Fat Tax

nicko33

bendix wrote: »

Fit is such a relative phrase. My definition of someone being fit is able to run 5000 metres at a decent pace, walk 10 miles etc etc.

I'm sorry, but there is no way you are going to convince me that obesity and fitness are compatible.

And even less chance of convincing me obesity and healthy can co-exist.

http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=524269
fit + obese + unhealthy ?

geri1965_2

Radiantsoul wrote: »

Presumably to kick in at above the 5,000 posts you have made!

Yeah, my three posts a day is so time consuming.

wageslave

This topic really made me smile.

But (always a bliddy but isn't there) I am now going to make myself hugely unpopular. I think fat people should be taxed.

Or at least their poison of choice should be.

I am a smoker and frankly I am taxed to bliddy death. Every time I turn around they have whacked another ten pence on a packet of fags. It seems I cost the NHS a fortune so they tax me and my ilk to the hilt.

Honestly, fair enough. I am not complaining. Even though the amount of tax raised on tobacco would pay for every smoker in the UK to get terminal cancer. Twice.

I pay and dont complain.

How much do the obese cost us? Their lifestyle choices make them far more likely to get cancer too. And heart disease. And high blood pressure. And diabetes.

I could go on and on listing the illnesses the obese actually do have never mind what they just might develop.

Why isn't chocolate taxed to the hilt? Or cakes or crisps?

It is far unhealthier than my vice and affects far more people

ninky_2

wageslave wrote: »

Why isn't chocolate taxed to the hilt? Or cakes or crisps?

It is far unhealthier than my vice and affects far more people

i've done quite a bit of research on diet / lifestyle for various shows i've done over the years.

it made me realise that being overweight is not always about junk food. there was a significant section of overweight people who were "gourmet" foodies. they loved to cook and generally it was so-called finer foods.

i find great irony in jamie oliver being touted as someone to give out nutritional advice. he's not a nutritionist and many of his recipes are laden (at least they were) with fat and carbs. there is a myth that cooking from scratch is automatically healthy. well it's not. take anthony worrall thompson and his lifestyle induced type 2 diabetes. he's not alone. many of the tv chefs are rather portly and it's got nothing to do with snickers bars and doritos.

obesity is generally a biological illness of appetite being out of sync with needs and the inability to control that. it's an evolutionary anachronism from a time of food scarcity when to overeat at times of abundance was a good survival mechanism.

however the other thing is that it seems it is actually possible to be fit (or healthy) and fat. a more important thing to consider is that it is possible to be unhealthy and unfit whilst being the correct bmi. studies actually indicate that it is better to be (somewhat) overweight and fit (active lifestyle) than the correct body weight and unfit (inactive lifestyle). of course there are limits and morbid obesity is never going to be a good thing.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/11/us-obesity-idUSN1137223820080811

basically it's all a little less intuitive than people think.

that said i personally choose to exercise and have a bmi of slightly under 22.

geri1965_2

ninky wrote: »

however the other thing is that it seems it is actually possible to be fit (or healthy) and fat. a more important thing to consider is that it is possible to be unhealthy and unfit whilst being the correct bmi. studies actually indicate that it is better to be (somewhat) overweight and fit (active lifestyle) than the correct body weight and unfit (inactive lifestyle). of course there are limits and morbid obesity is never going to be a good thing.

Thank you ninky, this is the point I was trying to make. I am obese according to all the charts (not morbidly obese however!) but I have an active lifestyle - I cycle to work every day in summer, in winter I walk (which is 50 mins x 2 a day). I am 45, my cholesterol is normal, my blood pressure is normal, I have no medical conditions. On the rare occasions I see my GP he has never commented on my weight, in fact he usually praises me for cycling (as I go in with my helmet).

I would of course like to lose weight, but dieting makes me miserable and unhappy. I was a skinny child, and a slim teenager but gradually put on weight in my late 30s and 40s, going on the contraceptive injection hasn't helped either.

ninky_2

when i think of the overweight contributors i worked with they certainly didn't conform to the benefits stereotype. one was a very successful property developer with a btl empire. another had started and now ran a very successful design agency. they were both minted but loved (fine) food.

if you repeated that documentary (supersize me) where the guy ate nothing but mcdonalds for every meal only did it with michelin starred restaurants i'm willing to bet the outcome would be even worse.

there are also skinny people with atrocious diets. for example a young man who literally ate nothing but proplus until he was so hungry he'd go and get a box of donuts from the supermarket and eat them all in one go. also girls who survived on vodka and diet tonic, vitamin pills and bowls of special k.

the agrarian diet (farmed grains and domesticated animals for the most part) is also so far away from the hunter gatherer diet we evolved for that i can't imagine any of us should feel too smug over the compatibility of our nutritional intake with our optimal bodily needs.

that is unless you are surviving on wild dormice, cockles, seaweed, cobnuts and berries.

Queen_Of_The_Jungle

I think employers should be able to be "fattist" as the fat lady in our place smells and is always in the loo doing stinky number twos!

geri1965_2

Queen_Of_The_Jungle wrote: »

I think employers should be able to be "fattist" as the fat lady in our place smells and is always in the loo doing stinky number twos!

Whereas yours are rose scented, I suppose.

IveSeenTheLight

Radiantsoul wrote: »

Lets face it not only are fat people a strain on overburdened infrastructure(taking up space on NHS and causing old pavements and bridges to crack under the strain of their obese bodies) they are also an absolute horror to look at.

The solution is to start taxing people based on their BMI. This is better than the bewildering array of taxes that we currently have to pay and is better and simpler than taxing the food that makes people fat as this would be complex to measure. All that would be required is a once a year levy to live in this country with the amount based on a sliding scale how far they deviate from the ideal BMI.

What about those that are underweight?, they also carry health risks.

Considering taxing those overweight is not fair asit's the bodies mechanisim for storing excess fuel to cater for when times are harder and food is not so available.

For those tin hatters in here, they should be stocking up for when the supposed acopolypse comes.

ninky_2

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Considering taxing those overweight is not fair asit's the bodies mechanisim for storing excess fuel to cater for when times are harder and food is not so available.

very good.

in a way perhaps they've been sensible. saving up resources for a rainy day. all very mse.