Institute of Ideas, 12 February

Citation

(2005), "Institute of Ideas, 12 February", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 35 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2005.01735dac.001

Institute of Ideas, 12 February

Institute of Ideas, 12 February

Morbid Britain: health Obsession is unhealthy, warn medics

Government policy is promoting a morbid public obsession with health and the body, medics and doctors are warning this weekend.

Growing numbers of doctors, healthcare professionals and academics are concerned that a new Whitehall focus on prevention and lifestyle health risk is an invitation to morbidity and state this at the conference.

"The unintended consequence of fully engaging people with their health is an invitation to morbidity, which values health as an end in itself, and leads to an obsessive focus on the body", Professor Mike Bury said.

Bury, a member of the Public Health Advisory Committee of the Health Development Agency was speaking at "Health: an unhealthy obsession?" on 12 February.

Health fears focused on individual lifestyle choices is increasing anxiety, the founding Chairman of the Consumers' Advisory Group for Clinical Trials Mrs Hazel Thornton said. "The public's poor perception of risk, combined with inadequate, misleading, persuasive, or manipulative information about a screening test, is a potent mixture for exacerbating anxiety in a public being encouraged to take responsibility for their own health".

East End GP and author, Dr Mike Fitzpatrick criticised the coercive drift of government health policy. "The most important objection to current health promotion policies is that they are authoritarian and anti-democratic. They implicitly replace the relationship between state and citizen with that between parent and child, or therapist and client".

For further information, contact Tony Gilland on 020 7269 9229 or 07970 658979. To view the full programme see website http://www.instituteofideas.com/events/health2005.html