There is no slippery slope. Oh, no.
But those at No 10 and the Department of Health involved in producing what ministers insist will be a game-changing document would do well to bear in mind NHS England boss Simon Stevens’s view that “obesity is the new smoking” and be guided by lessons from the decades-long but ultimately successful fight against tobacco.
First, obesity is the new smoking…
These people are evil. There is no other word to describe them. They invent an arbitrary line and declare that anyone whose BMI is over that line is obese. Then they move the line downwards – now anyone over the new line is obese. At the same time, they conflate obese and overweight. Suddenly,we have an obesity crisis despite the vast majority of the population being observably normal in their proportions. Children exhibiting something we once knew as puppy fat are declared obese and we have an epidemic.
So, despite the fact that, in reality, we do not have an obesity crisis – some folk being fat is not a crisis – and we have demands for more of the vile tactics used against smokers, despite the harridans at ASH declaring that there was no slippery slope and tobacco was a unique product.
Liars, charlatans,vile, evil authoritarian parasites feeding of the body of the nation, they are scum, the lot of them. Hang them, hang them all.
Hear hear.
Hanging is too good for them. Sentence them to a diet of solitary confinement in a soundproofed cell with nothing to eat but the same salad every day until they die. Far more cruel than a quick drop with a short stop.
Simon Stevens evil fascist authoritarian junk science peddling bastard. Hope the bastard googles himself and this post comes up.
Overweight as defined by BMI is not a risk relevant to “normal” weight (in fact it is protective), neither is moderate obesity. One has to be morbidly obese to have a greater risk of mortality and morbidity as someone who is supposedly normal, and the risk is comparable to those who are classified as underweight.
The likes of Simon Stevens are lying, disengenuous bastards.
It doesn’t help their case that it is now known that exercise is far more effective than going on endless diets.
As for Simon Stevens, who has an MBA, not an MD, this tosser is on £190K and is the “CEO” of NHS England, used to work in the private healthcare sector (starting in the US), and genuinely believes a week of work experience as a hospital porter and as a pen-pusher in a mortuary gives him an “insight” into the “sharp end” of what hospitals do.
He’s a professional manager and politician, not a qualified medical professional. I shall therefore take his medical and dietary advice with a pinch of salt, fat and sugar. And I’ll have one of those chocolate éclairs, a slice of that carrot* cake, three of those doughnuts, and ooh! custard tarts? Three of those please…
* That counts as one of my five a day, right?
Three pints and two cigars; that’s five a day! All made out of veggies, aren’t they?
It’s all about the funding, baby… free jobs and budgets for those who are successful. Free rides everybody!