Stay safe this Christmas with 'public health' advice

A Christmas message from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

Seasons’s greetings! Christmas is a time for eating, drinking and merriment, and is therefore a serious threat to public health. Banning it is not yet politically feasible, but there are a number of precautions you can take over the festive period to avoid being too much of a burden on our precious NHS.

The greatest peril comes on Christmas Day when many people behave as if the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines do not apply to them. Even some doctors have been known to succumb to temptation, but with a few simple heuristics, it is easier to have a compliant and abstemious Christmas than you might think. The key is to never allow “fun” and “merriment” to push thoughts of death and disease out of your mind. Our glorious former Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies once advised women to “do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine and think, ‘Do I want my glass of wine or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer?’” This might seem morbid, but it is not as morbid as actually dying, which you will if you don’t follow public health advice.

We at OHID might not have the common touch of Sally Davies or the joie de vivre of Chris Whitty, but we have come up with a simple rhyme to help you get through the holidays: “If you want to avoid heart disease, go easy on the festivities”. 

Read the rest at The Critic and yourself a very merry Christmas.

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