Rise in Pension Age

Thyroid complaints, metabolism problems, side-effects of medication - there are all sorts of reasons why people can be overweight, and a bit less judgement from strangers would go a long way.

Cambia

Not sure why we would blame any political party for killing us off! Almost one in two people in the uk are overweight with all the problems and illnesses that incurs. The majority of people do not exercise, drink more than they should and eat too much processed food. Why can’t we take responsibility for ourselves instead of blaming any political party?

Indeed. Overweight smoking people are all round.

Not enough exercise, too much fatty food, smoking, drinking.

Sorry - by 'we' above, I meant Mr Dog and me, not the world at large.

M0nica

I do dislike generalisations. Plenty of households have a happy and agreed balance of tasks between partners based on skills and capacity.

Many men in work and in retirement undertake all the care and maintenance of cars, house, garden etc.

I do not know any household, working or retired, where the man sits at ease while his wife is a domestic slave.

Currently I am sitting at my ease while DH is undertaking paid work.

I agree. I think we have a reasonable division of labour, and always have.

I don't know what people's bodyweight or 'lifestyle factors' have to do with pension entitlements, really. Pensions should be a means of support in older age - you work and contribute then you get back. If, on top of that, you need healthcare, it's a separate thing. In the worst case scenario unhealthy people might get a pension for a shorter time - some never reach pension age, and there will be very many women who died before getting the pension they would once have got at 60.

Whilst I agree that there is a lot that could be done to improve the health of the nation, I don't think that smuggery or blaming people for being fat, or for other unhealthy habits or risky behaviours is helpful. Alcohol, cigarettes and now sugar all bring in a lot of money in taxation, so arguably obese alcoholic smokers are subsidising the pensions of slim vegan gym bunnies, particularly if the swigging puffing fatties have the decency to drop down dead before pension age.

M0nica hope you have good treatment and a full recovery.

M0nica

I spent 4 hours in A&E last week, in the section where ambulance patients stay. I do not remember seeing anyone overweight, possible a few lbs, but no more. Not patients, not nurses, not paramedics, not doctors.

You should see some of the ambulance drivers here! I went in an ambulance with my late Mum and a huge great man was driving and an equally huge woman was escort. She was so big she couldn’t get through the side door and past a seat so she had to come up the back ramp!

You see them parked up outside the hospital doors too and my son even said he wonders how they can do a day’s work carrying all that weight and also how they keep their jobs.

Perhaps that GP knows nothing about genetics, about the effects that pollution, poverty etc can have even on small children and many other factors outside our control.

M0nica

Fernhillnana I hope your son is not my GP. I am being treated for a TIA and not one of the life style factors that can cause strokes applies to me. I have had several scans, and they show little or no damage of any kind to any part of my vascular system. which is frustrating because there is nothing I can do to improve my situation.

Same here - even on meds my husband has shockingly high blood pressure. One doctor told him recently it is the highest BP he has seen in his career and he looks about 50 so obviously seen thousands of patients.

There is nothing he can do to bring it down himself. He is not overweight, he gets loads of exercise with his job, we eat a healthy diet with no salt, he is very relaxed and is not a stressy person, he has never smoked and doesn’t even drink 2 units in a week.

There are post here saying that the cause of earlier deaths is due to the failings of the NHS and the Tory government. Are they forgetting that poor diet causes many illnesses a well as obesity? The NHS is overwhelmed with diet related conditions. I know many young families with both parents working who rarely cook other than heating ready meals or getting take aways. Yes poverty can be the cause of poor diet but so can too much salt, sugar and excess of calories. I am a nosey being who watches in amazement the foods people pile into their shopping trollies.
Many of the generation who had a youth of rationing and limited meat and fat combined with plenty of exercise are now costing the country a fortune as they are happily living into their nineties receiving state pensions!

I do dislike generalisations. Plenty of households have a happy and agreed balance of tasks between partners based on skills and capacity.

Many men in work and in retirement undertake all the care and maintenance of cars, house, garden etc.

I do not know any household, working or retired, where the man sits at ease while his wife is a domestic slave.

Currently I am sitting at my ease while DH is undertaking paid work.

Fernhillnana I hope your son is not my GP. I am being treated for a TIA and not one of the life style factors that can cause strokes applies to me. I have had several scans, and they show little or no damage of any kind to any part of my vascular system. which is frustrating because there is nothing I can do to improve my situation.

Saggi

Well said ‘Doodledog’….women NEVER retire! Still cooking …cleaning, and doing all the chores even though they’re ageing just as fast as their husbands! Life has always favoured men…why shouldn’t have retirement age favoured women!
We get little peace and rest while we’re working women!

Personally, I think men have things worse. In some ways at least.
They tend to do the hardest manual work on the whole.
They are expected to work, by society until retirement.

And their genetic make up seems to make them oh so reluctant to visit a GP. Which I think is definitely one reason they die before women on the whole.

I now expect to be lynched for these comments!

Different areas have different amounts of overweight people in them. From what I have seen.

I spent 4 hours in A&E last week, in the section where ambulance patients stay. I do not remember seeing anyone overweight, possible a few lbs, but no more. Not patients, not nurses, not paramedics, not doctors.

Fernhillnana

My son is a practising, experienced GP. He says that 90% of the illness he sees in adults is “lifestyle related”. Make of that what you will.

We recently visited hospital outpatients twice and both times we were there for about 6 hours. We spent a lot of time people watching. We saw nurses bursting out of their uniforms and some were barely able to walk they were so huge. We saw one doctor who must have weighed 30 stones and he only looked about 40. He waddled down the corridor and I am not kidding when I say he blocked the light out! Another male doctor was about 20 stones and had trousers literally hanging off his backside because he was so fat he couldn’t keep them round his waist. Medical staff would do well to practice what they preach!

Blossoming

Sorry Shinamae, only just seen your question and I see others have answered it.

Thanks anyway…😁

Sorry Shinamae, only just seen your question and I see others have answered it.

Why aren't we more like the French? There the goverments are to serve the people and the French remind them. The government fear them. The elites never gave anything away the people always fought for what was their rights. The conservatives are taking away our laws our rights to protest. Nothing ever came from elites establishment. Protest join a union stand up for your rights

Getting back to the op ...

Life expectancy might be increasing (or falling slightly as it is now), but people's "good health expectancy" has stalled. Somebody needs to put on a serious thinking cap and come up with a strategy to deal with it.

Doodledog

Germanshepherdsmum

‘Lifestyle related’ can include drinking too much, overeating and not exercising due to depression. Chicken and egg.

It can, as well as exercising too much and breaking bones on ski slopes or falling off bicycles etc, as well as sexual health, childbirth, contraception and occupational hazards of various types. I really don't think that dividing the sick into deserving and undeserving would end well for many of us.

Unfortunately, that's what some GPs seem to do, which is why we read anecdotes about illness being lifestyle related or patients, who waste GPs' time and/or don't turn up to appointments.

Cambia

Growstuff so sorry to hear about your treatment. Do you have an option to switch surgeries? We changed ours last year from the one that I had been to for over fifty years and were totally amazed at the difference. From having to wait a month to see a GP we were offered a next day face to face appointment! Still can’t believe the difference between the two surgeries!

I'm being treated with kid gloves now.

Changing surgeries (which isn't really an option) wouldn't bring back the six months I lost because treatment was delayed or the part of my breast which was removed because the cancer had grown.

My point is that I do try my best to be responsible for my health and don't go to the GP unless I think that's the best and only course of action. The issue is that there's not much point being fairly sure that something serious is wrong if patients can't get into the system to be treated. In my case, the GP didn't know me and it was clear she thought I was one of the 90% who allegedly waste GPs' time. The cancer was eventually picked up by a routine scan.

We need better primary care, so that GPs have more time to deal with their patients.

Growstuff so sorry to hear about your treatment. Do you have an option to switch surgeries? We changed ours last year from the one that I had been to for over fifty years and were totally amazed at the difference. From having to wait a month to see a GP we were offered a next day face to face appointment! Still can’t believe the difference between the two surgeries!

I suspect the pension riots in France might have given the government pause for thought as well.

Well said ‘Doodledog’….women NEVER retire! Still cooking …cleaning, and doing all the chores even though they’re ageing just as fast as their husbands! Life has always favoured men…why shouldn’t have retirement age favoured women!
We get little peace and rest while we’re working women!

We should take to the streets like the french do when they keep putting up the retirement age. About childbirth while I don't think it's degrading it definitely wrecks a woman's body. Thank God for contraception. Now we can control our own bodies.