Demand for the NHS has now overtaken supply to a critical level. Not only is it still reeling from the trauma of the pandemic with resulting delays to scheduled care, but the NHS is managing a population that is sicker than ever before in its history.  It is clear that a truly revolutionary approach to public health is now not just wise, but essential. As things stand, we are eating our way to becoming the most overweight nation in Europe.

This has put such a strain on the health system, it risks collapse. Non-communicable diseases - cardiovascular disease, cancers, chronic respiratory disease, and type 2 diabetes mellitus - cause an estimated 89% of UK deaths (1), drains as much as 75% of health budgets with The Department of Health releasing data back in 2011 noting that "total long-term care expenditure was forecast to rise by 29% to £26.4 billion" by 2022 (2). This underlines the worsening trend in diet-induced illness, with obesity being the common denominator in all four of these non-communicable diseases. Nearly 12 years on and the government response has been inadequate.

Britain’s worsening obesity epidemic

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warns that obesity has already reached “epidemic proportions” in Europe, causing 200,000 cancer cases and 1.2 million deaths a year. The UK is currently 4th in its European obesity rankings and in ten years is predicted to top the charts (3). Since 1993 the proportion of adults in England who are overweight or obese has risen from 52.9% to 64.3%, and 14.9% to 28.0% respectively (4). These statistics show no sign of slowing with new data suggesting that by 2030 UK figures will worsen passing from 70-74% of men and 59-64% of women newly classified as either overweight or obese (5). As alarmingly, the same trends can be seen in child obesity rates with 14.4% of reception age children (age 4-5) now obese (up from 9.9% in 2019/20) with similar increases across all older age groups (4).

Favouring cure over prevention, the NHS performed over 4,035 bariatric surgery procedures in the financial year 2021/22 (6). The data on diabetes is just as shocking with over 7,957 major amputations and 21,738 minor amputations performed during the three-year period of 2017/18 to 2019/20 (7). By 2035/36, Type 2 diabetes is projected to cost the NHS £15 billion a year, or one and a half times as much as cancer does today (8,9) which is equal to 10% of the NHS £153 billion commissioning budget for 2022/23 (10). Much of this could be avoided with the right preventative care in place. The UK population is critically overweight, and the burden of obesity has driven the NHS to bursting point.

BANT in Action

BANT practitioners regularly work with individuals and groups to support adoption of improved dietary and lifestyle practices. One such example is an online group programme, ran by two BANT members, Isabel Hemmings, and Sue Wharton. In 12 weeks, the participants lost an average of 7.2 kg (15.9 lbs) of weight, 8.5 cm (3.4 inches) of their waist circumference and if that is not significant enough, their average mental health score improved by 8.5 units based on The Edinburgh Warwick Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEBWMS). This is not an isolated incidence and could be easily incorporated to support NHS initiatives.

BANT continues to promote healthy food choices with their ‘Food for your Health’ resources launched to tackle the rise in diet-induced illness. Resources are free and open-access with the aim of providing nutrition and dietary education to individuals who may not otherwise have access to nutrition support. Support that the government is failing to provide, and the NHS is unable to deliver. Investing more in prevention and redistributing the burden on the NHS should be the governments number one priority and it could be the only way to save the NHS.

Read the full article on Politics Home: https://www.politicshome.com/members/article/we-know-prevention-is-better-than-the-cure-and-it-could-be-the-only-way-to-save-the-nhs