Thought for the day
Most people have been forced to experience the fairly cramped and uncomfortable conditions in Economy class on a transatlantic flight. Thankfully, those days are at an end because today I can announce that if you want two seats to yourself for the whole journey without having to pay a penny extra, I have found a very simple solution.
Witanagemot Blogs
We medicalise *everything*. Naughty children? ADHD, have some Ritalin.
It is far from clear that obesity isn’t caused by a person’s own behaviour and indeed our own Government (stop laughing) chooses to combat the ‘obesity epidemic’ by telling people to eat less and excercise more. It gets murkier that being fat qualifies you as disabled under the Disability Discrimination Act.
I can’t think of too many disabilities you can rid your self of. Paraplegics can’t get up and walk about if they change their diets and exercise a bit more. The blind can’t see if they ditch crisps for carrots and go for a jog. My multiple sclerosis won’t go away if I eat differently (‘Swank’ diet notwithstanding) and exercise may only slow the rate of progression of various impairments.
Which is why, DDA be damned, a real disability is one you can’t get rid of whereas being obese is largely a lifestyle issue (even according to the same Government which then classes obesity as a disability). Sure you can’t move about as well as a slimmer person but damnit, those pies are so damned tasty…
“…being fat qualifies you as disabled under the Disability Discrimination Act.”
We’re doomed as a species…
Well, quite. If people can inflict massive damage on their own body through their own lifestyle choices and claim to be disabled, the mind boggles at what people could do to themselves and get extra assistance.
I do wonder, for example, if giving Disability Living Allowance (Mobility Component) to overweight people is necessarily a help as they would presumably benefit more from a walk than a subsidised taxi ride!
Well, at least it saves the person next to them from a slow torture by asphyxiation…
Once again, though, the careful have to pay for the profligate.
Very nicely put, Patently. In this case, I actually feel sorry for the airlines who will lose out on several hundred pounds per flight just because people stuffed their faces to the point where they need two seats. Who does that help? What incentive does that give anyone to eat healthily? Rewarding stupidity is not a very sensible dogma for any government.
“What incentive does that give anyone to eat healthily?”
That, I’m afraid is playing the left’s game and it ends in ‘Tax Credits’.
The incentive, insofar as one is needed, to eat healthily or at least not become a massive porker due to poor diet and lack of exercise (the half of the equation Jamie Oliver worshiping Guardianistas forget) is being fitter, healthier and (on average) living longer and with a higher quality of life. Not to mention that our culture equates slim with attractive so you’ll probably get more sex too.