There's nothing wrong with being fat - except....

The BBQ Pit
1

There’s been a lot of angry dialogue on this one lately, but I hope this thread will not dissolve into yet another polarized, vitriolic shout-fest. But I put it in the pit nonetheless.

Apparently, a new report has emerged directly tying obesity to the taypayer’s burden.

Medicare Report Is Smoking Gun for Fat Police

I found this article (and the report) to be particularly interesting: On the one hand obese people certainly do not deserve the ridicule they so often fall victim to, but on the other hand there is clear justification for the argument that being overweight is NOT just that person’s sole business. If an individual choice (which I believe it clearly is for MOST overweight folks, as evidenced by the ridiculous discrepancy between the US obesity rates vs. the rest of the world) causes others to pay more in taxes, essentially supporting one’s overeating habits, then something should be done to fix this. Not to mention the funds which could be used for other medical resources, e.g. research, lowering costs, prescription drug availability, etc.

Now I’m not suggesting that this report means that we should all start fat-bashing; there’s enough of that nonsense already. But I do think it must force some people to reassess whether their obesity is indeed just “their problem.” And I wonder whether this will force (as the article strongly suggests) government intervention, and major changes to the fast-food industry (through litigation), ultimately changing America’s eating habits. Which would IMHO be a damn good thing, though I question the means of achieving this end.

Any thoughts?

2

I think the government should take away all of our cars and leave the restaurants alone.

3

Tax the fatties? I don’t think so. You might be footing part of sombody else’s triple bypass, but someone else might end up footing the bill to keep you on life support after you fall off your motorcycle. Or, if you don’t have a motorcycle, there’s probably something else in your life that you enjoy that puts you at moderately greater risk of expensive illness/injury.

Freedom isn’t cheap. Instead of telling other people how to live their lives, I’d rather pay a slightly increased tax burden with the understanding that no one else will try to tell me how to live my life, either.

4

One, litigation because of obesity, is obsurd. It’s a personal choice to buy McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, or cook at home. Many people find convenience more appealing than simply cooking a well rounded meal at home. Which is sad as cooking can be a theraputic excercise and many don’t know that.

Two, if people need Nanny Government to get involved in their private lives, they deserve what they get but don’t come crying to me when fast food is taxed and they can no longer afford it. I have, as of today reached the weight of 120 pounds because I cut out fast food, frozen food and other foods that are filled with unhealthy carbs and sugars…I was never considered obese (at 144) but had I stayed on the course I was on, I would have been considered obese in a matter of months.

Three, if there really is a strain on the health care system because of obesity, so be it. It’s one industry that is probably staying it’s course, economically speaking.

Whatever, what ticks me off is that people don’t take personal responsibility for their own life. It’s time that the message is, “Tough shit, you brought a lawsuit, the government has tried to pass laws, but sorry bucko, it’s time you quit blaming society for your being fat. You have the choice to eat that calorie loaded Big Mac or you have the choice to going to your grocery store and picking up a nice lean cut of beef, some yummy veggies and spending some time with your family learning/teaching them to cook. You did this to yourself.”

Since we “have” to be taxed, why not the government get off their collective asses (local, state and federal) work together to get out the health ideas in ads and such? They spend enough on fucking ads to encourage us to mail through USPS, why not spend that money (and other monies) to encourage a healthy lifestyle.

It’s fine to indulge upon pizza, hamburgers and the like once in a while but it seems very few people enjoy the art of cooking for a healthy lifestyle.

You can be “fat” but still be healthy. You can be “overweight” but still be a model of health. HOWEVER, eating shit foods all the time is just stupid. If you don’t know it, then your fucking moronic to the bone.

I am glad to say that as of today I am down, closer to my own personal, yes personal, ideal weight but I sure as fuck don’t need people entering into lawsuits or forcing legislation for this kind of thing. It’s hurts those of us that want to be healthy.

BTW, I am a smoker again, I plan on losing 5 extra pounds and when I hit that mark, I plan on quitting yet again so I have the buffer zone to maintain my weight.

It’s all about personal responsibility, pure and simple and I am tired of legislators that think they need to get their poop covered heads involved. If you enjoy being fat, all the more power to you. You may have issues that many of us can’t see but to see that using litigation and laws to “regulate” the fast food industry is just bullshit.

Hope what I said makes sense, I have so many thoughts going through my head about all of this, it’s almost overwhelming.

5

Well, I can understand both sides, obviously. But, I would say the only truly fair solution, would be to allow the taxpayers to decide where they want their taxes to go. Since that would be extraneously complicated, and chances are that sort of system would cost far more money than freedom it would save, it’s not very likely. The problem with welfare, is that the entire program is one person paying for another person’s lifestyle/problems/whatever. Yes, icky things happen, and for that I have no problem with sharing my wealth to help them get back together. However, the question is, should welfare be given to those who did things while still knowing the consequences? Honestly, I’d say no. But trying to figure out the reasons for medical problems is complicated. It’s not really possible, unless the person has kept accurate medical records and the disease was very clear, to tell exactly what caused the disease=required use of tax-assisted medical welfare. I don’t see taxing overweight people as the answer. Not all overweight people have medical problems, and not all overweight people are on tax funded medical programs, so that doesn’t really make any sense.

6

The British use the pound for their taxes. I don’t see why we can’t tax by the pound too.
what?

7

I’m with Miller.

Let’s just try to have a decent education system so people know enough to try and watch their weight and not crush their skulls by falling off their motorcycles and not giving themselves permanent kidney damage in household accidents involving a bathroom plunger and lime Jell-O. Picking out who is causing “the worst” tax burden and trying to tax to that is not practical.

8

I’m fat. And yep, it’s just my problem. I don’t use Medicare, Medicaid or any government-funded programs. When I go to the doctor (which is extremely rare), I pay out of pocket. If I have to have a quadruple bypass (doubtful), I’ll go into a ton (no pun intended) of debt to pay for it.

Not to be a twat, but I’m as sick of the “my tax dollars” shriek as I am of the “ban fast food because I’m fat” scream. There’s about four hundred and fifty million things my tax dollars pay for that I don’t agree with. I don’t give a damn if everyone on welfare stopped having babies, all fat people became thin, and all smokers quit–people are still going to bitch and whine about “their tax dollars”. Why? Because people don’t want to give up a fucking buck.

I can sit and bitch that I don’t want my funds going to education because I don’t have children and therefore don’t use the public school system–but I don’t. I can whine about how unfair it is that “my tax dollars” go toward other people’s children and that parents should be taxed more heavily since they use the educational system. Jesus christ, I’m just sick and tired of the complaining on both sides. I suck it up and pay my taxes because I think it all evens out–no, I don’t use the public school system, but I do use public transportation and the library, whereas parents probably drive and buy more books than myself.

Getting back to the OP–my tax dollars may at some point support someone’s fat ass getting a quad bypass. They may also support some premature babe in NICU. OTOH, my cash could provide services for a smoker with emphysema.

Eh, hell. I just can’t get that worked up about providing healthcare for folks, no matter the reason.

As always, YMMV.

9

You know? I’d like to see an honest to goodness study about the American lifestyle.

We have 75% of the world’s serial killers (off an interpol crime statistics website), most of the alcoholics and druggies, depression runs rampant.

We all know that calories in = calories out to maintain. So we know why people GET fat.

But what drives people to food (or alcohol, drugs, etc)? What is it about the American lifestyle? What’s wrong with our culture that causes such extremes in behaviour? And how do we break the cycle?

10

I’m with you on the whole fat people are fat b/c of choice thing.

However, how come you want to start putting pressure on fat people b/c of the tax dollars they consume?

I’m not denying that fat people have higher healthcare costs, I’m just wondering how forcing THEM to change would be justifiable.

Smokers cost this country more tax dollars in healthcare than fat people ANY day. And what about all these welfare moms that are popping out baby after baby, exercising their “choice” to screw with reckless abandon and then refuse to work, thus forcing the system to take care of them and their kids?

Can we start forcing smokers to quit smoking, and if they refuse, deny them healthcare? Can we start demanding that people on welfare get sterilized after, say, 2 kids? Where does it end?

11

Specifally (sp) one the idea smockers cost more…cite please? I mean, that being obsese has been a more serious issue than has being obese…you claim it…so back it up. I am sick of people stating things like this and not having a cite or a claim to back them up…

12

er smokers…damit…as for smokers…hell, I have seen many quit with less than a breeze in the wind…

13

Quibble time. :slight_smile:

There are more than 6 billion people in the world and less than 300 million Americans. You do not have “most of the alcoholics and druggies”.

14

To me, the “bullshit” is the notion that “personal responsibility” should apply only to flesh-and-blood human beings, but not to corporate entities, which are regarded by the personal-responsibility crowd on the right as forces of nature, exempt from ethical standards other than those forced on them by the law.

MacDonalds and the other fast-food chains know quite well that their products are statistically certain to leave their clientele more obese than if they had stayed away. If I urged fatty food on a friend of mine, day after day, week after week, year after year, and he got fat on account of it, I would have some “personal responsibility” for his added weight. But that rule apparently doesn’t apply to corporations, if you’re of a certain political bent.

If corporations were selling cocaine, conservatives would be saying “it’s not their fault that people are buying what they sell.” What nonsense.

15

Well, aren’t cigarettes taxed more heavily than other consumer products in the US? They are over here, FWIW. In a way, smokers ARE already being “taxed”, then, right? The question is how this revenue is spent, of course.

Tax fast food. Don’t tax obese people directly: make sure cooking your own meal with fresh ingredients becomes a viable option in the US once again. I spend quite a bit of time in the US, and from my point of view, fast food is just too cheap, too convenient. When half your population qualifies as “obese”, there is a problem, and it needs to be addressed from above (the government). The cycle won’t get broken if things remain the same: people, on the whole, will always float towards “low cost” and “least effort”, no matter what propaganda you shoot at them. Influence those factors for fast food, and you’re on to something.

16

For the Doper who asked for a cite:

http://www-nehc.med.navy.mil/downloads/hp/TrueCost.pdf
Cost of smoking related illnesses.

http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2000/07/17/focus1.html
Cost of obesity related illnesses.

I was wrong. America doesn’t spend WAY more on smokers than the obese. It spends a little bit more, and the gap is narrowing.

Let it never be said that SnoopyFan won’t admit that she’s wrong.

Not defending obesity here but I will point this out: smoking is 100% preventable. You do not have to smoke to live. You DO have to eat to live, though. Granted, you don’t have to eat like a pig, but I do think there are a few people out there who will NEVER be thin, no matter what they do. At my goal weight I’ll still be considered “overweight” according to the BMI index. There is no WAY, barring serious illness, that I could get to a weight that would give me an “acceptable” BMI. My frame is just too big.

I think taxing fast food might be an idea, but would it work? I live in a metropolitan area that is like, #2 in the nation for smoking. Taxes here didn’t seem to stop people, although maybe cigarette taxes have worked in other parts.

Fast food taxes would probably stop me, and I’ll admit to hitting Wendy’s more than the average bear. Why? Because I’m in college and I don’t have time to cook. Do I eat supersized value meals? Rarely, these days. My latest obsession is Wendy’s mandarin chicken salad, which I pay $5-6 for about 3-4 times a month. Were the price to go up to, say, $7 or so, I wouldn’t quit buying them, but the frequency would diminish, definitely.

17

I know Techchick68 will go for me for not having a cite, but here’s the fact.

The US Gummint recently (in the last few years) upped the “% over ideal bodyweight” to qualify as obese.
E.g. if you’ve gotta be 15% over your ideal weight in Europe to qualify as obese, the US says that you’ve gotta be 20% over the limit…

They did it to make the population seem less unhealthy.

Makes you wonder what the population stats. for Land of the Free would be by EU standards…

18

Well, people are still smoking, but they’re paying a buttload of taxes to do so. Taxes that help fund their additional societal cost. A tax on fast food would be interesting, but how does one segregate ‘fast food’ from ‘diner’ or ‘restaurant’, or ‘pre-cooked at the grocery’ do we tax all of them the same? What about ‘healthy’ fast food items?

monstro had a great point about cars. People in NYC aren’t nearly as overweight as people elsewhere, because every trip they take starts with a walk down the street.

19

[hijack]
The mandarin salad sounds great - haven’t had one yet, but I am thinking about it. If you don’t have the dressing, it’s extremely light in calories & fat - but did you know that the packets of sesame dressing they give you for it has the same calories (280) and more fat (21 g vs. 10 g) than their jr. hamburger? That’s something that used to trip me up - salad is salad, and it’s healthy, right? Nope. [/hijack]

Susan

20

That was my argument in the “fat moronic bitch” thread. Anyone with a food addiction can’t just give up food altogether like you have to in order to beat any other addiction.

Anyway, back on topic. I’m having weight loss surgery because my fat has been hurting my health for the past 5 years. The $20,000 that it will cost will be better than the thousands of dollars spent in the next 40 years if I were to remain overweight.

But why tax all heavy people if we don’t know if they are heavy because of personal choice or a medical condition? In my case, it is 80% medical, 20% food choices. Does that mean I should pay 20% of the taxes instead of 100%?

I think taxing fat people across the board put us on a slippery slope. Taxing fast food is one way, but it’s a minor contributor to the fat problem. The biggest problem isn’t fast food, it’s carbs and sugars. I rarely eat fast food because it sucks, but I love carbs.

Another contributor is lack of physical activity. Okay, some overweight people are lazy, but there are people like me, who even though we’re overweight, we still hit the gym on a regular basis. But for the past 5 years, I haven’t been able to work out and my weight has jumped significantly (another reason for having surgery).

So what do we tax, who do we tax, and why?