Very wide coffins often cannot fit into the crematoria...

What most individuals are not aware of is that being overweight or obese costs vast amounts of money not just for you but also for the country that you live in. We’ve written about this before at Ukmedix News and explained that the National Health Service in the UK is under a lot of financial strain due to obesity and all of its related diseases. However economists also argue that the country as a whole suffers because obesity leads to lack of productivity by the workforce which eventually affects on the profitability of a company or a government department.

At Ukmedix news we have come across a previously unknown cost of obesity that is worrying local councils all over the UK namely the cost of cremating obese people. Because there are so many of these people in the UK now, the market for big coffins has risen greatly over the last ten years. A standard coffin is normally about 20in. wide but obese people sometimes need coffins that are up to 40in. wide.

The problem is that these very wide coffins often cannot fit into the crematoria and thus relatives are faced with embarrassing situations when it becomes apparent. In some cases the relatives of the deceased person find that they must ring up crematoria all over the UK in order to find one that will accommodate their obese relatives. In order to help relatives, local councils all over the UK are having to spend thousands and thousands of pounds improving and upgrading their facilities so that they can manage with the growing number of obese deceased people.

In all over 400,000 cremations happen in the UK every year and special furnaces are having to be imported from America which has for many years been coping with this problem and has special crematoria that are up to 44in. wide. In the future unless something is done in the UK about the growing numbers of obese individuals, the costs associated with all aspects of obesity will only continue to rise.