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DAVID CAMERON HAS been criticised for his proposal to make weight-loss programmes a condition for receipt of sickness benefits for obese people.
If re-elected in May, the British Prime Minister said he will reduce the country’s benefits bill by £12 billion. The Conservatives are considering reducing payments worth about £100 (€140) a week for those they consider could do more to help themselves lose weight.
Cameron has asked Professor Dame Carol Black, an adviser to the British Department of Health, to examine whether it is appropriate to withhold benefits from those who refuse assistance.
The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Journal has hit out at Cameron’s proposal, describing it as “ethically and financially questionable”.
An editorial in the medical publication said that interventions for obesity “could include diet and lifestyle changes, but the evidence shows that these have low long-term success rates”.
The only treatment for obesity that has been proven to be successful for substantial long-term weight loss and improved quality of life in a high proportion of people is bariatric surgery. Requiring people to undergo a major surgical procedure as a condition of receiving benefits seems far from ethical.
The editorial goes on to state that the costs of such a scheme might actually increase public spending due to the high costs of both delivering treatments and monitoring compliance.
“The number of people claiming sickness benefits with obesity as the primary reason for the claim is actually very small (only 1,780 people as of May 2014) when considered in the context of the roughly 2.5 million people claiming these benefits in total.”
The column recommends that funds be spent on benefits such as “universal free access to leisure facilities, investment in healthy outdoor spaces, and public health education about healthy diet and lifestyle”.
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All you have to do is look at benefits street on channel 4 and see exactly who he talking about. I know it a horrible thing to say but it like something you see in a zombie movie. Their only ambition in life is to live off the hard working tax payers.
Yeah benifit street a programme thought up by rich executives look at these fat poor people on Benifits look what they are doing with your hard earned cash . That programme is disgusting and isn’t a real representation of the majority of people on Benifits in Britain . The real struggle of the majority of people is being completely ignored and programmes like benifit street do nothing but give the likes of daily mail readers who a lot already think they are the only human beings who contribute to the tax system the ok to continue on with views that people on Benifits are all fat lazy layabouts who don’t want to work . pushing people who already are living in poverty further below the poverty line isn’t the answer .
So you’ve fully bought the ‘us against them’ media war that derides those on benefits in the UK? Good for you.
It’s a way for rich people to look down on others – blame the poor for being poor, blame the fat for being fat. Obesity is linked to poverty – perhaps we should deal with poverty.
Meanwhile the Tories cut taxes on the rich, and on alcohol. They would use any excuse to cut benefits for the poor.
Lots of this sentiment comes from the USA – where it gives rich white people a way to look down on poor obese black/latino people.
Would rarely say this but I totally agree with you David
Having a big belly used to be considered a sign of prosperity, while poor people were emaciated. How times change.
yes it is a horrible thing to say. i watched it once it just another programme vilifying people claiming benefits. i would like to see a programme on how the government abuse the less well of into stacking shelves in big supermarket chains for 40 hours a week and call it training (in my day it was called slavery) most of them are receiving about £2 an hour which is illegal, you could get weeks of footage of that, the total disheartening of a generation of people working for nothing for months yes thats sure to build up confidence in the work place and all that claptrap speak. no it is better to condemn people on benefits than to look at the governments failings and of coarse it gives people a step up from them a good laugh at their expense let the brainwashing continue poor=bad congratulations channel 4.
They should do the same thing here. I sympathise with people who have medical reasons for being overweight but in most cases its just lack of self control and poor choices. The medical costs associated with obesity are on the up as the country gets fatter. Why should people who choose to live healthily have to pay to support the choices of people who don’t? This could also work as an incentive for some people to stay off the cream pies and get more exercise. Good idea.
Ah yeah, free access to leisure facilities too. Why not? Sure while w’re at it why don’t the taxpayers here pay for a yearly trip to Disneyland for people on social welfare.
Money for nothing, curry chips for free!
Great idea under some circumstances
By that logic anybody in receipt of ‘public’ money should be judged under same regime so…fat Gardai, fat TDs, fat HSE workers, fat civil servants, fat teachers, fat council workers…instigate that and the country’s finances will be flush!!
How on earth do diet and lifestyle changes have low long term success rates?!
Because people don’t stick to them. What they mean is that paying for dietitians etc has a low long term effect, which is true. Most people who lose lots of weight eventually put it back on again. That’s not because dietitians don’t give good advice, but because most people won’t implement it.
It’s because human beings don’t possess free will in the way people typically imagine. When a person loses lots of weight, their behaviour changes at a subconscious level, as their body “thinks” losing weight is something undesirable – they move around less, eat slightly more over time, and it accumulates, lose motivation to maintain weight loss as they stop being grateful to be their new lower weight and start justifying to themselves that it’s okay to gradually return to their old diet etc… A person is not “responsible” for what their brains output is, if you analyse causes far back enough .. They became obese for certain reasons, they remain obese in the long run for certain reasons, none of which “they” have “control” over (remember, a persons *capacity* to have “control” over their thoughts and actions *is itself* something “they” are not responsible for) … My guess is that the only way to keep it off barring surgery is to become obsessed with it … And even then, a person who *does* end up becoming obsessed *just happened to be* capable of becoming so, because their brain was capable of allowing this – if their brain wasn’t capable, they couldn’t just *will* their brain to be capable … Summary: most people’s conception of human “free” will is childishly naive
Same should apply to fat politicans
But James those rich fat politicians their fat children and grandchildren don’t claim benefits, only the poor obese are a burden on society.
All systems go to kill the poor….
It’s a bit like saying fat people in a job should pay more taxes
A person who can support their over eating and contribute isn’t a burden on the taxpayer , whereas a person who chooses to over eat and become unhealthy is on benefits is .
Minus one “is” .
Ovesity is mainly a disease of poverty. Blaming obese people for being obese is just another way of blaming poor people for being poor.
Great idea, I fully agree that slim beautiful people should avail from benifits, although they should also be tall, blonde, blue eyed too, I don’t know why no-one thought of it before…..oh
Blue eyed blonde I heard that before that ideas where during WW II i think with aryan race???
Hitler wanted a pure Aryan race, people with blue eyes, blonde hair, muscular (in the case of men) and beautiful (the case of women). He wanted all Germans to be racially pure because he wanted to start his own “super” perfect race, even though he did not have blonde hair or blue eyes!
Got it in one Artur, seems we are going that way although more subtly.
Ok not right down to genetics (yet), but there is a definite trend forming which is aimedt at weeding out the weak and vulnerable (first) which is where it starts…. “thin edge of the wedge” so to speak
What next, then the smokers, then the drinkers, then the car drivers ( as walking to work is healthier)……?
Populist right wing nonsense from the Tories. Will do nothing to solve the problem of obesity. Next he’ll be cutting benefits, blaming the poor for being poor.
We, as a society, are much fatter than 20 years ago. Either we have all suddenly become morally weak, and unable to resist the ice cream, or the way we live – the food, the lack of exercise – is making us ALL fat.
Its all down to the rapid expansion of technology which has slowly cut back on the need for manpower. There are no where near as many manual jobs as say 30/40 years ago as machines do it all. I worked in a major pet food manufacturing plant in the UK for a brief time in the 1970′s. There was 10 manufacturing lines each using 15 people to work them now due to technology there is only 1 person to each line. No work no calories burned of, snacking to relieve boredom = obesity.
They could always go for a walk.
Seems reasonable, you can’t help those that won’t help themselves.
It’s a terrible, stupid idea, but, as many comments above show, it’ll play well with thick people, which is all that matters around election time.
Kill kill kill kill kill the poor
Cameron should be cutting it for all the waster romas and foreigners he has in his wrecked country. Never mind taking from his own.
He’s 100% right .. F@@@king chip butty eating ,fat bas@tards should just stop eating & exercise more .
Wait until you start to age with a beer belly then?
The ECJ would go after him if he did, AND that is the EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE…
Good idea but should be a scheme in place regarding, diet, weightloss, BMI, fat %, body composition, training regime and if results & targets are met then their benefits are re-instated
Everybody wins ❤️
He should also cut benefits for smokers!
Due to his reluctance to debate the only thing he’ll be cutting is his hair and now a sandwich MMMMM sandwich
have your say