I’ve heard it all now! I was listening to the BBC news on the radio recently when I heard a news piece saying that some ridiculous scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine no doubt with not enough to do and desperate to justify their overpaid jobs, have declared that fat people are contributing to the problems of global warming and the world food shortage!

Yes I know, I know! Apparently overweight people consume a fifth more calories than thinner people and drive round in their cars more because they can’t be bothered to walk! Is this really what the scientific argument has come to? Fed up with giving us different health do’s and don't’s that they reverse whenever the wind changes, they are now gunning for a whole section of society to blame for our ills. They must surely be the last to realise, despite all their scientific know how that attacking the fat/anorexic/drunk/drug addict is just the way to drive them further into their addiction? And to blame them for global warming and food shortage? It is completely laughable and is accompanied by a strong whiff off barrel bottom scrapings. If the government is so concerned about the amount of unhealthy food we are eating why don’t they close some of the factories down that produce completely nutritionally redundant foods? Why don’t they subsidise the cost of fruit and vegetables and other foods that are better for us?
Is this the way to go about things, to demonise and attack one section of society, who if we believe all we hear are increasing in number and in weight year on year? At the very least, I as one of them, (after I’ve walked the dog twice a day and been on my feet for most of it), might come round and sit on you, so be careful what you say!

Dr Nicholas Christakis has declared that having a fat friend can make you fat! His research discovered that essentially ‘birds of a feather flock together!” Flabbergasted? I thought not. If it is one thing we big girls are, it seems, it’s endlessly fascinating. The researchers, who describe obesity as "socially contagious", found the friendship effect so strong that it applies even when friends are separated by hundreds of miles.
This piece of research which is really a statement of the obvious is another in the long line of useless statements on which no doubt many dollars of grants have been spent. His colleague from Harvard Dr James Fowler, who helped write up the study results, said: "This is about people's ideas about their bodies and their health.
"Consciously or unconsciously, people look to others when they are deciding how much to eat, how much to exercise and how much weight is too much.
"Social effects, I think, are much stronger than people before realised. There's been an intensive effort to find genes that are responsible for obesity and physical processes that are responsible for obesity and what our paper suggests is that you really should spend time looking at the social side of life as well.
"When we help one person lose weight, we're not just helping one person, we're helping many.”
I won’t hold my breath!

Hi..

Nicholas is a good physician. I have read so many articles about weight loss by Dr. Nicholas.

Thanks
A. Wilson

I am sure that he is a good physician, I just don't think that this approach to weight loss is a winner. Marginalising people and putting them down will do nothing except push them further into a corner with a bag of chips! If someone is really going to get on top of weight issues they need to be given back their self esteem not have it eroded further. While I am sure that this doctor knows his stuff and is a great boon to the medical profession on this subject I think he could have been a bit more tactful and little less clinical. We are dealing with people here not lab rats!

Yes Saffy being Fat is really major problem. It causes many health problems. regular diets and use of natural supplements helps to reduce fat and keeeps body fit and healthy.