News.Scotland.Org

October, 12

The major health problem which is common these days termed as ‘Obesity’ is making people restless even after their death. This may seem a bit comic but that’s the truth, many grieving families are finding it hard to find the crematorium which provides cremation facilities for big coffins. The growing obesity levels have made coffins bigger; such problems are often seen in the crematorium in Aberdeen, which has made people to switch to other larger crematorium which is about 60 miles away.

It was known that only in this year more than ten funerals have been moved to Friockheim crematorium due to lack of facilities to handle big coffins. The crematorium of Aberdeen, in Hazelhead can take coffins up to 26inch wide only. While the other crematorium handles coffin upto 41inches. Mr Gordon Bruce of Aberdeen Funeral Directors said “It is becoming more frequent. With obesity becoming more of a problem, it’s something that is going to affect more families as time goes on.” He further added that sometimes they have to inform the deceased family that the cremation can’t go ahead, many times people feels offended.

After the recent reports which rated Scotland, the second most overweight country in the world, the situation has become more adverse now. With the rapid increase in the obesity levels in people due to bad eating habits and lack of health attention. Now a day’s more and more people are falling prey to this problem. The figures released by the Cancer Research UK about the weight and waist size of almost 1200 men and women during 1993-94 and 2003-04. The report points out that men’s average waist circumference has raised by 3.48cm and women’s by 4.35cm. These facts clearly tell how obesity has become a serious issue for the people of Scotland.

The crematorium at Aberdeen does not hold much modern arrangements to cremate such big coffins. Taking this growing problem into count many other areas have been upgrading their crematoriums to larger machines, so that people have no problems in such grieving times. Even plans are going on to upgrade the Aberdeen crematorium within two years, and three more other crematorium will get repaired by 2009. Now time will tell whether this severe problem will get solved in the near future, or these crematoriums have to mold themselves to handle such situations.

Scotland, Oct 12: Now-a-days youngsters are allowed more freedom to mingle with friends and enjoy dating with their boy or girl friends. At this point of time along with school education they should be given proper awareness about the sex. The government is spending huge amount of money for this purpose to mould out a healthy generation both physically and morally.

The Scottish government’s earnest attempt to restrict premature pregnancy and to promote safe sex among teenagers has experienced a setback after the recent statistics showing at least two schoolgirls falls pregnant in the Lothians every week. The new figure also shed light on to the fact that nearly 700 girls aged 15 or younger became pregnant in the region during the past six years.

Even though a series of initiatives to tackle the problem were taken during the recent years, the yearly total has decreased slightly over the period. The initiatives include providing free condoms to children under-16 and giving morning-after pill to schoolgirls without parental knowledge.

The figures were released through the Freedom of Information Act, also shows more than 1300 teenagers aged 16 to 19 were pregnant last year, 105 girls among them are aged 15 or younger as against 39 girls aged 15 became pregnant in 1994. This is a typical example to the failure of recent health initiatives.

The controversial Healthy Respect pilot scheme was implemented in 2001 in the Lothians that involves setting up counselling centres for teenagers on sexual health. The government of Scotland had already invested £5 million for this scheme. But even after spending huge money for the implementation of the scheme this strategy fails to bear fruit. The way of implementation of the project needs a rethink.

Linda Birnie, Centre Manager of Sexual Health Charity Brook, said: “There must be more investment in evidence based sex and relationships education, information for young people and access to free and confidential contraceptive services.”

While commenting on this Rebecca Findlay, spokeswoman of the Family Planning Association, bring out a different perspective to the issue said: “The statistics shows the highest numbers of pregnancies are in socially excluded areas, where being a young mother is seen as a life option.”

In the year 2003 Lothians witnessed 123 schoolgirl pregnancies that is the highest number and has declined marginally there after. In Edinburgh, in postcode areas there were more than five pregnancies reported numbers have dropped from 53 to 34 last year.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Our message for safer sexual health is: delay until you are ready, but be safe when you are active.”

Early intervention is essential to ensure youngsters have a healthy approach towards relationships from a young age and primary schools have to work with the parents to bring out a positive change to restrict the ruining effect of sex in schoolgirls. Underage pregnancy is not a problem faced by the Lothains alone. Owing to the increased rate of underage pregnancies worldwide, a universal solution has to be found to bring in a positive change to this issue.