Dr43%er, please do not think I was directing my post at you. I was writting mine as you were writting yours yesterday and it was me venting my spleen. That said I was once in your position.
I've become disabled over the past seven years and so I was once able bodied and would critisize people who were overweight just as you and others will have. Now I am on the otherside so to speak and I can see how hard it is - It is almost impossible or at least it was until I developed IBS and now that has done me a great favour and I've lost most of the weight I put on.
It would be impossible for anyone to understand what it is like unless you have personal experience or have a chronic condition and are overweight. It is easy to judge though, we are all good at doing this. People who are in chronic pain will sometimes comfort eat. If you are stuck on a hospital waiting list you will become more demoralised and therefore you will then eat more. It is a catch 22 situation.
Then you have the other group of people who cannot eat due to pain but cannot exercise either so cannot burn off even those few calories they do eat. Everyone knows that they are not doing they knees/hips/spine or whatever any good but sometimes it is a case of surviving the day and not thinking about tomorrow.
Smoking could be easier to give up because you CAN give it up. You have to eat to survive, you do not have to smoke. Then again I'm not a smoker!
I have paid for some of my medical care in the past and that is the only way I can see the way forward in the health service. Sometimes I think we will need to pay for what we use because what we have at the momment is in deep doodoo. I agree that it is better than it was ten years ago but not much. This c**p about waiting lists of seeing a doc in three months is just c**p. Every consultant I've wanted to see so far has been longer than that so I must have been that unlucky percentage EVERYTIME!!!!!!!!
(Yeah right)
The nursing staff generally are fantastically committed, can't fault most of them though.