The Lancet: UK life science research: time to burst the biomedical bubble

This sounds over the top perhaps but I do see it as institutionalised hate speech.

If you ever get sick for any reason but a few exceptions it is your fault do not expect any help.
This is not social determinants this is personal psychological dressed up as.

Social determinants would look quite different and not blame the victim.

One of the usual obvious clues that this is not science is present. The use of vacuous marketing sales jargon in place of real actual communicating. This as we know is meant to ensure there is nothing that can be nailed down and proved as having been meant. All words chosen to mean nothing and everything.
 
You'd think after "50 years" they'd also have paid attention to what doesn't work....which, at least IMO, is behavioral science, assuming the objective is to reduce spending by making people healthier, rather than just reduce spending.

i.e. the general population has got significantly less healthy, from what I have seen, than they were 40 years ago (I wasn't paying much attention to societal health trends when I was 2 so I don't know about that far back) - over the period they state.
 
Wonko said:
You'd think after "50 years" they'd also have paid attention to what doesn't work....which, at least IMO, is behavioral science, assuming the objective is to reduce spending by making people healthier, rather than just reduce spending.

i.e. the general population has got significantly less healthy, from what I have seen, than they were 40 years ago (I wasn't paying much attention to societal health trends when I was 2 so I don't know about that far back) - over the period they state.
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One reason for people becoming so much more unhealthy are the dietary guidelines that say we must eat low fat and high carb. I am still shocked when I come across things on the web where someone will mention eating absolute rubbish, like white-of-egg omelettes, for example. What did they do with the yolk? Put it in the bin? But the eater of these tasteless omelettes usually writes as if they are being virtuous and healthy.

I just found this link from the US Dept of Agriculture. It doesn't even mention fats in their little picture of a plate :

https://www.choosemyplate.gov/
 
"The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end."
- Henry L. Ellsworth, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report, 1843


[ But he seems to have been just joking about, and was perhaps exhausted by, the large number of patents issued in the preceding year. ]

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,791839,00.html
 
In the US, some of the behavior change movement goes back to this review paper.

Am J Health Promot. 2010 Sep-Oct;25(1):e1-e12. doi: 10.4278/ajhp.090313-LIT-101.
Health coaching to improve healthy lifestyle behaviors: an integrative review.
Olsen JM1, Nesbitt BJ.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20809820

RESULTS:
All 15 studies utilized nonprobability sampling, 7 (47%) with randomized intervention and control groups. Significant improvements in one or more of the behaviors of nutrition, physical activity, weight management, or medication adherence were identified in six (40%) of the studies. Common features of effective programs were goal setting (73%), motivational interviewing (27%), and collaboration with health care providers (20%).
 
A good chunk of these chronic preventable diseases is due to economic inequality. People would eat healthier, do more sports if they had the time and money and lived not too far from nature.

Further research is not particularly needed. Just a willingness to address inequality.
 
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strategist said:
The vagueness of the plan suggests that the concrete reality of it will be upsetting.
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Yes. Again this trick of false labels that confuses opposition.

Work on the behavioural, social and environmental aspects of health could be very cost-effective. Working out how to deliver better support to elderly people living independently; making it easier for people to walk and bike to the shops, work and school; improving housing; ensuring people receive a living wage - things like that can have a big impact on health and well-being and reduce net costs to society.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what they are planning.
 
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Just to add something on top of all of the other responses here. People move through a world every day being constantly bombarded with things trying to - precisely designed to - addict them. Soft drinks, junk food, fast food, alcohol, social media, pornography, video games, television, gambling. It's of limited utility to try to get everybody to make good choices because these things as a whole are so effective at hooking us. I'm not sure what a great solution is but it's probably bound to make things worse if we focus solely on cajoling individuals to do better (not to say people shouldn't, like, try to make their lives better). This is without even mentioning any sort of political/economic structural barriers faced by people.

To regurgitate others' worries, the promising solutions are broadly 'sociopolitical', but based on our experience it's likely that what actually becomes operationalized will be 'psychobehavioral'.
 
It is quite clear that the genuine socio-economic-political determinants of health, like inequality, poverty, discrimination, lack of access to basic resources, denial of opportunity to advance, etc, are being exploited and twisted into this extortionate intimidatory scam.

I hope Sir Michael Marmot is increasingly regretting ever sticking up for Wessely & co, and their – so far quite successful – attempts to introduce the new age of psycho-fascism. Time he spoke out about the abuse of his work.
 
Hutan said:
Yes. Again this trick of false labels that confuses opposition.

Work on the behavioural, social and environmental aspects of health could be very cost-effective. Working out how to deliver better support to elderly people living independently; making it easier for people to walk and bike to the shops, work and school; improving housing; ensuring people receive a living wage - things like that can have a big impact on health and well-being and reduce net costs to society.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what they are planning.
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Thank you! :hug:
This is just exactly the point.

Worth embroidering on the wall, or something like that... maybe a billboard?
 
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