Smoking and obesity.

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Smokers are being ostracised like never before in our written history.

The cost of health care is the major cited cause for coming down heavily on smokers. Yet the government makes so much money out of taxing the hell out of the product that they really don't care if we smoke or not. Just so long as they are raking in the profits. It's not like hospitals are set up and funded purely for smokers.

So what about obesity? You could claim that obesity is not so bad as smoking, but with all western nations experiencing an upsurge in the incidence of obesity, particularly in our children, and the attendant health issues of diabetes, heart problems, digestion backups, and not to mention the cost of clothing all these fat people, when are the PC crowd gonna jump on this bandwagon?

I heard the other day about some poor lad who is over 250 pounds at the ripe old age of nine years, and his mother is looking like having her boy taken off her by Family Services if he doesn't start shedding pounds real soon.

Fair is fair, people. If smokers are being taxed to the eyeballs and ostracised publicly to enjoy their fixation with nicotine, why aren't obese people, who are clearly an equal or greater burden on our health system being systematically ostracised for their addiction to food?

I see "smoking police" outside our public buildings in the city. So why don't we have "obesity police" outside our major food venues? Why don't obviously fat people have to pay extra in health insurance? Why don't they get turned away from Maccas and Hungry Jacks/Burger King because they clearly do not need any more?

Why don't we have turnstiles on our food venues, meaning if you don't fit through, you don't need any more fatty food, Hombre. Go home and excercise some more before you come back here.

Hell, you can't ride on certain thrillers at the theme park if you're too short. Why not single out people the same way because they are simply too fat?

Call me callous, but I'm sick to death of the tired old line that smokers cost the taxpayers so much at the hospital, when I've smoked for thirty years with no complaints, yet my fat-arse neighbour gets a pension because his back can't hold up his guts. He's at the doctors twice a week, and his monthly drug bill is about four hundred goddamn dollars. All subsidised by us working (smoking) taxpayers.

Last time I went to the doctor, (to have a tile chip removed from my eye) it had been so long since I've seen a doctor, that Medicare thought I'd died, so they struck me off the list.

Not happy, people. Not happy at all. If you want to tar and feather us smokers, let's see a tax on all takeaway food to cover the bleeding-heart obese amongst us. It's only fair.

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Your claims may seem exhorbitant, but they can matter on airplanes...

I'll say right off that the thin and dim, er, excuse me, the thin romp on high horses. I'm presently in middle weight, but my sympathies are for those above my own, who struggle to lose it. Or are beyond struggling.

To folks like Builder, good for you, but don't count on it.
thirty years smoking and still perking?
Carry on, Nurse.

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Seven of my twenty-three neices and nephews struggle with their weight problems, Osso.

Struggle means trying to do something about their problem.....

I should have qualified my statement that obese people who do nothing about their own issues are their own worst enemies.

Hence the poll options I chose.

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What is the option in your poll for your family members?

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ossobuco wrote:

What is the option in your poll for your family members?

That would be numbers 3 and 5.

I know I should have worded the original post a little better (lots, really) but I just had a two hour debate down the local rub-a-dub on the same issue.

The ridiculous impositions being placed on smokers is what is behind this.

There are those who place themselves at far greater risk on a weekly basis, like hangliders, rock-climbers and rock-fishermen, mountainbike riders, ad infinitum, but as minorities, they don't stand out in the crowd.

Obesity is a huge and growing problem for western society, no pun intended.

What positive thing is being done about it?

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We've a few serious threads here on obesity, with, trust me, a lot of points of view, and med information.

On the smoking issue, I have to look again at what you are saying. I'm an old daily twopack or more smoker, long over it but not condemning, usually. I quit at age 40, just as well; I'm 65 now, healthy, and just love being being able to breathe. No onus on anyone else.

I'm sort of freaked about potential bans in Belmont, California myself, re civil liberties.

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I guess I should acknowledge that cigarettes and chocolate bars and potato chips and much else can be addictions. Yes, that's true, or near enough to true.

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My predictions re the areas where people can smoke are coming up trumps.

The five metre (16 feet) rule, meaning that is how far you have to be from an entrance door or airconditioning unit have fallen by the wayside, and publicans relented under pressure when they realised that most of their patrons are smokers.

The whole front verandah of my local drinking hole is for smokers only now, and this is being mirrored in many bars across the country.

On the giving up issue, I quit for 18 months due to financial constraints when I was at college. I can also travel for three days cross-country driving without a cigarette, and when I'm out in the boat, I don't even think about them.

I roll my own, BTW, and I must admit that when I didn't smoke, I couldn't stand to have an ashtray anywhere near me.

I just think smokers are copping the short end of the stick, or the rough end of the pineapple, as we say here, simply because we are a captive market, and easily taxed and scapegoated.

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The difference is, IMO, that smoking can affect other people. Second-hand smoke, e.g. And the smell is offensive to many. Aside from being a medical burden, obese people aren't directly affecting others--unless one of them steps on your toe or takes up two seats on the bus.

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Roberta wrote:

The difference is, IMO, that smoking can affect other people. Second-hand smoke, e.g. And the smell is offensive to many. Aside from being a medical burden, obese people aren't directly affecting others--unless one of them steps on your toe or takes up two seats on the bus.

So you hail from New York, Roberta?

What impositions are placed on smokers in your area?

Second question is; have you noticed an upsurge in obesity in your area?

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Builder wrote:

Roberta wrote:
The difference is, IMO, that smoking can affect other people. Second-hand smoke, e.g. And the smell is offensive to many. Aside from being a medical burden, obese people aren't directly affecting others--unless one of them steps on your toe or takes up two seats on the bus.

So you hail from New York, Roberta?

What impositions are placed on smokers in your area?

Second question is; have you noticed an upsurge in obesity in your area?

No smoking in office buildings, restaurants, bars, cabs, etc, etc. Some buildings have signs in front of them indicating how far smokers need to be from the entrance. The taxes on cigarettes here may be the worst in the country. It costs between $6.50-$7.10 a pack.

As for obesity, hard to say. I'm seeing more overweight children than I used to. If the rest of the population is expanding, it's happened too gradually for me to notice.

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Sounds about the same here.

While I do see the odd obese kid, I live in a very outdoor-oriented region, and most of the kids are fit and healthy and active.

I wish I could say the same for the adults. :wink:

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I think in New York, it's a borough/neighborhood, income, ethnic thing--at least to an extent. I notice more obese people in neighborhoods outside my own. Why? I'm sure that someone somewhere has done a study.

As for people smoking in the street, in my neighborhood, I see the high school kids smoking. Once in a while an adult standing outside a store or restaurant. And rarely someone walking down the street smoking.

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So you think the anti-smoking trend is working there?

From the little I can garner about New York from television, I'm thinking that only the fit and active prosper?

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I think that many people who used to smoke have stopped. Most of the people I see smoking outside are young people. I'm guessing that there are fewer smokers than there used to be. Can't be sure whether the younger generation will take up the slack. But since since you can't smoke in most public places, it's hard to know how many people actually are smoking. I can only go my what I see outside. No more smoke filled bars. Smoking sections in movies and restaurants, etc. It's much more hidden.

On the other hand, there's no hiding obesity. I do know that there are fashionable department stores that have larger size departments for women. They didn't always. And I believe there are more specialty shops. I also noticed that those formerly teeny weeny paper hospital things women used to be given to wear are larger now. Surely a sign that something is happening.

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I read an article the other day about the renaming of children's clothing sizes.

Like the XXOS size is now simply Large, and all the other sizes got downgraded to allow for the change. So now we have XXXS, where once we had simply Small.

Is that what is commonly known as a "Quick Fix"?

Astounding really. The commentator in the article claimed that the larger sized purchasers were feeling ostracised by the labelling of oversized clothing. Did they for one minute consider the reverse impact of this decision?

Mind-numbing. I call a spade a spade. If you are big, let's not pretend you are normal.

If you are normal, let's not pretend you are tiny. This is what I call screwing with children's minds. You think they won't notice the changes?

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I honestly don't know what the answer is for either issue. Nobody's breaking a law.

Kids are brutally taunted and teased for being overweight. Adults are also treated with insensitivity. That's wrong.

People who smoke are ostracized and criticized. Wrong too.

In theory, at least, obesity and smoking are things that can be controlled. Clearly that's not happening.

Don't know what to tell ya. Changing the name of a kids size from extra large to large isn't solving anything--but it isn't hurting anybody.

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Meh, I still get taunted for being small. I counter that I'm exactly the same height and weight as Mel Gibson.

That doesn't stop potential narcissists from targetting me.

The way to upstage these types is to outperform them, which they hate.

Maybe I'm just too competitive for this new politically correct world?

I don't know.

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Builder wrote:

Meh, I still get taunted for being small. I counter that I'm exactly the same height and weight as Mel Gibson.

That doesn't stop potential narcissists from targetting me.

The way to upstage these types is to outperform them, which they hate.

Maybe I'm just too competitive for this new politically correct world?

I don't know.

Builder, I wrote a few responses but didn't sent them because I honestly am not sure how to respond. My reaction to the people who make comments. Ouch. Yes, they hurt. And phooey on them.

But (big but--one t) I'm not a man. My father was a very handsome man. Good-looking enough that every friend of mine who met him remarked on this to me. Yet, he was self-conscious and uncomfortable about his appearance. I finally asked my mother about this. She said he was uncomfortable because he was short. Go figure. I'm guessing that this is a man thing.

So all I can say is if you can upstage and outperform, more power to ya. And I still say phooey on them.

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Tall poppy syndrome, Roberta.

I've always been competitive, and it rubs some people the wrong way.

I don't really care. If they are that petulant, or somehow symbiotically linked with their own carcases to care that much about it, then they are the one's with the problem.

I understand what your Father was feeling. My research into narcissism tells me that I'll be head-butting these ungracious imbeciles till I die.

Your Dad was on the right track. It sounds like he didn't suffer short-man's syndrome. He just got jack of the idiots that like to swing their weight around, without any substance or intelligence behind their fat.

Just remember that your Dad was the winner.

:wink:

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Smoking and obesity.

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