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Japan Imposes "Fine On Fat"
An anonymous reader writes "A recently-introduced law in Japan requires all businesses to have mandatory obesity checks (video link) for all their employees and employees' family members over the age of 40, CNN reports. If the employee or family member is deemed obese, and does not lose the extra fat soon, their employer faces large fines. The legislated upper limit for the waistline is 33.5" for men, and 35.5" for women. Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government? By comparison, the average waistline in America in 2005 was 39 inches for men, 37 inches for women."
if it gets rid of that fat fuck CowboyNeal, I'm all for it.
Do you smoke?
Do you drink?
Drug tests?
Any of this sound familiar in a survey from your insurance application or work orientation pack?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
The question is specious: there are dozens of countries with public health care, but they don't have such crazy restrictions (including your neighbour, Canada). I chalk it up to a Japanese culture that accepts such a standard. And don't give me the fat-people-will-cost-me-more in a public system argument, because they are costing you more in a private system, unless fatter people at your work pay more for their insurance plan...
Definitely sounds like a big problem.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
What about the sumo wrestlers?! Don't they get a say!?
While "big boned" is a complete cop out, there are people with naturally larger waists... or worse yet, hormonal/glandular issues...
http://billstclair.com/DoingFreedom/000623/df.0600.fa.lipidleggin.html Written in 1978...scary and well worth reading (it's a short story, won't take long to read)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Well wow, that's just dumb. Didn't they read that smokers and fat people cost the government less thank skinny people?. The study was done by the Dutch, and their healthcare is mandatory private (like people are talking about for the US) supplemented by socialized healthcare for people who are elderly or unable to otherwise function, so I'd think they'd have a pretty good idea of what the costs are. //Sorry about the stupid dashes. Goddamn system isn't taking my paragraph breaks.
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Sure, the smokers and fat people have more health problems, but they have the decency to drop dead and not linger on the government dime, senile and incontinent, for a few extra decades.
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I try to keep healthy, but when I hit the point where I'm not enjoying life much any more, I'm eating whatever the hell I want, taking up heroin. I'll be mainlining viagra II, and having sex with the kind of scary women that'd have sex with me! You see these articles coming out of Florida about old guys getting arrested for trying to buy drugs, just for the hell of it, and I don't understand what the problem is. This society is so fricking weird; god forbid you threaten your own ability to live to 110.
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Life is one of those things where it's really about quality, not quantity.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
So, when do they extend this to a minimum female bust line?
If you don't have at least a 34C, your employer provided insurance will mandate a boob job.
I'm thinking the gov't inspector position on that law will be a highly coveted spot.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Once the government is in charge of health care, they have a responsibility to manage every part of your life which effects your health. You may only eat and drink healthy products. No more smoking. Safe cars only. No motorcycles! These will all be necessary to combat the increased cost that government control of health care will create.
Thanks
Does this apply to foreign workers? For instance, if I were to go work in Japan for a year or two after I'm 40, would my employer be fined if I didn't shrink my 37 to a 33.5?
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
The term Big Brother comes to mind for some reason.
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
They are stopping people being as big as a whale?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I had the impression this sport was hugely popular over there (got that from reading Freakonomics). Will they make an exception for wrestlers?
of Sumo? :(
You can't take the sky from me...
How can you have a single upper-limit on waist sizes? Are all people in Japan the same height or are short people allowed to be fatter than tall ones?
And how is the employer really responsible for their employees' weight? OK sure, there's going to be a bit of correllation between the general health attitude at your job and your own weight and from what I understand there's more of a culture for this thing in Japan but it still seems like a big leap to make in what a company is responsible for and subsequently what an employee has to answer to his employer about. Can constantly fat people be fired for costing their company too much in fines?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
"Fine on fat" has nothing to do with universal health coverage. It has everything to do with bad policy and even worse laws (not to mention stupid lawmakers).
There are tons of countries in the world today with universal health coverage who don't engage in that kind of stupid law making.
Then again, it is mostly accepted these days that being overweight is bad for you, in all kind of different ways, so maybe a tax on fat is not such a bad idea, especially if human fat is recycled into bio-fuel. Fight Club, anyone?
Besides, wait until they apply this law to the sumotori... and the howls of outrage from the sumo-loving japanese public... :-)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
or worse yet, hormonal/glandular issues.
...and if it's serious enough to impact your long-term health, you should get those "hormonal/glandular issues" looked at. If the doctor says, "there's nothing we can do about it", fine...
Please help metamoderate.
Watashi wa rikishi desu, you insensitive clod!
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I don't think this has anything to do with people being overweight at its core. This is more likely an anti western culture move to try to stop Japan from becoming more like America. There have been similar proposals made to try to make western style toilets more expensive so they will not be commonly used. Older Japanese are generally worried that Japan is losing its culture and that tends to lead to strange laws made in an attempt to stop the so called slide. The law itself is rather stupid idea though and I don't think it's likely to be in place 5 years down the road unless the penalty is a lot lighter than it sounds at face value.
Does this apply to them too?
If yes, then America, we can finally defeat Japan in Sumo wrestling with Larry the cable guy.
How about some kind of mandatory test (every couple years or so) in which people are placed in various life-threatening situations involving wild animals, obstacle courses, etc.?
Those who exhibit a reasonable level of fitness would have a reasonable chance of evading death, while those who "let themselves go" are much more likely to end up as food for some kind of large carnivore or as feedstock for an industrial wood chipper.
Have the whole thing take place in some kind of a large controlled environment with lots of cameras and audio pickups, then sell advertising rights to the 24/7 broadcast of all the mayhem.
All upside. No downside
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Somehow, a 33.5" waist just doesn't seem right on a sumo wrestler.
I've been thin all my life; in fact not thin but skinny. Right now I'm trying to gain weight (I';ve been therefore eating at McDonald's and drinking beer a lot).
My waist is 32 inches. They want people over 40 to have waist sizes of less than 33?
And without taking into account that someone seven feet tall should have a bigger waist than someone four feet tall?
What's next, legislating hat sizes?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The comparison to American waistlines is specious, as Americans are (quite literally) bigger-boned. The average height in the States is quite a bit higher than that in Japan. It's indisputable that U.S. skeletal structures are different.
BMI would be a better comparison, and body fat % an even better one.
Yeah, but it's a bit smaller if you take CowboyNeal out of the study sample.
What about bodybuilders?
What about people with non-standard bone structure or fat distribution? They could easily have wider waists without actually being fat or overweight.
What about taller people? How can you expect someone who is 6'5" to have the same waist as someone who is 5'0"?
I'm 5'11.5" and ~200lbs and athletically built (12% body fat.. not bodybuilder low and not unhealthy high) but my waist is 33"-34". I'm fat and deserve a fine in Japan? Lame...
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I'm a sumo you insensitive clod!
I'm posting AC for obvious reasons:
My company's new health care plan to start next year (yea, they started sending out info in MAY for NEXT YEAR's plan - this is a bad sign) essentially includes stuff like that. Your premiums go up if you do not take advantage of preventive services.
Now that may sound good on the surface, but when you read the details it starts to become creepy.
These preventive services include "Weight Watchers" or other weight control. In other words, if your (soon to be required) annual physical tells them you're overweight and you don't improve, and there's no "other" reason for it (such as various hormonal problems that can make it very difficult to lose weight), your out of pocket expenses go WAY up.
This is scary for people who sit at a desk all day. I don't see it as much of a problem for the folks in the production facilities, where they're moving around all day, but for us IT folks, this is bad news.
It's already here, folks. Expect it in non-union places first, because the unions will fight it. Then it will be forced down our throats by big government as a cost-saving measure for "universal health care".
Am I the only one who sees this as the first tiny steps towards "Gattica"?
Yes they are. Deviants are stretched or squashed as needed, and beaten for their insolence.
There must be a much smaller percentage of fat people in Japan than in the west. That a government could even think about doing this would indicate that the fat people must be a very small and very despised minority.
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We are aware there is a problem. We need to make the choice as to whether we do something about it or not. It's up to us. There are places we can get help if we choose to. If we don't, that is a valid choice as well. But as citizens, more babysitting is not a solution.
I will admit from the start to be working from a stereotype, but here goes: The stereotype is that Japanese culture leans - more than most Oriental cultures and far more than any Western culture - to group norms, group *homogeneity*.
This initiative would be a total non-starter in Canada, which has, alas, the same obesity problems as the US.
I've never heard of such a thing out of the many European countries with universal health coverage, either.
So although your health care scheme may provide an incentive towards these kind of requirements, the fact that it is public - and ultimately accountable to the public - also restricts it to cultural standards embraced by the majority.
Or in short, any politician that wants to keep his job in the West is not even going to mention this. It's NOT a "slippery slope". On the contrary, pushing for higher general culture-wide health standards is a long, slow, UPHILL plod.
Ask the anti-cigarette activists; 54 years now since the surgeon general's report and while progress has been significant, it hasn't been fast.
Increasing the cost of obesity reduces obesity. We don't know how much it would, but studies from cigarette taxes show that increases costs decrease consumption of even highly desirable things.
Obesity increases fuel consumption -- the obese eat more (more food transport and production fuel use) and weigh more (more transport costs in themselves). They eat 18% more, according the Lancet. The Lancet goes on to suggest that reducing obesity would reduce global warming.
And yes, their health care costs us -- we should be getting some of that back.
A small tax (in stores, vending machines and restaurants) on foods which digest quickly seems like a FANTASTIC idea. Not a big deal for someone that eats a few Snickers bars every month, but a noticeable pain for someone who eats them every day.
I was in japan about 9 years ago and I went back just a few months ago. I was amazed at the difference. There were far more people that I would categorize as overweight. No where near as many as in America and nobody that appeared to be obese, but it was quite a shift in a decade.
To go along with that I noticed that there were far more fast food places and unlike my first trip, restaurants did not list the calories on items the way they had in the past.
On the other hand I noticed that smoking was down and there were more non smoking areas (including on the streets of Tokyo) but those regulations were often ignored.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Even with private health insurance, those who live unhealthy lifestyles have the net effect of increasing insurance premiums for everyone.
The insurance companies maintain profitability by selecting price points that set them ahead, given all of the expenses they are likely to incur. The more fat people they have on their plans, the more likely they are to spend money on all the fat-related medical issues that arise, so the more they must charge.
While it may be unfair to target fat people (or smokers or drinkers or what-have-you), isn't it equally unfair to make healthy people pay a lot of extra money to support the unhealthy lifestyles of their neighbors?
As usual, this door swings both ways, and it doesn't matter whether the health care is universal or privatized...any kind of medical insurance raises these issues.
Holy Crap ! And that makes me in shape at only 36 inches, although I was had a 28 inch waist in high school.
I guess that French movie, The Triplets of Bellville, go it right. (When the French character visited the US, even the Statue of Liberty and the American dogs were grossly obese.)
Point of note, since this article is all hidden-metric...
The real waist requirements for men: 85 cm (33.4645669 inches)
The real waist requirements for women: 90 cm (35.4330709 inches)
Japan doesn't use inches.
The charge more for heavy people in subway and train. My wife paid full fare, but usually sit 3/4 of a seat, because the average New York City subway rider require two seats to fit.
Surely that counts out virtually most athletes in sports such as Weightlifting, Rugby Union, Shotput, Discus and many many more sports in which the atheletes are likely to be semi pro and have to have a 9 - 5 to help support themselves financially. Let alone Sumo Wrestling which is what football is to us Brits! Thats real football by the way to all you yanks :-p. You can be very healthy and very muscular and have a waist well above 33.5, I know a guy whose a semi professional Rugby Union player who has a 42 inch waist and a 55 inch chest, and is fitter than 99% of people on the street! It should be done on proper BMI (Body Mass Index), not including just height and weight as most do, but a real BMI includes skin fold measurements and takes into account percentage body fat and needs to be carried out by a qualified professional for the results to be accurate. If your gonna introduce a law which has monetary fines attatched to it at least make it fair!
So I just need to move to Japan to find my pant size? sweet
33/34 hard to find in any department store
Americans are taller than the Japanese, and thus even relatively thinner people can have a larger waistline, and be considered fat. A better measurement, or goal might be percentage body fat or BMI (Cue the BMI holy wars of body builders).
Yes, obese people (and smokers) take more sick time, have more health expenses, lower productivity, etc. I'm a physician, and public health is one of the courses we take, so obesity and smoking related problems a are HUGE percentage of health dollars spent.
Now as far as BMI - it does not measure fat - let me repeat that- it DOES NOT measure fat, merely the relative weight to height. People in the ideal range tend to live longer. People outside the ideal range, be it fat or huge amounts of muscle, tend not to live as long (strain on the heart, kidneys, joints, etc).
I think it's only a matter of time before health insurance companies, and the government figure out that these obese people are not profitable/cost too much, and will penalize them accordingly.
In terms of public health, I think this is a good thing, as it will save a significant amount of money, and produce better health. I am also a big fan of free will, and independence, so if someone wants to be really fat, or smoke, then they should be able to - at a price.
..........FULL STOP.
Wow. The implications of this sort of law is huge! I'm surprised the lawmakers were able to get any weight behind this.
Obviously, there are exceptions, but most obese people are obese because of choices they make: overeating unhealthy foods and under-exercising.
And obese people have more health problems than non-obese people. This costs the rest of us higher premiums and more. Much more.
This reminds me of smokers getting lung cancer and causing everyone else to pay higher premiums. They cry about "freedom to smoke" but have no hesitation in taking away their family members' freedom when they get sick with cancer and vomit/shit/cough all over the couch, carpet and bed.
Just remember, when you demand freedom to treat your body like shit, don't demand other people to give up their freedom in order to take you to the hospital a hundred times or literally wipe your ass or clean your shit off your chair.
I lost about a year of my life because of a smoker who refused to listen to reason and continued to smoke. But when stage 4 lung cancer hit, the fucking demands for everyone to drop everything was selfish beyond belief.
Unless your obesity is caused by a medical condition, get off your asses and take better care of your body. Because your freedom to treat your body like shit will ultimately infringe on other people's freedoms--namely the ones that love you enough to care for you when you become horribly sick.
"We don't know how much it would, but studies from cigarette taxes show that increases costs decrease consumption of even highly desirable things."
So fewer and fewer people are getting what they desire, because other anonymous people don't desire it and would like to force them into a position where they can't afford their desires! What an idiotic and indefensible notion.
"Obesity increases fuel consumption -- the obese eat more (more food transport and production fuel use) and weigh more (more transport costs in themselves)."
If they can afford the food, who's to tell them they should be allowed to eat it. What happened to "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness"?
"And yes, their health care costs us -- we should be getting some of that back."
Only if you choose to be part of the system. The difference between that and a publicly-funded system is that you have no choice.
"A small tax..."
It is not the size that matters. Forcibly taking away someone's productivity (in the form of money) is no different from theft.
Sounds like a piece from The Onion.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Then there are the Sumo ...
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The fascist aspect aside, obesity is not a well known science.
People are overweight for all kinds of reasons, and the scientists are at a loss for a universal remedy save starvation.
I know well people who have eaten modestly all their lives yet were quite rotund, until after decades of studying and trial&error they realized that some combinations of nutrients were fattening to them even though they weren't to others.
So until the day the doctors have more intelligent things to offer than "eat less" or "let me amputate your stomach" or the usual endless blame and guilt, they have no business telling people to lose weight.
... provided there exists similar laws against smoking, alcohol consumption, substance abuse etc etc. After all this is about health of the citizens, right?
I had a 34" waistline when I was 18 and doing Thai boxing 3 times a week. I don't think I could get to 33.5" without some sort of heroin / crank addiction.
This is JAPAN? Home of ... SUMO?
Hey - if the Sumo houses can't employ anyone over 35", I reckon I might just be in with a chance....
"Id like it if most of my tax money wasn't used to fund a war in Iraq."
As would I, but you're right, we have no say in the matter. Maybe we'll eventually see candidates elected that would rather uphold our rights than hold them hostage for their political gain, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
I hope someone gets the reference...
..if it infers exercise?
To do this would require absolute knowledge of the future. You and I may have the same likelihood of developing cancer in ten years. But if I get hit by a truck tomorrow killing me instantly I save my insurance company a bunch of money. If somebody is developing a new treatment, that will be available in ten years but very expensive, your cancer will cost a lot more than expected.
There's a world of difference between putting people in finer-grained baskets and predicting the results for a particular person.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
While it may be unfair to target fat people (or smokers or drinkers or what-have-you), isn't it equally unfair to make healthy people pay a lot of extra money to support the unhealthy lifestyles of their neighbors?
So, what if I have good genes.... and you have bad? If we are willing to open up the can of worms of risk assignment, then why should we ignore science and not surcharge those people who have doomed genetics? What, exactly, entitles people with weaker genes to a health discount at the expense of someone else?
This is my sig.
There are too many obese people in positions of political importance.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm glad to be below average. And I didn't think I would be.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I think using a person's BMI (body-mass index) would be a safer bet. Allow a certain percentage of body-fat instead of using some abstract measurement like waist size. Not that I'm saying this whole thing is a good or bad idea, it's just kinda sloppy in practice.
So lets carry this through to the logical end. Grocery stores and restaurants would be required to have different sections. There would be sections for those that can fit through a door this size (think of the carry on bag devices at the airport or the little height signs, turned 90 degrees, at the amusement park). In those sections you can eat anything that you can afford to buy. There would of course be the special door where the rich can purchase a dispensation to enter the premium food areas.
Then there is the section that you get rolled to if you can't fit through the other door where you can eat bland "nutritious" food. This would consist of the poor quality stuff that the skinny and rich don't want. You know, the rice cakes, and the small portion weight watchers stuff.
Of course the poor food areas would have to be supplemented by taxes on everyone else. The problem here is that over time I suspect that more and more people would be forced into the poor sections since all their available income would be spent in taxes.
IF (and I mean BIG IF) a government is going to set standards for fitness, it would make more sense to do it for people under 40. Someone who is obese at 50 or 60 is rarely going to successfully get their weight down and substantially improve their health. Sorry, but the damage is already done. But a child, teen, or young adult who is obese probably still has a fighting chance to get the weight off and develop a healthy lifestyle, to prevent the health problems associated with being overweight.
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"Keiko, you best trim down that waistline or face termination!"
"But I'm pregnant!"
"The law's the law. You know what you need to do..."
That what it is. Of course the Japanese government already takes half of people's wealth and few people will find this objectionable on slashdot... yet how is that not worse than a mandatory waistline ?
I am ruling out pregnancy as I expect such women will not be measured. That being so why are women expected to have such comparatively larger waist lines then men in Japan? Just very curious...
This sounds like an unlikely story. Are Japanese employers entitled to discriminate against fat people? Can they sack employees, or refuse to employ people in the first place, for having too large a waist?
I'm a "normal" guy, average height, average weight, and my waist is 36". By definition I'm obese, but that's laughable when you actually look at me.
what about Godzilla...that poor guy has a weight issue he can't help.
What will help them lose weight...stop eating whales.
ohohoh, I know, tie all the fat ones together and they can form a new island to build an ocean going airport on...
roll them in flour and...oh never mind...let's not go there...
wait, this one works best...cull the herd of politicians that waste time coming up with idiotic laws.
you just KNOW some smart-a## is going to propose this in every country as a way to make a quick buck off the citizens!
they could even tag it with "but think about the children!!!"
next thing they're going to want to tax fat-foods!
Shaquille O'Neil is not exactly fat at 7'1" and 325, but he has a BMI of 31.6 -- well into the "obese" range. A 5'2" woman would have to weigh 173 pounds to have the same BMI as Shaq -- and I know damn well that 173 and 5'2 is rolling fat.
So tell us how useful the BMI is as a gauge of obesity again.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Considering thinking of all taxes as a bad idea, but classifying some of them as necessary.
Thanks.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I agree with what you've said.
I am 6'4" and it seems grossly unfair to expect tall people, with wider hips and rib cages to have disproportionally smaller waistlines.
Now.. granted, I hardly sleep or eat, so I only weigh 160lbs @25, but I hear all that is supposed to change by the time I hit 40.
This is preciously the DUMB FUCK SUGGESTIONS you get when government creeps into our lives. Now that Government is paying the bill, everyone thinks they can tell you what to do. If people were responsible for the for their own selves, then who cares what they do as long as it does not affect me (i.e. get high or drunk and kill someone).
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think "profiling is worse than the slaughter of innocent people..."
And who gets to decide what is junk food?
Why has nobody considered that NO government interference is the answer?
This kinda ticks me off I'm not a small person (42 inch waist) but I'm also not a "fat" person at least not in my eyes I'm 6'2 and 275 but I bike about 60 miles a week and try to eat healthy i really don't think I'm going to slim down to 33.5. If you want to say that I'm fat thats fine but when it comes down to it its my body and I'm pretty fucking sure i can understand if better than you, and i feel that I'm at a weight that is correct for me.
In fact the last time i was under 33 inches would be the summer before 9th grade.
I think the question is do you feel healthy? you should know what your body is trying to tell you and if you don't feel good then suck it up and lose some fucking weight.
The last thing I want is the government telling me what my correct waist line is.
"Increasing the cost of obesity reduces obesity. "
Either that or the government invades another country that has more food. :p
Except that's not the way that it pans out. The people who want a Mars (who in the hell would voluntarily eat a Snickers?) 3 or 4 times a day will pay the tax irregardless, and whilst they may notice the pain in their wallet, it won't stop them. On the other hand, the guy who has a Mars bar once a week perhaps when he needs some calories quickly will notice, and be rightfully annoyed when he sees that he has to pay extra for one because someone thinks that too many Mars bars are bad for him.
So in the end, nobody's behaviour is changed, and everyone is a little bit poorer.
FGD 135
In almost every case, obesity is a choice.
I know, because I've gained and lost weight since I was a teenager.
After slowly regaining lost weight plus a few additional pounds over the past five years, I swelled up to a lifetime maximum of 240 pounds. The reason for the gain was simple - I was taking in more calories than I was expending. Poor portion control, dietary choices, and too much beer and a lack of any real exercise were the cause for my weight gain.
And those have always been the reasons whenever I've gained weight.
It's so simple - if calories consumed is greater than the calories expended, you gain weight. If you burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight until you reach an equilibrium.
I've dropped thirty pounds since the beginning of the year. I did the same way I've always done it - I ate less (and better) and exercised more.
It's never easy at the start, but if you give it 4 weeks you'll notice the difference when you dress in the mornings.
Self-control, positive reinforcement, and the personal decision to see it through are the keys to weight control, NOT government regulation.
What?
Just some back of the napkin figures to ponder...
I know its Wikipedia but the difference is not that great. About 172.8 cm average adult male for and 175.8 average adult male for US. This wikipedia article seems to be pretty well annotated.
Japan's diet is much improved since the post WWII days where the stereotype of Japanese being short was spread through US culture. They were shorter due to worse diet.
I have visited castles in Ireland, where my parents were born. Armor there looks like it was made for children, but Europeans in the middle ages were shorter, thanks to poor diet and disease.
A 3 cm diff in avg. Height comes to a little more than an inch. The average waste difference is 5.5 inches in TFA.
Now Humans tend to be taller than they are wide, so you would expect the variation in height to be larger than the variation in width. But the 33.5" to 39" difference is a circumference, not a width. a measurement around the waste should be directly compared to a measurement 'around the height" of the body. Measure foot to head, across the top of the head, back down from head to toe, and then across the bottom of the foot.
We can fudge this by doubling the difference in height and adding a little for the width of the body(a). Or by dividing the waste measurement by a little more than 2(b).
So (a)5.5" / 2.2 = 2.5" adjusted waste difference compare to a 1.2" height difference.
(b)1.2" x 2.2 = 2.64" adjusted height difference compare to waste difference of 5.5".
This brings the numbers a little closer, but still the waste differential is greater than the height using either fudge method.
Based on this data, it looks like Americans are carrying a little more around the middle than there Japanese counterparts.
for most lot of people, raising the price of something they're addicted/obsessed with or need doesn't help.
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Look at all the smokers in the US today. With that insanely high cigarette tax, and with how much it now costs for you to be a pack-a-day smoker, look how many of them there still are. Most smokers consider their carton a week a life essential when shopping.
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Food works in much the same way. People buy food at the store telling themselves they're going to eat in moderation. Then after an hour at home they devour an entire bag of chips in one sitting. Cost for them was not a deterrent because they convinced themselves it was going to last longer. In the end it's just another tax on something that for the most part is unavoidable.
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If tomorrow they put an additional $2/galon tax on gas, that would not stop me from driving. I can't walk to work. I can't walk to the grocery store. It may squeeze out what little unnecessary driving I do, but in the end it's just another unavoidable expense for me, just another tax. It hasn't deterred me from driving too much.
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The first example doesn't care what the tax is because they feel they have to have it. The second example doesn't care what the tax is because they're convinced at the time of purchase that it's not going to affect them. The final example doesn't care what the tax is because reducing consumption is not an option.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It's indeed your right to eat poison, but you have to admit that most people would rather not. And trans fats are pushed on those innocent people, by incorrectly labelling products containing it as "food" instead of "POISON."
I don't advocate preventing you and your libertard friends from eating poison. In fact, the sooner your do it, the better.
I just want consumers to protected from money grubbing, cigar chumping republican contributors.
This seems like the wrong incentive to me. They are not providing any incentive to loose the weight for the employee. What do they care if the employer pays a fine?
Moreover, what this is going to cause is that companies are going to discriminate against overweight people when hiring, to avoid paying a fine.
It would seem more straight forward to me if they fined the overweight person himself, or if they don't want to do something so unpopular, raise taxes and give tax breaks to fit people.
Personnally I stopped because the ratio of @sshole to normal people was reaching 99-1.
While I think this thing sounds good from a theoretical standpoint, the way Japanese men work seems to make this difficult to really implement. The idea would be that as an employer I would get fined for having fat employees. But the problem is that the corporate culture in Japan is such that I can NEVER leave work early to hit to gym so I can lose weight, even if it was mandated by the company. Leaving work early is a career limiting move. You're not even supposed to leave before your boss. If your boss stays till 10pm which is more common that you'd think, you're not going anywhere either.
I would imagine (though too lazy to find a source), that they may be trying to reduce their dependency on foreign food?
go to hell
seriously
I eat a double bacon cheeseburger every single day
I'm 5'7, weigh 127lbs, have low blood pressure, and good cholesterol levels. I need to eat like this just to MAINTAIN my weight.
the last thing I need is to have it made even harder
Where does it end? Why not increase the tax on alcohol? How about coffee (some studies show it has negative health affects)? Oh, and who gets to determine if something is junk food or not? This is a slippery slope. You know the saying..."the road to hell..."
I wish we would spend more time absorbing the important principles that the US was founded on (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, equality of opportunity, etc) and not on social engineering. Stay out of my business and I'll stay out of yours! (Incidentally, the reason I love to eat junk food is that it tastes good! Leave me alone).
I like the idea that employers are going to have to worry more about the health of their employees to avoid fines, but I wonder if this new law is going to cause those who are obviously overweight to face further discrimination by employers wanted to avoid hiring someone who will net them a yearly fine.
Sure, the fine for having a fatty in the ranks is probably less than a lawsuit for discrimination for not hiring a fat guy, but then again Japan != America (got to admit that's pretty insightful, eh?)
Far wider in winter, my girlfriend has the same problem too.
Steven Hawking.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Many insurance companies give people physicals and tend to cherry pick the best and most healthy individuals. With a universal system this would be reduced a great bit so we would probably see less regulations on peoples life style. I support universal health care but not these kinds of regulations. Education is a part of the solution, helping people understand how to eat a health diet. Ironically, it is americans workaholic busy lifestyle that leaves little time for exercise. If we gave people better pay, shorter work days and more vacation time, that would lead to a healthier population. The better pay would also mean better food. Many people eat a largely carbohydrate diet because that is the cheapest but that can lead to obesity. I think there is a lot of opposition to higher pay shorter work weeks and universal health care since it deconsolidates wealth and increases the overall well being of the general population but gets in the way of a few rich elites hoarding vast wealth.
How much gas would we save each year if the US met those Japanese guidelines for obesity?
How much lower would our food costs be if we Amercians didn't overeat as much as we do?
Lose weight, prevent a recession!
more than 33.5 inches is considered overweight for me? Thats sort of crazy. I run marathons and I'm just about as skinny as they come (although I am 6'7") and my waist is more than 33.5"
Hopefully the facts are a little exaggerated in this story.
You people who oppose a fat tax like this in the U.S. obviously are not from the mid-west or Appalachian areas, where it would be an "Eyesore Tax" of blissful proportions. I think it might even help our property values start climbing again.
;)
As an added benefit, those of us who do live in these regions might soon be able to find veggie burgers and salads that come without french fries and ranch dressing on them, without getting on an airplane first.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The problem might be in the defining precisely what is "Junk Food".
Fast-Food != Junk Food
I realize that people in Japan are shorter (and thus, closer to the parts on the factory line), so that metric may work there, but here, we're taller and there are plenty of counter examples where a 33.5" waist is impossible or unhealthy.
Should it come to pass here, though, I imagine it won't be too hard to fit in w/ those guys who are in denial about their large waists and still buy small pants and wear 'em low (aka Dunlop's Disease). Of course, those guys are typically retired and don't have employers to appease, so they may launch a counter-revolution by buying large pants b/c they can.
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
You choose to have an unhealthy lifestyle, and thus there are incentives to encourage you to change.
Last I checked, I have very little control over my genetic code (still trying to invent that time machine so I can kill my father before I was born...)
That said, I'm rather unhappy that as a moderate consumer of alcohol, my insurance could group me with binge drinkers and charge me more money, even though there's evidence that moderate drinkers are healthier than non-drinkers. Who gets to decide what's science and what's not?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
In less time than it took to read your post.
Corporate agriculture makes Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior look saintly by comparison to their own shenanigans.
Some of the subtler, but most important battles won by would be the conspicuous absence of recommended daily sugar intake being listed by the FDA.
http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php/2006/01/24/tariffs_and_subsidies_the_literal_cost_o
http://thehill.com/business--lobby/lobby-league-25-agriculture-2004-12-08.html
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Do you know what it is called when you (the majority) pass taxes that only apply to a minority?
Slavery.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
What we need is Asimovs version of GAIA , A self regulating , self modulating life form in accord with its environment ..
Who am i kidding , up with the hot dog downing contests .. YEAHHHH !!! i think its a a japanese (Takeru Kobayashi) who won.
First, a large factor in obesity can be stress. On a macro level, the country's workforce is brutally overworked. 10 - 12 hour days are a norm. Stress and lack of exercise will release hormones such as cortisol which will only add to the weight problem. Also, Japan has one of the largest suicide rates. From every direction you're being told what to do, what to eat, how much you should weigh. You cannot complain and many times do not have the ability to quit your job and begin a new life. While health care costs can be a drag, at the end of the day you can only squeeze so much out of an average person. This weight-fine initiative is ridiculous and inhumane, to say the least.
Yea, just see how far that one flies past the ADM & ConAgra lobbyists.
I wonder what they would think of me. I am 6' 8" tall and I don't think I could get down to a 33.5" waistline and still live.
I was down to 212 lbs at one point, my body fat percentage was more that 10 percent, less than 20 percents. I was
riding 200 miles a week on a bicycle. Fast and always hungry, that weight was very hard to hold.
My waistline was still more than 33.5 inches.
Why restrict it to junk food? Why not have all food be taxed like this? After all, if you start taxing junk food, won't obese people just move on to eating more non-junk food, niftily side-stepping the tax?
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
did they include people with genetic illness that make them fat, and illness in general?
you know, there are some people that weigth more than 200kg, i guess they have some problem, not just laziness...
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know." -- Mark Twain
Yes, the average fat person (complete with slower metabolism) must eat way more, cause that's how they're portrayed on TV, and TV never lies.
And transportation? I'm sure that that extra 50 lbs. matters way more than the hundreds of pounds that seperate makes and models of cars.
Lets also not forget the fact that fat folks die sooner than everyone else, so they end up costing less in the long run.
But don't let petty things like facts get in your way.
So...what's junk food? Seriously?
The second anyone does this, Snickers re-markets itself as a fitness bar. My dad's a marathoner, and they're very popular to eat before/after running because of the mix of carbs/fat/protein -- especially before actual fitness bars.
Cigarettes == smokable stuff that contain nicotine. Very Easy definition, impossible to market around.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
My god he's right! The double bacon cheeseburger SAVES lives. Without it, some people would wither away to nothing! There's absolutely nothing in the vast array of all foods that provide an equal but healthier caloric content! The double bacon cheeseburger has special properties caused by the interlocking of bacon and cheese and burger molecules that causes it to form a netting, trapping vital weight in there!
Now the triple bacon cheeseburger on the other hand, well that's just ridiculous, fatty.
I'm a fairly scrawny college student and my waistline is probably 30 or 31 inches. Do the Japanese have smaller waists, or waist-shrinking robots, or something? 33.5 seems pretty harsh.
It's nice how you conveniently you change the subject. The article notes the Japanese law mandating obesity checks, and then goes off to claim that this is somehow related to universal health care. As the grandparent points out, this is specious, as dozens of places have universal health care and no such laws.
But, instead of discussing this, you want to claim that government run "anything" is bad. Well then, let us.
Now, in the US and other places fire insurance used to mean paying a company to send out fire trucks and fire fighters if your home or business caught on fire. This was not government run, and it is easy to google and find out how badly that worked. But you think that in your no-government paradise somehow things will turn out differently this time.
And you claim that you don't want police or a judicial system. Well, you must be very "productive" to be confident that nobody would just kill you if there were no enforced laws against it. Do you want to hire guards to protect you? How much will those cost you, and if you were that wealthy, why won't your guards just kill you and take it themselves?
The term for having no government-run anything is anarchy. Everyone knows how unpleasant anarchies are to live in. It does seem hypocritical that instead of living the anarchist dream somewhere else, you insist on enjoying all the benefits that Americans enjoy, but loudly proclaim that you don't need them and want to prevent other Americans from having similar benefits.
What if their unhealthy lifestyle was a result of their genetic code? I agree with you, but you'll have to deal with those that claim their weight is genetic in origin ( which it may be for a small percentage of the population, but nothing to explain the explosion of obesity in the US. )
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You cannot control your genes.
You CAN control your obesity, alcoholism, and smoking.
Not all food that digests quickly is junk food. White bread digests very quickly, as does whey protien shakes. That's actually the point of whey shakes, to get protien into your body ASAP to stop muscle breakdown or provide for growth.
Also, unless you're trying to burn fat, you SHOULD have some quick digesting carbs right after a high cardio task to replenish your energy.
Finally, as any trainer will tell you, a little junk now and then is a very good thing. It keeps the body guessing, keeping your metabolism high.
Check it out:
http://www.slate.com/id/2191412/
Smokers behavior indicates that many of them don't mind the taxes, or at least indirectly benefit from the taxes.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
As someone who would be hit by the Japanese fine (waist - 38 inches), I would welcome a elevated tax on junk food. I think it's a great idea. It makes the tax totally avoidable, and doesn't force punishment on anyone for just being who they are. Will it make some people thinner? Possibly, but I don't want to make the mistake in assuming that waist size is a direct-linear proportion to how much junk food you eat. Some people's body's just seem to get fat on all but the leanest/borderline malnutrition inducing diets.
Moderate drinkers might be healthier then non-drinkers, but their habits aren't. I'm sure that's what drives the cost up. I really doubt the insurance company cares one bit about anything but their bottom line.
The trick is to eat 2 double bacon cheeseburgers and chase it with a party size bag of Doritos.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If we are going to take this route, let's at least do it right.
The point is to penalize unhealthy people, correct? There are studies which show pretty conclusively that the healthiest people are the ones which are slightly over the 'ideal' weight. Folks carrying a bit of extra weight (read: normal) live longer than folks who maintain that beautiful body that TV insists you should have.
So, let's penalize the thin people too. If their lifestyle is as unhealthy as the fat folks, why exempt them?
When I was working on the vascular surgery ward, the beds were crammed with two kinds of people ; smokers, and type-2 diabetics. Many of them were both kinds. Most type-2 diabetes is self-inflicted and can be avoided through managing your weight and diet properly. Combining smoking with type-2 diabetes is basically asking to have your legs amputated.
When I was working on the pulmonary ward, the beds were crammed with 2 kinds of people - smokers, and asthmatics.
When I was working the infectious diseases ward, the patients were predominately junkies, with conditions brought on as a result of their habit.
When I was on ENT, the patients were of three types ; young children needing routine surgery like tonsillectomies and ear grommets, persistent nosebleeds, and really nasty mouth and throat cancers. The cancer patients were, you guessed it, all smokers.
So the vast majority of patients with chronic, manageable, expensive conditions, some requiring multiple surgeries just to get back a fraction of the function they should have had, were smokers, and fatties, and the worst of them were fat smokers.
Smoking and obesity cost the health service huge sweaty wads of money and I find your assertion to the contrary to be baseless.
What if you're six foot six inches tall or taller, and having a waist that little would be grossly unhealthy for you, or require you to magically have a smaller pelvic bone? What a bunch of short-sighted bullshit.
Probably not. Neither could most people in most countries with universal healthcare, which is why most countries with universal healthcare don't impose this kind of regulation.
They can tax cigarettes heavily because most Americans don't smoke at all. The cigarette taxes don't affect them. But pretty much everyone eats at least a little junk food, so everyone would be affected, and everyone would be angry.
This space reserved for administrative use.
...when you're big in Japan.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Please don't be confused, I am not a Libertarian. I cannot support a party that nominates for president the person who introduced the Defense of Marriage Act, or has a long history in support of the drug war. Libertarians are made up of a mix of random people with widely-varying principles who happen to agree on a couple things. They have some of the same goals, but their ultimate goals are so different that it makes the whole lot of them a big contradiction.
"The article notes the Japanese law mandating obesity checks, and then goes off to claim that this is somehow related to universal health care."
No, the summary proposes the situation where the US is under universal healthcare (as Japan is), and then asks if we could see similar legislation. It does not assert that such would be the case. "But, instead of discussing this, you want to claim that government run "anything" is bad."
I did so in order to show why government-mandated waistlines are fundamentally bad. It was not a change in subject.
"it is easy to google and find out how badly that worked"
Can you provide some evidence yourself, or should we assume that it worked out badly?
"And you claim that you don't want police or a judicial system."
Where do I claim that? I am not an anarchist. The purpose of the government is to uphold the rights of the citizenry. This is done through the courts, police, and military. Ideally, their funding would be voluntary but their service would be universal.
So you base your entire view on just one example of your grandfather and your grandmother? And you expect the entire world to function exactly the same way?
How many smokers still go to see their doctor regularly, due to related or unrelated problems?
What about smokers who develop lung cancer and are then on expensive hospital life support for weeks and months?
What about obese persons whose overworked hearts send them to the hospital several times in their lifetime?
On another note, what about microclimatic changes that obese people require, because in the summer they cannot live with the heat?
And what about severe obesity where the person is disabled and gets state support, requiring wheel chairs, special transportation, and so on...
At the very least, let's do some serious scientific, mathematical analyses to assess the real impact of obesity, smoking, and alcoholism on society. Drug abuse too, since someone has to be pay for rehab clinics.
Better than a tax, how about just getting rid of food subsidies and pricing food as it actually costs (including costs to the environment, clean-up, etc).
We're biologically programmed to crave the taste of sweet, fatty foods. Now that famine is the exception rather than the rule, this doesn't seem to work in our favor. Especially since it costs approximately the same for 1000 calories of processed food (say, potato chips) as it does for about 100 calories of fresh veggies (say, actual potatoes).
How can we expect ourselves (because, oh yes, I'm guilty of it too!) to make good food decisions when the food industry spends millions of dollars a year to prevent us from doing that. They spend a couple of pennies processing on their end, we get Cinnamon Toast Crunch for $5 per box in the supermarket.
Farmers are paid to grow more and more (and more and more) corn in unsustainable ways, and then we need to find thing to do with it. So we feed it to other animals who never evolved to eat corn (like cattle, and farm raised salmon). We could go a long way, instead of taxing consumers, by just eliminating the crazy subsidies.
Seriously, The Omnivore's Dilemma...a very good read.
Every so often, even in this day, CNN picks up something from the local Japanese news and puts a spin on it, probably because the reporter didn't understand the original Japanese properly.
Just like we don't have Geisha walking the streets and Ninja attacking people at night, there is NO FREAKIN' FINE IF YOUR EMPLOYEES DON'T LOSE WEIGHT.
You get fined if you don't offer your employees this mandatory health checkup. It's an ADDITION to the already mandatory annual health checks that employers must provide. And, another addition is, if the said check up results in a doctor suggesting that medical treatment (read: managed exercise and diet consulting) is necessary, the employer has to provide that too (although most of it is paid out of the social insurance anyhow, so not that big of a deal for the employer), provided that the employee actually wants to go through with the program. If he doesn't, it's the end of the story. We still have freedoms here.
That said, there is a lot of debate whether this BMI and waist line size is an appropriate indicator of obesity. A lot of doctors are speaking out against it, while some are saying that it's still worth it since it does fit the majority of the public, and for those it doesn't, it's usually pretty obvious anyways.
My personal experience was that BEFORE this law, at an annual check up, my doctor demanded that I needed "further consultation" for my "obesity problem". I'm 5'11" and weigh in at 220lbs. Problem is, I'm only 15% fat. (I work out regularly.) The reason was that the doctor now gets to bill the insurance system for another checkup, and my employer would need to do a lot of explaining to the social health board if they wanted to deny it, all over a measily US$10. All the doctor needed to show was a BMI calculation, even though it was plain clear that my six pack referred to my abs, not the liquor I consumed each night.
So, once again, THERE IS NO FINE FOR BEING FAT. I'm all out for people being fit and trim, but for Christ's sake, we don't fine people for personal life style choices!
What happened to "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness"?
The same thing that happens when these people drive the cost up and deprive others from perusing life, let alone liberty and happiness.
Forcibly taking away someone's productivity (in the form of money) is no different from theft.
You're joking, right? Theft!? You know... you could just buy a salad instead a greasy burger. Here's an idea, bring your own god-damn-lunch. Seriously.
Yes you have a right to your grease, I'm not saying don't eat it. What I am saying is "Piss off if you want me to pay for your health problems after, cause you really did this to yourself... so you pre-pay for it, k? k.". This really isn't that complicated.
P.S. We do have universal health-care here (or... at least we call it that) so there isn't really a choice to be part of or apart from the system, and I like it that way, because if I break an arm, I can actually get it taken care of. This is what health care is for in the first place. (And if someone breaks their limbs on purpose... they should seek psychiatric help).
Some people have hormonal disorders that makes them grow fat no matter what they eat. Of course, following your mentioned thermodinamics law they could just stop eating... at the expense of their health (or even life. Maybe you heard about something called anorexia). Not everybody can be thin, if people cannot see this, then they are not fighting fat, but reality.
I would welcome a tax on any of the usual causes of obesity (fast food, junk food, etc.). I do not have a problem with it at all.
Myself, I have a medical problem with my basal metabolic rate that I've been struggling with all my life. I bet that I eat healthier than 90% of Americans, yet look like I eat like the worst 10%.
A fine on fat people doesn't rule out those who have no choice. A fine on the things which are the normal causes of obesity does.
The most obese people are usually from the lower echelons of society, BTW. They would be very sensitive to the changes in price of their coveted McGriddles and Ho-Hos.
Please don't be confused, I am not a Libertarian. I cannot support a party that nominates for president the person who introduced the Defense of Marriage Act and who has a long history in support of the drug war. Libertarians are made up of a mix of random people with widely-varying principles who happen to agree on a couple things. They have some of the same goals, but their ultimate goals are so different that it makes the whole lot of them a big contradiction.
"It's indeed your right to eat poison, but you have to admit that most people would rather not."
And it is their right not to.
"And trans fats are pushed on those innocent people"
And those people voluntarily hand over their money in exchange for such products. If they don't know any better, then you should help spread the knowledge, and donate to worthy causes to inform the public. Eventually enough people will want to avoid trans fats that companies will have to change their food or face losing business.
"In fact, the sooner your do it, the better."
Ad hominem.
"I just want consumers to protected from money grubbing, cigar chumping republican contributors."
You're assuming that the people who would run such a system would not be the exact same type of corrupt individuals that you are fighting against. That would be a bad assumption on your part.
I don't buy your justification. Two things:
Your metabolic profile is definitely the exception not the rule.
You can find a much healthier high calorie alternative to a bacon double cheesebuger that's packed with trans fat and cholesterol.
We'll make great pets
Having an absolute threshold for 'obesity' based solely on a person's waistline shows a serious misunderstanding of the causes and signs of obesity, and also seems a great way to alienate the populous.
First of all, having a 'max waistline' without consideration of a person's natural height, width, and bone structure nor body type (exomorphic, endomorphic, mesomorphic) is misinformed. For example, with a max waistline of 33.5", the man with a naturally 26" waistline is gonna be able to pig out while the naturally 32" waistline man is not going to have much room to breathe. And what about the fat kids? Are the roly-poly youngsters getting off the hook until they hit 33.5", too?
Not that changing the obesity testing methods would be any better, the most effective method would be to address the causes of obesity. For adult male workers in Japan, there's not enough leisure time, there is no CONCEPT of fitness as part of the Japanese lifestyle, most of the food is deep fried or else smothered in oil, the whole damn city of Tokyo reeks of cigarette smoke.
All that said, according to nationmaster.com, 30.6% of Americans are obese while 3.2% of Japanese are obese. Our population is TEN TIMES AS FAT as Japan's. That's disgusting, America. When out trolling for some babes, we've got ten times as many fat chicks!!! Shit, get me on the next plane to Japan~
That's complete crap. There are different body types, mesomorph, ectomorph, endomorph and combinations of those, but even if you're an endo(easiest to gain fat of the 3), you CAN still become thin if you try. It does take work and you might hate the naturally skinny people(ecto) but you can't blame all your fat on just your genetics. The fat people I've seen have entirely themselves to blame. You don't see a fat person eating an 1800 calorie diet. A lot of the time they skip breakfast or lunch and pig out at night before they go to bed. Or they eat a huge fast food meal of at least half of their entire daily caloric intake in a single sitting.
So fat people should "Just say 'No' to food"? Do you have any idea how idiotic you sound?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Between the political left who wants to limit our freedom for the common good and the political right who wants to limit our freedom for the common defense, all I can say is we're screwed.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
I will reiterate what I wrote in another post:
You have the right to do as you wish to your body. But if you wish to be a part of society, you also have the right to pay for it according to the terms set out by society. Nobody's stopping you from leading an unhealthy lifestyle. But there are costs associated with the unhealthy lifestyle, and you should be the one paying those costs, not the rest of society.
Think of it this way: If you hire a contractor to patch up your roof, you pay a certain sum. If you let your roof go into disrepair and you need a completely new roof because a patch job won't be sufficient, you pay a much greater sum. You don't expect your neighbors to pay the difference for you.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Jim Hacker: "Humphrey, we are talking about 100,000 deaths a year."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes, but cigarette taxes pay for a third of the cost of the National Health Service. We are saving many more lives than we otherwise could because of those smokers who voluntary lay down their lives for their friends. Smokers are national benefactors."
Sir Humphrey (about smokers): Yes, but we've been into that. It has been shown that if those extra one hundred thousand people had lived to a ripe old age that they would have cost us even more in pensions and social security, than they did in medical treatment. So financially speaking it is unquestionably better that they continue to die at the present rate
http://clightnirish.wordpress.com/
I have a 37" waist.
I am also 6'3" tall. I can comfortably swim a mile, and in the last few years, before my knees made me quit, I could run 15-18 miles without any particular problem.
I'd be pissed if anyone started to fine me for being fat and unhealthy.
How about doing it the Singapore way. It's based on fitness, which is a has a much better correllation with good health than perfect weight.
Carrying a little weight and fit beats being skinny and out of shape for your health every time. (Note being 80lbs over weight is not "carrying a little weight")
So fewer and fewer people are getting what they desire, because other anonymous people don't desire it and would like to force them into a position where they can't afford their desires! What an idiotic and indefensible notion.
You realize the exact same argument applies in the other direction, right?IE, fewer and fewer people are getting what they desire because other anonymous people are forcing higher health care costs on them by eating too much.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Maybe its because the Japanese still hunt whales. Easy to confuse fat people with whales.
Please provide a source for your assertion. You won't, but I had to ask so we could see you were fabricating your assertion from thin air.
Property is theft.
Wow! We've finally hit the point where we have people welcoming pressure (under the bogus flag of personal choice) to conform to standards that didn't even exist in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. What next, you must have a certain min/max amount of sun exposure or you get hit with penalties? Wear the "correct" clothes? Will football players, and just anyone built big, have to pay more for being alive?
Once they start doing this in the US I'll request the removal of the "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave" part of the anthem and replace it with "The Land of Social Engineering and the Home of the Sheep".
This policy is not only severe and authoritarian, it is also racist.
The insurance companies maintain profitability by selecting price points that set them ahead, denying claims whenever they can get away with it, squeezing patients and doctors, and raising premiums at rates which vastly exceed inflation.
There, fixed that for you.
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
If your insurance company was aware that you RACED,/b> motorcycles, they will generally refuse to insure you.
I suspect you haven't told them, or at least haven't been completely honest about the extent of your activities.
I was refused coverage from several major carriers for just that reason, until I simply deigned not to tell them. If they can den my coverage for something petty, I can "forget" that I "occasionally" have a track day.
Japan is having issues funding their retiree health and pension plans. These fines go towards the pension plan, if memory serves. The fines also are coming from businesses, rather than individuals, so there's less direct anger from the public. Unless you get fired over it, of course.
Be careful. You are headed down a very slippery slope.
If you start targeting specific groups, and taking away their rights, you create a situation that is open to exploitation. Our society is totally based off of fear. Look out, you are going to die if you don't do this. If you don't use this cream, you won't get the girl. If you don't vacation here, you won't have fun anywhere else. Who is to say, that some day, something that you like to do will be considered as "unhealthy", then what will you do? Maybe we should start taxing people who live in large urban areas more because they are inhaling more chemicals, and are more likely to have health problems later in life. How about if you drive a sports car, you should be taxed higher because you probably drive faster and thus are more likely to harm yourself and potentially someone else. I know, we should tax the less educated because they are more likely to make a stupid mistake. Or, we could get the F*** out of everyone one else's life and just realize that society will have a great variance on what people do. It will never be standard.........and thank goodness for that! With all this reality TV crap, people just want to get into everyone else's business.
I have a great idea. Fix your own life. If you see someone else who is struggling, help them out. Yeah, take time out of your precious life, and help someone else. Frickin' arm chair quarterbacks make me sick. There is no on this forum that lives a "perfect" life. Get over yourselves!
I agree, so long as part of the taxes goes to subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables. One of the reason why the poorest people in the U.S. are also the fattest is because junk/crap processed foods are the cheapest. Making fresh food cheaper and junk food prohibitively expensive (including drinks- soda, etc.) would change some people's behaviors. Of course there's the fast food lobby who'd fight this tooth and nail...
And what about the coveted Sumo wrestler with a waist of 50+ inches? Does this mean that the privileged can purchase and exceptions?
And that source is dubious at best.
They all cite the same article, and three of them are blogs opining about the implications of said article. NOt what I'd call quality sources (but I'm not trying to force my opinion down people's throats, so my standards for sources are higher).
You see, YOU are the one pretending ONE, yes ONE study makes the case.
If you think that, and it appears from your "citations" that you do, your opinion isn't worth the virtual text it's written on.
As gas gets too expensive force all the fatties to drag rickshaws around. I get transportation and they get some much needed exercise. Once you get over the smell and wheezing they make, it's not so bad.
I'm curious as to whether those waistline upper limits apply to those of non-Japanese ancestry living and working in Japan. I am a healthy, fit caucasian man of mixed European descent (I live in NYC and as such use my feet to get everywhere, as well as regularly working out), and my waist size is 34". Now sure, I could get MORE in shape, but I doubt that my waist size would drop too much. These restrictions and fines don't seem fair to those that, well, aren't Japanese- but live in Japan. We aren't all tiny waif-like asians.
Genuinely sorry if this sounds a bit prejudice, but I often feel that Japanese culture gets a lot more credit than it deserves. It's xenophobic, racist, repressed and often just ass-backwards. Sure, there's historical reason for all the oddity, but a lot of the cultural quirks that we hear about from Japan and chuckle about and write off as "cute" are the kinds of things we'd scream bloody murder about if we saw them in say, China or the Congo or the Middle East. So once again: Dammit, Japan.
Most people don't really think it through when they compare smoking taxes to junk food taxes.
I can eat two candy bars a day - because I like them - and work it off at the gym later on in the day. Or I can have some fried chicken once a week, and my habit of biking will cancel it out. What gives you the right to tax certain foods that don't have a negative effect on /my/ body? You can eat a high calorie diet and stay remain lean if you use the energy you intake.
Smoking is a leisure - you don't need it to live, and your body doesn't gain anything from it except a bit of nicotine. Food is (and has always been) a necessity. So what if some people eat different foods? A tax is not going to solve anything.
> ...except to those who can't afford to eat better. Smoking is a choice. Eating? Not so much...
Oh, please, Master! Give me the boot! Give me the whip! I don't want my rights! I don't have any rights! The government pwns me! I am a slave to the government! Yeah!
That's what you sound like. Now get out of my country, please, before you destroy it.
My blog
Problem is, it's not exactly junk food that is doing it all. My gf is overweight, and never eats any significant amounts of junk food. I eat junk food constantly, and am as skinny as a rail.
I'd say it's more about activity. (you can only burn so many calories through sex, and other than sex, we're pretty sedentary people)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I mean, the fine money from the Sumo industry should be signifigant... perhaps Japan is just trying to offset some budget crisis?
In my last gig at CMS (Medicare) I learned the following: 90% of all LIFETIME medical costs are spent in the LAST SIX MONTHS of life.
It does not matter how long one lives.
It does not depend on height, weight, smoking habits, snack habits, or exercise habits.
The insurance companies know this, and thus there is no extra premium for fat people. Smokers are charged more because they do get sicker. In the last six months. Fat people do not get any sicker than thin people, in the last six months. Just the last six months for fat people happen a bit sooner.
This is wrong. Not just "oops you goofed" wrong, but "you forgot several fundamental issues that make your assertion nonsensical" wrong.
First, why are you assuming waist size scales with height?
Second, why aren't you considering the vast ethnic iversity that the US has vs. Japan?
Third, why do you say "That's not a big enough difference to expect our waist sizes to be so much larger (all else being equal)." when you give no indication why it's "not big enough", and why are you saying "all else being equal" when all else is not in any way equal?
Your post is essentially a basic ratio problem, and I fail to see how anyone intelligent enough to discuss this topic could conclude that such a ratio could be applied with any accuracy.
I like what japan is doing, but its too discriminitory. I personally like the cigarette approach, where food with little to no nutritional value is taxed. A $3 snickers every day will add up. MAKE "real" food less expensive than the unhealthy alternative (which is most likely cheaper as of now)
Paying $25 for a box of sour patch kids at the movies might suck though.
This is simply another example of the state seeking more control over the lives of individuals.
If anybody actually sits down and thinks for 10 seconds they'll realise there is no accurate way to predict what somebody will cost the healthcare system through their lives, and absolutely no way to even approach accurate prediction without 24/7 monitoring of each and every individual. Think of the multitude of risk factors, fat is one of the smaller ones. What if you take drugs? Have promiscuous sex? Climb mountains? Or any one of a million others that cant even be quantified?
People supporting this sorf of repressive rubbish need to ask themselves whether they'd rather pay an "unjustified" few percent extra in healthcare costs or allow authorities the right to monitor their actions to make sure they're not doing anything unhealthy. Because that is precisely where this is heading.
Oh, and it's nothing to do with socialised healthcare either. With sufficient support from the authorities this could just as easily be implemented in a private healthcare system.
When your "happiness" consists of you wanting to be orca fat, which then imposes additional costs on me (either as a taxpayer or as a fellow payer into our insurance company), those costs need to be passed on to you. Not me.
You can "pursue" your happiness all you want, but you're not entitled to it at all costs to everyone else. Also, "if they can afford the food" is disingenous - it also becomes a matter of if they can afford the health costs associated with the food. (And more importantly what happens if they can't, and who pays for it.)
This is not impinging on your happiness - this is redefining what it will cost you to pursue it.
Also, totally technical note: the Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document in any sense. The Constitution provides a much clearer sense of what rights you do actually have, and yes, the Supreme Court has ruled many, many times that the government is allowed to regulate issues that pertain to people's physical health.
When I was In college a typical breakfast was: 4-8 strips of bacon 3- two egg omeletts 1-2 plates hashbrowns 1 bowl of cereal 2 glasses fruit juice 2-3 glasses milk 1-2 english muffins 1 cup hot chocolate I LOST weight on this and had normal cholesterol Now at 50 my breakfast is more likely to be: 1 bowl of cereal 2 strips bacon (paper thin microwave stuff) 1 glass fruit juice And I have to fight not to gain weight on that and my cholesterol is borderline high. 2 factors that are AT LEAST as important as how much you eat; 1) stress I GAINED 40 POUNDS IN 1 YEAR when I had to take care of a sick family member. (And my diet was NOT significantly different) 2) Additives in food. Get rid of all the chemical crap, hormones, High Fructose Corn Sugar etc. that our corporate overlords feed us instead of REAL FOOD and our metabolisms would not be confused and wacked out. The insurance companies should sue the food companies for unsafe food.
I do consulting work for employer health plans. The trend is definitely to target obesity in the workplace. My employer put in a plan last year to reduce our annual bonus by $500 if we are above a certain BMI and don't lose a small amount of weight. Conversely if we lost more weight we received an additional $500. Insurance aside obese people are absent more and are more likely to go on disability. More employers will stop hiring smokers soon too.
That's complete crap. I see it every day, and the results were (when following the USDA's food recommendations) lack of energy, more susceptibility to illness and infections, and increased vertigo, balance problems, and other neurological symptoms.
That's what happened when my SO and I tried to eat according to the USDA's food pyramid AND limit our intake to about 1600 calories per day (per the doctor's recommendation).
Right now, my partner and I are attempting to change our diet to one that's more in line with the Zone recommendations (mostly because a true high-protein diet is WAY too expensive), but (as has been mentioned by numerous other posters) the cost of fresh vegetables and fruits is so high that eating the USDA's high-starch diet is much more affordable.
Regardless, your claim that fat people do not eat 1800 calories per day is pure concentrated bullcrap.
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
If they can afford gas why not give them all SUVs?
Oh yeah, supply and demand. You see, if you use up way more than your fair share of something that is out there on the market, you disproportionately reduce the supply and therefore increase the price for EVERYBODY.
Welcome to society, your actions now affect others.
So if you want to be enraged about something that impedes the "pursuit of happiness" I suggest you go after things that hurt nobody rather than supporting things that hurt everybody. I suggest helping gays and polygamists get legal marriages (social contracts) for a start.
Odd, HTML is not working today.
How about you learn to cook and season your food well and then turn the "bland" nutritious food into delicious food?
I hardly ever go to the grocery store anymore because I just shop at the local produce market and the bulk barn (the latter sells junk food too, but I mostly buy rice, oatmeal and legumes). It's much cheaper as it is to make these foods than to buy prepackaged garbage and really, cooking healthy meals isn't hard and can be really delicious.
what's that now?
Global warming is a myth invented by socialists for _precisely this reason_. It's a hoax used to justify all forms of government intervention in both business and people's personal lives. It's all a plot by eco-fascists to institute a totalitarian system. And just because I don't give a shit about Godwin's Law, I'll point out that Hitler scapegoated the Jews the same way. Hitler made up the hoax that Jews controlled everything so he had an excuse to establish a totalitarian government; the eco-fascists made up the global warming hoax so they have an excuse to establish a totalitarian government.
It is absolutely none of the government's business if people are obese. It is for this reason that I wouldn't entirely be opposed to businesses overthrowing the government; if the rulers are trying to sell you stuff, they won't be trying to take it away from you.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
It's settled. I have an average American waist!
Most of your arguments can also be applied to limiting women to 1 child each.
Circumference is proportional to diameter. AREA is proportional to the square!
Obesity (aka being Fat/Overweight/Tubby/etc.) is a complex set of genetic conditions (Syndrome X/Metabolic Syndrome, diabetes, etc.), medical conditions (Thyroid conditions, etc.), psychological factors (stress eating, low self-esteem, etc.), and/or other factors (diet, available food, etc.) that make it nontrivial for a large group of people to lose weight. I doubt I've even scratched thesurface of factors...
If you look at the American Society of Bariatric Physicians (asbp.org), and (I bet) the AMA, you will find that folks that have a BMI index over 45 or over 100 pounds of weight are not really able to get it off through just diet and exercise.
This is where surgery (lap band, roux-n-y, etc.), drastic programs (ever watch those Discovery shows on the hyper-obese?), serious drugs (alli-aka Xenecal/Olestra, Byatta, etc.) and combinations of those various options are used to get the weight off.
Unfortunately, the health care providers are long on talk and short on action to help obese people--it's the typical "doctor talks to you about diet and exercise" and you feel guilty and go get a big meal to feel better...
If you want surgery--or NEED surgery--you have to jump through hoops for at least a year before they consider it.
My take is that if you want to legislate good health, then also provide easier access to the tools and medical means to help folks make it happen. How many folks have consulted with a nutritionist about their diet? Does you plan even provide for that?
And let's not forget the psychological aspects--this is a dirty little secret of healthcare plans in that they really scrimp on this aspect of healthcare and won't even reimburse for help on stress eating.
Frankly, if I were an obese Japanese worker, I'd sue right now for more medical help--and not just the company but the Ministry of Health and the wonderful government officials and elected folk that enacted this cruel joke.
If they tried this here in America, I'd be going to the ACLU and getting them to start litigation against anybody proposing or supporting this nonsense as it stands. If they made real medical help readily available with it--as mandates to healthcare providers and funding for those who don't have healthcare (who really need it), then I could agree to helping people lose weight and keep it off and not punish them or their employers for the problem.
We're hearing about the "National Obesity Epidemic" but I don't see any action by healthcare providers or the government that means anything. Come on, a revised food pyramid that is far worse for you than the one from 20 years ago?
And yes, I am about 100 pounds over my target weight. And no, I've already tried surgery (my first round with lap-band went wrong somehow and I'm actively looking at other surgical options), too many diets that didn't work, too many drugs (some are now working), and some things that are working slowly (managing stress). So I'm talking from real experience.
Anybody that just says "shut your mouth when around food", or "diet and exercise", or "watch what you eat" or other plattitudes should be sat upon and fed their weight in twinkies or cornstarch. Or maybe I'll just counter with "maybe you should stop breathing so much"...
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")
"If fat people could control their weight merely by exerting a reasonably amount of conscious control over their diets (i.e., will power), they would"
Yet they can do exactly that and choose not to. Why are you saying "they would" when it's obvious to everyone that they don't?
"Being fat is a miserable fucking experience, and no one would put up with it if they didn't have to."
And yet THEY DO PUT UP WITH IT, despite your vacuous assertion otherwise. Why are you claiming "no one would put up with it" when it's obvious to everyone that they do, in total opposition to your point.
You seem to be claiming fat people can't control their weight through dietary choices and exercise and that were someone fat, they wouldn't choose to remain that way if they didn't have to.
To quote YOU "do you realize how incredibly fucking stupid that steaming pile you splattered on my screen sounds"?
What in the world were you eating to get good nutrition on $3 per day?
Or do you mean "I spent less than $100 a month on groceries because I ate mostly at restaurants and cafeterias"?
"But the OP can count on most people not worrying about facts like that and did in fact get modded up."
You are right. And if you'll notice, at least on idiot decided to hammer ME for asking for sources.
Is it possible to kill off the hunger signals that the body produces so you are never hungry again?
Either by cutting some of the nerves responsible for giving someone that stomach empty feeling or going in with a gamma knife that they use to target brain tumors and actually killing off the part of the brain that makes the signal to think that you are hungry.
I would rather have to be reminded by other that I need to eat rather than having to constantly remind myself that I just ate and don't need to eat anymore because I have constant grinding hunger that just plain won't stop and it is like living in constant misery.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Uh, well you kind of just proved my point. I didn't say you should drop to 1800 calories right away. That is what leads to most people failing their diets. If you weren't eating more than you need you wouldn't have as much excess fat. High carb diets are prone to high or easy fat gain because it's pure energy that is easy to store as fat.
If you don't take care of your body, and you become an expensive data point in your insurance system, you raise the premiums for everyone else. We all seem to generally agree on that. We disagree on what, if anything, should be done to make the system more "fair."
Likewise, if you don't raise your kid right and he becomes a murdering thug, you lower the quality of life for everyone else. Should your performance as a parent be judged, fined, taxed, regulated too? The societal impact of poor parenting is at least as great as that of too many cheeseburgers.
Personally, I will grudgingly pay for Mr. Unhealthy's insurance, and I will sadly let the person next door loose a brood of poorly socialized amoral goons on the world, because I think the alternative--trying to fix things--will end up being worse.
"What I am saying is "Piss off if you want me to pay for your health problems after, cause you really did this to yourself... so you pre-pay for it, k? k.". This really isn't that complicated."
Yes, it is your right not to pay for such individuals health problems. That is my whole point here. If you don't want to be part of the same health insurance/care provider that insures/provides for the obese, you can freely choose not to be. If for some reason there is something stopping you from freely choosing not to support them, you need look no further than the government as the culprit for this restriction.
"We do have universal health-care here (or... at least we call it that) so there isn't really a choice to be part of or apart from the system"
Agreed. Ideally we should have that choice.
"I like it that way"
You have just contradicted the rest of your post.
"if I break an arm, I can actually get it taken care of."
Are you suggesting that would not be the case under a totally-private system? If so, you'll have to back that up with evidence. If not, why say it?
"This is what health care is for in the first place."
What you're going to have to show, though, is that private companies couldn't provide this service.
it's never been a right to hapiness only to the pursuit.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Everyone in a place of political power seems to be willing to support our rights unless it is politically profitable not to.
"But there are costs associated with the unhealthy lifestyle, and you should be the one paying those costs, not the rest of society."
Exactly. That is the whole point of all of my posts. We are in complete agreement on this issue, assuming that you accept your above statement as a universal truth.
Are you sure you replied to the right post?
I think the best argument against genetics as a cause of obesity is the rapid explosion of the number of obese people in the last 100 years.
This rapid increase can not possibly be related to changes in genetics. One hundred years (three or four generations) is far, far too short a period for the gene pool to change.
During the last 100 years, though, there have been many changes in society which contribute to obesity: cars, television, fast-food, sendentary jobs, huge portions of food being the norm.
Which suggests the obesity problem could be significantly reduced if people just exercised more and ate less.
I'm pretty fit at 6' 2", 150 pounds, and 8% body fat. Still, though, my waistline is 31". I wouldn't have to put on much weight at all to be over that limit. I'd even be nervous to do some muscle-building.
Who said anything about a right to happiness? If someone wants to pursue happiness by eating or smoking, that is their right, and we have no right to stop them.
Taxes are constitutional, and they along with government services are the difference between stable prosperity and being a third world country. You have far more rights, freedom, security, and yes money with taxes and services than you would without.
And for those who don't accept it?
Then move to Afghanistan or Somalia, bitch. You'll have all the freedom from beaurocrats that you could ever want. Just make sure to bring your body armor and AK-47.
"IE, fewer and fewer people are getting what they desire because other anonymous people are forcing higher health care costs on them by eating too much."
Yes, that is correct, and equally unjust. Under the current system, that is the case, because the government provides that insurance and funds it through forced taxation. But I am not advocating the current system. I am advocating complete privatization of health insurance and care.
The whole point of socialized medicine and group health care is so that the healthy can help support the unhealthy and bring the cost to a reasonable level for everyone. You can't have the socialized medical plan and charge the fat kid who eats cake too!
I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
"those costs need to be passed on to you. Not me."
Who is advocating otherwise? I agree with you completely. I should pay for my costs, you should pay for yours.
"Also, totally technical note: the Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document in any sense."
The rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness did not pop into existence with the creation of the Declaration of Independence. They are fundamental rights of rational beings.
Taxing junk food? You (in the US) are being taxed
to SUPPORT junk food - the farm bill subsidizes the corn
industry (high fructose corn syrup). There was
a discussion of this earlier this year/late last
year on NPR's Science Friday, perhaps
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200801043
or see Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma".
(I'm a modest beneficiary of this system - eat
more Hohos, buy more gasohol - mmm good!, &
I need a ne
That's impressive, except that, heart attacks are a pretty cheap way to die. Your heart clogs up, and boom, you die. There's no big hospital stay... maybe an ambulance ride and a trip to the morgue, but the whole thing is over pretty quick. Since you have heart attack, you likely aren't living to be 80, so, pretty much, everyone else gets your social security earnings and you never really receive any payback of premiums for medicare.
By contrast, you eat a healthy diet, live healthy, so, you'll live to be fairly old. That means you are going to be draining social security for a good long retirement. You'll also be draining medicare. Chances are, you'll live long enough to succumb to any of the gradual, wasting failures that accompany extreme old age. Mr. Fat Boy with chips won't live long enough to get Alzheimer's disease, but you will, and your care is going to be enormously expensive.
The moral of the story is that, if we are going to tax anyone, it ought to be healthy people. Smokers, chip eaters, drunks and fat boys won't live long enough to retire or need a nursing home, but all you healthy people are going to just drain social security and the federal budget.
This is my sig.
You know, I'm glad people are waking up and deciding that they need to do something about their health. Two problems, though:
1. If the government wants to mandate a healthy lifestyle, it can kindly go right to hell. I know, this is Japan, not the US, but I don't like big government no matter what continent its on.
2. Why do people insist on using meaningless standards like waist size or BMI, standards that can easily be shown to have no real bearing on health? Especially when there are perfectly good, and just as easy, methods that actually mean something, like hip-to-waist ratio.
Thomas Galvin
I have a better idea. Let's tax junk IDEAS. Every time someone starts pontificating about why some paternalistic idea is "good" , they pay $1.
After all, why should some people's willingness to trade away their freedom for such piddling returns be applied to the rest of us?
"In my opinion, telling fat people to "just eat less" makes about as much sense as talking v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to people who don't understand your language. "
Yeah, well in your opinion fat people can't "control their weight merely by exerting a reasonably amount of conscious control over their diets" an they stay that way because they "have to" so we can see just what your opinion is worth.
And please don't claim that was taken out of context, you made the claims exactly as I presented them.
Hopefully, there will be exceptions for:
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
>>It is not the size that matters. Forcibly taking away someone's productivity (in the form of money) is no different from theft.
Using public and/or common services and resources without paying for them is also theft. Your argument presents a false dilemma.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
It is not the size that matters. Forcibly taking away someone's productivity (in the form of money) is no different from theft.
That's just foolish. Some services can only be provided by a government. A government must levy taxes to support itself. Taxes, as the grandparent notes, shape consumption. It's one thing to say that a too-high tax burden is bad for the economy, or to say that a given thing should not be taxed (because it shouldn't be discouraged by this effect). To argue that taxes shouldn't exist, based on some middle-school idea of human rights, is moronic.You know the nazi's had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear.
reread my post. pay special attention to qualifying statements.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I personally suggest you take the time to read Fat, by Rob Grant.
It examines the UK in a society where being fat has, for all intents and purposes, become illegal. It's incredibly dark, funny, and surprisingly accurate. The catalyst? Taxes on unhealthy food and a 'fuel tax' based on weight. Remember, part of the reason why you are the way you are is because of pure luck.
Cynical Idealist
Does that mean sumo tickets are about to go up?
You're also ignoring the fact that not everyone who eats a lot of junk food runs into health problems. If you live a healthy lifestyle with lots of exercise and have good genes, you can afford to eat a snickers bar every day. I like the way Japan is doing it better.
How does that fit in with Cigarettes?
Thats EXACTLY what happens with them... I don't seem all that many claiming the government is stealing from the populus because it taxes cigarettes.................
In America. I mean, there are plenty of men who have the same size waist from their college years or younger. It's not their waist that has grown out of proportion, it's their belly.
You *can* control your genes, according to a new study...
Change your genes in 90 days...sounds impossible, right? Maybe not. A new study by researchers at the Univ. of California San Francisco (UCSF) shows that good nutrition in combination with stress management and exercise can "turn off" disease-promoting genes linked to cancer, heart disease, and inflammation and can "turn on" protective disease-preventing genes.
In this study, 30 men with prostate cancer decided to forego conventional treatments such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, instead opting for comprehensive lifestyle changes including a plant-based diet, moderate exercise (walking 30 minutes per day), stress-management techniques, and participating in a weekly one-hour support group. After three months, not only had these men lost weight and lowered their blood pressure, but the activity in over 500 of their genes had changed. The changes included increased activity in health-promoting genes and the shutting down of disease-promoting genes, including some related to prostate and breast cancer.
The authors of the study believe that its implications are not just limited to men with prostate cancer. What that means for the rest of us is that good eating habits and exercise can not only stop or reverse the progression of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and other chronic conditions, it just might improve our genetic destinies as well. It means that the excuse of "I have bad genes, there's nothing I can do about it" is out the window. Genetic predisposition to any condition is only that: a predisposition, not a certainty set in stone. Making positive lifestyle changes with respect to diet and exercise can not only improve our current health but, through these newly discovered genetic changes, improve our possibility of good future health. It looks like it's not just all in our genes after all.
Summary:
Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government?
Canada has universal health insurance, and there's no such government imposed size regulation here.
Also, why would this be different than if a company's private insurance chooses this approach? I doubt any company would simply switch insurance companies should said insurance company adopt a regulation to check employee's waistlines. As I understand it, t's happened with cigarettes already, why would it stop there?
"Side note, the article is being just rabble-rousing by comparing waistlines considering that Americans are so much taller on average than Japanese it makes sense that they would be proportionally larger in waist size."
So how does that account for Scandinavians/Dutch/etc who are as tall as Americans but have smaller waist sizes? ;-) /rabble-rouse
By comparison, the average waistline in America in 2005 was 39 inches for men, 37 inches for women.
Depending on who you want to believe, it seems the Aussies have beat the US in the obesity rate:
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/06/20/australian-obesity-survey-markets-equity-cx_jc_0620markets06.html
Japan has a very serious problem of an aging population that is getting to retirement and has to be sustained by non retirees.
Strongly encouraging behavior that makes life expectancy longer will exacerbate the problem
Not that they should encourage unhealthy behavior either, but they should leave people to make their own decisions
This is merely a *proposed* law.
It's entirely possible it was suggested by someone who was only trying to make a point. We get that sort of crap from our own politicians all the time: "If you're going to ban this, then why don't you ban that? If you're going to legalize this, then why don't you legalize that?"
It's just sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Just look at professional fighters. You have top condition 6 foot tall fighters competing across welter to heavy weight classes. Across the BMI this splashes them across underweight to obese, all top atheletes. People have different builds.
Anyone who wants to take one or two measurements and make a clinical decision has pretty much blown thier credibility rating. Using waist circumfrence to determine health care premiums is like measuring your skull to see if you can get into Harvard.
Quit hating on the sumo wrestlers!
You seriously think a financial tax is going to change obesity? The overweight are already paid less on average, are treated poorly compared to more attractive people, are socially rejected, and all sorts of other things. What a stupid idea.
http://www.obesity.org/information/weight_bias.asp
Being fair, though, there's a huge difference between being a few pounds over ideal and the average American. And yes, I'm over here too. I would challenge most people to take a trip overseas - pretty much anywhere. Even stereotypically "fat" countries like Germany. Hang out for a couple of weeks, then head back to the 'States - you'd be amazed, really.
"Average" does not automatically equal "healthy."
Put it this way - the last time I was in Germany, I hit a mall for some new clothes (long trip). The average starting waist size for pants was 28". Over here, in some stores its 32" and in other stores (typically "cheaper" ones like Kohl's) its getting hard to find some styles starting under 34". Here, a personal size pizza is often 12" diameter (10" if its a deep pan). In Germany, the common sizes were 24 cm (small) and 28 cm (large) - both under 12". Note: this was a completely unscientific study of 5-6 department stores and a single pizzeria, but it was a very interesting observation.
We really are a pretty fat country.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Love the way you backpedal and try to claim something other than what you said, so you're not caught out with your bullshit.
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
That seems a bit crazy. I'm well over 6 foot tall and quite muscular. Okay, perhaps a scary giant in japanese terms, but you can't link waist size to obesity without reference to height - a 4 foot 10 inches guy with my 34 inch and apparently above their limit waist size might be overweight, I am not.
It's not back pedaling, try reading. I'm saying if you were eating 1800 cals or whatever your maintenance cals are you wouldn't be fat. My OP is saying that you don't see someone being fat on only 1800 calories per day. THAT is what I'm trying to say, if you can't get what I wrote. I never said you should eat 1800 cals per day if you weigh 300 lbs. I'm saying if you're 300 lbs there's no way you are eating only 1800 cals or whatever your maintenace calories are. GET IT NOW?? You're pretty god damn sensitive, you might want to check on that.
These people already do pay higher premiums. Insurance companies look at how many miles you drive, where you park, speeding tickets, motorcycle drivers, etc.
Riskier people do pay higher premiums - that's why your insurance goes down, after you turn 25, and after you marry. That's why your insurance goes up after accidents and speeding tickets.
I love the obsession with body builders and BMI, even though it is probably less than 1-2% of the population. Apparently many people on Slashdot are bodybuilders?
And yes body builders do have a shorter lifespan. Being in shape is another story.
..........FULL STOP.
Healthier food is more expensive than junk food. Why not tax it higher?
People tend towards junk food because its less expensive.
Now you're going to make the cost of living go up for everyone by doing this. If you want to incentivize healthier foods, encourage the Japanese to lower the costs on sushi and make it available in drivethrus.
The Japanese have the lowest obesity rates in the world,
and it is partially due to the high vegetables in their diets
and that they consume %10 of the world's supply of fish.
Counterexample: Starbucks coffee. Ridiculous prices for the same benefit has only made them more popular.
Drug, weight, genetic, credit and background checks are all barriers which will end up hurting businesses by impeding their ability to hire the best qualified. Look at Microsoft which recently opened a branch in Vancouver because it was too difficult to get visas for some of the foreign workers they wanted. I've worked in the defense industry where projects failed under the guidance of employees whose chief qualification was an existing security clearance. This was the main reason Einstein was kept out of the Manhattan Project; just the fear that he would not qualify. Passing laws like this drives business away and gives other nations and regions a competetive advantage.
Free trade seeks to strengthen markets by removing barriers to trade. Economists and policy-makers should consider the benefits of free employment, and strengthen the market by removing barriers to whom they employ.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
this is stupid
diet and exercise can't control body weight over a long period of time (over 3 years) ... the body self regulates it's weight influenced by the protein leptin... those who say fat people lack the will to be slim should burn in hell. it's the same as if people would blame cancer patients for being ill... being fat is a disease, and nobody knows a cure for it...
doctors should stop blaming the patient for being ill...
Again (see above), I would be 100% against the idea of taxing things such as fast food, which is detrimental to the health of the consumer, if that person declines health care coverage if their ailment is a direct result of their prior actions. Since that CAN'T HAPPEN, you should have to pay extra to eat the thing you want to stuff your face with so that I don't HAVE TO pay the medical costs associated with treating your fat ass in 20 years.
If they can afford the food, who's to tell them they should be allowed to eat it. What happened to "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness"?
What about MY pursuit of happiness? I'd be happier if I didn't have to pay for your fat ass's diabetes treatments.
Only if you choose to be part of the system. The difference between that and a publicly-funded system is that you have no choice.
Because a fat poor guy that chooses to not be included in a publicly-funded system will shrug his shoulders and die peacefully without financially burdening ME. Is that right? No, he'll show up at a hospital and some good doctor will operate on his legs for free. What's that? Not free? Medi-what? Who pays for that? Only fat people? Or ALL OF US.
It is not the size that matters. Forcibly taking away someone's productivity (in the form of money) is no different from theft.
Spoken like a typical "size doesn't matter"er.
The biggest crime that fat people commit is the stealing of time from us normal folks.
As you may or may not know, gravity slows down time. Gravity is the product of mass. Their larger than average masses steals a larger than average portion of time from you as you pass through their (considerable) area of influence.
I'm walking and gravity is constant; normal; time is passing. Then I attempt to squeeze around this fat person because they're too slow. To the fat person, they're walking at a normal speed, but their time operates slowers than ours so relative to us and the natural, they're in fact walking slower.
So as I pass them, the grip of their massive gravity slows down the space-time I have to walk through to pass them. Even though it seems like it only took me 1 second to walk past them, 1.x seconds elapsed in the real world outside the gravity of the fat person.
In affect, the fat person STOLE X amount of time from me!!!
You can't get that back.
This phenomenon also accounts for fat people having lower IQs (just google it). There answers always take longer to formulate because their time is slowed down relative to ours. (assuming you're not fat)
The time-differential between obese and non-obese people is accountable for countless things.
You also might notice that the Japanese appear to be smarter than Americans. And potentially more efficient and harder workings. You'll also notice that per capita they're skinnier. Giving them more relative-time in a day to accomplish the same tasks.
It wouldn't surprise if the American day is actually 23.5 hours compared to the 24 hour day the rest of the world enjoys.
What about tall people? So it's not as common for Japanese to be very tall, but it does happen from time to time. Does it make sense to restrict a 6' tall person to 33.5" waist as it does for a 5'2" person?
I'm glad I don't live there, though I wouldn't mind losing a small amount of my 36". (I'm 6'2" tall and I do not consider this to be obese) I'm just happy my contry does not require me to actually RTFA. The world will be an awkward place if that ever happens...
Let's trim our hai^Wbodies in accordance with the socialist lifestyle.
Well, you wouldn't need to eat that much if you just got that infestation of tapeworm treated.
> A junk food tax sounds like an INCREDIBLY good idea.
I think a tax on thin people is an INCREDIBLY good idea. They don't buy as much food as fat people thereby losing revenue for the farmers to grow the food, the truckers to move the food, the chains that sell the food. It's obvious that they are just not generating enough economic revenue. Tax 'em for it. That'll learn 'em!
>studies from cigarette taxes show that increases costs
> decrease consumption of even highly desirable things.
The studies also showed that the higher the tax goes, the more active the black market becomes. Raise the cigarette tax and people start buying from Indians. Want to see the reductio ad absurdum of this mindset? Look at the War on (Some) Drugs. Now picture gang members shooting themselves and innocents to keep anyone from hawking black market cigarettes but them.
I know we like to forget the past, but must we do so every generation?! Can we not see that horrible price we pay for the Drug Vendetta, do we not remember what happened with Prohibition? Are we really so incapable of learning?!
Judging by wonkavader, I guess so.
> A small tax (in stores, vending machines[...]
There are no small taxes. There are only taxes that have not been raised yet. And handing the government a new source of tax money is like handing an addict some crack and a pistol.
You want to see health insurance reform? Easy. One pool: US citizen. No smoking/nonsmoking, no fat/thin, no good genes/bad genes, no cherrypicking people with low medical needs and no shunning people with high medical needs. Average over the entire country and the extra cost is small. Much smaller than your it-will-only-start-small tax.
And I cry bullshit. Clearly, you have no clue what you're talking about.
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
I think that idea sucks horribly. I'm a skinny little git who eats roughly 3500 cals a day. So just because I'm skinny and like junk food you're going to tax me because fat people like junk food too? I'm not fat, yet I'm still going to pay for it.
Cigarette taxes are fine, no one needs cigarettes to live by anyones stretch of imagination. You could make the same argument about junk food, but junk food is still food and people still need it to live. I can barely afford to feed myself as it is!
I have a couple plants in my herb garden. Nice foliage, but I wouldn't recommend anyone put it near his or her mouth.
Because what you do with your body ends up costing the government a lot of money in the long run... and by extension all the rest of us who choose *not* to engage in such risky behavior.
You identified the problem, but missed the correct answer. The correct answer was, "the government has no business being in the health insurance industry, so you're free to go about poisoning your body however you like, just don't expect anybody else to cover your expenses."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If there are no wills, there are no weak wills. Any reason to think that they exist?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
The Japanese government will do *anything* to break that 1000-post-slashdot-article barrier.
Requiem for the American Dream
In that case, your life must be pretty hard, getting robbed every time you buy goods or services and every time you receive a paycheck.
Perhaps you could move to an uninhabited island, where there's no government to steal your hard-earned money. Or perhaps you could adopt the same view as most of your fellow citizens, i.e. that taxes are the price you pay for living in a society with infrastructure, law enforcement, emergency response, and a basic safety net. After all, people aren't very productive if they're dead or too sick to work.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Not quite. Actually, slavery is what it's called when people get to literally own other people and force them to work against their will.
When the majority passes a tax that only applies to a small group of people, it's sometimes called a luxury tax, or a sin tax, depending on the thing being taxed, but usually it's just a tax. There are plenty of taxes that only a minority of people pay, and it'd be lunacy (or trollery) to call those all forms of "slavery".
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I didn't make this stuff up. A bunch of accountants just looked at who lived the longest, and it tended to be average type people. Not too short, skinny, tall, or fat.
I specifically spoke about people outside the normal range not living as long, and didn't just limit myself to people higher than the ideal BMI I.E. SKINNY people too. I also spoke specifically about obese people(did NOT say high BMI), and how they might have higher insurance premiums, and not "big boned" people, so pay attention, and don't get all excited.
The paper you are quoting is looking at a bunch of 80 year olds in Japan - this has a fair amount of selection bias, since many of the unhealthy people have already died by that time from cardiac or other conditions (Still #1 killer in America, #2 in Japan).
The results in this study may merely show that very underweight people tend to be sicker than normal weight people and in this case overweight people as well. Cancer, tends to have a much, much higher frequency in this aging population, with patients typically losing weight - this study may just reflect that. This too lends credence to the BMI data - in that you want to be average.
Not sure why you went into the sterilization bit, and eugenics. I made, nor inferred anything about reproduction. And don't shoot the messenger.
..........FULL STOP.
33.5" for men? That is absurdly skinny. I am 6'2" and 155lb (+/- 5lb depending on the day - water/food intake and exhaust differential). I wear size 34" pants, and I find it difficult to actually gain weight.
And, I know for certain there are some Japanese people who are over that and not even approaching fat. That's just crazy.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm tall too (6'4"), and so my BMI will tend to be higher. And yes I might not live as long as someone who is of average height, statistically speaking.
In my original post, I made some clear distinctions between obesity and BMI. I never said that a high BMI meant someone was fat. Read my post carefully please.
Height has been inversely related to longevity too - e.g. shorter people may live longer.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T99-47W4M47-2&_user=4423&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000059605&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4423&md5=6af865f928fb1bc2c65ff391841ad674
Again, it looks like it benefits you, ON AVERAGE, to be average. Not too tall, short, heavy or thin. I'm not calling anyone fat just because they have a high BMI. It's body mass index, not Body Fat index, so it's not measuring % fat.
..........FULL STOP.
As an American living and working in Japan, I have the following comments to the video (watch it--it's short).
1) This is classic Japanese governmental/administrative dunderheadedness. They will pick a number or a date and act like the world works that way and that any person that deviates from that is insane. E.g. junior high students have to switch to their heavy wool winter uniforms when winter begins... In the middle of September. That's when it's time to start wearing wool, when it's still 27 degrees (Celsius) out. The teachers sometimes decide not to notice minor infractions, but at no time does anyone go, "Y'know what? Maybe a room full of sweating, miserable adolescents isn't the best learning environment. How about we push this date back by a month or more?" No, no, rules are rules, handed down by the sun goddess Amaterasu to her earthly descendant the emperor, and down the line all the way to the principal sitting in his air-conditioned office smoking all day. Can't question rules.
The video points out that the number seems small, but that we have to remember that the Japanese are tiny people or something. This is craziness too. The Japanese are, on average, smaller than whites or blacks, yes. But there is still a great deal of variation. And they are getting taller. This has to do with their diet changing (more on that later). BMI might be a better measure, but not much better, because they use the Asian BMI, even if you're not Asian. My (British) boss runs marathons. Marathons, okay? But every year at the health check, he is told that he is overweight based on the magical BMI number.
Japanese people forego common sense in the face of authority, which itself foregoes common sense when reaching a decision. It is an amazing testament to Japanese rule-breaking ingenuity that anyone gets anything done at all here.
2) It is classic Japan to assume that the employees of a company are the property of the company, and that the company is the property of the government. This is probably the biggest mindset difference between Westerners and Japanese (or Chinese)--Westerners are natural capitalists. Japanese are natural communists. They just work in a capitalist economy.
When you introduce yourself in Japan (in business settings), you say something roughly equivalent to "I am NEC's Matsumoto." You identify your employer as your superordinate identity. This goes back to the samurai, who would have been in service of a particular warlord. Tribal identity is huge in Japan, and this affects all levels of society. And irritates the hell out of Westerners here.
Just how is the health of the employees the company's responsibility? What are they even supposed to do about it? Reduce the calories in the cafeteria meals? What do you do about the fact that the cafeteria meals are all made of frozen packaged shit from China? So you reduce portion sizes and... More people eat out. Is the company to issue reprimands to portly salarymen? If I were a Japanese CEO, I'd be calling my Yakuza buddies in government to go whack some kneecaps over this.
3) Finally, I have to talk about diet. The reason that Japanese are getting taller is that they are no longer malnourished. The meal that the reporter presented as "traditional Japanese food" would have only been enjoyed by the very rich throughout most of Japan's history. Most people literally subsisted on rice and green tea all the way up into the postwar period. As Japan has gotten richer, their diet has diversified and improved, to the point now that this generation of old people might be able to walk upright until they die, instead of turning into 90-degree ogres at age 70 like the generation before them. It has also led to the shameful depletion of the world's fish stock because Japanese food is based on raiding wild fish reserves, and as people have gotten richer, more people can buy, and so fish are actually going extinct, largely because of
Then by your logic, if I shoot you in the chest, I should not be liable If you forgot to wear your kevlar vest.
If you look at studies like Relationship Between Low Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Men, or especially Lee et. al. in Cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in men, your premise doesn't quite hold. Their results are that:
"In summary, we found that obesity did not appear to increase mortality risk in fit men. For long-term health benefits we should focus on improving fitness by increasing physical activity rather than relying on diet for weight control...our data show that fit men had greater longevity than unfit men regardless of their body composition or risk factor status. Obese men should be encouraged to increase their cardiorespiratory fitness by engaging in regular, moderate-intensity physical activity; this should benefit them even if they remain overweight."
The Lee et. al. study shows that the risk of cardiovascular disease goes up with obesity, but even there:
"fit, obese men had a lower risk of CVD mortality than did unfit, lean men"
Also, in response to other comments:
1. As to the "a calorie is a calorie, just eat less" idea. Actually, no. Some people have gut bacteria which are much more efficient at extracting calories than others, so that for the same number of calories eaten, one person can get 30% calories out of it. Obese people often have these efficient bacteria (a survival trait for most of human history, and probably no more in their control than genetics)
2. Your family genetics may imply that you're better off with a higher BMI, all other things being equal. If you have lots of heat troubles, 20 may be good. If Parkinson's, 30 might be better.
All to say- first, get fit. Second, understand your genetics. Then worry about your weight.
OK buddy. No, I don't come from a fat family, have a father with type 2 diabetes, and have myself gotten down to almost a 6 pack. Oh wait, yes I have. Enjoy being fat.
nothing about this on Japanese news sites. absotively nothing. reference link?
"Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government?"
Is that the sound of a Libertarian opposing a measure to make people who cost more pay more? Sounds like somebody wants to duck their responsibilities to me.
It's well known that the Japanese traditionally have no real appreciation for well-rounded booty (as opposed to say these guys [NSFW!!] ). Now with globalization, they're trying to prevent major booty from barging its way into the country like Admiral Perry. Of course you can't just ban booty outright, so traditionalists in the gov't are using "health issues" to ban it by the backdoor (no pun intended.) They're prosecuting booty by measuring waistlines, the same way they beat Capone for tax evasion.
Japanese men! Fight for your right to women with decent booty! Japanese women! Fight for your right to wear Apple Bottoms!
Thank you for the details--that's a pretty good diet. One suggestion: you're probably better off getting a little variety rather than eating the same thing every day. (And some people would say that yogurt isn't really good for you.)
I've been working on my problem a long time. A few notable ventures: I once adhered 100% to a vegan diet for 11 months. Several times I've done a diet of fresh fruits/veggies with a bit of fish and whole grains for four-plus months. Once I did 30-hours fasts every third day for six months. I did a year-long Ornish-style LF diet for a year. I've done periods of a year going to the gym and sweating for an hour every night. I gave up Coke/Pepsi six years ago and haven't had a drop since.
I want to scream every time some idiot says that we "just" need to eat less/different/exercise more/not be so lazy/etc. It is possible to lose weight and get healthy, because some people do it, but it is by no means easy, and no one really knows how to do it. If you look through the scientific literature, the results are thin and contradictory. It's just a fucking complex problem, and no one really knows much about it. We're like children poking at our motherboards with screwdrivers, trying to glean information from a system beyond our comprehension.
Some of these regimes did make me feel quite a bit better, and in the right environment I could probably be okay on them indefinitely. But unfortunately I live in the real world, in the land of nutritional crap engineered to be addictive.
For those not in this situation, how can you imagine it? Imagine trying to breathe by respiring (in/out) only five times per minute, on average, day in and day out. It'd take a little concentration, but you could "just" do it, in theory. No one really could, though, in practice. Losing weight permanently is much more difficult than this.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I've been skinny my entire life. I'm 20 now, and I am 6'5" and 170 pounds. My waist is between 31 and 32 inches. I meet no one this thin generally. So how in the hell could a friggin country restrict certain gene types? Even my non-rocket scientist ass knows that people come in all shapes and sizes regardless of how escalated obesity is in said society. 33.5"?? Give me a break!
The problem is this. Sometime way back when, the cost of visiting the doctor wasn't so high. Most doctors would work with the patients, and wouldn't demand a second mortgage to pay for your broken arm.
Sometime between now and then, the AMA came in and decided that all doctors should be licensed, and that they must take years and years of medical school to be licensed..reasonable, no?
After the now-graduated student spends 100k on school, they expect to be rewarded for their years of study, responsibility, etc. Again, reasonable.
A few years later, they encounter Patient X that has an incurable brain tumor. However, he came in complaining of headaches. After a long review, the doctor determines the reason to be stress. Take a few days off, the doctor says. A week later, Patient X dies. His family sues, and the doctor is indebted for the rest of his life, all because of a foolish jury.
This is where insurance came in to play. In order to practice, you have to have insurance. And this insurance is EXPENSIVE because the payouts will no doubt be expensive if the doctor messes up. Sometimes reasonable.
So what will it be? Are YOU willing to pay $5,000 because your body decided to create a kidney stone? Or do you want to hope that it was big enough to pass? With insurance you'll have to pay about $100 or so, which will be much more affordable than coughing up $5,000 sometime in the next few months.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
So let's see, a fat tax. They can either exercise a lot more (work) or just work more hours to pay the tax (work). I'm guessing they don't want to (it's against their will).
There you have it, a fat tax is slavery.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Since you name the one gluten free item sold everywhere, you obviously do not know anyone with celiacs disease.
With a law like this in the USA, it might be possible for a person with a size 32 waist to find a pair of pant that fits.
You can find a much healthier high calorie alternative to a bacon double cheesebuger that's packed with trans fat and cholesterol.
Serious? Trans fat is not animal fat. It need not be present in a dbl bcn chsbrgr. The fries may be a different story based on the oil. I seriously doubt there is an appreciably greater amount of trans fat in his meal than bacon-wrapped filet mignon. That is to day, very little trace amounts if any. Maybe you are thinking of shortbread cookies or donuts (many of which have now reduced or eliminated trans fats). If you didn't know this, it doesn't make stupid - just ignorant!
Good idea, while you're at it let's tax people who make unnecessary trips; It's much more efficient to eliminate any energy usage that is not production related.
Simply taxing foods that digest quickly would only push people onto the Atkins diet or something equally self-defeating.
A junk food tax is too short-sighted and unworkable. A lot of people get fat on foods other than those thought of as junk food. In order for this to do any good you'd have to have Govt. auditing our food intake.
Obesity increases fuel consumption -- the obese eat more (more food transport and production fuel use) and weigh more (more transport costs in themselves). They eat 18% more, according the Lancet. The Lancet goes on to suggest that reducing obesity would reduce global warming.
You've hit the nail on the head, there, I'm afraid. Not just fuel consumption, but all consumption. Fat people drive up the GDP. And that is why you will never see a Fat Tax in the good old US of A, but rather lots of policies that ensure unhealthy foods made of government paid for grains fill the shelves and cost less than healthy alternatives that don't line the fatcat's pockets and keep the working class happy, heads down and mouths always full.
Here in NZ we get all sorts of bullsh*t about "its not their fault, its what they are eating and the corporations brainwash them into...." and its absolute rot! Its simple, eat less and exercise more! I managed to do a couple hours a day on my exercycle when I would otherwise be sitting in a chair, I was no less comfortable, and lost a lot of weight very easily!
Good luck to anyone else who is trying to lose weight! :)
I'm pretty skinny to, but my waist is 34". Of course I'm around 6'2". But, there are lots of Japanese guys around my height too. I don't have anything against chubby people either... in fact I think think it's preferable. One woman I know here was hospitalized the other day because she collapsed at the train station. She's seriously skinny, so my only guess is it didn't take much to weaken her to that point.
People need less of a reason to worry about weight here... even more so in countries like Korea. Of course if they are fat enough that it effects their quality of life, that's a different story. But, for most women I know, just being not ridiculously skinny inflicts them with the perception that they are ugly. It's so sad, really...
I've tried finding a real link to an actual news article about this with no luck. Even on CNN it's just a video article, with it's source quoted as "CNN". Very convenient.
Does anyone have a link to a real news article about this, or even better, a Japanese news service? I would imagine if this was a real "recently introduced law" then I would have heard something more about it, and it would be covered better in the media.
It's simple really, you have no control over your genes, so that should not be factor in risk assessment for insurances and the like.
You can however control your smoking/drinking/eating habits (genes "favoring" obesity notwithstanding).
I could see if it you were stranded away from civilization and you happened to have a supply of tea or coffee and needed some sort of sweetener.
But it's so horrible that I would just as soon go without. It tastes like you dropped unsweeted oat cereal into your tea/coffee. I bought a box of it from Trader Joe's a few months back on a recommendation from a friend and websites, and I decided to "give" to someone I loathed. I think if someone says they like it, they're lying.
The number of comments on this, vs. more "important" topics is interesting.
Obviously, this touched a nerve with people. Probably two:
One, the fat people who are, of course, personally offended and write in with all kinds of valid, semi-valid and "look behind you, a three-headed monkey!" arguments.
Two, the slim people who are tired of all the "tolerance" bullshit. Like me. If you're fat, you are fat, not "rubens-figured". I do not want to sit next to you on the train, and if you go to the beach, please wear something that covers as much as possible. A Burka would do nicely. But - and that's the point - we've been brought up on "tolerance". 20 years ago, you'd been laughed at in school for being "Fatty" or "Piggy" or whatever, and peer-pressure would have been a great incentive to lose weight and shape up. These days, there are few incentives, because everyone will tolerate you.
I've long been of the opinion that tolerance is being valued too much over honesty.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's surprising how many times people bring up the "genetics -> metabolic rate" argument. It's tempting, but false. Find me one single peer-reviewed academic paper that concludes that there's any genetic factor that somehow suspends the laws of physics and I'll change my mind. Every single study that looks at genetics finds time and time again that the genetic factors affect either (a) appetite or (b) propensity to take exercise. Every single test that has been done shows that fatter people burn more calories when subject to an identical degree of exercise as a thin person. But don't just believe me, check it for yourself.
This is hoax, I live in Japan and nothing of this is true.
Ah, American people, you still believe that Canadian live in igloos...:D
In the US, airlines charge non-trivial sums of money if your checked in luggage ways more than 50lbs (domestic, I think). Yet they don't care whether the passenger weights 150lbs or 250lbs.
And I believe passenger weight does affect the airplane's fuel consumption, handling, etc.... I've been on commercial flights where they asked some (incidentally overweight) people to move to the other side of the plan to balance it. (It was a small commuter plane that wasn't very full).
At the risk of triggering a massive wave of eating disorders, I would love to see tax rebates and insurance discounts for normal-weight people here...
Heck, such a plan in the US might even lower energy consumption as it might encourage people to walk a bit more. They also wouldn't need to run the air conditionner so cold if they had a bit less 'insulation' on themselves.
You said no fat person eats an 1800 calorie a day diet. I called you on your bullshit, with personal experience. You followed that by attempting to claim that you had not said what you originally said. Once again, you have committed bullshit. Your further efforts at obfuscation do not conceal the fact that your original claim has been demonstrated to be false.
And, by the way, you clearly did not read my original post, as your "enjoy being fat" shot demonstrates. So what is it? You just don't like being exposed as a bullshitter?
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
Yeah, that's right and it still is true. You don't get to be fat if you're eating only 1800 calories or whatever your maintenance calories are unless you have a legitimate metabolic disorder. I'm done with you because you obviously can't comprehend English.
And so what is it if I force you to work half your time on my projects, since my projects are popular?
Even progressive taxation is slavery - you are taking the few people in society that are good at creating value and forcing them at gunpoint to labor harder to support those that are not.
One constant across human existence - eventually the slaves rebel.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your ... oh wait, it's that Invisible Pink Unicorn Ponsy scheme guy, nvm.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Of course, you might find that it's difficult to create much value at all in such a situation, in which case it seems like society has a pretty fair claim on some fraction of the value they're helping you create when they provide you with things like courts and roads.
One constant across human existence - eventually the slaves rebel. Mm-hmm. How's that revolution working out so far?Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I do believe that war will come when people get fed up with "progressives" taking all there income and giving it to their voting block. It won't happen yet - currently, the government is only taking half my life and that is not yet worth killing over.
But eventually, it will be worth killing over. And no, I'm not talking about some kind of lawsuit - guns (more likely, explosives) will decide the issue, as this will be a fight of the few slaves against the many oppressors. And we will win, because we are the only ones that can get anything done anyway!
Was saying.
"that's what I think he was saying."
Why not just read what he actually said?
""If fat people could control their weight merely by exerting a reasonably amount of conscious control over their diets (i.e., will power), they would""
That in no way says anything even remotely resembling "it's harder for some than others" which is totally accurate and reasonable. He said fat people can't control their weight by exerting control over their diets. He is wrong, and so completely, utterly, undeniably wrong that his statement is nonsensical.
"The article was in a dead tree journal from the '80s. Had you not come off as a braying ass in your post I might feel more helpful in looking back through the stacks."
Of course, it's my fault you have no source.
No guy, you were lying and you just needed an excuse, no matter how retarded.
"Your are the one that read some and yet insisted that I really meant ALL just so you could argue"
BZZZZT WRONG.
Reread the thread, if you're not an imbecile, you'll see why you're wrong with this statement.
Hint: perhaps I was referring to the ORIGINAL comment?
God damn I bet you feel dumb.
"Reply if you like, but you'll be talking to yourself in an empty room, I suspect."
In other words, you know I'm right, you're a liar.
Your excuses are worse than your posts.
everybody knows being fat or overweight is a health risk.
I think it's good to encourage people to take better care of themselves.
*grabs an other apple*
Privacy is terrorism.
You said no fat person eats an 1800 calorie a day diet. I called you on your bullshit, with personal experience.
I think any reasonable person would have assumed the "1800 calorie a day diet" comment implied "averaged over a long period of time". From your own reply, you didn't stick to the low-cal diet for long. To a reasonable person, it looks like you're picking a technical nit and missing the point.
Further, the original comment was trying to give a balanced, overview of all that is known about best practice in weight-loss. They were just making a point about how obesity is fundamentally related to an excess intake of calories. Trying to pick nits in things they left out is, again, missing the point.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.