Healthcare Staff: Are Overweight Healthcare Staff Hypocritical?

A report for the Government in 2009[1] estimated that of the 1.2 million staff employed by the NHS in England and Wales, 300,000 would be classified as obese and a further 400,000 as overweight. The report goes on to report that credibility of health messages is also supported by the behaviour of professionals.

Is it fair to expect patients to agree with a ‘do a say not as I do’ attitude from healthcare workers?

How can overweight healthcare workers preach about healthy lifestyle without applying it to their own lives?

But can we expect healthcare workers dealing with the emotional and physical demands of healthcare work to have to time to lead a healthy lifestyle? With budgets being slashed across the NHS, staff are expected to meet the shortfalls in resources to ensure patient care is not adversely compromised. This adds pressure onto an already demanding job, can staff be expected to look after themselves as well as their patients?

Reference[edit | edit source]

  1. Royal College of Physicians. NICE public health guidance for the workplace organisational audit. http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/resources/nice-public-health-guidance-workplace-organisational-audit (accessed 8 Nov 2012).