Doctors waiting room.

Cleat Eastwood

Its funny how people see the chair and not the person - anyway you never know, one day it might be you.

Last year I was out on a ride and saw a guy in a motorised scooter having problems at a junction - so I got off the bike and offered to help - haha he asked for a push to his house - so I obliged thinking he was going to push too - but no he got back on so he could steer it.

Anyway about 400 metres later - after navigating a muddy farmers field in cleats- and me worrying about my bike - we arrived at his run down farm house- he thanked me and offered to pay - but with a cheery wave I was off.

I learned later that the poor guy had had a stroke a year earlier - leaving him unable to walk any distance - and he was a millionaire who was building up the farmhouse for his daughter as he has to move to more adequate accomodation.

So if you're reading this Brian the Millionaire - the helper was me - and if you want to remember me in your will feel free.

Pross

plowmar wrote:

Sorry Pross, but you must know that if calories in exceed calories out e.g. exercise or just living then you put on weight. And you don't just put on an extra few stones it does take time (and dedication?) so any one overweight in a scooter either was overweight before or have eat their way to it after getting the scooter. So if no disability reason completely self inflicted. Suggest gastric bands or tapes over mouths.

I didn't say being disabled makes you fat (or that all people who use scooters are disabled) and understand only too well that eating more than you burn makes you put on weight. However, the implication of some posts on here is that if you see a fat person in a mobility scooter they are only using it because they are fat and lazy whereas it is possible that they have always been disabled but happen to me overweight as well. Yes, they are eating more than they consume but the calorie intake for someone unable to exercise would need to be extremely low.

Pross

tiredofwhiners wrote:

DrKJM wrote:

The only thing I challenge is your ability to make a medical diagnosis based upon a cursory glance and a mass of prejudices.

No, I look in their shopping trolleys and invariably find a fat person motor-trolleying around a trolley full of stuff that makes a thin person fat. Being fat isn't a medical condition - its consequence of calories out and calories in.

I can recognise a fat person in a motability scooter at a fair distance and it doesn't take a medical degree to know they are fat and need to lose weight. Why do you have this obsession with trying to avoid having fat people responsible for being fat ?

As a doctor do you regularly prescribe a diet of cake, doughnuts and pizza thereby giving then an excuse ? If people are fat, its because they eat more than their energy consumption requires. If they are immobile, then they need less calories - not a trolley to collect more pizza than they could carry on their own two feet. Thats not a medical condition requiring a qualification to work out - a two year old can do the sums.

I had 19 weeks with a leg immobilised in plaster, raised in the air, and lost a lot of weight. I didn't feel the need for a mobility scooter or pizza.

Why do you think that just because they are fat they don't also have a medical condition that prevents them being able to walk? You are making a judgement that they are in the scooter because they are fat, maybe they are disabled and as a result suffer from depression which in turn leads them to eat 'comfort' food which due to their inactivity makes them fatter. Have you ever questionned them as to why they feel the need to use the scooter or just jumped to the conclusion that, because they are overweight they are therefore lazy and just avoiding walking? At least the situation the OP raised is based on objective examination of medical records and not prejudice.

ademort

Can,t say it happens at our surgery as it,s a room about 8m x4m with a table in the middle so no room for the scootmobiles. However i have noticed in our supermarkets the amount of people who drive round in these things and suddenly when they need something from the top shelf they spring out of there seat grab the item and spring back into there seat in a flash. I often wonder what is actually wrong with these people that warrants the use of a scootmobile. They are a great cure for lazyitess i believe.
Ademort

tiredofwhiners

Pross wrote:

You are making a judgement that they are in the scooter because they are fat, maybe they are disabled and as a result suffer from depression which in turn leads them to eat 'comfort' food which due to their inactivity makes them fatter.

Yes, because as I have said earlier, not everyone who is ill automatically gets fat. just because you're ill, doesn;t give you an automatic right to be fat and for it to be okay.

Pross wrote:

Have you ever questionned them as to why they feel the need to use the scooter or just jumped to the conclusion that, because they are overweight they are therefore lazy and just avoiding walking?

Per my earlier response, I look in the shopping trolley at the piles of high calories foods designed to make you fat and draw a sensible conclusion. You make the naive assumption that everyone in a scooter has a valid medical reason.

Pross wrote:

At least the situation the OP raised is based on objective examination of medical records and not prejudice.

Sometimes the objective data is right in front of you. As the doctors seem to have concluded that "these machines are rarely used by those that would have a legitimate reason but more likely the terminally lazy who's only aspiration is to be terminally obese" then its an entirely reasonable assumption for others to follow their guidance wouldn't you agree ?

You explain why there has been a five fold increase in the use of them, with no corresponding increase in illness rates ?