Or not, as the case may be.
Boris Johnson is to urge GPs in England to prescribe cycling as he launches a major public health drive aimed at tackling obesity in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The intervention comes experts at Public Health England warned that the overweight – those with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 29.9 – are at higher risk of hospitalisation and death if they contract Covid-19.
Excuse me while I take a moment to bang my head on the desk to get rid of the stupid.
Where to start with this rampant idiocy?
I’m assuming that this is the same PHE that completely fucked up (lied) about Covid deaths, yes? And as with the Imperial College and its fictional modelling predictions, Blojo is still listening to them. Instead of taking any notice of these so called experts, he should be closing them down and sacking the lot of them.
We do not have an obesity crisis. We never did. While these charlatans like to bandy BMI figures about, the real world simply does not stack up to this. BMI is meaningless in the real world as it takes no account of muscle and bone mass assuming that it’s all fat. The vast majority of people are not obese. Therefore there is nothing to do. And, there is nothing that the government should be doing anyway as it is not a government matter, it is a personal one.
What is a government matter is the piling heap of ashes where our economy once stood and next to it the smouldering remains of our civil liberties all done on the basis of media hysteria and hyperbole. Blojo has managed to demonstrate that he is a paper tiger. In the lead up to his election as party leader he said all the right things, yet his self comparison to Churchill is looking pretty tarnished from where I stand. All I see is an ineffective, vacillating man who has been massively over promoted. So much so that Theresa May and Gordon Brown are starting to look moderately statesmanlike in comparison. This, then, is the final outcome of allowing ourselves to be ruled by professional politicians.
We’re doomed.
Given that COVID-19 is just one cause of death, and only a temporary one at that, the science does not support them, quite the opposite, in fact, a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is optimum:
Relative to normal weight, both obesity (all grades) and grades 2 and 3 obesity were associated with significantly higher all-cause mortality. Grade 1 obesity overall was not associated with higher mortality, and overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137
That study is supported by others, e.g.:
Our results are similar to those from other recent studies, confirming that underweight and obesity class II+ are clear risk factors for mortality, and showing that when compared to the acceptable BMI category, overweight appears to be protective against mortality. Obesity class I was not associated with an increased risk of mortality.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2009.191
Thanks, Doc. I’m glad to hear that there’s a temporary cause of death – or is that a cause of temporary death?
If PHE told me its raining, I’d have to go out to check. They have never been about health and need to be renamed as Public Rent Seekers England.
As the Telegraph says today ‘ we voted for the Cavaliers and got the Puritans’.
What on earth has happened to this crap government. We seem to be losing more freedom everyday. Just because Johnson is a fat porker and has had a brush with the reaper he is now going to bully us. Bet they want tobacco style packaging on alcohol soon.
Although I always thought there was a bit of the chancer about him, I didn’t expect him to be so utterly feeble in the face of the Woken SS.
The public health guidance has been making people fatter for decades. To reinforce that and expect a different result is nonsensical.
If he wants a simple message and result “Stop eating seed oils”(*). That would go a LONG way to reversing the crisis. Unfortunately thanks to the food police these ‘healthy oils’ are in almost everything now (hence why people keep getting fatter).
(*) commonly known as vegetable oils
It was the first item on some TV “news” indoctrination transmission I stumbled across earlier. It only took as long it took to say”4cough” to switch it off.
Overweight likely protective, but morbid and super morbid we definitely have a problem with and that’s not just with covid.
Cycling won’t solve it though, exercise is fairly useless in terms of weightloss, it’s really all about the calories in. Even if it sud make a noticeable difference (it doesn’t) would take to long to have a meaningful effect.
With the protective overweight and the non-risk Class 1 obesity, the numbers are about 70% of the adult population of the UK. If you look at a BMI >35, the numbers fall to about 20%. So, when looking only at those who are actually at greater risk, the scale of the issue looks very different.
My BMI is around 27/28, so I don’t have a problem with those who have a BMI >35 as I don’t consider myself part of the collective “we”. To me, the only people who have a problem are those with a BMI >35 who think they have a problem.
In respect of covid, you’re probably correct, and of course it’s only a correlation anyway. Overweight people tend not to be so good at exercise or avoiding unhealthy habits like smoking or drinking to excess.
I haven’t really looked at the different classes of overweight tbh, I think the bigger issue wrt to BMI, which is fine for assessing populations, not so so good on an individual basis, is that the higher BMIs correlate with any number of chronic expensive conditions.
Covid being acute, is thinning the herd. I do consider myself part of the collective, though I’m not in a risk group, because at least in part the occupation of ICU beds by that risk group has caused the overreaction that we’ve had. It’s still cost me a business and money, and the latter has always been the case.
In respect of everything other than COVID-19 I am right. Look at the references above. Furthermore, there are studies that indicate obesity (and smoking) do not cost health services more over a lifetime, e.g.:
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029
It is possible to lose weight by doing more exercise but we are talking a lot more exercise. I did it but it involved stuff like marathon and ultra running and iron and half iron triathlons. I’ll shut up now before I give Boris any more ideas.
“We do not have an obesity crisis. ”
We definitely have more fat people, the question of whether its a health crisis is another issue.
How on earth does a prescription for cycling work? Do you get a green slip of paper from the GP, then go to the pharmacy, declare that you are a payer and hand over £9.15 to be given some cycling. You read the instructions on the packet – take 4 times a week, after hydration, and for 30 minutes.
And what do you do when you need to have your prescription renewed, ring up the GP practice, choose option 2 for a repeat prescription, and explain that you’ve run out.
How about ‘We’ve already paid for this clown show so give us some vouchers to spend at the local bike shop’?
P.S. I would much rather just have the cash back and make my own health care arrangements, but ho hum…
Didn’t Grant Shapps at one of the daily briefings announce something about vouchers for bike MOTs which were to be available in June? I haven’t heard anything more.
It makes you wonder how the hell the human race has managed to survive up till now without the benevolent guidance and advice from these numpties.
There has always been a class of soothsayers, oracles, witchdoctors, quacks, prophets, shamen, politicians, etc. ready to say “Bad things will happen. I know the cure. Give me your money, cattle, or virgins and I will save you”
True, but they didn’t claim “The Arch God Zog wants you to pedal bicycles to worship him otherwise he will set the Demon Mazzablagah from the 7th dimension of Hell on you and the demon will eat your intestines through your bum”. Money, cattle and virgins* have immediate and tangible benefits to the priestly caste but sweaty bicycle seats and smelly singlets, not so much.
I see it more of a ‘Dance, little monkey, dance’ from TPTB rather than sound advice
*OK, you’d be hard put to find a virgin female in the UK nowadays but bear with me. And I don’t suppose that the priests would be interested in computer nerds or Star Trek conventioneers with a beans on toast complexion and/or hygiene problems living in the equivalent of their parents basement.
Johnson (now to be pronounced with a harsh emphasis on the initial letter as with Saville) should come round my way, there are a few rolly polly people who probably squew the figures but no way is one third of the population morbidly obese unless they stick them in cupboards eating deep fried mars bars.
If the government ban bogofs on unhealthy food, what is to stop the supermarkets just halving the price? In any case, the supermarkets should band together and Tell him that it is non of the government’s business how they price their food and refuse to comply. If they all did it I don’t see what the government could do.
With the dreaded lurgi on its last legs, a new hobgoblin has to be wheeled out. Step forward, OBESITY!
Baa, baa…
If you don’t believe there’s lots of fat folk around, just wander into your local NHS hospital and observe the volume of gross, wobbling, uniformed staff around the place.
‘Physician heal thyself” would seem to be appropriate before they start lecturing the rest of us.