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Friday 8 April 2022

More from a hectoring profession



Keeping waist measurement less than half your height ‘good for your health’

People should ensure their waist measurement is less than half their height to keep health problems at bay, an NHS watchdog has said.

For the first time, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) says adults with a body mass index (BMI) under 35 should measure their own waist-to-height ratio as part of wider plans to tackle obesity.



An entire race, a whole caste, saw themselves driven out of their soft, warm couches of idleness, and forced into the struggle for life. The prospect appalled them; birds with shorn wings could not gaze more helplessly on the high trees where they had built, as they thought, their nests out of the reach of evil winds. What could they do with their empty brains? What could they do with their feeble hands?

George Moore - A Drama In Muslin (1886)

Moore was writing about Irish landowning families of the late nineteenth century, but today we have huge castes in a not entirely dissimilar situation. What could they do with their empty brains? What could they do with their feeble hands? In our time that’s easy – health hectoring is just one of numerous hectoring professions. 

Is it healthy to have so much professional hectoring though?

10 comments:

Woodsy42 said...

Great. I'm about 47cm left to right and 175cm top to floor so I'm OK. That is what they mean by waist measurement isn't it?

dearieme said...

The health professions have revealed themselves during the pandemic to be largely authoritarian, incompetent and cowardly. Why should I heed their latest nonsense?

Sam Vega said...

"A new study published today appears to show that "health hectoring" is actually one of the main causes of minor diseases in the UK. Dealing with a huge sample of hectored individuals, and looking for comparison at other countries where the hectoring process is less developed and doctors just fix illness, researchers at Imperial College came up with a range of surprising results. Resentment at the hectorers is one such factor, as is anxiety, and even guilt among those who cannot follow the increasing raft of recommendations. The Government responded by setting up a new hectoring watchdog, OffHeck, who are expected to recommend safe levels of public exposure to unsolicited medical advice. The new head of OffHeck, Dr. Hector Yiew, said that his interim advice would be to limit oneself to no more than one new piece of medical advice per week. "A little does you good, just don't overdo it. It's worth bearing in mind that you won't actually be getting any advice from your doctor".

Sackerson said...

Would that make NICE's HQ in Redman Place, 'Hector's House'?

The Jannie said...

Samvega wrote: "you won't actually be getting any advice from your doctor".
Chance would be a 4king fine thing . . .

DiscoveredJoys said...

Clearly, I need to put on height.

Tammly said...

I lost two and a half stone and several inches off my waist measurement in early 2020. I could then get into pairs of trousers that I had been unable to for some while. I wouldn't recommend the method to others though - severe life threatening depression, a ghastly experience.

Vatsmith said...

It is clear that obesity leads to health problems and shortens lifespan but you are free to ignore this advice if you like. It is (as we used to say) a free country.

Penseivat said...

This probably means that the majority of professional rugby players either need to slim down or grow another six inches.

A K Haart said...

Woodsy - if it is what they mean, you need to eat more cream cakes. Sounds like a good result.

dearieme - authoritarian, incompetent and cowardly sums it up. So far I don't see it changing for the better either. Worse if anything.

Sam - very good although once a week sounds too frequent. MPs should pressure OffHeck to change it to once a year. I once knew a chap called Hector - he used to go on about the benefits of communes.

Sackers - very good and it certainly should.

Jannie - still hibernating round here.

DJ - just switch height to centimetres, that should do it.

Tammly - I don't have a problem, but the impression I get from the side-lines is that it may be better to live with it.

Vatsmith - and things have to be that way if we value a free country.

Penseivat - reminds me of people in our local Ramblers group who were quite capable of walking 20 miles in a day but would probably not meet this waist to height target. Didn't seem to matter as far as fitness went.