Rotherham gets NHS Fit Camp!

It has been revealed that overweight people living in Rotherham, Yorkshire are to be sent to NHS funded ‘fit camps’ in a new bid to improve the overall health of the town.

The Government spends up to £7 billion a year in treatments and state benefits linked directly to obesity and obesity related illnesses.

“These obesity figures are shocking but the people in the town want to do something about it.”

The scheme is set out to help more than 2,000 families from Rothertham and is set to cost the health service hundreds of thousands of pounds. Rotherham, Yorkshire, is now believed to be a capital of obesity, with nearly 60% of families overweight and 600 residents said to weigh 25 stone or more.

Patients will be expected to attend a slimming school every Saturday for three months and will be taught how to cook healthy meals.

Those considered the most seriously overweight, expected to be about 40 people so far, will attend a six-week programme at the Carnegie Weight loss camp at Leeds Metropolitan University – costing £3,250 per person.

Individuals with chronic weight problems will be offered operations like gastric band surgery in a bid to halt the obesity epidemic in the town.

Carol Weir, public health specialist at Rotherham Primary Care Trust said: “For the first time we’ve decided to make obesity our priority as it is a major health burden.

“These obesity figures are shocking but the people in the town want to do something about it,” she said.

“This level of investment is long overdue. You just have to walk down a street in anywhere in Britain to see there’s a problem. But people cannot do it alone. They need help from the NHS.”

Professor Paul Gately at Leeds Metropolitan university, an obesity expert, heralded the scheme as “visionary”.

“I hope other trusts follow suit,” he added.