According to a report from The NHS Information Centre, the number of recorded hospital admissions related to obesity rose by more than 30% last year, with admissions increasing from nearly 8,000 in 2008/09 to nearly 10,600 in 2009/10.
The report Statistics on obesity, physical activity and diet: England 2011 combines new analysis on the health outcomes of people who are overweight and obese with a summary of already published diet, exercise and weightrelated information. The data includes information on the number of recorded bariatric weight-loss hospital procedures, which rose by 70% from just over 4,200 in 2008/09 to just over 7,200 in 2009/10. Hospital coding for bariatric weight-loss procedures was updated in 2009/10, which means it is now possible to identify how many of them were for maintenance of an existing gastric band. Nationally, of the 7,200 bariatric procedures in 2009/10 – 1,400 were for maintenance. 80% of all bariatric surgery was carried out on women. On a more encouraging note, the report also estimates that the previous upward trend in adult obesity rates may be flattening out. Between 2008 and 2009, the percentage of obese men fell from 24% to 22%, while the percentage of obese women fell from 25% to 24%. However the report concludes that this slight fall is not statistically significant and future years’ data is needed to see if a downward trend is developing.
