OBESITY BURDEN The HOSPITALS on our
More than 10,000 people are being admitted to hospital because of obesity each year
S OME 30 people a day are admitted to hospital because they are obese, new analysis has revealed.
NHS data shows a total of 10,940 people were admitted to hospital in England and Wales in 2016/17 with a primary diagnosis of obesity one of the highest figures on record. A “primary diagnosis” is the thing that is deemed to have caused the patient’s admission to hospital. That means that if somebody has a heart attack due to obesity, they will receive a primary diagnosis of obesity. Obesity is linked to a range of health problems - including diabetes and cancer, as well as heart problems. Anyone with a body mass index of at least 30 is classified as obese by the NHS.
Records go back as far as 1999/00, when 1,041 people with a primary diagnosis of obesity were admitted to hospital.
That had more than doubled - to 2,063 hospital admissions - by 2004/05.
By 2011/12, the figure had rocketed to 12,001 hospital admissions for obesity - still the highest on record.
Obesity hospital admissions fell slightly in the years after (down to 9,324 in 2014/15), but have since risen for the past two years.
There were 27,329 hospital bed days taken up by people with a primary diagnosis of obesity in 2016/17 meaning they stayed overnight.
Professor Jonathan Valabhji, national clinical director for diabetes and obesity at the NHS, said: “We have been clear that the growing obesity crisis sweeping the country is a public health crisis and the evidence backs it up.
“Obesity is associated with heart attacks, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and a number of other illnesses – causing personal suffering and costing the health service and in turn the taxpayer, billions every year. And for all of those conditions, wherever possible, prevention is preferable to cure. “Our own sugar restrictions, the new sugar tax and the NHS diabetes prevention programme are all part of what needs to be a concerted effort to address obesity.”