The article says "Patients with a body mass index of 30 or more can be referred by their GP to the clinics, which will have access to specialist physicians, diabetes nurses, dietitians, psychologists and exercise physiologists."
So BMI is going to be used as a threshold criterion for evaluating who is eligible for surgery.I took this to suggest it was being used as a measure of public health and for that purpose I think it is pretty flawed. Easy to measure across large populations perhaps, but flawed nonetheless. I think that might be how we detoured into a discussion of BMI.... woops.
And RachelM you're right, the nutritional value of many people's diet is just scary. But is the right solution to that to use government money to surgically modify people so they don't show the physical effects of the terrible diet? There's got to be a better way.