Next big drain on the health service: diabetes.

could.u please pm.me with details.as. I am looking to switch insurer

No sweetheart… There’s no ‘healthy way’ to smoke 40 a day.

No, it is individualized – not just a generalization based on your gender.

So you have good genes Jason – or at least youve been lucky so far.
That could change any time.
Get off your high horse

At least he can get up on a high horse not like all the fatties who now like to pretend that obesity is a disease.
He had every right to expect his insurance to be cheaper than people who don’t care about their own health.

That gets my goat too.. Obesity is no more a disease than laziness is. Speaking as someone who was bordering on obese not that long ago, I got up off my ass, changed my lifestyle and dropped 1/3 of my body weight, and I’d freely admit that I’m not exactly “fit”.. But my BMI went from 24.7 to 19.1, and have kept it off for 3 years. If I can do it, anyone can.

Fair play to you Shanti. It takes hard work to get back to fitness. If people want to be overweight that’s their business, but don’t claim it to be a disease or expect health insurance to be the same as a healthy person.
Having a healthy lifestyle isn’t about good genes, it takes effort.

Don’t need a horse Dave I walk, run or cycle instead.

Fair play Santi, I guess it was balanced diet and exercise that you added to your lifestyle.

I say fair play to you too Shanti but don’t think just because it worked for you it will work foe everyone. And fair play to you too Jason – you are fit enough to enjoy your life to the full and you do it – ( I had a look at yr Facebook page and yr pics of your Everest and Kilimanjaro are amazing) but again – you can’t know everyone and the causes for obesity etc are many and varied. Scientists have not discovered a lot of what causes these problems yet. I don’t think you should judge other people just because its not a problem you suffer.

Have to admit, studying nutrition and embarking on a slightly more physical job had a lot to do with it.. Understanding the way food works and *why* certain things are bad for you made quite a difference.. Food is so much nicer when it’s actual food, not processed muck.. I can’t bear most processed foods anymore, they just taste nasty! (Except the chocolate, still a huge weakness lol!)

Exercise and a healthy diet will work for almost everyone Dave. Very few cases of obesity are medical. A tiny minority.
Some people may need psychological help to overcome over eating but that help is there if they really want it.
In most cases it’s lack of desire.

Certain medications can cause weight gain or retention, certain conditions carry the risk of weight gain (hypothyroidism for example) but the vast majority of cases it is very much related to foods.

For example – “white” foods. Or “wheat flour”. It’s in almost everything..
What most people do not realise is that the chemical used to bleach wheat flour to make it white for breads, pastas, cakes and biscuits – alloxan, is the same chemical injected into lab animals to destroy their islets of Langerhans and induce diabetes.
By eating foods with traces of this pancreatic toxin they build up slowly, destroying *our* islets of Langerhans and our ability to manufacture insulin. And we wonder why type 2 diabetes is so prevalent..
And to add insult to injury – many “wholegrain” or “wholemeal” equivalents list wheat flour – eg, white flour as the first ingredient in a quantitive list, they aren’t brown bread – they’re white bread dyed brown to make you pay more for it thinking its more healthy!

Not to mention soy protein Isolates, found in so many things, any type of unfermented soy for that matter, and its’ oestrogenic effect – oestrogen causes changes in the way fat is deposited – usually triggering weight gain, hence why the pill causes weight gain and women tend to be more curvy than men.. Then there’s BPA in plastics, the residue from which has been known to change the sex of fish in streams near plastic manufacturing plants because of its similarity to oestrogen.

It helps to know what to avoid and what to have more of. Just because its marketed as healthy doesn’t mean it is (eg: actimels and nutrigrain bars – more than 6 types of sugar in each), a lot of people who try to lose weight end up falling for the con of “low fat” (which usually means all sugar) or “no sugar” (which means chemical laden crap), which ends up backfiring in so many ways in the long run.

You need to change your relationship to food rather than diet, try and make sure your food is as close to how it was when it grew out of the ground – minimum processing. And learn about balance, something very difficult for us humans to achieve, but worth striving for nonetheless.

I agree totally. And there is nothing wrong with a bit of playstation on a rainy day, but if its dry, get out and play.
Parents need to get kids involved in as many activities as possible. Sure, it can be hard to tell a child no, but it’s better than giving them diabetes and sentencing them to a life long battle with weight/food issues.

In fairness she’s not that bad, the jeans are just too small for her.

So you think somebody who eats crap all their life and doesn’t exercise and say weights 28 or 30stone has made a good decision?

Barry, that’s a bit of an extreme example.

They are not dictating how anybody should live their life. They are simply saying that if you wish to avail of their services then they will take these conditions into account which is only to be expected.

I’m sure they’ve made a good decision trouble is it wasn’t enough to counter act the 1000 bad ones…

Journal, how many of them are actually losing money ?

Insurance Companies are all just a big con. They get money for nothing and then try to wangle their way out of paying legitimate claims any way they can.

Sorry is this article not about life assurance (paid out when policyholder dies) and what puts up the cost of your premium??
Well its not only the bad life style choices that’s taken into consideration it’s also your choice of job career too.