The UK has the highest obesity rate in Europe

The UK has the highest obesity rate in Europe - reported here today.

Readers of this blog may surmise along with me that there are several reasons for this:

1) the unremitting incorrect and damaging (See British Medical Journal article and Guardian article) advice from health professionals and Government agencies that it is necessary to restrict calorie intake and increase exercise in order to lose weight

2) the reckless inappropriate overprescribing and often overdosing with steroid drugs such as prednisone and prednisolone and HRT, and anti-depressant drugs such as amitriptyline and other tricyclics, and other drugs including some anti-psychotics and many other drugs, all of which cause sodium retention and fluid retention, thus leading to obesity and even morbid obesity and all the other health problems associated with obesity

3) the almost complete failure of doctors and drug company patient inserts and pharmacy warning labels to warn patients taking these powerful medications that these medications cause sodium retention/salt sensitivity and so when taking them no salt or food containing salt should be eaten

4) the shocking failure of either the Department of Health or the General Medical Council to ensure that doctors adhere to drug prescribing protocols

5) the failure to admit to the public that the advice given about the causes of obesity and the advice on how to reduce it has been catastrophically wrong for decades and is still wrong

6) the increasing levels of oestrogen in the domestic water supply

7) the scandalous dereliction of duty by the Chief Medical Officer and Department of Health personnel in previous and present administrations to curb the food companies from adding dangerously high quantities of salt to bread, to processed foods and to ready meals. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html The rising levels of obesity, especially child obesity, are the dire legacy of this dereliction of duty. Even now the legal strictures are insufficient and the nutritional information given on packs of food is still not ideal.

All that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables because the potassium they contain helps to displace excess sodium from the body. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/