According to information I was told today

[Cap]

We spend over one hundred billion dollars as a result of obese people and the medical costs associated with it.  That's right.  Fat people cost us even more money that illegal immigrants.  Let's get rid of both of them and better this country in a number of ways.  I realize each person has a right to eat whatever they want but we don't have to pay for their health costs.     Discuss.

[OzmO]

We spend over one hundred billion dollars as a result of obese people and the medical costs associated with it.  That's right.  Fat people cost us even more money that illegal immigrants.  Let's get rid of both of them and better this country in a number of ways.  I realize each person has a right to eat whatever they want but we don't have to pay for their health costs.     Discuss.

Sounds just like firend OldSchool's take on national health care. 

I agree. 

Awareness, regulation in Fast Food advertising, and nutritional education are the key.

I wonder if we should conisder banning Fast Advertisment in TV for the same reasons as Cigarettes?

[240 is Back]

fast food is terrific tax revenue.

and you won't see rush limbaugh protesting mcdonalds anytime soon.

[G o a t b o y]

We spend over one hundred billion dollars as a result of obese people and the medical costs associated with it.  That's right.  Fat people cost us even more money that illegal immigrants.  Let's get rid of both of them and better this country in a number of ways.  I realize each person has a right to eat whatever they want but we don't have to pay for their health costs.     Discuss.

I don't think we should tell people what they can and can't do, but I fully agree that people should be forced to pay the full costs of their stupid actions, and not force the rest of us to share the burden. With cigarettes, it would be easy... just tax the heck out of them, and require that the money only be used to subsidize health care for smoking-related illnesses.  Think of it as a "user fee" to fully cover the cost of the product, including long-term costs.

With fat people though it's a lot more difficult to conceive of a practical, workable system where they would be accurately assesed their additional costs.

[G o a t b o y]

fast food is terrific tax revenue.

and you won't see rush limbaugh protesting mcdonalds anytime soon.

The problem is all food, including "fast food" can be eaten responsibly and in moderation. There are no bad foods, only bad diets.

[Cap]

I don't think we should tell people what they can and can't do, but I fully agree that people should be forced to pay the full costs of their stupid actions, and not force the rest of us to share the burden. With cigarettes, it would be easy... just tax the heck out of them, and require that the money only be used to subsidize health care for smoking-related illnesses.  Think of it as a "user fee" to fully cover the cost of the product, including long-term costs.

With fat people though it's a lot more difficult to conceive of a practical, workable system where they would be accurately assesed their additional costs.

Medicines, surgeries to reduce their weight, treatment, motorized wheel chairs, etc.

[ribonucleic]

We spend over one hundred billion dollars as a result of obese people and the medical costs associated with it.  That's right.  Fat people cost us even more money that illegal immigrants.  Let's get rid of both of them and better this country in a number of ways.  I realize each person has a right to eat whatever they want but we don't have to pay for their health costs.     Discuss.

As a skinny-turned-pudgy man myself, I find the politics of fat very interesting.

Clearly, humor at the expense of the obese is as popular as ever. [I refer you to the grosses of Eddie Murphy's last movie.] However, with ever rising percentages of Americans joining their number, the jokes have seemed to acquire a nervous streak. It's increasingly obvious to everyone that we are eating ourselves to death. But it's easier to point and ridicule than acknowledge the unpleasant realities that underlie the phenomenon:

- the dangerously powerful lobbying clout of corporate agriculture
- the American worker's ever-decreasing real income
- the cultural and spiritual emptiness of our consumerist way of life

And cap is right: The associated health costs of this are going to make an ugly situation worse. 40 years ago, no one could have imagined the degree to which tobacco use has become demonized and circumscribed. We may well come to see fattening foods subjected to the same treatment.

[ieffinhatecardio]

As a skinny-turned-pudgy man myself, I find the politics of fat very interesting.

Clearly, humor at the expense of the obese is as popular as ever. [I refer you to the grosses of Eddie Murphy's last movie.] However, with ever rising percentages of Americans joining their number, the jokes have seemed to acquire a nervous streak. It's increasingly obvious to everyone that we are eating ourselves to death. But it's easier to point and ridicule than acknowledge the unpleasant realities that underlie the phenomenon:

- the dangerously powerful lobbying clout of corporate agriculture
- the American worker's ever-decreasing real income
- the cultural and spiritual emptiness of our consumerist way of life

And cap is right: The associated health costs of this are going to make an ugly situation worse. 40 years ago, no one could have imagined the degree to which tobacco use has become demonized and circumscribed. We may well come to see fattening foods subjected to the same treatment.

I think in the near future we're going to see the obese demonized the way smokers are today, probably within ten years. Once a real study is published and shown that accurately documents the added costs to taxpayers associated with being obese I think it will happen and it could get ugly.

The problem is how the hell can you control it? At least with smokers you can force them to smoke in areas that are inconvenient to access and you can make nearly everything a non-smoking area but how can we have any kind of control on what people eat? There's a McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts nearly on every street corner.

[Cap]

I think in the near future we're going to see the obese demonized the way smokers are today, probably within ten years. Once a real study is published and shown that accurately documents the added costs to taxpayers associated with being obese I think it will happen and it could get ugly.

The problem is how the hell can you control it? At least with smokers you can force them to smoke in areas that are inconvenient to access and you can make nearly everything a non-smoking area but how can we have any kind of control on what people eat? There's a McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts nearly on every street corner.

Deny things that are not needed.  If they were born fat you cannot deny these things but they ATE FAT.  I shouldn't have to pay for their health care costs.  Cut benefits and watch the people thin or die, either way it's a healthier society.  Fatties get healthy or die younger.

[ieffinhatecardio]

Deny things that are not needed.  If they were born fat you cannot deny these things but they ATE FAT.  I shouldn't have to pay for their health care costs.  Cut benefits and watch the people thin or die, either way it's a healthier society.  Fatties get healthy or die younger.

LOL, that's ugly all right. Ugly but funny.

What do you mean deny things that are not needed?

[ribonucleic]

I think in the near future we're going to see the obese demonized the way smokers are today, probably within ten years. Once a real study is published and shown that accurately documents the added costs to taxpayers associated with being obese I think it will happen and it could get ugly.

A fascinating (to my mind) related development is the growing number of teenagers and young women - here in Salt Lake City at least - who dress in figure-revealing clothes (i.e. belly shirts, low-riders) despite the fact that any objective observer would conclude that they are too heavy to be flattered by such garments.

I don't know if they assume that dressing like Britney Spears is a civil right of some kind - or whether the demarcation line for "fat" is getting pushed back. But given everything we hear about the cultural pressure on women towards anorexia, it sure is puzzlin'. 

[Cap]

LOL, that's ugly all right. Ugly but funny.

What do you mean deny things that are not needed?

Motorized wheel chairs, gastric surgeries, thyroid meds, etc.

[ribonucleic]

Motorized wheel chairs, gastric surgeries, thyroid meds, etc.

Well, I think clinical obesity [and I believe there is such a medical condition, although only a small percentage of fat people suffer from it] is already treated as a "pre-existing condition" for insurance purposes.

[ieffinhatecardio]

A fascinating (to my mind) related development is the growing number of teenagers and young women - here in Salt Lake City at least - who dress in figure-revealing clothes (i.e. belly shirts, low-riders) despite the fact that any objective observer would conclude that they are too heavy to be flattered by such garments.

I don't know if they assume that dressing like Britney Spears is a civil right of some kind - or whether the demarcation line for "fat" is getting pushed back. But given everything we hear about the cultural pressure on women towards anorexia, it sure is puzzlin'. 

I think that's a growing trend everywhere, I see that up here in New England all the time. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "the demarcation line for "fat" is getting pushed back". Either that or all those chubby teenagers are immune to insults.

[Cap]

Well, I think clinical obesity [and I believe there is such a medical condition, although only a small percentage of fat people suffer from it] is already treated as a "pre-existing condition" for insurance purposes.

Hmmm....prexisting as in too much McDonald's for the body to process?  Give them thyroid tabs but make them pay for it.

[ieffinhatecardio]

Motorized wheel chairs, gastric surgeries, thyroid meds, etc.

I'm not fully aware of the total cost associated with Gastric Bypass Surgery, I know that it's not a have the surgery and you're done situation but in many cases that surgery is the only thing that can save people's lives. Clearly there are is a whole subgroup of people that literally have zero willpower. They can't stop overeating and won't exercise.

I'm not at your level yet though, you seem to either want them to get thin by themselves or die from the affects of obesity. That's still rather harsh for me.

[Cap]

I'm not fully aware of the total cost associated with Gastric Bypass Surgery, I know that it's not a have the surgery and you're done situation but in many cases that surgery is the only thing that can save people's lives. Clearly there are is a whole subgroup of people that literally have zero willpower. They can't stop overeating and won't exercise.

I'm not at your level yet though, you seem to either want them to get thin by themselves or die from the affects of obesity. That's still rather harsh for me.

That's what we tell smokers.  Stop smoking or you will die.  Isn't the situation analgous?  If they can't stop eating, that is their problem.  they can see a priest or a shrink

[ribonucleic]

Hmmm....prexisting as in too much McDonald's for the body to process?  Give them thyroid tabs but make them pay for it.

Did a chubby girl break your heart once? 

If you'll read my post again, I hope you'll see that I already agree with you that the vast majority of overweight people have no one but themselves to blame - and that certainly includes me.  But I still believe that there are a small percentage of people whose screwed-up metabolisms simply make maintaining a healthy weight level impossible - just as it's impossible for diabetics to maintain a healthy insulin level.

If you want to contend that a cost-benefit analysis "weighs" against [ah, I crack myself up sometimes  ] subsidizing treatment for such people, I won't mind. But lumping the medically tragic with the merely gluttonous seems both cruel and willfully ignorant.

[ieffinhatecardio]

That's what we tell smokers.  Stop smoking or you will die.  Isn't the situation analgous?  If they can't stop eating, that is their problem.  they can see a priest or a shrink

Yes, it's analogous except that nicotine is physically addicting. The body becomes addicted to it. While overeating is emotional but your essential point is correct at least to me.

I think this goes back to demonization. It's easier for me to say "Stop or Die" to a smoker because of the way I look at smoking. I don't look at obese people that way yet, I probably will sometime soon but not just yet.

[Cap]

Did a chubby girl break your heart once? 

If you'll read my post again, I hope you'll see that I already agree with you that the vast majority of overweight people have no one but themselves to blame - and that certainly includes me.  But I still believe that there are a small percentage of people whose screwed-up metabolisms simply make maintaining a healthy weight level impossible - just as it's impossible for diabetics to maintain a healthy insulin level.

If you want to contend that a cost-benefit analysis "weighs" against [ah, I crack myself up sometimes  ] subsidizing treatment for such people, I won't mind. But lumping the medically tragic with the merely gluttonous seems both cruel and willfully ignorant.

I agree with you.  These people are mostly treated with thyroid tabs, therapy (which is supervised exercise essentially) or costly surgeries.  Surgeries cost money....T3 tabs, not so much.  There are genetics components but they do not take up the large amount of obese IMO.  Giving parking spots to fat people at the gym is ironic.   

[ieffinhatecardio]

Did a chubby girl break your heart once? 

If you'll read my post again, I hope you'll see that I already agree with you that the vast majority of overweight people have no one but themselves to blame - and that certainly includes me.  But I still believe that there are a small percentage of people whose screwed-up metabolisms simply make maintaining a healthy weight level impossible - just as it's impossible for diabetics to maintain a healthy insulin level.

If you want to contend that a cost-benefit analysis "weighs" against [ah, I crack myself up sometimes  ] subsidizing treatment for such people, I won't mind. But lumping the medically tragic with the merely gluttonous seems both cruel and willfully ignorant.

Is it a scientific fact that obesity can be a medical issue? Has this been proven without any doubt? I still find it hard to believe that all obese people didn't cause the obesity themselves.

[ribonucleic]

Is it a scientific fact that obesity can be a medical issue? Has this been proven without any doubt?

Science never proves anything, of course. And I doubt the evidence is as strong as it is for, say... GLOBAL WARMING!!! [sorry, couldn't help myself] But there are no shortage of gastric bypass patients who say that nothing else has helped them. And I see nothing implausible in the possibility.

[Deedee]

Is it a scientific fact that obesity can be a medical issue? Has this been proven without any doubt? I still find it hard to believe that all obese people didn't cause the obesity themselves.

I think it's been proven that certain medications, like antidepressants, can contribute or cause weight gain.

Although it would be nice to make obese people responsible for their addiction... i.e. have them pay out of pocket for their various medical conditions rather than force the fit to subsidize the gluttony, how do you regulate something like that?  What if I'm huge, become diabetic as a result of my obesity, but then lose all kinds of weight. Would I have to pay for my treatment because it resulted from my obesity, or would I be covered by my health insurance because I am now skinny?

[Option D]

Sounds just like firend OldSchool's take on national health care. 

I agree. 

Awareness, regulation in Fast Food advertising, and nutritional education are the key.

I wonder if we should conisder banning Fast Advertisment in TV for the same reasons as Cigarettes?

Shouldn't ban either. Brutal trampling of first amendment

[Cap]

I think it's been proven that certain medications, like antidepressants, can contribute or cause weight gain.

Although it would be nice to make obese people responsible for their addiction... i.e. have them pay out of pocket for their various medical conditions rather than force the fit to subsidize the gluttony, how do you regulate something like that?  What if I'm huge, become diabetic as a result of my obesity, but then lose all kinds of weight. Would I have to pay for my treatment because it resulted from my obesity, or would I be covered by my health insurance because I am now skinny?

If you are the cause, then you pay.  Deedee....are you telling me something?