Reducing people's obesity is a cash-effective way of preventing complex problems - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: John G Davies, East Morton, Keighley.
Sarah Todd has cobbled together a fine set of stereotypes, from the little old lady dealing with the jobsworth in the Post Office to the grass-roots farmer.
Do journalists, like Sarah, live in the real world, the same one as the lads in vans? Was I, as a science teacher, part of the metropolitan elite?
Perhaps the post-office “jobsworth” has a more important role in society than a journalist, paying out pensions, taking in cash - now that there are no more high street banks, as well as dealing with mail.
The “real world” is a complex place with care-workers and taxi drivers as important in their way as farmers, techies and financial wizards.
If she put two and two together regarding the NHS and Mounjaro, she would realise reducing people's obesity is a cash-effective way of preventing the complex problems, such as diabetes with all its side effects, that this disorder causes. Prevention is better than cure.
Why doesn't she ask ‘why are so many people obese nowadays’? I have a class photo from 1956 and none of the lads are obese. When I started teaching in 1965, there were only two overweight lads out of 800 students. What is the proportion now? It is a problem even in France and Italy where food is close to a religion.
The reason seems to be what people are eating, rather than the amount. The finger points at the industrially produced foodstuffs. Another example of illnesses, like pneumoconiosis and asbestosis, caused by careless businesses.