Is it fair to fine fat people for not dieting?

When aspertame, which causes a craving for carbs (fatness)
is marketed as a diet aid ( drug....exito toxin )
I'd say the problem is a little higher up the foodchain then some people would admit.

on the other hand
Along with Resveritrol, slight constant starvation is the other thing that turns on the anti aging gene

reply to post by Erongaricuaro


I like that one about the "twinkie tax".I am so glad that
I know how to bake my own FATTENING goodies.
Mine taste better too

reply to post by bluemirage5


Hold me back,I'm about to blow!
Too lazy to cook,hummm.I am a stay at home housewife.
I also have a 12 room house to clean,a husband to pick up
after and 3 demanding housecats!
Now,your typical soccer mom...
Has a full time job,a house to clean,husband to pick up after,
3 kids' all involved in after school activities and has to cook
dinner before she can even sit down!

reply to post by neformore


This is sort of like the tax on smokers, if your personal habits cause society to have to pay money for your behavior, why shouldn't you pay it instead?
Yes I smoke and it still makes me mad they keep raising taxes on cigarettes.
Due to all the taxes I have paid over the years they should help me quite, this is not the case.
They want me to smoke, so they can have the money, go figure.
Why doesn't the government provide smoking cessation programs?
I don't see any free nicotine patches or help from them.
Just ads saying its bad, I know this. It is an addiction, I have quite for years at a time, just to start again,
it is my only vice, I hate the withdrawal, and all it takes is the smell of a cigarette to get me craving again.
Wish the goverment would spend some cash on getting a cure for the craving, before nature cures me the hard way.
I have smoked over 25 years off and on, always end up smoking again.
What happened to the money I paid?
They should put a quite smoking phone number on the packs.
With obesity, they know what gene controls it, do you ever think there will be free gene therapy?, probably not.
They make to much money treating the symptoms and disease caused by it.
Dieting isn't the answer fixing the root cause is, it is expensive to be treated and the research is expensive that discovered it, it won't be cheap until the government figures out how to make money treating it.
And they will never make it cheap because they make more keeping it expensive.
Just my opinion. Everyone has one.

Pardon me, but I personally think the real issue is being missed here.

It's not about obesity, or smoking, or lifestyle choices. It's about whether you can be fined for not following your doctor's recommendations.

20 years or so ago I had a complete hysterectomy due to endometriosis. Afterwards my doctor put me on Premarin and told me it was absolutely essential that I be on HRT (hormone replacement therapy). Now my thyroid is trashed and "they" are finally beginning to admit a link between Premarin and thyroid problems. Oops.

I have high cholesterol now and my doctor wants me on a statin (Lipitor or Crestor). My mother was put on a statin before she died and had some fairly bad reactions to it. The list of negative side effects for statins is horrendous and includes permanent muscle damage and kidney failure. I have refused to take the statin and my doctor is quite unhappy about it; it's an argument every time I see her.

Due to some of the jobs I've had, I've been in a position to see doctor's orders and charts on a variety of people. Here are some other recommendations I personally have seen doctors make in writing.

Do not smoke or use tobacco products.
Do not drink alcohol (at all).
Do not drink carbonated beverages.
Do not drink coffee or tea.
Do not masturbate (yes, I'm not kidding, I swear to you that one is real although it is odd).
Do not use table salt or eat salty foods like potato chips, pretzels, and other salty snacks.
Exercise at least 30 minutes every day (further defined as aerobic exercise.
Do not wear heels higher than one inch.
Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night.
Do not eat butter, lard, bacon, or other foods high in animal fats.
Take a low-dose aspirin every day.
Do not wear makeup.
Do not shower more often than every 3rd day.
Stay out of direct sunlight.

And I could keep going ...

So .. they are starting with unpopular people like smokers and fat people, but if it gets started where will it end? How long before you can be fined ( or refused medical care? ) because you have not followed some recommendation your doctor made for you?

The agenda here that I see is DOCTOR KNOWS BEST and eventually all of us will have to do whatever our doctors tell us or suffer real consequences. Is that the kind of world you want?

Sure, you are willing to sacrifice the smokers and the fatties, but what will you do when it comes around to your turn, Mr. Casual Beer Drinker or Ms. Pepsi Addict, and it's too late to do anything about it because you let it happen when they were targeting people you think are okay to target?

I'll say this one more time and please consider it and GET IT: It's not about being fat, it's about forcing people to do whatever their doctor wants them to do, be it take a drug, get an expensive and painful mammogram every single year, or not drink soda pop. It's about CONTROL.

Too many people are beginning to think independently and take care of their own health, refusing drugs and unnecessary procedures or using home remedies, and "THEY" want to put a stop to it. This is where they are beginning, with an agenda they think will be acceptable to a lot of people, and all of you who want to shrug your shoulders and let the fatties and the smokers and the drinkers get theirs are going to allow it to happen.

Are not the people suffering the worse from obesity, the poor who need the help of welfare? I'm not so sure that can be the end point of the cause...
As limited money causes them to have to buy processed and cheaper foods as well as their low budget to be able to afford to go out more, if disabled-may not be able to exercise well, can't afford gym prices, etc. I'm not proposing excuses, but each situation is different. If they are going to regulate weight, they won't stop there, but to regulate smoking cigarettes, drinking sodas and eating "junk" food, to monitoring food bought by the people receiving benefits.
Or their laws to go even further, or how about, not give them benefits, but let them line up twice a week to revive, cheese(unless your bmi is too high), butter, bread and milk.
However, from what I've read, banks are cashing in on foodstamps, so, that's not likely to change any time soon, minus the eligibility control.

No more laws.

No more fines.

This is getting ridiculous.

PS.....But doc....I am only a little bit overweight

OH,.....

There should be a law against new laws.

Of course we can't tax those that do not take the perfect path to health. After all, we all have our weakness to life. Whether it be the Big Mac, a smoke, a drink, the air we breath, or the very food we consume. It is all full of toxins that will kill us. What's next? a tax on poisoned air? In that case they should tax them selves. After all, they make us inhail this sh!t. All these companies dumping crap in our air. Where is their tax for killing us?

Now you can't have babies if you're too fat? Oh my...

Sun Sentinel Article

W. T. F. ? ?

Depopulation one excuse at a time?

reply to post by neformore


I'm guessing a bunch of people here didn't actually read the article:


BBC News

People with children, and those overweight due to a medical condition will not have to pay.

Aside from that, I can see it both ways. If you are receiving funding or assistance for something, they're going to create rules they think you should go by. Fair enough. But on the other hand, it's your choice what you feed yourself and what you put out energy wise (a vast majority of the time.) So if you choose to be that way, your call. Not my problem. But if they're giving you funding and it's costing them more because you have more medical bills due to how you treat your body, they're the ones giving it out so don't be surprised when s**t like this comes up. And $50 a year is not that much, especially considering what the actual bills are costing.

If you look at the article I posted from the Sun Sentinel, it says nothing of this being for those on social assistance, only that it applies to a subjective weight 'cut-off' starting at 200lbs.
This isn't just about welfare recipients who are overweght, its a war on obesity bordering on fiat sterilization.

reply to post by liejunkie01


unless your Dr is overweight like mine is. Then what?

reply to post by mugger


When you reply to someone, why don't you make sure your reply is related to their post. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I know one thing, your response had nothing to do with my posts. Stuggling with reading comprehension a little bit, eh?

And I don't care if you smoke. But if you get lung cancer, surely you don't expect everyone here to help float your med bills. You sound like the type to smoke all his life and sue the cigarette companies when you get cancer.

I have no respect for fat people.

They pretty much digust me.

Yea, fine them.

Originally posted by mamabeth
reply to post by Erongaricuaro

 

I like that one about the "twinkie tax".I am so glad that
I know how to bake my own FATTENING goodies.
Mine taste better too

Yours are probably much healthier as well. We just don't stock all the proper bad stuff in our kitchens, unless it's all prepared ingredients as well. How much hydrogenated palm kernel oil do you normally put in your home-baked Twinkies? Umami? www.abovetopsecret.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

The process of hydrogenation adds hydrogen atoms to unsaturated fats, eliminating double bonds and making them into partially or completely saturated fats. However, partial hydrogenation, if it is chemical rather than enzymatic, converts a part of cis-isomers into trans-unsaturated fats instead of hydrogenating them completely. Trans fats also occur naturally to a limited extent: Vaccenyl and conjugated linoleyl (CLA) containing trans fats occur naturally in trace amounts in meat and dairy products from ruminants, although the latter also constitutes a cis fat.

No trans fats are essential fatty acids; indeed, the consumption of trans fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease[1][2] by raising levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol and lowering levels of "good" HDL cholesterol.[3] Health authorities worldwide recommend that consumption of trans fat be reduced to trace amounts. Trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils are more harmful than naturally occurring oils.[4]

edit on 18-5-2011 by Erongaricuaro because: (no reason given)

If taxpayers are paying for your healthcare and you are mistreating your body, you're mistreating taxpayer property.

Simple as that.

You would be the guardian of your body, the doctor would be the custodian of your body, and taxpayer the owner.

Like being in the military, you actually become government property.

reply to post by dbriefed


"Mistreating" it according to who? According to my doctor, I'm "mistreating" my body by refusing to take the (dangerous) drug she wants me on.

Consider when you are old enough to be on Medicare and if you will want your doctor running your whole life according to his/her whim whether you agree with it or not. Because that's where this is headed.

Come on people make a little effort to think here. This is not about fat people or smokers, it's about doctors and the health care industry getting control of our lives - all of our lives, since very few of us can afford to pay for our health care entirely out of our own pockets.

If this goes, on down the road it will be employers imposing financial consequences if you don't do what the doctor says, since they're paying for part or all of your healthcare.

Can't you see past your nose? Or at least, past your prejudices and judgmental attitudes?

ultimately this is wrong.But there so many issues here and its just typical that a government bandaids problems instead of fixing the root cause of it.
first some stats i found(yes i know there statistics)

Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are obese: 34% (2007-2008) Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are overweight (and not obese): 34% (2007-2008) www.cdc.gov...

(Question:percentage of americans on welfare)The strictest sense of the term though would be those getting income directly from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services which is about 8% of the total population that receives some form of assistance and 1.7% that receive most of their income (50% or more) from these programs. Programs like unemployment insurance or social security payments can technically be counted as "welfare" in some instances though they are differentiated from federal programs like TANF or food stamps. wiki.answers.com...

A 2003 study in Health Affairs estimated that uninsured people in the U.S. received approximately $35 billion in uncompensated care in 2001...spending about $30.6 billion on payments and programs to serve the uninsured and covering as much as 80–85% of uncompensated care costs through grants and other direct payments, tax appropriations, and Medicare and Medicaid payment add-ons. Most of this money comes from the federal government, followed by state and local tax appropriations for hospitals. en.wikipedia.org...

sorry i couldn't find new sources for the cost but im guessing its gone up.
not sure how reliable these sources are.

Should the question be "Is it fair to fine fat people for not dieting" or is it fair that our taxpayer money gets wasted on people who go to the doctor for help, don't follow the advice and go back to doctor wasting even more taxpayer money?
$35billion is alot and for people to abuse it is wrong.but i don't think this should be focused on as i said before this is the governments lazy way of trying to fix things. we should focus on the bigger things.


Ok just remembered after finishing my post that this is only in Arizona so im guessing its a state thing not a federal thing. but im sure you get my point.

edit: We have to remember the world we live in. We don't have a pill that can solve everything. until then people will have to take responsibility for there own health or if you can't,for what ever reason, pay your own way on insurance and get assistance from the gov.(your friends and neighbors that pay taxes). Then yes you should get fined for wasting time and money.

Aside for certain disorders, I think it's perfectly fair to fine fat people and (heavy) smokers. Why should I pay health care costs for people who are willingly living an unhealthy life? In the country I live, people averagely pay €1200,- per person a year - and that gives you only basic coverage. Due to ever increasing health care cost, the yearly fee only grows higher. Wanna live an unhealthy life? Fine, but you pay the extra costs yourself.