| Increasing numbers of waiting list patients are | | | | and deeper into the denial of erstwhile civil |
| now being forced to slim before being allowed to | | | | liberties, is a major stepping-up of these |
| have routine operations on the British National | | | | institutionalised pressures. |
| Health Service. | | | | Some would also argue that the extension of |
| A newspaper investigation claims that the localised | | | | public health care intervention into wider and wider |
| policy is now to be rolled out nationally by the end | | | | aspects of modern living is not so much a |
| of 2007. | | | | wellbeing aspiration as a symptom of the current |
| Doctors will allocate treatment to patients | | | | western governmental drift towards an increasing |
| according to their Body Mass Index, the BMI being | | | | micromanagement of the whole lifestyle. |
| the formula relating putative optimum weight to | | | | This is not necessarily a claim either of the left or |
| height. | | | | the right, as both perspectives would be critical of |
| If people have a BMI over 30, which is | | | | an excessively big state overriding basic liberties. |
| commonplace in the UK and very much towards | | | | The problem with all of this in relation to the |
| the average zone in the US, they will be denied | | | | overweight arena is that it is leaving those already |
| non-emergency operations such as hip and knee | | | | involved in failed fad dieting with nowhere to turn |
| surgery, or procedures including IVF treatment. | | | | except straight back into more fad dieting. |
| The new guidelines already apply to about 1 in 15 | | | | Gradual lifestyle adjustments, new coping |
| of the PCTs in the UK and, when implemented | | | | strategies for the emotional stresses which |
| nationally, the BMI-rule will affect about 1 in 5 of | | | | trigger overeating, a relaxed appreciation of the |
| the population. Failure to achieve the threshold for | | | | cultural drivers towards fad dieting cycles and the |
| operations will result in being recommended a | | | | fostering of a choice to move in fresh directions |
| crash slimming regime and reassessment after six | | | | all of these healthful options are blown away by |
| months. | | | | the official decrees to lose weight fast. In the |
| Health officials state that their rationale behind the | | | | absence of alternatives, what are people to do |
| strict new qualification for treatment is justified by | | | | except to plunge back into the fad dieting |
| research which shows that slimmer people have | | | | mainstream? |
| better recovery rates from surgery. Whatever | | | | Government, unchallenged, is always going to be |
| the proven scientific case for this viewpoint and | | | | relatively short term in its outlook; it is simply the |
| also not forgetting the debatable validity of the | | | | way that it tends to work. |
| now 150 year old BMI standpoint, a considered | | | | The short termism in this instance is exacerbating |
| critique reveals troubling implications within this | | | | the very issues it is seeking to address. The |
| clampdown. | | | | macho tough love approach will do little except |
| One of the central paradoxes of the current | | | | deliver tough luck on those problem dieters who |
| major debate surrounding obesity is the question | | | | now have less freedom than ever to break away |
| of why people persist in long term dieting cycles | | | | from fad dieting. |
| when dieting is increasingly discredited as an | | | | This is another expression of the growing yet |
| effective means of lasting weight control. | | | | implicit official view that the overweight are |
| It can be argued that individuals are being driven | | | | deviants who must be brought back within the |
| into fad dieting not so much by the long standing | | | | correct moral line. Is this fair or accurate? |
| notion of Yo Yo Dieting (itself, we would contend, | | | | With the overweight in the UK now being banned |
| simpliste and flawed) but rather by overwhelming | | | | from some surgical operations unless they crash |
| institutionalised and cultural pressures. From this | | | | diet, weight control charity The Weight Foundation |
| perspective, the creeping criminalisation of | | | | discusses the growing stigmatization of obesity. |
| overweight, which is advancing steadily deeper | | | | |