This is by the man at the heart of the NHS, who knows best what is happening:
www.england.nhs.uk/2014/09/17/serious-about-obesity/
Having looked into it further, I withdraw my comment that it is "a moot point." The situation is abundantly clear. The Report you quoted is hopelessly out of date, and clearly, totally inaccurate. Anyone who believes obesity, with its concomitant problems, is not a very expensive crisis, and increasingly, so is living in cloud-cuckoo land.
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Link you supplied doesn't work, 2008 (as I recall) is not that long ago and I'm unsure how a passage of time would have affected the conclusion it came to anyway.
Do you really want to suggest I live in cloud cuckoo land, I'm quite happy to debate the point with you can we keep it sensible with trading insults.
I think obesity is something that seriously affects peoples health and should be addressed against purely for that reason. If you campaign for it addressed on the basis of cost to NHS then if you are wrong will you change your mind?
The year is important, because it is only in more recent years that the question of obesity has become crucial, and decent research is taking place.
I am not referring to you personally as living in cloud-cckoo land, but those who do not accept the conclusive evidence available about obesity.
You cannot divorce the health consideration from the monetary cost involved. If there is not a serious challenge to peoples' eating habits, then the NHS will not be able to fund the cost of treatment without cutting back in other areas.
The link works okay for me: try again.
Her's an extract:
"Get serious about obesity or bankrupt the NHS – Simon Stevens
17 September 2014
The health of millions of children, the sustainability of the NHS, and the economic prosperity of Britain all now depend on a radical upgrade in prevention and public health, the Chief Executive of NHS England tells the annual conference of Public Health England in Coventry today.
Simon Stevens points to the fact that nearly one-in-five secondary school aged children are obese, as are a quarter of adults – up from just 15 per cent twenty years ago. Unchecked, the result will inevitably be a huge rise in avoidable illness and disability, including many cases of type 2 diabetes which Diabetes UK estimate already costs the NHS around £9 billion a year.
“Obesity is the new smoking, and it represents a slow-motion car crash in terms of avoidable illness and rising health care costs,” Stevens says. “If as a nation we keep piling on the pounds around the waistline, we’ll be piling on the pounds in terms of future taxes needed just to keep the NHS afloat."