9:30am Tuesday 27th July 2010
By Amanda Williams
HALF a million pounds will be spent to encourage severely overweight people in Oxfordshire to change their attitudes to food, the Oxford Mail has learned.
Parents who tell their children to “finish everything on their plate” are doing more harm than good, according to NHS Oxfordshire.
And morbidly obese adults who grew up being told they could only have a pudding if they finished their main meal, will be taught to rethink their attitudes towards food as part of a new programme.
Last month, the Oxford Mail revealed one in four Oxfordshire adults were now classed as obese, a problem which experts believe will cost local health services £159m per year by 2015.
Now NHS Oxfordshire has called on the help of a team of experts, including psychologists and diet and exercise experts, to help overweight people as young as 16 battle their weight problems.
The trust will pay £820 per person for 600 of the county’s most dangerously overweight people to embark on the Oxfordshire Weightloss Lifestyle Service (OWLS).
Dr Mohgah Elsheikh, who heads the OWLS team, said most people had emotional reasons behind their over-eating.
She added: “For a lot of people it can be something which has been picked up from childhood.
“Many people also grew up being told to ‘finish what’s on your plate’, and lots of parents use food such as chocolate bars as a reward for good behaviour or for finishing their main meal.
“People also link food with emotions and eat when they’re depressed, sad or happy.”
Kate King, NHS Oxfordshire’s health improvement principal, said the service would only be available to people whose health was at serious risk because of their weight, and who had shown they could take ‘responsibility’ for their problem.
It is also hoped the service will discourage people from opting for weightloss surgery such as gastric bands and bypasses, which can cost up to £10,000 a time.
Ms King added: “Someone in this position is often stuck in their current behaviour and needs more intensive, professional support and help. The OWLS team has the expertise to help them get where they need to be.
“We all need to face up to obesity and tackle this serious health problem as the burden on the NHS is already taking its toll.”
A person is considered morbidly obese if they have a Body Mass Index of more than 40, putting them at a higher risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
OWLS will be carried out in Oxfordshire’s leisure centres where doctors, specialist nurses, dieticians and psychologists will be on hand for support.
But Bryan Graves, from Cowley, thinks the scheme is a waste of money.
Mr Graves was told his five-year-old daughter Emily was overweight by the NHS in a school weight management scheme, despite her being just 1lb over the top ‘healthy range’ limit of 3 stone 4lb.
He said the new scheme was typical of the nanny state and added: “Half a million pounds is a lot of money. They should be spending the money on something much more useful.” The programme has already been used effectively by the NHS in Berkshire, and a team from the county’s health trust is now helping to roll out the programme here.
She added: “About a third of people who were on the course lost about 10 per cent of their body weight and nine out of every 10 people lost five per cent of their body weight.”
Morbidly obese Tony Roberts will embark on the OWLS service over the next few weeks. Mr Roberts had applied for weight loss surgery on the NHS, but was turned down despite weighing 25 stone and having a BMI of 51, along with a thyroid problem and diabetes. He decided to take the matter of his weight problem into his own hands and, over the last month, has lost almost a stone through careful dieting on the Weight Watchers programme. Mr Roberts said he agreed people had an emotional attachment to food. He said: “If you go back 20 or 30 years, strawberries were something you had in the summer. Now you can get them all year round. We are spoiled for choice. “We have got a very different attachment to food these days, you can have what you want when you want it.” The 52-year-old from Grimsbury, in Banbury,added: “Going back a good few years, to after the war, you ate whatever you were given and were told to eat the lot. “It is an attitude which still exists for many people. I think we have lost something in a way.”
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