How Much Money Is Wasted Each Year On Treating Obesity?

As a tall slim person I'd like to know where my taxes are going.

Ta. x

Dollybird, do you honestly think that money the NHS spends on helping anorexics and alcoholics is being wasted?

They are serious problems, just as obesity is. Anorexia is an eating disorder, just as binge-eating is. Whilst you might not be costing the NHS any money personally, obesity as a whole is. Yes, the NHS was set up to help people, and no it's not wasting it's money, but if someone is obese, just because they enjoy food and they could quite easily just cut down what they're eating, why should the NHS have to fit a gastric band? (N.B. Please don't make it seem as if I'm saying everyone who is obese is like this, there are genuine mental health problems underlying many causes of obesity as well)

Anorexia and Alcoholism are not just things you can shut off. They are mental health problems that stick and stick and stick, no matter how well you try to recover. At my lowest weight I was 6st 4lbs and being fed by a tube, I recovered, I'm now a healthy 9st (good for my height) , the NHS helped me and I'm grateful but the problem still persists. I still look in the mirror and see a fat slob, I just don't act on it anymore.

Taxes are spent everywhere, the NHS doesn't have enough money as it is and if you really want to complain about someone getting all your taxes, just look at the MP's who apparently have our best interests at heart, the don't, they just have theirs and don't mind who's money they spend to get there.

Edit: Anorexia is not typically a self-inflicted mental health problem. I didn't decide that I wanted to be that thin, the pressure as an elite ballet dancer was there to be thin and light so lifts were easier. When I started to restrict to please my teacher, a little voice appeared in my head, telling me I was fat and disgusting and that I should lose weight and everyone else was lying to me. None of that was self-inflicted and I hated my life.

As someone who work in the NHS I can tell you that a very small part of the NHS budget is spent on treating obesity. Only a few morbidly obese people receive surgery such as gastric bypass, most treatment consists of advice about diet and exercise.
The NHS was founded to provide health care for everyone in the country and everyone who can afford to pay towards it does. It would be morally wrong and impractical to rule that some were not entitled to treatment because they might be responsible for their own illnesses. This group would not just include the obese, but also sports players, alcoholics, drug abusers, people with dangerous occupations, car drivers and so on.

Probably only a fraction of the money spent putting toxic poisons in common foods; force-feeding people drugs that cause weight-gain; and other high-profit, low-benefit practices.

It is FAR more cost-consicous to keep people at a good weight than to treat them for obesity years after the damage is done. Preventing children from becoming obese should be the national goal of all those countries that practice a "standard westernized diet".

as a short lard **** your taxes are going no where near me and never will thanks, i dont smoke anymore, i hardly drink (much) i go to the gym and i eat well most of the time, what more would u like to me to do, cut off my left arm so i fit into the perfect bmi score ??

how much money is wasted on alchoholics, anorexics, pedophilies rehabilitation/secret identies, drug addicts, single mothers who pop out kid after kid with no intention of working, benefit cheats, mp expenses, tv licence dodgers, car tax dodgers etc etc the list goes on and on.

and btw just cus your slim DON'T mean you're healthy, ta x

edit to faulty barbie doll, exactly i'm not saying money is wasted helping anorexics or alchoholics, what i am saying is how can it be a waste to help obese ppl but not help others who have also self inflicted problems on themselves , ppl cant go round blaming everyone who is more than 7lbs overweight for the shortfalls in nhs cash, there are many ppl who receive treatment regardless of blame but at the end of the day whos business is it really if someone does not fit into the catergory of 'perfect' ?

A lot less than on drug addicts, alcoholics and other things, keeping in mind that they still work and pay tonns of taxes anyway.

There's no point of charging them NI contributions if they're excluded from the system, unless there's a seperate system for obese people's contributions, sort of private insurance.

as a healthy person, i can only hope & pray that, should disease or injury smite you, you too shall be left to die where you fall. after all, if i'm hale & hearty, i wouldn't want MY taxes going towards prolonging the useless wate of good air that your weakened physical state has left of you.

Millions and millions. I used to work for the NHS and the expenditure on 'bariatric' equipment (the medical term for fat people) was staggering!

And I agree it's a waste, we should simply wire their jaws and lock away the melted mars bars.

I don't know if there is any way to really know. However, my guess is that a majority of medical problems stem from obesity.

Your implication being fatfucks shouldn't get treatment. Except fatfucks pay tax too.

Nice of you, slim. Picture of you in the dictionary next to 'Arrogant?'

If you stop and think about it, you will realise that these people have to buy the food they eat so they are paying for it themselves - how arrogant of you( and i'm not even fat!)

Equivalent to the sum total of the combined weights of all the obese people...

Forget obesity - you taxes are going to unmarried mothers (who secretly live with their partners) and drug addicts.

It cost more to feed Octo-mom and her 14 children than it does to feed a whole country of obese people. Go demand your tax money back from Miss Suleman.

Your taxes are being spent to keep rich folks rich, not on obesity.

None as any used to help treat the obese is money well spent.

well in this financial hard times the fast food chains haven't gone broke.. so i would say ALOT!

Lol, idk....................taxes go a number of places. but look it up on Google on where your taxes go.

about $100 billion per year on costs related to obesity

Whatever it is, it's to fcukin much!

your taxes are going towards the mercedes benz of your representative, you idiot

Wasted?

too much and not enough

i don't know, ask my mom.

Fatties are a strain on services such as water supplies...do you know much water it takes to bath one of those?....

Fatties eat for ten people three times a day. shocking.

How Much Money Is Wasted Each Year On Treating Obesity?
As a tall slim person I'd like to know where my taxes are going.