Ban on surgery for patients who are overweight or who smoke?

@Granny23

Yes, of course they are, although they should also be advised that orthopaedic surgery will be more successful, if they can lose weight. They should also be advised that anaesthesits carry more risk, if they smoke and they should be given time to try to give up.

How long does it take from symptoms to operation for hip or knee?
I can't think of anyone who has been offered an operation in less than a year from seeing the GP first. Perhaps GPs are not telling people early enough, or are hospital trusts wanting to add another year on to save costs?

I saw my GP in April,saw consultant in May, had op August 8th

How do you account for all the bad choices people make regarding drugs, alcohol and diet if they are all so well informed and full of common sense?

I 'account' for it, jess, by acknowledging that people (our species) are weak, that people like thrills, and by acknowledging that addictions are difficult to overcome.

Well educated people are not always sensible. Sense, often called common sense, is not the exclusive preserve of well educated people. How insulting of you to imply, based on utter ignorance, that my uneducated grandparents were not rational and sensible! So rude!

I'd like to ask you to stop making assumptions about what you refer to as "my world" because you know fuck all about it and I'd thank you to bear that in mind in future, if you would be so kind.

I can't believe you wrote that post, jess! It is so incredibly rude. I'm really shocked.

Just where did that come from? Did I miss a post?

Doesn't stop kids consuming the biscuits, cakes, desserts, crisps etc etc that their parents buy though does it?

Nope. Nor ones they buy themselves at Waitrose at lunch time out of school.
And none of that means they, and their parents, don't know what is 'healthy' food and what isn't.

Have you been to an ASDA or similar in a poorer area of the country Bags? They don't stock multiple aisles with "snacks" and "treats" unless a lot of people are buying them.

Have you seen a Waitrose cake, cookie and doughnut display recently? The lemon doughnuts and lemon yum-yums are my faves. I have one or other every time I go there. I eat it in the car before I go home. Have to have wet wipes handy cos I get so sticky.

In your world everyone is sensible, rational and well educated.

Proof? Evidence even? No, thought not.

How do you account for all the bad choices people make regarding drugs, alcohol and diet if they are all so well informed and full of common sense?

I've answered that bit already.

Thanks, Ann.
The people I know personally took at least a year, so it's good to know that the NHS works quicker in some cases.
Dare I ask how bad it was before you saw the GP about it?
My sister has had two hip operations, and a friend has had two knee operations. Another friend was using walking sticks in his early fifties because of arthritis in his knees, and was told he couldn't have an operation until he was 60, because they would not last very long.
The strange thing was that he had already had two heart attacks. The cynic in me wondered if they were waiting to see if he died before he was 60.

I haven't seen this Bella Younger perform but her attitude to food as expressed in this article is pretty close to mine.

Well Bags you always seem to argue from a position that human beings are entirely logical. I'm glad to hear that you do recognise that human frailty is a factor in dietary choices.
Wasn't meant to be rude - just a bit exasperated.
I try only to be rude on GN if someone is being offensive. I did this the other day on another thread but made myself delete the "oh do sod off" and replaced it with something more restrained.

My 85 year old mother has just been diagnosed with cancer. She's already been told she won't be offered chemotherapy, which she doesn't want anyway. The reason is that she has a limited life expectancy and there has to be a balance between the quality of her remaining life and the chances of being able to extend her life. She's awaiting another biopsy and will the be told how complicated the treatment would be and a decision will be made whether the risks of treatment outweigh the chances of any benefit, given that she has other conditions.

My father also died of cancer, but wasn't offered surgery, because the cancer was in an inaccessible place and surgery would have been dangerous, because he had pre-existing heart problems.

Hip and knee replacements do have a limited life. My mother had a hip replacement in her late 50s, because she broke her hip in a fall. Surgery was the last option, but in her case there really wasn't any choice. She then had a replacement about ten years later and could have done with another replacement for the last five years. There are more risks with replacements and she has refused one, although she's been in great pain. Doctors have to weigh up the benefits of replacing a joint too early and possibly having to have three or more replacements. The NHS would have done it, if she'd wanted and had been prepared to accept the risks.

Doctors make these kind of decisions all the time and I suppose it could be called rationing.

daphnedill I am sorry about your mother, and I do hope she receives good palliative care

Regarding mainly girls being taught about cookery, at the comprehensive school my children went to, Food Technology, which did include practical work, was compulsory for boys and girls at least up to year 10. That was 25 years ago.

My argument, jess, has always been that people do know what's not good for their health. Yours has seemed to be that it's someone else's fault (preferably government's) when they decide to overdo the sugary stuff, or to indulge in smoking or other recreational drug-taking. Nope. It's their/our own decision.

And it happens because, as I said, we are weak and we like thrills and instant satisfaction of cravings and desires.

Which is normal. Sorry to be so rational again.

Bags everyone may have a general idea about what is good for their health. But details like assessing the real nutritive value of a bowl of cocopops - well, I guess you have a more rosy view of the intellectual and educational level of the population than I have. And the amount of time and energy they have to spare to think about all this.
Even the well educated consume expensive juices and smoothies at a far higher level than is sensible, while thinking they are making a healthy choice. (my DIL for instance lets the kids have a lot of juice and nobody is more obsessed with healthy eating...)
And even well educated people will grab a nutty looking snack bar full of corn syrup and other sugars, while thinking they are making healthy choices
And even the most health-conscious people can have mistaken beliefs about the harm that food can cause. I'm thinking of someone who told me with a great deal of certainty that diet coke was much more harmful to health than the kind with 8 teaspoonfuls of sugar, per glass.
You seem to dismiss the expertise of the marketing departments of the food industry. Are all those companies wasting their money on adverts, promotions, packaging etc if it does not manipulate human behaviour?

So true Jess

So does Gransnet! I wince every time I see the sidebar for 'Baking with Gran'. How about 'Get fruity with Gran' or something?

Exactly DD GN is not about helping 'old' people to chat together. It's only there to make someone a hefty profit. Worth remembering.

Yes. It's all a cover for money making. Just like the so profitable Mumsnet.

Not sure about the "Get fruity with Gran" thing though!

Jess I think you massively under-estimate the knowledge of ordinary people, leave alone the "intellectual and highly intelligent" ones.

"the real nutritive value of a bowl of cocopops"

I love that . Bit like 'evaluating' the nutritive value of a bar of chocolate. Who cares? Really? People don't eat cocopops for their nutritive value!

My GP brother told me while he was still training that experiments had been done on the nutritive value of a bowl of cornflakes and that the experiments showed that you might as well eat the cardboard box they came in. The experiments were done with rats. The rats eating the cardboard did just as well, healthwise, as those eating the cornflakes.

Seriously though, I think the only difference between us is that I think freedom of personal choice (even when influenced by big business food producers) is important even when the choices people make can be seen as not good. I think food industry advertising is balanced by the fact that children are taught about healthy eating from when they go to nursery school at three or four years old until they leave school in their teens. And with many kids the food education starts even earlier, at home.

I also think that, as well as 'bad' food industry advertising and promotion, there is a lot of well-meaning but ultimately rubbish 'information' thrown at Jo Public from all sorts of other sources, including government. And I still think that encouraging personal responsibility for decisions that we already know will affect our health is a better way to go, in general, than central government law-making on the subject. I think (like you if I've understood your posts correctly) attempts to restrain the worst excesses and misleading claims by advertisers is a good thing to do too.

It's just that, from my point of view, as with all other controversial subjects I ever discuss, it's not a simple choice between right and wrong, in this case between government responsibility for the nation's health and personal responsibility. You seem to think it is.

Not that chocolate has no nutritive value of course. It's great mountain food. People (me, for instance) eat it for energy (calories) and because it's nice. Ditto cocopops. Manufacturers of cocpops do add some vitamins too, I suppose.

PPS i grew up on cornflakes with sugar and whole milk for breakfast. It doesn't seem to have compromised my health. One can worry too much.

Knowing what is good or bad for you is completely different from acting on that knowledge and choosing the good over the bad. Too much urging to eat this or not eat that is likely to have a negative effect, "Oh to hell with them, I'll eat what I like!"

There are regulations on what information should be displayed, and food is mentioned frequently in schools. If people choose to close their ears and eyes and ignore the information, they can hardly be flung in jail for their negligence, can they? Or is that in the pipeline for legislation?

One person may choose to eat a particular "bad" item as an occasional treat in their otherwise "good" diet. Another may live on the stuff. You can't police both of them as they shop and only allow one purchase per customer per week. Adults do the shopping, and adults are not helpless infants.

You can't ban foods that are not perfect nutritionally in every way (according to this year's standards) unless you also control every other aspect of everyone's lives. (Control freaks and food police - fall out of parade and report at once to Big Brother for the orders of the day and your deployment detail. The rest of you 'orrible lot, dismiss to quarters and await further orders. At the double! and no muttering in the ranks or you'll be on a charge.)

Ah. Thank you, elegran, for mentioning control freakishness. I didn't dare. I'm in enough trouble already for having a mind of my own.

But I did think about it.