Threat to pallbearers as Britain's obesity rate soars

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The tradition of pallbearers carrying coffins at funeral services is facing a threat from Britain's soaring obesity problem.

An increased number of seriously overweight people has meant health and safety regulations have restricted usual practices at more and more funeral services.

With the combined weight of corpse and casket regularly exceeding 35 stone, funeral directors are having to use trolleys and lifting equipment instead of professional pallbearers and family mourners.

Such is the concern about the consequences of workplace injuries that risk assessments must be routinely carried out where the combined weight of a corpse and coffin could be a problem.

John Weir of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, said: 'Even five years ago this was not a problem. It was rare to have a coffin that couldn't be physically carried. Now it's every single week. Health and safety regulations prevent us from legally carrying coffins in many cases.

'Funeral Directors are more aware of their obligations to staff in terms of what they can carry.'

Until recently coffins were made 22 to 24 inches wide, now 26 in is standard and many companies use over-size 40 inch wide coffins. With heavy oak coffins weighing around eight stone, funeral directors sometimes ask mourners to sign a disclaimer before bearing the weight.

The most common solution is to replace humans with a wheeled bier trolley - which has been used in funerals since Victorian times.

Mr Weir, boss of a Kent-based firm, said: 'The overriding concern of funeral directors is that the funeral goes ahead with dignity. There's nothing less dignified than the sight of bearing staff struggling with excess weight.'

Oversized coffins have become commonplace in the United States. A US firm specialising in manufacturing coffins for obese people estimates around 300 oversized coffins are sold everyday compared to about three 15 years ago.

Known disasters have included the funeral firm who couldn't get a casket out the door, the coffin that buckled with the weight of the body while on a stand during the service and the coffin that wouldn't close.

Some families are being forced to buy two plots and pick up trucks are being used to transport large coffins.

Last year a crematorium in Bath, Somerset, spent thousands of pounds installing large cremators to cater for the increasing number of oversized coffins. Staff were regularly having to turn grieving families away because relatives were too big to be cremated at the site.

Adult obesity rates in the UK have almost quadrupled in the last 25 years, with 22 per cent obese and three-quarters overweight.

 

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