NHS admissions for obesity soar by 20% in a year
HOSPITAL admissions for obesityrelated conditions have risen by almost 20 per cent in a year, affecting twice as many women as men.
Knee and hip problems, heart disease and gallstones are among the leading problems connected to excess weight which are treated by the NHS.
Official figures show a record 617,000 admissions linked to obesity in 2016/17, up from 525,000 the previous year.
Those directly caused by weight, such as gastric band surgery, rose by 8 per cent, according to NHS Digital data.
Women accounted for 66 per cent of the overall total. Five of the top 25 reasons for hospital admissions involving obesity were linked to pregnancy.
The top ten were: knee arthritis, pregnancy complications, coronary heart disease, gallstones, hip arthritis, two types of complications in labour, treatment for obesity itself, knee cartilage or ligaments, and chest or neck pain.
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘ It’s absolutely shameful that we have a fifth more people in a year that are adding to our over-burdened NHS because they’re fat … we are going to continue to see this trend until the Government introduces a more meaningful obesity strategy.’
Obesity rates have more than trebled in the past 30 years with 26 per cent of adults in England now obese, costing the NHS more than £1billion a year.
Combined with improved diagnosis and treatment, this has led to nine times as many related admissions as there were a decade ago, up from 67,211 in 2006/07.
Of the admissions in 2016/17 where obesity was recorded as the direct cause, nearly three in four patients were female.
Women also accounted for 77 per cent of the 6,700 who had weight loss procedures such as stomach stapling and gastric band surgery. And carrying excess weight during pregnancy was linked to more than 50,000 of the admissions.
Almost half of pregnant women are overweight or obese at their first scan, making miscarriage, premature birth or dangerously high blood pressure more likely.
Obesity is projected to overtake smoking as the top cause of cancer in the next 20 years. In England, 30 per cent of women are overweight and 27 per cent obese, compared with 40 per cent and 26 per cent of men respectively.
The report said 21 per cent of men and a quarter of women are classed as ‘inactive’, and only about a quarter consume five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
Professor Jonathan Valabhji, NHS England clinical director for obesity, said there ‘needs to be a concerted effort’ to address this ‘public health crisis’.