nanny state

Yep, count me in, pammy. Mind you, I just ignore it all anyway .

I've been watching the programmes on Pathe news. Some of the information films they showed during the war were telling people what to do and how to do it. So, one could say that the nanny state attitude has been around a long time. I look at any information given as just that, information, then consider the merits and make my own choices. Now, where did that bottle of wine go?

I think I like to know about research and the impact that various medicines /food/drinks /lifestyle may have on my health if it is new research because that enables me to make an educated choice.
However I am tired of the bloomin' obvious being headline news and being presented as something new!

Sadly there are a scary number of people who do not use their common sense re lifestyle choices and often they are also parents so that has an impact on their children..unfortunately they also rarely follow 'guidelines' anyway!!!!

It's enough to drive one to drink!

8kitty* here is your weekly quota

Don't drink it all at once, or that will be a BINGE!

anagram I have not been a binge drinker for years but seems I might become one again now the rules have changed!

And me

I don't even know what the new rules are! I don't need to know because I'm not going to overindulge. Do rules/guidelines actually stop anyone from overindulging if they were going to anyway? It certainly doesn't look as if they do.

They're not actually new guidelines, Bags. It's just an Oxford study that claims we should drink no more than three small glasses of wine a week, which would save 4,500 lives a year.

Should have added 'they claim'!

Can you point me to some info about this news item online, please? Don't do telly or radio.

String of questions of course! Where in Oxford? What study group? Who funded it? etc. Even Oxford produces rubbish sometimes.

Oh, it's OK. Found something on the Beeb. Just going to read it.

According to the front page of the Daily Mail Bags, we should now drink no more than three glasses of wine per WEEK . Fortunately, there is still time to add another bottle of gin to this week's shopping list.

I was pleased it not specifically mention gin or rum..I might be OK

I do not think guidelines make a huge difference though you do hear people say I have had my five today when referring to fruit and veg so maybe some have increased the amount of F&V they eat.
Think people more aware of different type of fats and of 'hidden' sugars. It will have informed and made a difference to some folk..but others will do as they like/ have always done .
Smoking restrictions has had an impact in some aspects I think. Not sure if there have been a drop in cigarette sales though.

There have been studies (nearly wrote stuffies) which concluded that eating five F & V portions a day doesn't make a scrap of difference to whatever it was they were supposed to make a difference to. Was it supposed to prevent some form of cancer? It might take me a while to find out where, who and what, but the stuffies studies were probably at least as good as this latest Poxford one.

I wonder if that was reported in the DM too

Sorry. Just being wicked . It's what nanny-statism does to me.

Quite, Bags. And the last government admitted that the number of units for the so-called 'safe' level of alcohol consumption had been 'plucked out of the air', and had no medical or scientific basis.

Funny you should mention that, nag. DH just said the same thing!

Same with daily F & V numbers as well. Sigh!

Does a government act on properly researched information or just their spin doctors 'good ideas'? Discuss

I just think the money spent on all this research could be better used in providing young people from the less privileged areas information on how to use their available money more wisely, i.e. if you can get them to school, have cookery lessons and show them how to cook a decent meal, instead of a bag of crisps and a cola, or perhaps start a programme for young unmarried mums on how they can best use their allowances by providing their children with nutritious meals - after all these are the people we are going to rely on for state pensions in the future, if they can find work. Sorry, I do have a thing about getting people to look after themselves, starting at a very young age, and I really don't know why I assume it is only the under-privileged who need the education, it's is just that they seem to be the ones who hit the head-lines.

Zooming out a bit, if no one had done the research on the lifestyles of 40,000 British doctors in the 1950s we would all be smoking 40 a day because we still believed the adverts that said it was good for us.
And the state does have an interest in our health, because it pays the bills when we get ill. So it is their business.
I read somewhere recently (and I cannot vouch for its authenticity) it is not the healthier people who live to be very old that cost the most money to the NHS - they tend to go downhill quite rapidly when they go. It's the much younger people who develop chronic conditions as a result of smoking, drinking, lack of exercise and overeating. Because when they go into hospital they often recover and require years of further treatment.
(Yes I know lots of people develop chronic conditions having had blameless lives - but the ranks of the self-inflicted are growing rather rapidly)