Hospital obesity treatments quadruple over five years

Record numbers of patients are being treated in hospital for obesity, figures reveal today.

Doctors dealt with 8,085 admissions last year — a rise of 360 per cent in just five years.

The figures from the NHS Information Centre will be an embarrassment for ministers. The Government has spent millions tackling the country's obesity epidemic through healthy eating campaigns and free exercise schemes.

The huge rise in hospital admissions reflects the fact increasing numbers of overweight people are resorting to drastic fat-reduction treatments.

These include gastric band and gastric bypass operations, known as bariatric surgery, to restrict the amount of food the patient can eat.

Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre, said: "The large increase in admissions for obesity reflects the growing impact that obesity has on the health of our nation as well as the demands it is placing on limited NHS resources.

"However, it also reflects the fact that overweight people are resorting to treatments such as bariatric surgery to tackle their health problems."

One in four Britons is now officially overweight and the cost to the NHS of treating obesity and associated illnesses is approaching £6 billion.

It was revealed last month that the country's fattest man is costing taxpayers £100,000 a year to look after.

Seventy-stone Paul Mason, 48, from Ipswich, is classed by doctors as "super-obese" and is set to undergo a £20,000 stomach shrinking operation.

The NHS Information Centre figures reveal that just 1,746 people were treated in hospital for obesity in 2003 to 2004.