30.07.14
NHS staff are too fat, says Simon Stevens
NHS chief executive Simon Stevens says the health service has to “get its own act together” on obesity by helping staff lose weight.
It could mean less junk food in canteens, weight-loss competitions, cycling facilities and more gyms in NHS buildings.
Stevens told The Sun, which claims that more than half of the NHS’s 1.3 million staff are overweight or obese: “It's hard for the NHS to talk about how important this is if we don't get our own act together. I think the NHS has got to take an example in helping our own staff and hopefully other employers will follow suit.
“A lot of the food in hospital canteens, not just for patients, but for staff, is chips and burgers. The NHS as an employer, for our own nurses and other staff, could we offer positive incentives? Yes, I think we could. And some hospitals have begun doing that.”
Almost three-quarters of people aged 45 to 74 in England are either overweight or obese.
Retired GP Francois L P Fouin, writing in the BMJ last year, called NHS obesity a "national disgrace" and said: "Only when people are aware that obesity will affect their employment possibilities will many take their problem seriously. Already I hear cries of unfair discrimination, but recruitment to the armed forces and the police considers physique, and it is in the long term interests of obese people as well as setting an example to the rest of us. Harsh realities such as a lack of enough candidates for NHS posts makes such a policy difficult to implement, but a general directive at least advising would-be recruits not to be, say, more than 10% above average weight, except in exceptional circumstances, would be a start."
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