By Amanda Platell
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Dangerously obese: Georgia, 19, from Aberdare, South Wales, is Britain's fattest teenager weighing around 63 stone
The numbers alone are staggering. It took 40 medics, policemen, firemen and builders eight hours to rush 63 stone teenager Georgia Davis to hospital. The 19-year-old had not moved from her bed for six months.
An extreme case, indeed, but it does highlight a much wider social problem. Never mind the thousands of pounds it cost to transport Georgia into hospital, £4.2 billion is spent by the NHS every year to treat obese people, a figure that is predicted to double by 2050 as obesity rates rise.
Yes, I realise that in some rare instances obesity is a genuine illness. But for the vast majority, it is simply a lifestyle choice. If fat people ate less and exercised more, they would not need costly NHS treatment. It’s that simple.
Yet no one in Westminster has the courage to confront this massive drain on resources for fear of being seen as ‘nasty’ and losing ‘the fat vote’. That’s not just cowardly, it’s cruel.
Nick Clegg was blathering on about social mobility this week, blaming the class system for robbing poorer children of the chance to succeed. Yet obesity can blight a child’s life chances to an even greater degree â€" setting them up for years of ill-health and low self-worth.
In towns such as West Bromwich, one- third of all children are overweight or morbidly obese. What are their life chances? Never mind social mobility â€" any form of mobility is already a struggle.
And what have our political leaders done to help? While baskin g in the glow of the Olympics, they have stood by as school playing fields have been flogged off and teachers have stopped bothering with most sporting activity. As for domestic science â€" the best way of teaching children how to cook and eat healthily â€" that’s deemed far too old-fashioned and sexist.
Of course, parents are to blame as well. I believe allowing a child to get obese is a form of abuse. After all, if a youngster came into AE with bruises all over their body, social services would be called and the child taken into care.
Yet when children turn up in hospital because they’re so fat their organs can’t cope, they are sent home to the parents whose negligence has arguably caused just as much damage.
In Georgia’s case, she was once Britain’s fattest teenager, but a trip to a fat camp in America enabled her to lose 15 stone. Then she was sent home to her 18-stone mother and ballooned again.
How many other youngsters will be allowed to eat themselves towards an early grave before the Government wakes up to the scale of the problem?
We managed to turn the tide on smoking with firm government policies. Smoking in public places was banned, taxes on tobacco were raised and the message was sent out â€" smoking is bad for you and places an unfair burden on society.
As a result, the number of smokers in Britain has fallen to the lowest level since records began and deaths from related cancers have plummeted.
It was unpopular at the t ime, yet it worked. Now’s the time to do the same with the obese.
Female Cambridge students have outraged traditionalists by posting images of themselves posing in knickers in a Rear Of The Year competition.
Still, perhaps you can’t blame them. Some well-educated young women are forging an entire career from their behinds, aren’t they, Pippa?
A wise choice? Two-year-old Kai Rooney was photographed swigging from a can of Diet Coke
Why give Kai coke?
The most surprising picture of the Rooneys on holiday this week was not the one of Wayne cavorting with blondes in a nightclub, but of Coleen carrying their son Kai back through the airport.
The two-year-old was swigging from a can of Diet Coke. Laced with artificial sweeteners, chemical flavourings and caffeine, was it really a wise drink to give to a jet-lagged toddler? Even Coca-Cola itself doesn’t market its products to the under-12s.
Still, I suppose we should be grateful it wasn’t an alcopop.
Westminste r Noticeboard
Theresa May, the woman who branded the Tories the Nasty Party, has jumped on the latest PC bandwagon and come out in support of gay marriage. Our ridiculous Home Secretary, who has the political spine of an earthworm, claims it will make society stronger. Wrong. What would make society stronger would be promoting heterosexual marriage by giving tax breaks to married couples. But then that would be far too unfashionable for Theresa and her amazing Technicolor wardrobe.
Former MEP Nick Clegg warns us that the UK will have to play a full role to help Greece out of the current Euro crisis. That’s Europhile gobbledegook for handing out even more billions to bail out these socialist tax-dodgers. If Clegg loves Europe so much, why doesn’t he do us all a favour and move back to Brussels.
In thrall to the seductive power of News Corp, the office of the fiercely ambitious Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt made 191 calls, sent 158 emails and 1,056 texts to the Murdochs’ key lobbyist during the attempted £8 billion takeover of BSkyB. I doubt his lovely wife had half as much attention.
Alastair Campbell has taken a spin job with a big PR company. His brief includes helping to develop the communication skills of young staff. Given Campbell’s ‘skills’ included thuggish bullying, vicious threats and outright lying, heaven help them.
Mutt Madness
Is she barking? Stunning single mother Charlize Theron says her two dogs are helping care for her newly-adopted son
Oscar-winning single mum Charlize Theron says she doesn’t need a father to help care for her newly adopted son Jackson . . . because she’s got two pet dogs instead.
‘People keep saying: “Oh, you’re a single mom.†And I’m like: “Actually, I’ve got two boys helping me out.â€
‘From the moment this baby came into our home, those two dogs have never been more in love. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.’
Even by Tinseltown standards, truly barking.
A goalkeeper who killed two young boys in a drunken car smash plans to return to his lucrative football career. Luke McCormick, 28, is likely to play for Swindon Town when he gets out of prison after serving just three and a half years for driving at 97mph while twice over the drinking limit when he killed Arron Peak, ten, and his eight-year-old brother Ben.
McCormick believes the best way he can make amends is to return to the pitch, as the boys were football fans. What a kick in the face for their loving parents.
Olympic watch
The Olympic flame had barely set off around Britain before Sarah Milner Simonds had flogged her torch and uniform on eBay for £153,100.
It seems she was duped â€" the bid was a hoax and she may be landed with a £15,000 b ill from eBay. I guess that’s the price of putting greed above glory.
Stung by claims that beach volleyball is not a real Olympic sport and is only popular because it’s played in bikinis, the British ladies’ team insist they are legitimately there for their athleticism.
Why not put it to the test then, girls, and play in tracksuits? They’d be lucky to sell a dozen tickets.
Cannes you believe it? Kelly Brook, pretending she actually uses phone booths...
Kelly Brook (right) poses in stilettos and a slashed swimsuit in a phone booth at Cannes. I wonder who she was calling.
‘Hello, is that emergency services? I need urgent assistance . . . I haven’t had my picture in the papers for at least a fortnight.’
First, Simon Cowell put the deeply unstable Britney Spears on the judging panel of American X Factor.
Now he’s given us Geri Halliwell, who announced her arrival on British X Factor this week by climbing on top of her limo showing off her knickers and bellowing through a foghorn.
I’m all for care in the community, but this is getting ridiculous.
Tiny tots are not racists
Around 88,000 children as young as three have been branded racists for calling other kids silly names such as ‘broccoli head’. At school I was referred to as ‘monkey’, appropriately enough as I had hair like a chimp and adored climbing trees. Racism is deplorable, but surely a child of three innocently giving their friends a funny nickname does not make them paid-up members of the BNP.
Most of us are lucky to get 20 days off work in a year, yet fresh from their 20-day Easter break, MPs are now away for 17 days to celebrate the Jubilee. This as we descend into a deeper recession and economists say extra holidays harm the economy. Mind you, with this shower in charge, perhaps it would be better if MPs took more time off.
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Her mother says she is sorry she hadn't done more to control her daughter's eating. But she is only too ready now to accept (at tax payers' expense) the bungalow, to enable her daughter to receive care and make the various journeys to hospital or clinic for treatment, once she is released from her current hospital stay. It really says it all, doesn't it? Perhaps Georgia herself, could be helped with hypnotherapy. It's worth a try, at least. The article doesn't mention it, but it has helped others in the past with various addictions. BUT the main thing in cracking any addiction, is YOU have to want to do it for yourself. Not for anyone else, but for yourself. Another hurdle for Georgia, but I'm sure with the correct backup she can win this war and live the life she and everyone else who knows her feels she deserves. It is so sad to see such a young girl at her wit's end as she is at present.
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Stop feeling sorry for her, as if she is some sort of victim and has no part to play in reaching 63 stones at the age of 19. We are only encouraging her and her family by this misguided sympathy. They should be made to pay for the costs of the 'rescue', or at least part of the costs - hit them in their pcoket, that is how to educate her and her family.
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Amanda Platell is right about children's playing fields being sold off, but another problem is because we have stupid, politically correct laws that have been enforced so sports days are not allowed to take place, because if a child finished last their self-esteem will be affected, though I'm sure schools still hold sports day events and so they should, not only that, because of Health and Safety children aren't allowed to play simple, gentle games like hopscotch, never mind 'rough and tumble' games in case they fall over and the school is sued. But that said there comes a time when people reach an age where they need to take responsibility for their own actions with regards to eating sensibly in moderation and taking regular exercise.
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this girl was given a very expensive chance a few years ago by going to a boot camp in america, and she lost weight and looked good. But as soon as she got home I think her mum took over and just gave her junk food which costs more than a sensible diet. Why should the rest of thew sensible taxpayers have to pay towards her. I know this sounds very hard but she has shown she will never do it, so tough love either has to take over or she will pay the ultimate penalty.
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In an interview, she said she and her daughter had started comfort eating after her husband Geoff died when Georgia was five. ------This started when she was five, no child of five needs to comfort eat, they eat what they are given. Her mother delibrately give her daughter too much food to justify her own habits and too make her daughter share her unhappiness. Her daughter had to become her carer too. The bond they have is purely through food and her mother's need to keep her daughter dependent on her, so she can never leave. All it takes is a little reading to understand what happened. Georgia was not able even get food for herself, it was taken too her, she was feed so she was never about to leave her mother, who is emotionally dependant on her. But I don't expect understanding from Amanda Platell.
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Ms Patell: The BNP are PRO-BRITISH NOT RACIST. If being pro-British makes one a racist then I will have to hold my hand up to being racist also. And I couldn't care less how you or anyone else feels about it. You won't frighten me with that slur on people's character. Racism works both ways - just listen to the words of certain rap songs. You are just as bad as those teachers throwing the racist word around like it's confetti. Shame on you!
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People who expect the Govt to intervene on personal matters, does anyone remember the recent furore over the VAT on reheated pies? Keep dairy, vegetables and fruit and meat /fish protein soya all VAT free and double the VAT on everything else - the nation might learn to cook properly. Issue food vouchers for the previously mentioned foods only to anyone on Benefits, and extra allowance needed for long slow cooking. Buy back the schools playing fields and get the kids involved in sport again ( don't blame the teachers for no school grounds, it was local councils who sold them off) AND DO something about playground bullying which leads to most eating disorders, either starving for comfort or eating for it. But in Georgia's case she needs to live well away from her mother, and she'll feel a lot bettr about herself
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Amanda you have a world 1st, no one has ever linked the word wise ( wisdom ) with a Rooney. 'was it really a wise drink to give to a jet-lagged toddler?'
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Isn't anorexia a lifestyle choice as well? Why can't they just eat more, why do they have to look thin? Why don't we call them stick insects and other insults after all they cost the NHS probably the same amount of money as the fatties. I keep saying it until I am blue in the face anorexia and obesity are two sides of the same coin. I do not endorse either and would like people to be healthy but I hate how the ones we don't like the look of can be insulted whilst the others are treated with kid gloves. It is today's lifestyles that causes both extremes, unhealthy ready meals versus a confused celebrity culture. I swear that if either would do hard work day in day out in the open air, with just enough time to eat and sleep neither would be fat or anorexic.
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If you are stout, or think you might be stout, please contact our movement for the best help, support and prayers as you come out of the larder.
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