Following on from the Weight Watchers survey into fat blindness, another slimming club, Slimming World, has published a survey indicating that up to 10 million Brits are unwilling or unable to acknowledge their weight issues.
In a survey carried out by the polling service, YouGov, fewer than one in ten people believed their extra pounds were a problem – but more than one in 4 people were clinically obese when measured.
More than 52% of the obese people surveyed said they thought they ate a healthy diet, further indicating that many people’s flawed perception of what constitutes a healthy weight or lifestyle extends to their food habits. Many people are so blind to their weight and body shape that they are not aware that they actually need to be on a weight loss diet rather than just maintaining the diet that they already have.
Slimming World has warned that the data shows that 1 in 4 obese people do not realise that their weight is putting their health at risk. Dr Jaqui Lavin, the head of nutrition at Slimming World, said that perceptions of what constitutes a weight problem were changing as the UK population got heavier.
She added that this was especially worrying as being obese was far more likely to cause someone to experience ill-health, citing statistics that the morbidly obese were 10 times more likely than someone of a healthy weight to describe their health as very poor, and that more than a third of the morbidly obese had high blood pressure.