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As an obese person, I am very worried about Boris Johnson's plan to tackle obesity which I fear will be more about demonising fat people and blaming them if they get Covid than actually helping us. Two things have been essential for me whenever I have managed to lose weight.
The first is being in the best of physical health. A few years ago, it was only after a physical health problem had been identified and dealt with that I managed to lose significant amounts of weight. The second is being in the best of mental health.
So it doesn't work for GPs to simply tell patients that they are fat. Believe me, they probably already know. If you want to help them lose weight, you'll need to work out what individual support they need and give it to them.
We need to be very careful that we don't stigmatise obese people - not just because it is utterly wrong, but also because it will destroy mental health and be completely counter-productive.
And people need to realise that losing a lot of weight takes a long time. A healthy weight loss is 1-2lb per week so the most people might lose in a very good year would be around 5 stone. Any demonising of obese people risks any progress they might be making.
