CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"Lothians obesity: Record high but most in denial"
(12 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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No mention of active travel
Posted 12 years ago # -
Oh, I thought it had?
"....four times more likely to attempt suicide [by going on a road], twice as likely to use A&E..."
Posted 12 years ago # -
Keith's going to have to build a LOT more motorways and bypasses to sort this mess out.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@kaputnik, I think what you meant to say was that Alex Neil will have to hypothecate NHS funding to pay for all the gastric bands, liposuction, and coronary bypass operations that will be needed in coming years. Oh yeah and sturdier ambulances for the obese patients, mobility scooters for those no longer able to walk due to clogged arteries or sheer weight, and of course bigger hospital car parks so the obesity victims can drive to their appointments more conveniently.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Crowriver - amusing, however sadly I think a lot of the chonically ill of Scotland are, as the report suggests, those who are worst off and the most dependant on our patchy "public transport" system. There are 30% of households in Scotland that have no access to a car (2011 Scottish Government statistic) (40% in urban areas). There is a clear and direct correlation between household income and access to a car - in the bottom income brackets (up to £10k p.a.), some 60% of people have no access to a car (that's access, not ownership). The Scottish Government is failing every single one of those persons by p***ing the transport budget away on completely unnecessary trunk road expansion schemes.
It's interesting to see just how few people in the upper income brackets don't have access to a car.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/08/17093111/9
The problem of course is far deeper than that - folks who earn lots (or even just the average) also can and do suffer from obesity. There's any number of factors from diet to drink to smoking to depreivation to chronic inactivity to sugar being the main component of a lot of people's diets... Scotland just seems, by and large, to excel in most of them.
Posted 12 years ago # -
It suits public health professionals to ignore all of the cross-correlations involved. When they talk about ill-health and (a) obesity (b) smoking (c) inactivity (d) poor diet (e) excessive alcohol consumption they routinely fail to account for the clustering of these problems in the same sub-groups of the population.
Posted 12 years ago # -
This reminds me of the Wall-e animated film, where all those obese people float around in seats in the spacecraft unable walk or even stand...
Posted 12 years ago # -
'No access to a car' is an odd response in places with schemes such as the City Car Club. Now to be fair, it could reflect people in these places who do not have a driving license or otherwise do not meet the T&Cs of these schemes.
But I think it's more likely that the question was interpreted by most respondents as one of 'ownership'.Posted 12 years ago # -
The car club hasn't exactly stretched itself making cars accessible in Edinburgh's poorer areas.
Posted 12 years ago # -
What I found intriguing was the 8% of households who had access to two or more cars despite incomes between £0-£6000 p.a. Also the 35% who had access to one car at these income levels.
Pensioners? Remote rural poor? Self employed tradesmen/consultants with car outgoings included in business costs for tax purposes? Borrowing a relative's/neighbour's car? Members of a car club?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Any or all of those things. Also just pensioners with low incomes (but maybe masses of savings) who own cars outright. There's quite a lot of selective refusal of income sources either as outright refusal or by reporting zero from individual income sources.
Posted 12 years ago #
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