. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A878/production/_133182134_rtt_england_area_20240411-nc-002.png.webp And before you say it, the population is bigger and older.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/chart-of-the-week-how-has-the-waiting-list-changed-over-the-years It's because it was a brand new target, they'd cut both the number of people waiting, and the average length of time, they were able to bring in the 18 week to referral to treatment target. Strangely it doubled in less than a decade once they were out of power. Almost like it was underfunded and mismanaged. If only governments knew about the population growing and ageing...
Did you memoryhole Covid?
The waiting list had doubled before covid. It's literally in the graph you posted. If you count the covid period it has almost quadrupled.
Waiting times barely move up and never exceeded a year between 2008 and the following 12 years. That's a system managing just fine, not perfect, but people are being seen within a year. Before and after these dates is a mess. You want to talk about quantity not quality.
That's certainly a part of it, but also - hasn't there been a jump in locum demand, which is significantly more expensive cost-wise than just having the staff available?
Be use they keep cutting full time medical roles and training roles Trust insist on spending a portion of budget on bank and agency staff regardless of if any staff would work overtime for less or more hours not even as overtime…
If you don't treat stuff, it gets worse. Fix the NHS, you fix the workforce. I'm gubbed and it affects my work. Same for millions of others. Lot of wasted potential out there...
What's that I hear? Is it the consequences of running the NHS into the ground and trying to force people back into close proximity with each other during an ongoing pandemic?