Does food guilt exist?

Apparently, men experience "food guilt" at least nine times a month, according to a poll of 200 people by Planters Nuts!!!  (obviously medically accurate!!! - yikes!)

Three quarters admit to eating for emotional reasons, rather than hunger (I can certainly relate to that one, hence my continuing weight issues - which I am combating).

Chocolate is the top comfort food for blokes, followed by bacon sandwiches and takeaway pizzas.

55 per cent felt bad about themselves for eating unhealthily.  44 per cent went to bed feeling guilty about what they had scoffed.  36 per cent were left unhappy about their body after snacking, and 14 per cent admitted they had let themselves go.

I think I fit into every category!!!

Links between mental and physical health

Why is it the physical health of those with mental illness so poor?  A study by the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation found that those with mental health issues have almost FIVE times more emergency health admissions than those without. And yet a vast number of those admissions were for physical health issues.

Published research by the King's Fund found that 40 per cent of mental health trusts have had income cut in the last few years, despite rising demand. To reduce costs, many trusts are trying to shift patients away from acute services to "recovery based care and and self-management services" that sound good on paper but do not always have a solid evidence base, do not have the resources to get them up and running, and are not being properly evaluated.

Without increased and stable funding, together with proper evaluation of new services, the outlook for mental health services and the users that rely on them looks increasingly bleak. The main cause of early death in those with mental health problems has for many years been untreated or poorly treated physical illnesses. Deaths from causes related to mental health illness, such as suicide, account for less than a third of the total.

People with serious mental ill health die on average 10 to 17 years earlier.  And yet the commonest causes of premature death remain heart, lung, liver and kidney diseases, obesity, stroke and diabetes.