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Bigger people, bigger bills

Wider crematorium furnaces will have to be built across the U.K. to cater for “stouter clients” as Britain’s obesity epidemic increases the pressure on public services, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned.

Days after a senior government adviser declared that rising obesity poses as great a threat as terrorism, the LGA outlined a series of measures that will have to be taken as Britain becomes the obesity capital of the world.

These will span the generations. With figures showing that one million children will be obese by 2012, social services will increasingly have to intervene in cases of “dangerously overweight” children.

At the other end of the life cycle, town halls will have to widen crematorium furnaces to cater for what the LGA calls the “spiralling numbers of stouter clients.”

The report said that coffins usually measure 16 to 20 inches across. Lewisham council in south-east London recently ordered a special 44-inch cremator from America, which has taken coffins from as far afield as the West Midlands and Gloucester. A new furnace at Mintlyn Crematorium in Bawsey, which can take coffins a metre wide, was recently installed by King’s Lynn & West Norfolk council.

The LGA says that social services will also have to play a greater role in monitoring parents who do not do enough to prevent their children becoming obese. Parents may even have to be charged with parental neglect if they do not deal with their child’s obesity.

David Rogers, LGA spokesperson on public health, said: “Councils are increasingly having to consider taking action where parents are putting children’s health in real danger. As the obesity epidemic grows these tricky cases will keep on cropping up. The UK is fast becoming the obesity capital of the world and the effect of spiralling obesity amongst children is particularly worrying.”

The LGA outlined other ways in which obesity is increasing pressure on local councils:

- Furniture in school classrooms, gyms and canteens is having to be made wider for large children.

- Fire services are being called in to winch obese people from buildings in emergencies. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service has considered charging police and hospitals a fee if they have to move grossly overweight people.

- Ambulances are being equipped with extra-wide stretchers and winches. New ambulances in Wales have been fitted with wider stretchers.

- Social services faces increased costs of caring for people with illnesses related to obesity, including arthritis and diabetes.

Rogers added: “The nation’s expanding waistline threatens to have a devastating impact on our public services.”

The warning from the LGA comes days after Professor David Hunter, a government adviser, said: “The threat to our future health is just as significant as the current security threat.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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