They found that girls as young as 10 are worried about their weight and half of teenagers would consider surgery to change their appearance. This is such a sad indictment about the state of esteem in our next generation of women. Here are some of the statistical findings:

- 12% of 10 & 11 year old want to be thinner;

- 50% of 11-16 year olds had become very aware of what they were eating and had cut down on certain foods. This rose to 66% of 16-21 year olds.

It seems that girls are more inclined to ‘overdrink’ than to ‘overeat’:

- 27% of 11-16 year old girls had drunk so much that they had been sick or lost control. This figure rose to 58% among 16-21 year olds.

I had the same poor body image and esteem at 15 and was anorexic by 16, so I can empathise with these girls and this survey. However, it is sad that we seem to have got worse since I was this age. I was unusual in my school and doctors ‘treating’ me didn’t seem to have a clue about anorexia. The incidence of eating problems highlighted by this survey shows that there are many, many more teenagers hating the body they are in, than there appeared to have been in my teenage years. This is so sad.

The official NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) guidelines state that anyone with a BMI of 40 or higher qualifies for ‘bariatric’ surgery. That’s 1.2 million people in the UK who already qualify and the numbers are steadily increasing. Hospitals and surgeons simply can’t cope with the number of people who are eligible for this drastic surgery. (Call me old fashioned, but I kind of think that my stomach, large intestine and small intestine are all there and the length they are for a reason?!)

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2005 article found that, from a total of 16 155 patients who underwent bariatric procedures (mean age, 47.7 years; 75.8% women), the rates of 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year mortality were 2.0%, 2.8%, and 4.6%, respectively. Men had higher rates of early death than women (3.7% vs 1.5%, 4.8% vs 2.1%, and 7.5% vs 3.7% at 30 days, 90 days, and 1 year, respectively). Mortality rates were greater for those aged 65 years or older compared with younger patients (4.8% vs 1.7% at 30 days, 6.9% vs 2.3% at 90 days, and 11.1% vs 3.9% at 1 year).

So, up to 11% of patients for ’stomach’ surgery weight loss operations are dead within a year. And the NHS would rather fund such operations than rethink our public health weight loss advice. Couldn’t we at least try suggesting that people just start eating real food and stop eating processed food and see if this helps?!

This article noted that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing 30 reports of serious liver damage, in people who have been taking the drug, 6 of which resulted in organ failure. GSK, of course, are trying to reassure users that there is no connection to liver damage.

I don’t know if there is any connection between Orlistat and liver damage – I welcome the FDA review, so that this can be determined through investigation. One of the many functions of the liver, however, is to manage the removal of waste products and Orlistat does have quite an impact on waste product management…

Orlistat works on the basis that fat is not digested by the body until it reaches the colon. So Alli/Xenical tries to ensure that any fat rushes through the colon and into the toilet, before it can be digested at all. You can probably work out the key downside already – some people reportedly don’t even make it to the toilet before the tablet works! The product information advises wearing dark trousers and carrying a spare change of clothes. Nice!

It is so sad that people are so desperate to slim that they will try something with such embarrassing side effects before trying something as simple as eating real food and nothing but real food. i.e. The Harcombe Diet.

Keep an eye out for the FDA conclusions and so will I.

I don’t entirely buy this. I think that the 99% of diets that are based on the myth “To lose 1lb of fat you need to create a deficit of 3500 calories” are probably, in the main, well intentioned. The crime, for me, is the fact that slimming clubs up and down the country observe women (especially) creating this deficit, week in week out, and not losing a single pound and yet they don’t stop to question the fundamental formula and question its entire validity. That is the unforgivable bit in my view. I do believe that these clubs would be happy for people to lose weight and keep it off, but they also do well financially when most people don’t lose any weight and those that do mostly put it all back on (and often more).

I personally want to help anyone I can in the world to be and stay slim. Interestingly, when I was anorexic, I wanted to feed up everyone around me (typical anorexic behaviour) because them being fatter would make me appear slimmer. Now, my goal is to help get as many people as I can to a normal BMI (with all the heart, cancer, diabetes, health, well-being etc benefits that this would deliver).

There are 1 billion overweight people in the world already and the number is rising! That’s more than enough ‘customers’ to go round. Sadly, I truly believe that any diet that makes a person eat less is destined to make them fatter in the long run. Hence we are just producing more ‘customers’ every time someone sends their body into a pseudo-starvation situation and trains the body to store fat. The definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. We must stop trying to eat less to lose weight! It doesn’t work!

(Don’t you just love the NOTW headline!)
This story just doesn’t go away. I first saw it around November 2008. The news then was that Manchester would begin the scheme and then, if successful, it would be rolled out. The idea was that people would accumulate points for things like: losing weight; walking children to school; joining exercise classes and/or slimming clubs etc. Points could then be traded in through supermarkets for healthy food.

The initial proposal received much negative reaction – Tam Fry of The National Obesity Forum called it “too little, too late”. Other politicians attacked the idea as ‘gimmicky’ and ‘open to abuse’.

The April 2009 NOTW article, didn’t mention Manchester, but said that scheme would be set up under the name “Weight Wins” and that it would be run by the NHS. The maximum payout would be £425 for someone who loses 50lbs. Apparently even 40 “chubby” (as the NOTW calls them) nurses had signed up to the scheme.

The July 2009 Daily Mail article said that “Men and women are to be paid to lose weight in the first scheme of its kind in the UK”. They will be given a £1 shopping voucher for every pound they shed, in the pilot scheme involving 100 volunteers. The pilot is due to start in September 2009 in Essex and Basildon. A Basildon council spokesman said “we have initially set aside £1,000 for the scheme. We don’t want to encourage people to excessive weight loss.” (This is probably a fair sum given the success people usually have following government weight loss advice!)

I’m confused! So what happened after November 2008 and April 2009? Nothing?! Is this the pilot scheme or the third scheme? Will we hear about results, or just initiatives?!

And all of this misses the complete point that people who want to be slim don’t lack motivation. In a study of formerly fat people, who had lost weight after intestinal bypass surgery, researchers at the University of Florida reported that virtually all said they would rather be blind or deaf or have a leg amputated than be fat again. That is how much people want to be slim and yet two thirds of people in the UK are overweight (Body Mass Index, BMI, of 25+) and one quarter are obese (BMI of 30+).

So people don’t lack motviation – they lack advice that will actually work. The current eat less/do more, base your meals on starchy foods, graze, eat everything in moderation – all this advice is what needs to be changed – not financial incentives offered to already desperate people.