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Bus Company Says Thin Drivers Deserve Better Pay

In an attempt to promote good employee health, a Lithuanian transport company is paying thin drivers better salaries than their overweight co-workers. Over 100 drivers were weighed to determine their BMI. "We just wanted to promote a health lifestyle," said Vilius Lauzikas, director of Busturas, the transport company in question. The local union and donut loving drivers aren't fans of the new policy. "We cannot call it nothing other than a mockery. If they (the company) do not reconsider we will appeal to the courts," a union representative said.

8 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Illegal? by adolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think your pay for "working out" is the bonus.

    Therefore, it's during "work hours." The pay may be more than, less than, or the same as your usual rate, but it's still paid.

    You can even claim that you're a professional excerciser since you're being paid to do it.

    You don't want to do that sort of work? Cool. No "bonus" for you.

    *shrug*

  2. Re:Illegal? by geekmux · · Score: 2

    I am pretty sure most countries in the developed world do not allow discrimination on the basis of weight.

    And I'm pretty sure that with the obesity problem and associated medical issues killing people at an alarming rate, driving all insurance rates up, we need this discrimination.

  3. Re:Illegal? by v1 · · Score: 2

    what's sad is that "fat" is considered a disability.

    In my book, a "disability" is something that's beyond your control, you're asking society to help you with a disadvantage you can't fix. You can't fix paralyzed, you can't fix amputatated, you can't fix crippled, and you can't fix blind. While I realize this is not always the case, most of the time, you can fix FAT.

    Problem is, the 95% of the people with "fixable fat" are trying to suck up to the system to help enable their problem, under the banner of the 5% with unfixable fat. (thyroid etc)

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  4. Re:Illegal? by sjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

    By doing that consistently for several years AND exercising 3 hours every night, I actually got my weight to only 20 pounds over my "ideal" weight. Then I became an adult with an actual responsibility to have a job and that went out the window.

    You did a nice job assUmeing that I "gorge myself" at meals. Perhaps YOU do/did that, but I certainly don't.

    The simple fact is that some people wolf down the calories, barely exercise, and remain thin because they are naturally thin. Others eat sparingly and exercise and are fat because that's their natural weight. The former frequently like to look down on the latter for their "failure".

    When called on their bigotry (and yes, it *IS* bigotry), the former often claim it's a matter of health and fitness even when the person they are addressing is stronger, faster, and more generally healthy than they are.

  5. Re:Illegal? by v1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The amazingly easy diet is simply this: slow down. It's a very well established fact that it takes your body up to 25 minutes to register "I've had enough to eat", and that's 25 minutes of time you continue to feed your face past your need. If you just pace your meals, take small portions at a time and make several trips to the buffet instead of PILING up two plates, not gulp down your food, you'll find you get to "satisfied" without eating nearly as much food or making ANY changes in your diet.

    So many people that are struggling with dieting are slaves to their appetite, and this is a very easy way to get around that obstacle. It's hard for some people to understand others' "need to feed" when their body says its hungry and they lack willpower, but this is one of those little things you can try that doesn't require willpower - you can stop eating at that same satisfied level without having actually eaten as much.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  6. Re:Illegal? by sjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Guess what will happen if you follow someone around hurling insults 24/7. He will surely assault you eventually.

    There's only so long a person can be expected to put up a sustained resistance to that sort of impulse. People avoid giving in to horny through a combination of finding a willing partner, hiring a willing partner, or "going solo". In other words, they give in all the time to a drive that is lower on the order of evolutionary priorities than eating (no eat = no reproduce ever again, after all).

    Here's an experiment for you to try: masturbate 3 times a day, but just as it's getting good, stop and go back to work. Repeat for the rest of your life.

    Now consider that you are telling others to defy a natural drive that's even stronger than that for the rest of their lives as if it's nothing.

    Remarkable, you are equating being fat with a criminal offense!

  7. Re:Illegal? by poptones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You're awfully arrogant for a man whose entire premise is failed from the start. You keep harping about people overindulging as if that's the entire cause of the problem. It isn't. As someone who has been "naturally fat" since a child and who has managed to get the weight off only to watch it come back again, I can tell you without doubt I eat far less NOW than I did before I essentially doubled my weight. When I was in my mid twenties I lived at the gym - went in the morning, went again at night. I weighed under 180 and easily consumed 10,000 calories a day. Many nights I would end my day by stopping off at the convenience store on the way home and buying a box of Entemann's chocolate chip cookies and a quart of skim milk; I would then chill an hour in front of the TV before going to bed and down THE ENTIRE BOX OF COOKIES AND the quart of skim milk.

    The difference then and now is THEN I WASN'T FAT because I went to the gym. So you're not bitching about me consuming too much, you're bitching about me not giving a shit enough to go to the gym. Well fuck you, charlie - it's twenty miles to the gym fo rme now and I haven't the luxury of spending a few grand a year on shaping my body.

    I burned off those calories then - but I CONSUMED MORE then than now. So what you are really bitching about is just you offense at seeing
    someone who has the NERVE to actually BE fat in public. Do you also bitch about those overpumped apes that pretend to fight one another on television? How about the bricklayers and steel workers?

    I can assure you, the governator didn't get to be the terminator by sipping water and eating rice cakes. Maybe we should do something about all those humans working long hours in construction? After all they can consume pretty much what they want and never get fat - my dad did that. He was a pipefitter and could eat damn near anything without gaining a pound because he was working a physically demanding job all day.

    It sure seems you would benefit from listening to SOMEONE who's "telling you what you're capable of understanding" because it sure seems you have a basic lack of understanding on this topic.

    We subsidize sugar AND corn then cram those sweeteners into every last bit of our food. We inject steroids into cows so they make even more of a product that is already ridiculously underpriced on the wholesale market; we inject other steroids into everything else just to make it bigger, then pretend that's not going to come back on us when we eat the very thing we artificially pumped full of growth hormones. We're shipping manufacturing jobs overseas by the truckload, idling people who are then sedentary AND depressed about their living conditions and we are surprised we have so many fat people? It boggles the mind.

  8. Re:Illegal? by sjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's a LOT more complex. Of the calories you consume, some portion will be metabolized and the rest will pass. That ratio of consumed to absorbed will vary in different people.

    Likewise the conversion of that metabolic energy to work will happen at varying efficiency.

    Finally, when caloric intake is restricted, the metabolism will shift to a conservation mode. The point where that happen and the degree of conservation will vary.

    A person with a low absorption and work efficiency and a minimal response to caloric restriction will easily lose weight and likely will be rather thin on a normal diet. On the opposite side, a person whose work and absorption efficiency is high with a strong response to caloric restriction would have to literally starve themselves and/or exercise to an extreme level (in spite of the deep fatigue that sets in when the metabolism switches to conserve energy) to lose weight and keep it off.

    I agree that no magic is involved in any of that, just a model sufficiently complex to match observation.