almost ¼ of the adult population in the United Kingdom is classified as obese

Information released by the Conservative Party in the UK shows that firemen are being called out on a regular basis in the West Midlands to help with severely obese men and women who are too heavy to walk and need special lifting to get around.

The information available shows that in under two years the West Midlands ambulance service had to ask for special assistance from the fire service a total of 28 times which would have cost the taxpayer almost £65,000.  The Conservative Party released the information to highlight the growing obesity epidemic and make people aware that it is having a big effect on the efficiency of the emergency services.

The Shadow Health Minister Mike Penning said that the figures were very worrying and that more needed to be done to prevent the problem becoming worse. Jeremy Tomlinson from the University of Birmingham called the figures a “wake up call” and said that information like this made it extremely clear exactly how serious the UK’s obesity problem was. Figures show that almost ¼ of the adult population in the United Kingdom is classified as obese.

A couple of days ago Ukmedix News reported that in America the problem was getting so severe that fire services were suffering as even their staff were becoming too overweight to work to the best of their abilities.

A spokesman from the National Obesity Forum said that firemen being asked to lift up obese individuals was a complete misuse of the fire service and commented that it was preventing them from doing what they were trained to do. While it hasn’t happened yet if firefighters are put under too much pressure to help lifting obese individuals one day they will get to a fire too late to save a life and this will cause outrage among the public. 

Ukmedix News thinks that it’s about time that the government stopped talking and started acting.