THE mass outrage about giving thousands of obese people weight-loss surgery on the NHS is a quite understandable response.

NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, has issued new guidelines to doctors encouraging them to suggest the surgery to patients above a specific weight who have Type 2 diabetes. The argument is that, although it would cost the NHS millions of pounds, it would ultimately save millions in ongoing care.

Not too surprisingly, many people’s reaction is: why should I pay for others who have overeaten and made themselves obese? This is especially pertinent when there are so many cases of life-prolonging drugs being denied to cancer patients because they’re considered too expensive.

I suppose it’s easy to get annoyed over the whole idea on the grounds of money alone. But, actually, my concern is slightly different.

Anyone who does as they please – eating and drinking in this case – and then expects someone else to deal with the worrying results is not in a healthy place mentally. There is no sense of personal responsibility here, no putting up of hands to being guilty and being prepared to take the consequences.

Yet we all know that if we eat less and exercise more, the pounds will drop off. Go to any WeightWatchers or Slimming World class and you’ll meet inspirational people taking responsibility for their weight and knuckling down to doing something about it. It’s not easy, it requires will-power, but the results justify all the hard work and determination.

What we deny people who are obese if we go down the surgery road – and I fully understand how the financial maths stack up here – is the opportunity to “cure” themselves. And I say “cure” like that because I really can’t believe that being overweight is an illness for most people.

Current figures show that half of all children have now been classed as overweight before they leave primary school at 11. This means that they are being fed by parents who have no idea about a proper healthy diet or about the necessary exercise their children need.

Ignorance is never an excuse: there are some excellent healthy eating initiatives and accessible slimming groups around offering plenty of regular support and information.

So, there’s really no long-term excuse for most people being grossly overweight. And absolutely no reason why other taxpayers should underwrite their love of burgers and Cola.