Obesity is a £47bn annual problem for Britain - NHS to get obese Britons back to shape

#waistline #NHS #obesity #diabetes The growing waistlines is a major worry for the NHS and they are working out probable methods of how to get the obese Britons back to shape. That is a target for 2015.
Obesity costs Britain nearly £47bn annually and with this disease on the rise in the UK, health authorities are rolling out a new program that will be aimed at getting the nation back in shape through a better diet and more exercise. Under this scheme, GPs in England will be directed to monitor patients who are putting on weight and offer them help to stop them becoming obese.
The amount of £47bn annually is more than the cost incurred by Britain on war and terrorism. Based on a report from the European Commission, it is revealed that the obesity rate in the UK has increased over the past decade. It is now the second highest in the EU after Hungary.
Therefore, NHS will undertake a program through which thousands of people at risk of diabetes will be offered support to improve their health. Incidentally, there are reported to be over three million people in the UK who have diabetes.
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has remarked that even a couple of decades back, such a situation did not exist. In order to combat this, it is necessary for parents, schools and the food industry must act together to reverse the trend. The European Court of Justice has recently ruled that people who are obese could also be considered as disabled.

European court terms obesity as a disability

#Obesity The European Court of Justice has ruled #obesity as a disability. This would mean that all employers who come under the gambit of the 28-nation EU would have to take necessary to improve the working conditions of these disabled individuals by making available car parking spaces closer to the office, changes to workers' desks and other such modifications.
The ruling, which is binding across the EU, has such profound implications for employment law that experts expect EU nations to challenge it.
The ruling has been given in the case of a Danish childcare worker who weighed 159-Kg who had been fired because he was overweight and fat. The ruling was that if obesity hinders a "full and effective participation in professional life," it could count as a disability.
Hence, it now falls on the employers to ensure that necessary facilities be made available to this section of people since discrimination on grounds of disability is illegal under the laws of the European Union.
In the opinion of Tam Fry, a spokesman for the UK's National Obesity Forum, this ruling could be challenged by EU member nations because it could give rise to friction in the workplace between obese people and other workers.