Government's expanded figures
The UK Department of Health (DoH) has been forced to admit that it exaggerated figures for the number of obese people claiming disability benefit.
Reports on Monday suggested that 900,000 people, over half of those registered for disability benefit, were obese (1). Now, the DoH has admitted that there was a clerical error, and the actual number of obese people claiming benefit is... 900. So its original figure was a thousandfold exaggeration. Instead of costing the government £70.9million per week, the actual figure is £70,965 (2). Doh! But the real surprise is that anybody noticed the mistake at all. We're now bombarded with horror stories of the toll of death and chronic illness that is befalling the country as our collective waistlines expand. Nobody batted an eyelid, therefore, when it was suggested that nearly a million people were so fat that they were regarded as disabled. Now, it seems, it's not just our bellies and our Big Mac meals that are super-sized, it's the government statistics, too.
(1) Half of incapacity claimants are obese, Guardian, 16 February 2004
(2) Fat figures wrong admits minister, BBC News, 19 February 2004
First published on Spiked's spiked bite page.