27/02/2012 Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

It is extreme, it is potentially dangerous, but it does really work.

Also, prised out of the market. Why people on low incomes could find

themselves unable to live in New York. It is either find an

alternative place to stay in or I cannot pay the rent. And green

fingers. The people using every possible scrap of land to grow

Should the NHS be spending money on weight-loss surgery or should we be

learning to eat less and exercise more. With one in 30 now considered

to be morbidly obese, finding funding for stomach reducing

surgery is increasingly difficult. We followed 16 year-old Emma Jane

Money as she prepared for the operation she hopes will change her

life. As a nation we're getting bigger, much bigger. Junk food and

a lack of exercise means just one thing - piling on the pounds. Put

simply, Yorkshire is the third worst area in the country when it

comes to clinically diagnosed obese people. People who ought morbidly

obese are addicted to fruit in the same way that people are addicted

to smoking or drugs. People should not be desperate to have surgery,

there should be desperate to change their lives around and were to lose

weight. Emma Jane Money is just days away from an operation she

hopes will change her life. For the past ten days she's been on a diet

of low fat milk and yoghurt to prepare her for a gastric bypass.

With the constant images of rip cages and bony elbows, it is hard,

because people get the image that that is what we should be.

mother insists the family has tried all other options to help Emma Jane

lose weight. Different diets, different exercise regimes. Making

sure she is always active. We do get out and about. I do find it

very annoyed, because I do the weekly shop and I make sure there

is no chocolate in the House, she is not tempted to go and help

yourself to anything. She eats what I give her. We Emma Jane is in her

GCSE year, but school has never been easy for her. With her

operation looming she's learning from home. The heaviest I've ever

the beam is around 21.5 stone, which is pretty much what I am now.

I view had an ascetics before? an early start for Emma Jane. It's

seven o'clock in the morning and she's in hospital in Sheffield. Her

operation is due to begin in an hour's time. How widely appealing

today? I am quite excited for afterwards, how it will open

opportunities for move. In what way? I get to where all the new

fashion trend with my friends and I get to go anywhere and I do not to

worry about people saying things or judging me. Surrounded by her

family, her consultant surgeon spells out the operation and the

potential dangers associated with the procedure. There is a risk,

there used to say it is around 1%. Very unlikely, but possible. She

will be able to meet a lot less than she can now. She will be

forced to eat a lot less. The weight loss but we would expect

would be about the stone per month for the first few months. Then

gradually the weight loss will plateau down. I would expect her to

lose a good few stones in weight and be much healthier after this.

There is a small operative risk involved today but that is balanced

in the longer term, the chances of her being dead at a young age, in

middle age, is much less Kishi has this done than if she does not. It

is a case of balancing risks against benefits. The benefits she

will get will hopefully far outweighed the risks of the surgery.

An hour's drive from Emma Jane's home there's a very different

approach to treating obesity. the scale of 1-10, how do you feel?

One been relaxed, 10 in the tide is to have been. Mandy Bennett is put

through her paces by her personal trainer, and it's on the NHS. She's

one of nearly 50 patients across the East Riding on the Live Well

programme. Obese patients are put on a rigorous diet and exercise

regime to try and avoid the need for gastric surgery. I have lost

three stone in the time I have been on the programme. I have maintain

my weight for three of four months now, which is a big part of it.

Learning to maintain weight is as big an issue has losing it.

director of public health says East Riding's policy is not all about

saving money. We have seen the number of surgical operations go

down by around 80%. The levels of surgery had been increasing quite

considerably and we did not have the services in place to give

people the opportunity to have that dedicated six or nine months of

intensive diet and physical activity. We felt it would be far

better if we could put that in place rather than simply have

people going for to surgery. you not come on this course, would

you think you would be now? Still sat in front of the TV, probably,

eating the wrong thing. Getting bigger, getting more and healthy.

And probably not anywhere near as happy as I am, either. A downward

spiral. Emma Jane's health authority also required her to try

diet and exercise but for her it didn't work. And consultant surgeon

Roger Ackroyd is about to carry out a drastic solution. He's reducing

the capacity of her stomach to the size of a golf ball. This is the

retractor lifting up the liver. We put the Patients on to a special

diet to shrink the diet. procedure's well under way now.

It's a very short operation and should only really take about 45

minutes. This is the start of the small bowel. We're paid to measure

down and metre. The operation is carried out via keyhole surgery.

is like anything, the more that you do, the better bet you get. I do

about 400 each year. A camera guides the surgeon's instruments as

the delicate procedure to reduce Emma Jane's stomach capacity is

carried out. The staple gun is right across the stomach. And the

stomach is now divided into two. We take the stomach can act and all

that remains is to close the skin, and we are done. How successful is

this type of surgery? It is extreme, it is potentially changes, but it

really does work. Ford expected to lose a stone among for the next few

months. People say to me why are you doing this type of surgery,

spending taxpayers' money treating people who, basically, all they

need to do is eat less and exercise more? That is a valid argument and

I think the five with that view to an extent. The only thing I would

say is that she is only 16 at the moment but she will go on in time

to need hip replacements, the replacements, diabetic medication,

lots of other things. If we can invest in this type of surgery now,

then it says the NHS money in the long term. It is just over two

weeks since Emma Jane had her operation, so I have come to find

out how she is getting on. I have already lost over two stones. I do

think some tight it is not worth all the trouble, but it is, because

I am getting my life back and it is all changing for the better. And I

know that it will be easier. Coming up on the programme. Free fruit and

vegetables. The city-dwellers growing their own careens in some

unusual places. Historic York is one of the most desirable places to

live in the country but there are real concerns that cuts to housing

benefits could see some people on low incomes unable to rent in the

city. Already council house waiting lists are swelling and some

charities are struggling to keep up with demand.

Crowned Britain's most beautiful city, the place we would most like

to live, but is York rapidly becoming off-limits to people on

low incomes or benefits? It is find an alternative place to stay in or

I cannot pay the rent. We seem to be doing the opposite of creating a

stable family home and there are consequences of that. It is

somewhat ironic that here in the city of York, the concept of social

housing began. In the 10th century, King Athelstone donated money to

the church to build a country's first almshouse, on the spot where

the Minster now stands. The aim was to provide a place of residence for

the people he called poor distressed folk. Naomi Dawkins

could be described as poor. have to counted out before you even

get it. I have to know what I have got coming in, what is going out,

what my limits are that I can spend on food. It is getting worse. Her

housing benefit has never fully covered the rent on the flat she

lives in with her daughter, but from April she will go �32 a month

less from the state. Since she has just �200 to live on after rent and

utilities, Naomi knows she will not be able to manage and she is having

to move out. I cannot be there. I'm struggling as it is. When I was

trying to find where I am now, that was one of the cheapest, but that

is expensive. Again no way you can find somewhere cheaper. The changes

to housing benefits are hitting people in York harder than almost

anywhere else in the country outside of London. Here the amount

available is less than in Leeds and Harrogate. The maths are

complicated, but effectively it means finding somewhere affordable

in York is like looking for a needle in a haystack. If we were

looking for something of the new level of housing benefit, around

�500 secundum months in your, could I get a house for that? It would be

very difficult. The only thing we have even close to that is a house

that is �515 for a two-bed Victorian terrace in poor order.

The market almost starts at �600 a month for one bedroom apartment.

Why do thing that rents are so high? It has been down to do last

two or three years. People have been unable to buy because they

cannot get deposits and perhaps they have rented instead. It has

put increased demand on the rental And the waiting list for social

housing is swelling, and it is not just people who are unemployed.

Claire and her husband but work. They live in a council house, but

it is too small for their five children. This is the master room.

That is for myself, my husband, Charlie, and then I have room for

the basket but not another cot. So theoretically, you could end up

with four of you here. Clare, her husband and children would all

squeezed into this small three- bedroom house. They need something

bigger, but they have been working since last summer, as well as

thousands of others. It seems impossible, but renting privately

isn't an option. Looking at the rent in York, for the private

sector, you are talking �1,000 a month. My husband doesn't even earn

that amount, so we wouldn't be able to do it. The Government wants

people to live where they can afford to live, but for Claire and

her family that would mean leaving behind precious jobs at a time when

work is hard to come by, effectively adding two more people

to the breadline. It is not in the equation to move out of York. I

need my job to provide for my kids, and my husband works in and around

York, and covers a wide area, so we need to be in York to be able to

provide a roof over their heads. The Chartered Institute of Housing

said within a generation, some towns and cities will be off-limits

to those on lower incomes. Without its low-paid workers, York would

grind to a halt, pills would not be manned, bars wouldn't be serving

and pavement would not be gritted. It is a prospect that has already

caused concern at council level. What we will have is our whole area

of employment in York where we will find it difficult to fill those

vacancies. Because even if you move out to some of the cheaper towns

that surrounded York, you then have transport costs. Bus fares are not

cheap, petrol is going up all the time. This woman is responsible for

housing in York. I meet up with her at one of the last remaining

council estates in the City. difficulty now is the government

are still promoting the right-to- buy scheme but I now saying they

want to give people even larger discounts. The issue is that

they're saying that with the money they will be able to build one for

every one sold. But we are going to get at a small amount back, �22,000

back, you cannot buy land and build a house for that. You cannot even

build a flat for that. So they are saying that they are putting

initiatives in place to help, and is doing the a opposite. More

cheaper homes are needed. At Derwenthorpe on the outskirts of

York, that is happening. The Joseph Rowntree model will see Ford is

under the new bills he up for rent at affordable levels, but is built

has not been cheap, and is a drop in the ocean. -- this build has not

been cheap. There is an argument that says, to get the standard,

just build cheap and in bulk. But we have done that and the past.

There are estates all over the country, and I have managed a few

of them, where cheap and cheerful was used, and those are the estates

that are being torn down, costing us a fortune. In terms of probation

and modernisation. It is about building a reasonable homes at

reasonable prices, but it is only possible because a charity is

involved. If we increase the rents, we know that we will effectively be

reducing access to those people who are working, and bizarrely, making

them only places where people on for benefits can afford. And once

they are there, they will be paying much higher rents, and therefore,

won't be able to get off benefits. That is the trap Naomi is in.

Forced to give up her job because of spiralling childcare costs, she

is stuck claiming benefits. She is now waiting to find out if she can

get a council house, otherwise you'll be forced to move back in

with her parents. It is quite embarrassing, because you are

taking money from the state, and you are claiming benefits. And I

don't like seeing myself as that cup of person. It is an national

dilemma, but one that has come to a head in York. The government is

trying to stop it by cutting benefits and forcing down private

rents, but with demand so high, achieving this seems impossible,

and many more people will find themselves out of their homes, on

waiting-lists and on the street before the balance is pound. -- are

found. With food prices soaring, how would

you feel bad Gooding of fruit and vegetable free? Some people are now

using unlucky scraps of land for that.

When we think of food production, we like to imagine the Rolling

greed -- green fields of the countryside, but there is an

increasing number of people who think we need to look closer to

home. Urban areas are now being looked at for what they can produce.

So, armed with my trusty basket, I'm hoping to find enough

delicacies in Leeds centre to help rustle up a tasty meal. First port

of call is Hyde Park in one of the City's most populated areas to meet

Leah Jenson. -- Ellen Robottom. What have we got set up here?

the moment, I have got a row of spinach, spring onions at the back.

But a different crops all the way down here. We have purple sprouting

broccoli. What provoked you to do this? I came to understand that it

was absolutely essential for us to be growing much more of our own

food locally, because it is simply not sustainable to have it flown in

from thousands of miles away. did you get everybody on board?

just knocked on the door and said, you don't seem to be doing anything,

you mind if I sticks and cabbages in it? They don't have time for

gardening, they are working, they have children. As I was doing that,

other neighbours got curious and it became obvious that there was space

to extend it. The vegetables are there for anyone to help themselves,

the surplus gets taken to a community centre, nothing gets

wasted. Even in the depths of winter, there is plenty to choose

from. Right, I'm looking for some food. Anything I can take with me?

We have got leaks that are virtually ready to pick. Round the

back we have some turnips as well. If you get a few of those... These

have been more successful than I have thought. I have only just

started and I have already got three of my five portions of fruit

and veg a day. I have got much turnips, leeks, and I'm going to go

and see what else. Next up on my culinary tour is the Woodhouse

Community Forest garden. Here, volunteers are busy turning a

wasteland into a free orchard were people can come and picked -- pick

their own. Here, we have two apple trees. The orchard is being created

on land the city council owned but had become neglected. Once mature,

it will need minimal maintenance. What was the land like when you

came here? All this side was completely overgrown, and this bit

was more grassy. What we're trying to do is to demonstrate that it is

possible to plant as space, a garden, that is open access, that

is beautiful and production -- productive. I got here a bit early

for the fridge, but Kenny gardening means that is not that is on offer.

You mentioned I could have some parsley? Yes, here it is. Leaving

the orchard behind, it is off to another project -- predict where a

former wasteland is being put to good use. This area used to be an

eyesore, and residents decided to take matters into their own hands.

No one cares what you do with it, which is why it was so full of

rubbish. We are kind of proving that even with a small bit of land,

you can get a lot of benefit out of it, food, community, There are six

family to talk to each other on a regular basis in the summer and

spring. For me, it is about getting on and doing things that are good

beer and other people, not necessarily having to cope three

bureaucratic things. -- go through bureaucratic things. If we had, it

wouldn't be here now, and it is a long process. Local residents are

as keen to see the Community growth. I'm glad I have got this little

space. I like it now. What is good about eating food you have grown?

It takes -- tastes better, if you ask me. The shop staff is mass

produced. I don't know how they produce it. Here, we know, the rain,

we water it if it gets drier. ingredient can a rustle up here?

Here, we have got some turnips. Pete has also brought some veg from

one of his community allotments, so there is plenty to choose from. It

is not just the changing attitudes, it is about edible produce that

would otherwise go to waste. In a back garden that could be countless

others across the country, the autumn leaves may be losing their

grip, but the apples are hanging on for dear life. Normally they would

fall to the floor and right, but this crop -- crop will not go to

waste. Mainly it is about asking permission, and here, we have so

many apple trees. It is asking volunteers to spot the apple trees,

add them to our database. Then we look at that table based --

database and pick the apples. There is the idea of minimising food

waste, the idea of food being free and it visible to anyone, and then

the health the idea of having front -- a free and accessible. At score

macro near by, -- at Bracken Edge primary school near by, members of

the garden Club are turning some of the harvesters nearby into liquid

gold. It is nice, it is quite sweet. It is not a sugary as some of the

ones you get from a supermarket. thought it would be green, but it

is golden, kind of brown. Here it is about educating the next

generation of growers. It is good for them to see the process

involved, rather than just getting it in a box or a bag from a

supermarket. They are really enthusiastic about it. So with some

fruit added to my veg and something to drink, I'm starting to feel a

bit peckish. Now my basket is full, it is time to put it to the test.

Let's see what it tastes like. I am off to the Mint Hotel in Leeds to

meet head chef Leah Jenson. Hopefully she can put my produced

two good use. Here is what I have got for you. Amazing! I think we're

going to use some pork loin, incorporate the apples, the leaks,

make an nice apple sauce. I think we have got a great dish. For many

restaurant, proving your local credentials has become increasingly

important. It is quite fashionable to be eating sustainable food.

There is not as much packaging, saving on our carbon for print, but

your prices are astronomical at the moment. -- carbon footprint. So if

we are buying local, we are saving on that as well, so everyone is a

winner. That is enough of the theory - time to see how she brings

it all together. The port is in the oven, now time to get on the apples.

It smells so good already! We will put them straight into the pan,

season them, I'm not going to add any sugar because it has its

natural juices in the apple juice. We are just going to bring that

down to. Little by little, are open fruit and veg are starting to look

a whole lot more open -- appetising. And nice, generous portion of

potatoes. Let's give the poor client a chance to rest. So it is

doubly and tender. And nice, pink piece. Season that slightly. Pretty

soon, I'm almost ready to tuck in! It looks amazing. And do think it

has all come from within a few miles! Today's has to be might not

be allowed card, but our ingredients are certainly stepping

up to the plate. This looks and smells amazing. Growing food in a

built-up areas might not yet feed the masses, but this is an

appetising example of what the future might hold.

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We will find that the lengths some landlords are going to to avoid