Coronavirus (2021) thread

[ayrshire_blue]

Sounds like we agree that ppl with co-morbidities should be targeted the same as the vaccine reluctant, but maybe some way to go before we find common ground on how that should be done.

I would encourage putting effort into fixing the obesity crisis with or without the ongoing pandemic but yeah totally agree we are miles apart on how to do so.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

As the conversation has drifted into obesity and diet, I thought the words of George Orwell from the Road the Wigan Pier might resonate.

The miner's family spend only ten pence a week on green vegetables and ten pence half-penny on milk (remember that one of them is a child less than three years old), and nothing on fruit; but they spend one and nine on sugar (about eight pounds of sugar, that is) and a shilling on tea. The half-crown spent on meat might represent a small joint and the materials for a stew; probably as often as not it would represent four or five tins of bully beef. The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes - an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. […] When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let's have three pen north of chips Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we'll have a nice cup of tea. That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don't nourish you to any extent but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the English-man's opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.

My bold.

Orwell died of a transmissible disease (TB) likely caught from his time spent with the down and out.

Be kind to one another.

 

[The Northern Baptist]

As the conversation has drifted into obesity and diet, I thought the words of George Orwell from the Road the Wigan Pier might resonate.

The miner's family spend only ten pence a week on green vegetables and ten pence half-penny on milk (remember that one of them is a child less than three years old), and nothing on fruit; but they spend one and nine on sugar (about eight pounds of sugar, that is) and a shilling on tea. The half-crown spent on meat might represent a small joint and the materials for a stew; probably as often as not it would represent four or five tins of bully beef. The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes - an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. […] When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let's have three pen north of chips Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we'll have a nice cup of tea. That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don't nourish you to any extent but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the English-man's opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.

My bold.

Orwell died of a transmissible disease (TB) likely caught from his time spent with the down and out.

Be kind to one another.

Understand your point to a degree but 64% of adults in the U.K. are either overweight or obese. That’s a lot of ppl who can afford to eat healthier choosing not to. They are a legitimate target when it comes to protecting our beloved National Health Service.

 

[BlueAnorak]

As well as going after the vaccine reluctant section of our population, isn't it time to come down hard on the people with co-morbidities which have been brought on by their poor lifestyle choices and who are more likely to need hospital treatment and swamp the NHS? They are as big a problem as the people not wanting the vaccine.

Specifically being overweight and obese (which costs the NHS a lot of money in normal times), smokers, Type 2 diabetics and people with heart disease.

A few ideas:

- Putting obese ppl in exercise camps until they have reduced their weight to something approaching healthy
- Increase the tax/cut the benefits of these ppl
- Ban the overweight from restaurants or restrict their calorie intake when there to meals under 600kcal

You've been reading too many Judge Dredd comic strips related to the League of Fatties.

 

[KnaresboroughBlue]

Understand your point to a degree but 64% of adults in the U.K. are either overweight or obese. That’s a lot of ppl who can afford to eat healthier choosing not to. They are a legitimate target when it comes to protecting our beloved National Health Service.

64%? That can't be right surely. If so, that's bloody awful.

 

[The Northern Baptist]

64%? That can't be right surely. If so, that's bloody awful.

Took the data from here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03336/

 

[KnaresboroughBlue]

Took the data from here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03336/

Cheers. Quite shocking. Are the BMI figures an accurate reflection or is it one of those 'if you're not skinny, you're obese' data sets?

 

[Octavian]

to be fair … didn’t see many obese people back then.

Goerring was a fat fucker

 

[unsworthblue]

Heroic are the nurses and the doctors working non stop to save the lives of the good, the bad, the ugly and even the prawns who pop onto internet forums from time to time to make jibes because they have nothing better to do.

Posting numbers on here is a doddle compared to that kind of heroism. But at least it has a purpose.

Much easier to be an anonymous internet warrior moaning into the ether and hoping to hear an echo.

Good grief you really do believe what you do is helping ,ok you crack on if it gives you a warm feeling inside

 

[trumpton]

Don’t agree with most of that. what about people taking personal responsibility they know eating takeaways 5 times a week is bad. And that is rubbish about fast food being cheaper, a lean protein (chicken, 5% fat beef, turkey, smoked bass fillets etc) are under £1 a portion, rice or potato is next to nothing and brocolli, cauliflower and other green veg is about 60p. It’s an easy excuse saying it’s cheaper to eat junk. A curry or Chinese is at least £6 compared to £2.50 for a healthy meal.

At least eating takeaway they are paying VAT.