Fat test? Fat chance!

The Telegraph reports that "Everyone aged between 40 and 74 will be called in to their GP for a 'fat test' and prescribed weight management and exercise if they are overweight, under a new government drive against obesity". I can't wait.

Seriously, if I get called in for a 'fat test' I won't be responsible for my actions. I may (out of curiosity) pop along so I can find out just how intrusive the nanny state has become.

It would also give me the opportunity to tell my GP that it is no business of government what I weigh or how much I exercise.

The most important factor is choice. As long as it's not compulsory I don't have a problem with 'fat tests' or health education (as long as it doesn't involve unnecessary scare-mongering).

But we all know how government works. If voluntary codes don't produce the "correct" result, the next step is legislation - and coercion.

What will happen, I wonder, if I refuse a 'fat test'. Will I barred from using the NHS?

Full report HERE.

Fat's life

According to a new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it's not how fat but how fit you are that most determines how long you will live. According to the Telegraph, "Scientists have found that elderly people who are physically fit despite being obese suffer half the death rate of lean but unfit people." Story HERE.

Interestingly, our old friend Dr Ken Denson had a similar take on smoking. Until his death in August last year, Ken ran the Thame Thrombosis and Haemostosis Research Foundation in Oxford. In 1999 he concluded that the real problem isn't smoking (in moderation), but the poor diet of smokers. "Smokers," he said, "should be told to improve their diet to protect themselves but the medical establishment has a mental block about smoking. Smokers with the right diet can have an 80 per cent lower risk of cancer than the smoker on a bad diet." Story HERE.

Ken lived to the ripe old age of (I think) 82. He had smoked since he was a teenager. Shortly before his death he emailed me to say:

"I don't even believe that an otherwise healthy smoker loses five years. My non-smoking peers have been dropping like ninepins for the last ten years. Until I started looking at passive smoking ten years ago I also believed that smoking was a killer, but now I realise that much of the fabrication and lies attached to passive smoking can be extended to active smoking. The only strong association is for lung cancer, but there is a strong dose-response relationship. Chain smokers of three packs or more a day haven't a hope, but smokers of ten a day have only a small risk."

Ken believed that if you smoke less than ten cigarettes a day but keep physically fit and enjoy a healthy diet, there is little evidence to suggest you are at serious risk. The bad news (for me) is that I'm fat AND unfit. If I continue as I am I fully expect to be outlived by millions of fit smokers. Fat's life.

Media myths and big fat lies

It's the sort of article - published in one of numerous sections in the weekend papers - that is easy to overlook. But Vivienne Parry's 'Obesity: the big fat lie?' in today's Times is worth reading. It doesn't give Britain a clean bill of health (see HERE) but it explains that this week's apocalyptic headlines about obesity were based on a report by Foresight, a "highly respected science think-tank", and "didn't reflect what it had said at all".

According to Parry (who is debating the subject at next week's Battle of Ideas in London), the suggestion that this generation will die before their parents as a result of obesity is a "myth":

It always was a myth and there is no science to support it. But it has become one of those statements taken up with gusto by the media, and assimilated into popular consciousness ... Death clearly has good headline value, but is there any need for exaggeration?"

It's easy to blame the media for misreporting, but everyone needs to take a reality check. I've lost count of the number of studies whose findings are "exaggerated" by the media - until you read the press release and understand perfectly why a journalist, battling against a deadline, has taken a particular line.

Politicians too need to be much more considered in their response. (They could at least check and stick to the facts.) Unfortunately, everyone wants column inches. Without media coverage, politicians, researchers and lobby groups find it harder to get elected or attract funding. (I speak from experience.)

As a general rule, you don't get publicity (least of all a front page splash) by issuing a press release or commenting in a way that suggests there is little to worry about. (When was the last time you saw the headline, 'Not many dead'?) 

One politician who responded in a less than excitable fashion to a national "crisis" was prime minister Jim Callaghan in 1978 - and we all know what happened to him. It is therefore regrettable but hardly surprising if politicians are reluctant to adopt a similar laissez-faire attitude to health and other issues, regardless of the facts.

Health and hyperbole

The public health threat posed by obesity in the UK is a "potential crisis on the scale of climate change", the health secretary has warned. (Full story HERE.) On the scale of climate change? That's a relief. For a nanosecond I was genuinely worried.

On a more serious note, expect more cataclysmic warnings from a government desperate for a "vision" to explain all those new rules and regulations it intends to roll out over the next few years. It's also a perfect excuse to tax anything that moves (or tastes nice!).

This is how modern government works. They scare us to death with a load of scientific mumbo-jumbo and phoney statistics, then introduce legislation to resolve a "problem" that has been hyped out of all proportion to the actual risk. This, in turn, enables them to appear proactive and justifies their existence.

Proclamations such as this are part and parcel of today's political news management. I know, because I've read Alastair Campbell's absorbing book, The Blair Years. The aim is to dictate and dominate the news by issuing an endless stream of soundbites while announcing a million new initiatives.

Today's "warning" is a classic of its kind. It is clearly intended to grab back the initiative from the Conservatives (who have enjoyed their best week for years) and put the government in the driving seat, albeit by frightening us into an early grave!

The story led BBC News last night but was only third top story on ITV. Compare this to the coverage of Prime Minister's Questions last week. Gordon Brown's humiliation at the hands of David Cameron was top story on ITV News, but over on the BBC it was relegated to third place. Make of that what you will.

The end of the NHS as we know it?

'TOO FAT FOR NHS SURGERY' screams the front page headline in today's Daily Mail. "Millions of patients could be denied some NHS treatments because they are overweight or smoke." (Full story HERE.) I am one of several people quoted but I was particularly taken by the comment from Joyce Robins, co- director of Patient Concern, who said:

"A national health service should not be deciding on who is worthy of treatment. This is a slippery slope. Do we next decide that those with criminal records should be denied healthcare? These people have paid into the system all their lives. They will find it hard to understand why they must pay for someone to have their fourth child or for those who injure themselves in dangerous sports while they are excluded from the service. It may help trusts balance their budgets but could cost society far more. Deny a much needed new hip and the patient will become crippled and the cost of caring for them will soar. It makes no sense."

I am all for people taking more responsibility for their health - which could in the future include paying a premium for healthcare - but politicians have to be straight with us. If that's the path they wish to follow, it's the end of the NHS as we know it and health secretary Patricia Hewitt should admit it. Meanwhile, denying treatment to people who have effectively paid into that service all their working lives would be legalised theft. But that wouldn't be a first for this government, would it?