Britain’s Bewildering “Get Back to Work” Schemes
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
A huge shortage of labor in the United Kingdom following the withdrawal from the European Community, the pandemic, and a discouraging low wage economy where as many as 1 million or more vacancies go unfilled has resulted in some oddly eccentric proposals to pressurize the sick into taking up work. Those proposals include giving obese people weight jabs and sending special job coaches into psychiatric hospitals to offer them pep talks to return to work. The aim of those measures is to boost Britain's flagging productivity in the economy.
No it's not April Fool's Day yet!
“I think those drugs could be very important. This drug will be very helpful to people who want to lose weight, need to lose weight, very important for the economy, so people can get back into work. As I have said time and again, we need more money for our National Health Service, but we have got to think differently,” declared the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. His words are supported by the Health Secretary Wes Streeting who claimed that the use of wonder drugs such as Tirzerputide could have 'a monumental impact on getting more people working.'
Towards this aim the government is sponsoring pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly to examine the impact of the anti-obesity drug treatment on the impact of the drug Mounjaro on weight loss and on diabetes prevention.
The 'logic' behind those proposals is that obesity costs the N.H.S. about 6.5 billion pounds a year. A specialist on obesity Doctor Zofia Bajorek stated that obese people often can't obtain jobs because "People with obesity are seen as lazy or less conscientious. Because of that, they have less success in recruitment and, even if they are recruited, they have less pay. There is still this open stigma.'
However, those proposals have not gone down well with many people in Britain. In some cases, they have invited ridicule as well as disbelief. For instance, is the government suggesting poor performance in the economy is due to people who are overweight or faking psychiatric symptoms in order to avoid working?
A 52-year-old carer, Mary, {not her real name} from the town of Campeltown, Argyll {on the west coast of Scotland} stated, “I heard on the news the Labour government are going to send Department of Work and Pension -'job coaches’ or whatever they are called into psychiatric hospitals to get patients into work. They are also going to give anti-obesity jabs to the unemployed. I kid you not. I am very concerned about the Labour government's idea to send coaches into psychiatric hospitals. This seems to be utterly mad. What are they playing at? Then they have plans to offer anti-obesity jabs {Ozempic} to unemployed people who are overweight. Right now, I'm thinking I should have voted Tory. Words fail me.”
On hearing those proposals Mary added, “I'm not unemployed. I'm a carer but I still feel like the scum of the earth. Carers are seen as frauds and scroungers too.” A widely experienced psychiatric nurse stated, “The Labour government 's plans to send 'job coaches' into psychiatric hospitals will never work . Psychiatric wards are filled with very unwell people and it would be nothing more than abuse.”
You can readily comprehend why many obese and psychiatric patients may feel offended. They wonder if the government is insinuating if not openly suggesting they are to blame for the shortage of Labour in Britain as well as the staggering cost of the National Health Service. Perhaps the biggest reservation about those proposals is that they won't work.
The government has not formulated any clear, coherent or viable plan which would work. Indeed, they have no plan at all. It seems a pie in the sky wish rather than a worked- out plan. According to a recent statement by 200 doctors and medical experts, an unprecedented demand for obesity drugs would overwhelm the N.H.S. As many as 4.1 million people in Britain are eligible for obesity treatment but only about 50,000 of those will obtain treatment by 2028 even with new funds. The N.H.S. is broken. It simply can't handle the obesity epidemic. It is already overwhelmed. In any case, how can a government fixated on imposing cos- cutting via austerity policies suddenly hugely expand the N.H.S ?
The proposals betray how many politicians don't understand the real roots of illnesses such as long term Covid, psychiatric problems, and the complicated problem of obesity. Attempts to examine the wider context of those illnesses in terms of structural economic and social causes rooted in an unfair economic system are not weighed up. Part of the reason is due to the contempt which sociology is treated in Britain. It is dismissed as 'a mickey mouse subject' of no value which should not be in the curriculum of any school or university. But past research by sociologists helps provide a more sober and objective analysis of the underlying causes of obesity.
The state is right to be concerned about the health problems arising in connection with obesity. The level of obesity has risen to alarming levels. A recent report by the N.H.S, in Britain indicates a dramatic rise in obesity among young children as young as 2 years! N.H.S. data show 1 in 10 school pupil now have obesity in England. As many as 9.6 % of reception age school children in 2023-2024 were found obese compared to 9.2 percent in 2022 -2023. This is a huge problem because obesity has been linked to a rise in diabetes, cancer, mental health diseases and fatal heart attacks. Overweight can cut life expectancy by half.
But can the causes of obesity simply be put down to life style choices such as poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and bad diets? That is what children are mainly taught when attending schools. Just observe the right diet and do a little sport and you'll live longer. But many studies indicate that the levels of obesity of children are in the most deprived areas {12.9%} than in the least deprived areas {6%}. Why might this be the case?
Poorer people more often can't afford healthy food! Healthy food such as decent vegetables and fruit is beyond their budget! Do sport and exercise? Try jogging in some very dangerous districts or joining a fitness club. Try doing sport when you are working long hours bent over a computer just to get by. After this you are so worn out you feel like crashing down on your bed! And why do people eat unhealthy comfort food? Because it is cheaper and more readily accessible and cuts stress. People who are stressed out are much more likely to eat junk food.
If you want to genuinely tackle obesity you should cut working hours, provide decent wages, and introduce more humane work schedules and safer sports facilities where women and children feel less intimidated by a bad atmosphere.
A chapter in a book by Malcolm Gladwell, called “Outliers” should make people really reflect on what are the real causes of bad health. Many years ago, medical researchers were confounded by the example of a small town called Roseto in Pennsylvania. In the late 1950's, a physician called Stewart Wolf found that most local people were dying of old age. He could not understand why old people who more often ate a poor diet, didn't do much sport, and some had obesity had so few heart attacks or disease! Despite Rosetans smoking heavily, keeping poor diets, and not doing much exercise they still lived to old age.
The researchers such as Bruhn and Wolf found that the residents of Roseta were not living longer due to genes, diet, exercise or location but a community which genuinely cared and took care of each other. People were less isolated from each other, would often drop into visit each other, and drop by for a chat. They had strong family connections where 3 generations lived under one roof. They noticed the calming and unifying effect of the local church. Local people could join local clubs or organizations thus feeling more empowered and finding an outlet for their talents and creativity. Gladwell mentions how the researchers “picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.” { See page 10 of Malcolm Gladwell's thoughtful book “Outliers: The Story of Success, 2008, London and New York: Penguin.}
What prevented the worst impact on bad health was not so much adopting the right diet or doing sport but strong ties of friendship and community—in addition to the absence of a toxic environment flowing from an over-competitive society which cruelly divided people into so called 'losers' or 'winners'.
In other words, the more real friends and less isolation you have, the less likelihood of a fatal heart attack. It is interesting to note that Wolf worked with a sociologist John Bruhn and sociology graduate students. He did not dismiss sociology as a useless and ineffective subject.
This research was accomplished in the late 1950's! Much more additional research has confirmed those findings.
Any government attempts to come to grips with the obesity epidemic should at least pay attention to the real roots causes of persons becoming overweight rather than coming out with the old traditional trite explanations which don't hold much water!