Accommodating the obese....

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29 Comments

I think it's absurd that there's pressure and drive to accommodate the obese as much as we do.

We shouldn't be making seats larger, and clothing bigger and bigger!! That's like saying being obese is OK and encouraged.

So many obese people in the US get paid to be obese!! It's a "disability"!! We pay them because they got too fat to work, they get paid medical, paid rent and paid food. That's outrageous!! Why are they not required to get treatment for their obesity?

Maybe if it wasn't so easy to just get fatter and fatter, people would think twice about their state of affairs.

is it normal to be upset over this obesity bullshit?

Voting Results
76% Normal
Based on 82 votes (62 yes)
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Comments ( 29 )
  • NeuroNeptunian
    11 years ago | pl

    I think that much of what our nation is doing is perpetuating the problem, such as paying the disability for obesity and accommodating them, but we don't really have a choice otherwise. They have as much of a right to exist here as we do.

    I think that obesity is doing quite a bit of damage to society. It perpetuates a lifestyle of inactivity and unhealthiness and like many other facets of society, it is being accommodated and tolerated thanks to the humanitarian attitude of our society.

    To be honest here, and I'm going to sound like a putz, I am aware, it is going too far. We've laid the blame on everyone, companies, depression etc. and I believe that people are honestly becoming convinced that it is not their fault that they have abused their health. It's a problem of removing personal responsibility from our citizens and pitying them rather than educating them of the health effects of obesity and should they choose not to forego the trials involved with maintaining their health? According to us, it's still not their fault.

    It went too far when large groups of people started advocating that obesity is something that should be tolerated and accepted. It costs society so much money and productivity and causes future generations to find obesity acceptable (many of them say that it is acceptable BECAUSE their parents are overweight) and ultimately I believe that it is a symptom of a bigger problem we are having, which is the pervasive acceptance of learned helplessness.

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  • dappled
    11 years ago

    They're not paid to "be obese". They're given help because they are unlucky enough to be in the situation they are.

    Yes, I'll accept they physically put the food in their own mouth, but I don't think many people actually want to be obese. If they're obese but don't want to be, it's indicative of something else. You have to see past the obesity to see the person inside who has a problem. Put like that, why shouldn't we be helping?

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      11 years ago

      When they're not required to do anything about their problem, then it's going too far. I don't have a problem helping people, but I do have a problem with helping them maintain this lifestyle and not requiring them to get treatment.

      I wouldn't consider anyone "unlucky" for any situation that they alone put themselves in.

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      • dappled
        11 years ago

        What about being unlucky for being depressed or to somehow get into a spiral of overeating due to a social phobia or another debilitating condition?

        The obesity is often a symptom of something else; and a "something else" that we should have sympathy for.

        Where I think we will agree is that not enough is being done to tackle it. But what do we do? I don't want my government deciding my menu.

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        • Francophile22
          11 years ago

          Exactly! Or put it in very early American terms: I should have the right to die overeating as long as I don't require government taxes/help to pay for my situation.

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        • VioletTrees
          11 years ago

          Well said. Fat people don't (except in very rare cases) set out to become fat, they become that way by accident. There are a lot of contributing factors, including economics, race, upbringing, and genetics (I'm not saying people are genetically fat regardless of food intake in most cases, but some people are genetically prone to food addiction). I don't think pitying fat people is the answer, but I do think that basic human empathy is called for.

          As for possible solutions, this is a difficult issue. It's very difficult to address obesity and the issues surrounding it without infringing on individual rights. It's basically none of anybody's goddamn business what anybody else eats. On the other hand, there are ways we can encourage healthy lifestyles. We can help get healthy food to poor people, for instance (one of the reasons poverty is correlated with obesity is that food that's cheap, easy to prepare, and tasty tends to be very fattening). We can teach healthy attitudes towards foods in school and children's entertainment (Sesame Street is pretty great about nutrition). We can make sure that people have affordable health care, and we can make sure working conditions are such that people have adequate opportunity and time to exercise.

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          • dappled
            11 years ago

            There was one thing I wanted to mention in my post and didn't (for the sake of keeping it short, because people don't like to read). I'll say it to you, though, because I'm pretty sure you don't mind.

            I wanted to compare food and health with drugs and health. You could legally take opiates in Victorian times but you can't now because the government bans things to look after our health. If it doesn't ban it, it discourages use by taxation (nicotine, alcohol).

            Now, no drug is vital to life. They might make some people happy, might make some people more able to cope, but not vital like food is.

            So I was wondering what the position is on restricting types of a thing that are vital for life. You don't need cream cakes, for instance, but you would if there was nothing else to eat. How can we restrict something that in certain conditions could be life-saving?

            I don't have an answer, by the way, and haven't even properly organised my own thoughts about it. I just considered it an interesting question. Maybe I'll ask it as a proper question here. Thought I'd see what you think first, though.

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            • Francophile22
              11 years ago

              Those who matter most DO like to read; in fact you are one of the more intelligent here and your opinions are very well-thought out. I for one welcome less brevity.

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            • VioletTrees
              11 years ago

              I would argue that having a healthy attitude towards food includes being able to indulge sometimes (though of course, there are exceptions, such as people with very restrictive diets for medical reasons). This is very different from drugs. A healthy, non-addict with no health complications saying "I will never EVER use heroin, cocaine, or cigarettes" is a perfectly fine, healthy decision. Somebody who's never been overweight saying "I will never EVER eat cake, cookies, or pasta" raises red flags. Restricting itself can become an addictive behaviour and lead to eating disorders (in people prone to them, which is complicated). Also, some unhealthy foods are important to our cultures. I don't think banning those foods is practical or even healthy, except in very specific contexts, such as school lunches.

              The fact that everybody has to eat a bit every day is what makes food addiction (by which I mean compulsive overeating and binging behaviours, and the mindset behind them) particularly difficult, I think. If we all had to have a little tiny bit of heroin every day, a lot more of us would be addicts. If everybody had to smoke half a cigarette every day, then throw the rest away, almost nobody would successfully quit smoking.

              Restricting things that are, in some conditions, life-saving isn't something that governments generally have much problem with. Many medications, life-saving and otherwise, are heavily regulated, particularly the ones that are prone to abuse. But this has consequences. There are regularly shortages of ADHD medications in the US, for instance, because the government is so focussed on keeping people from using them recreationally (with little success, I might add) that people who actually need them suffer. I don't think a system like this would make sense for food, particularly as it is and should be acceptable for people to indulge in unhealthy foods occasionally.

              The idea of taxing unhealthy foods has some merit, but it worries me. Right now, obesity is linked with poverty, partially because if you want food that's cheap, quick to prepare (which is important if you're working long hours), and reasonably delicious, most of your choices are fattening foods. Making those foods more expensive would encourage the poor (and indeed everyone) to choose healthier foods, but it would also increase the cost of food for the poor in general. The obesity crisis hasn't come with the elimination of hunger, even in wealthy countries. I think providing education and credits for healthier foods makes more sense than penalising unhealthy ones.

              We have to be careful defining what's healthy for everybody, too. I have a good friend who's chronically ill with a diet that's restrictive in kind of bizarre ways due to seizure and migraine triggers. If we rationed fatty and starchy foods, she might become much more ill from calorie deficiency. Cases like this might be relatively rare, but when we're talking about government action, we have to think about the whole population. If we pass laws about what workplaces are allowed to serve in their cafeterias, for instance, we can't assume that nobody is on a ketogenic diet due to epilepsy (high-fat, low carbohydrate diets can be used to manage epilepsy in some patients), or underweight, or sensitive to fibre, etc. People are really complicated, and I don't think it's really practical to seriously regulate their diets on a large scale. Hell, I can't restrict myself to what's usually considered a healthy diet, because I have a chronic fainting condition that gets much, much worse if I don't take in a great deal of sodium.

              Anyway, I'm not sure what the solution is. I think there are a few steps that need to be taken. Restaurants need to be required to publish the calorie content of their dishes on their menus (menus with no calorie content must also be available for people recovering from eating disorders, though). Parents and kids need to be taught about real nutrition, not nutrition in terms of what's socially considered healthy. As I mentioned before, working conditions need to be such that people can exercise, even if they have shitty jobs. There need to be healthy options available at restaurants, workplaces, and schools. Parents need to be able to regulate what their children eat at school. We need to stop thinking of obesity as a personal, moral failure, and start thinking about it as a social issue. When people say "It's just personal responsibility", I hear "Eh, might as well not bother".

              Haha, I didn't mean this to be so long. I guess as somebody with a (fortunately not terribly serious, but sometimes debilitating) chronic illness and an eating disorder, I'm kind of hyper-aware of special cases about these things. I'm currently considering getting a milkshake, actually, because I've eaten so little over the past week or so that I'm finding it difficult (both physically and psychologically) to take in a proper meal.

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      • VioletTrees
        11 years ago

        There are sometimes reasons for obese people not to diet, though. For instance, it's not uncommon for bulimics (and recovered bulimics) to be overweight or obese, and dieting is extremely triggering to bulimic behaviour. Some people are obese for reasons other than diet, also, such as metabolic illnesses. No, most obese people don't have these problems, but if you require all obese people to "do something about their problem", you will be hurting people in those situations.

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    • Francophile22
      11 years ago

      Not to mention those born with birth defects where they just can't keep weight off.

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  • Dot123
    11 years ago

    "America Runs on Dunkin'"

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  • howaminotmyself
    11 years ago

    I think you are a bit obsessed with it. There are much bigger problems in the world to complain about. But you like to complain, don't you?

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  • dirtybirdy
    11 years ago

    Damn dap, your so nice. I wont answer now. :) I'm not supposed to anyway, I told myself not to. I would not be so kind. I dont hate all fatties, Its just that, I just... forget it.

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    • NoraBaker
      11 years ago

      dreamybirdy, I believe it's not a matter of him being nice so much as being non-American. I, personally, have much sympathy for the obese and anyone struggling with weight issues, as I had to deal with it all my life. But things have gotten so out of hand in the US, culturally, that the production of fatties is no longer an exception. It's become the rule and the food industry, capitalism and the country's Way of Life is responsible for it. For that alone I can honestly understand the O.P.'s revolt.

      For this and other reasons is why I don't proudly embrace that nationality/citizenship so much as the other two.

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  • jessicababy33
    11 years ago

    You're a ball licking bitch. People can not help their weight issues. Some in fact, are raised that way. You're a confused cunt for thinking we pay them to be that way. I'm sure it's a life struggle and, it's a hard thing to just stop being. You are a dick stick for porpoising something like that on IIN and, obviously stupid as fuck.

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    • [Old Memory]
      11 years ago

      Obviously someones obese...

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  • ReoKado
    10 years ago

    I remember living in N.A., I'll be frank, they're a little hefty, but to give them money for being big does sound kind of stupid.

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  • GoraIntoDesiGals
    11 years ago

    They should pay more for air travel. If I have to pay extra for an extra pound of luggage then why not them for their hundreds of extra pounds? They make the airplane consume more fuel so it's bad for the environment. LOL

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  • Tystick
    11 years ago

    I used to be obese as a kid. I just got up and started other hobbies such as excercising and playing sports. If a lot of adults would do this. It wouldn't be as much of a problem. If I as a kid can overcome it then there's a whole lotta people who would stop making excuses and can believe in themselves and overcome it as well

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  • intellectuallychallengedmaybe
    11 years ago

    do more research. this obesity mess is engineered mayhem. addictive additives put in food to fatten you up, and keep you eating. the up-rising of unusually stressful situations, the economy falling. all this causes stress to people. when people get stressed they release a HORMONE that makes them gain more belly fat. did you watch the documentary "Super Size Me"? even nutritionists will agree that the average american diet today is full of salt, sugar, and fat. 3 major components in weight gain. put that together with bad economy, loads of stress, less time to spend outdoors because youre sitting at the desk all day trying to make that dolla - there's where the fat comes from. the additives are artificial and practically in every food in the supermarket, and defintely in the fast food chains. the additives cannot be broken down by the body as well as whole food, because the body doesnt recognize the additives as they are consumed. considering that obesity is considered a growing epidemic, the business savvy members of society are forseeing that to stay in business, they need to accomodate the growing majority.

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  • VioletTrees
    11 years ago

    Going "look how fat everybody is, why won't they stop being so faaaaat?" doesn't help anything. People didn't just suddenly decide that being fat would be a good idea, or that overeating is suddenly acceptable. The reason there are more fat people now is that delicious, inexpensive, fattening foods are widely available to a huge segment of the population for the first time in human history, and we also have a large segment of the population working jobs with very little physical activity. It's not a moral failing, it's human nature. If the population had had cars, Cheetos, and computer based jobs in the 1950s, we would've had an obesity crisis then, too.

    Making being fat shameful and difficult won't solve our obesity problems, because BEING FAT IS ALREADY SHAMEFUL AND DIFFICULT in our culture. What are you suggesting, exactly? That fat people shouldn't be able to buy clothes that fit? How, precisely, will that help them lose weight? We already live in a culture that encourages dieting, glorifies thinness, and demonises fatness. It's not stopping people from getting fat, it's just making them feel worse about it. And when people feel terrible, they're not really motivated to live a healthier lifestyle. There are things we can and should be doing about obesity, but further stigmatising fat isn't it.

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  • ralcor
    11 years ago

    Why so much hate everyone? I enjoy fatties. They go out of their way to please and 98% of them swallow. 98% don't mind anal and there is no maintenance involved with fatties. So give them that extra seat and make the ventilation a little stronger.

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  • nAt2017
    11 years ago

    I think it really depends on the person, and why they're obese. If it's for glandular/genetic problems, then they're in a rough position, and it's our duty to help them. Prader-Willi Syndrome is a horrible genetic condition which interferes with a person's ability to sense that they've eaten enough. Their lives are struggles from beginning to finish, and it's not their fault.

    On the other hand, if the person is just lazy, then yes, I guess it is their own fault.

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  • [Old Memory]
    11 years ago

    I do not think those kind of accommodations give people incentive to become morbidly obese or stay that way.

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  • thinkingaboutit
    11 years ago

    being a twig, I feel bad for the obese people. I have stronger disdain for moderately overweight people.

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  • disthing
    11 years ago

    I doubt many people get fat because when they do so the world expands with them. I don't think they do it out of convenience.

    I think if they are being paid disability directly relating to their excessive weight, and that excessive weight is directly related to something that can be treated or overcome, they should HAVE to attend treatment in order to be eligible for the money. So I do agree with you in that regard.

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  • NoraBaker
    11 years ago

    I also think the whole idea behind the aid given is guilt related. Bear with me. Following my train of thought in that the greater percentage of unnatural obesity would in fact be somewhat American Way of Life's fault, it would only be fair now to make amends and try and undo the calamity, because that's what it is. Perhaps it's not guilt, that sounds too good to be true, I know.

    Anyway, we have all seen the terrifying prospects in Wall-E and/or Idiocracy.

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  • [Old Memory]
    11 years ago

    We should send the fatties away they can live on their own with their own kind, like leper colonies but for fat fucks

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