United Kingdom

Obesity prevalence

Overweight/obesity by age and education

Overweight/obesity by age

Overweight/obesity by age and region

Overweight/obesity by age and socio-economic group

Insufficient physical activity

Sugar consumption

Estimated per-capita sugar sweetened beverages intake

Prevalence of at least daily carbonated soft drink consumption

Prevalence of confectionery consumption

Prevalence of sweet/savoury snack consumption

Estimated per-capita fruit intake

Prevalence of less-than-daily fruit consumption

Prevalence of less-than-daily vegetable consumption

Estimated per-capita processed meat intake

Estimated per-capita whole grains intake

Mental health - depression disorders

Mental health - anxiety disorders

Oesophageal cancer

Breast cancer

Colorectal cancer

Pancreatic cancer

Gallbladder cancer

Kidney cancer

Cancer of the uterus

Raised blood pressure

Raised cholesterol

Raised fasting blood glucose

Diabetes prevalence

Health systems

Health systems summary

The UK’s National Health Service was established in 1948. Since 1997, responsibility for the financing and organisation of health services in the UK has been devolved to the four nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). Despite devolution, all nations have maintained a national health service that provides universal health coverage to most residents. The health systems are predominately financed by general taxation and is mostly free at the point of service. In 2016, government expenditure accounted for 79% of health expenditure with out-of-pocket expenditure accounting for 16%. Cost-sharing tends to be for specific services only, notably pharmaceuticals, dental care and social services (dependent on nation).

Summary of stakeholder feedback

It is broadly felt that neither the UK government nor its healthcare financing mechanisms currently recognise obesity as a disease. However, it was acknowledged that there is activity in this space, including lobbying by clinicians and the existence of an all parliamentary group on obesity. Not all stakeholders felt that obesity should be classified as a disease.

Stakeholders reported that people with obesity tended to enter the system via their general practitioner. There it seemed height, weight and BMI was generally not recorded (except in Scotland), with discussions about unhealthy BMI not taking place for a number of reasons. It was felt that people had to be persistent and proactive to receive treatment, disadvantaging those from lower socioeconomic groups, those with less education, men and the housebound. When there were referrals, uptake was noted to be low and this was felt to be where most fell out of the system. It was considered important for uptake that programmes were available in the evening and weekends.

Despite noting that the UK health system was mostly government funded, at least two stakeholders and one patient pointed out that obesity treatment was mostly funded out of pocket. Government funding into obesity was widely recognised to be inadequate but there was disagreement over whether this was improving. Some felt investment was improving, while another pointed to data that suggests that there is in fact dis-investment into weight management services at every tier of intervention.

The patients agreed with much of what was reported by the other stakeholders. They highlighted the importance of free at point of service management and treatment and noted that it was difficult to engage with services and programmes if they were during working hours. They also noted that they had to actively push to receive help, otherwise they would have fallen out of the system. Receiving treatment in the UK was said to be a ‘postcode lottery’.

Based on interviews/survey returns from 11 stakeholders

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We are currently finalising our data for this section. It will be available from late 2020.