NHS slimming clubs are madness

We keep hearing horror stories about the hard up NHS refusing to carry out treatment to allow little kids the chance to walk again because it is too expensive.

Cancer patients are refused costly drugs to prolong their lives and budget restraints are blamed for overworked staff not being able to provide basic care for patients.

With all this going on why on earth are there are plans for the NHS to pay to send fat people to slimming clubs? This is madness.

While I absolutely agree that we need to tackle the ever growing obesity crisis, picking up the tab for the overweight to attend a weekly weigh-in seems all wrong.

There are many reasons why people are obese, and with our young girls now the fattest in Europe it has never been more important to try and stop people from gaining vast amounts of weight that will cause all sorts of health problems in the future.

Being fat is partly greed combined with laziness and boredom, but there are also people who have a very toxic relationship with grub.

They eat because they are miserable, as some sort of comfort blanket, and then when they can no longer fit into their clothes they become depressed, and so turn to the biscuit tin for solace. It becomes a horrible, and often unbreakable, circle of self loathing.

These people need more help than even the very best slimming club can offer, and for the rest of the fatties who basically just like their grub and enjoy grazing on junk food there needs to be more education and motivation.

I think it has to start in schools.

The most effective way to stop parents smoking was to have their children coming home from class and telling their mums and dads that they didn’t want them to die from lung cancer, and they also didn’t much relish being subjected to passive smoking.

This tactic proved to be hugely successful among smokers who desperately wanted to give up but just needed a totally convincing argument. Your 10-year-old pleading with you not to light up another fag because you will cut your life short was a stroke of genius.

Maybe that’s what we need to do now regarding the obesity crisis.

I know schools and teachers are under a lot of pressure, but targeting young minds about eating proper nourishing food and doing a bit of exercise is vital, and if that message is put across to schools, then pupils will convey it to adults.

It could be done as a school project, or perhaps “health troubleshooters” could visit schools with interesting talks using social media.

I know that in some schools similar projects are already in place, but it all needs to be joined up. Children should know that their overweight parents have a greater risk of diabetes and heart disease, and that they can do something about it.

I realise that slimming clubs can be extremely effective to help people lose weight and keep it off, but giving people classes for free isn’t the way ahead.

Sadly when people are handed something on a plate (and in this case it would be a small plate with a healthy meal on it) it doesn’t have the same value as if you paid for it yourself.

I think this plan is a non starter.