What are your thoughts on fat acceptance?

[paulpablo]

The thing that bothers me is smokers are taxed up to their fucking eyeballs on tobacco products, while fat people are not when it comes to unhealthy food. Tax the hell out them. I am sick and tired of smoking being socially unacceptable while being obese is.

When someone obese is around someone their obesity isn't harming anyone. Smoking is harmful to non-smokers around them and they're hurting the bodies of others with a lung-damaging cancer-inducing poison.

It would be the equivalent of obese people always shoving a little of their food into everyone else's mouths every single time people were around them.

I think smoking around non-smokers should absolutely be illegal. I believe there should be special smoking bars and pubs for smokers. Damaging the lungs of people who don't wish to smoke is morally wrong, IMO.

But there's nothing wrong with choosing to be obese and unhealthy when you're not forcing that on anyone else. I think it's unwise and unhealthy but as long as you're not hurting anyone else it's not immoral.

The only problem with this is that with the NHS there's limited resources.
The more people clogging up hospitals with heart conditions, knee surgery, diabetes, the need for gastric hands or bypasses and so on, the worse it is for everyone else.

So if you're paying for your own health care then I agree that what you're doing is only harmful to you and possibly your family.

But with the NHS being involved I think Isis has a good point about tax although the amounts seem a bit extreme.

[Isis]

But with the NHS being involved I think Isis has a good point about tax although the amounts seem a bit extreme.

I went a little overboard with the tax rates, yes, but you pretty much get my point. On a somewhat related note, I think pubs should bring in smoking rooms (as they have in Germany), a well ventilated room with a sign on the door. Non-smokers should stay the hell out.

[paulpablo]

I think some people should be more accepting of a natural human body and not necessarily always aim to look ripped and be at 5 percent body fat.

I'll give examples from people who I've worked with who represent two opposite sides of the spectrum.

I worked with one man who was ripped, but he took drugs that altered body temperature, they made his nose bleed sometimes. And he took steroids and god knows that else. He was very angry and moody.

I know an obese woman who's been told by her doctors she will be in a wheel chair soon if she doesn't lose weight and she says she's willing to do anything to not get to that point but she's lying about that because she's still eating so much bread, bacon, chrisps and McDonald's and so on.

Some people need to accept fat more and some people need to knuckle down and lose weight, it's that simple.

It's definitely wrong to go extreme either way I think.

[Edwardo Piet]

 I believe more of the point Isis was trying to make is that both things are just as unhealthy. However, one affects those around them more than another does.

Yeah, you're more or less spot on. I recognise that smoking is harmful to those around you, obesity on the other hand is not. I just think that if we are taxing unhealthy habits then junk food should be on the list.

If smoking wasn't something most people do because they're pressured into it by other smokers... and if smoke didn't travel and poison the atmosphere and other people who don't even wish to smoke... then it should totally not be taxed.

[Isis]

 I believe more of the point Isis was trying to make is that both things are just as unhealthy. However, one affects those around them more than another does.

No she said that junk food should be taxed like cigarettes and she even said eating junk food in pubs should be banned like cigarettes are. Completely false comparison because junk food doesn't harm other people around them who don't eat it. The only way she could make that comparison was if anyone who ate junk food around people shoved parts of it down the mouths of other people around them... and even doing that would be less harmful than shoving smoke down people's lungs. Unhealthy food is still at least a food. Not just a fucking addictive poison that harms other people around them who don't want to even consume that fucking addictive poison.

I stand by almost everything I said (except the tax rates, which was a little extreme, I typed it while pissed off), junk food should be taxed like cigarettes. Fat people are still a drain on the NHS, at least smokers pay their fair share towards the health system. Maybe age restrictions should be placed on unhealthy food as well to cut down on child obesity.

[brewer]

Your rights and privileges to be fat stop where my nose starts.

[Edwardo Piet]

The only problem with this is that with the NHS there's limited resources.
The more people clogging up hospitals with heart conditions, knee surgery, diabetes, the need for gastric hands or bypasses and so on, the worse it is for everyone else.

So if you're paying for your own health care then I agree that what you're doing is only harmful to you and possibly your family.

But with the NHS being involved I think Isis has a good point about tax although the amounts seem a bit extreme.

Well junk food being taxed because it causes people to become obese and that causes them illnesses they wouldn't otherwise have and they clog up the hospitals when there's limited room space and time...

...that's actually an interesting argument. I can go with that. Still, eating around people doesn't harm people like smoking around people. So whilst I can actually go with that interesting argument and in that case I do think that junk food should be taxed (I didn't factor that in, thanks for that) I do think it would be ridiculous to ban junk food from pubs when eating junk food in pubs doesn't harm other people like smoking in pubs does. I think when smokers smoke around non-smokers without their consent that is very morally wrong. I don't think eating junk food around people is morally wrong at all.

---

Your rights and privileges to be fat stop where my nose starts.

I agree. And I feel the same way about smoking.

And when people smoke it does get up other people's noses. If people want to slowly poison themselves and other people then they should hang around with other people who do it.

Imagine if there was a food that was entirely non-nutritious and poisonous and if consumed for long periods caused bowl damage, cancer and premature birth in pregnant women... now imagine if it was highly addictive and young people encouraged each other to do it because it was 'cool'. Imagine if it was impossible to consume the food without being driven into an uncontrollable urge to shove the same poisonous non-nutritious food town the throats of other people who don't want to eat that poisonous food. How fucked up would that food be? That is what smoking is like.

[paulpablo]

Yeh I agree eating junk food in public harms no one but the person eating it.

[Isis]

Hammy,

I am a light smoker these days. I enjoy the odd cigarette or sometimes a cigar every now and then (not very often), I wouldn't ever light up near a non-smoker even with their consent. That is why I support smoking rooms in pubs, as they have over in Germany.

My argument about banning junk food from being eaten in pubs wasn't entirely serious, and the extremely high tax rates I quoted earlier was typed while I was pissed off about the topic at hand. I stand by my view that, as long as tobacco is taxed, then junk food should be as well.

Obviously I would rather have no "sin taxes" at all, but that isn't possible, so...

[Edwardo Piet]

No she said that junk food should be taxed like cigarettes and she even said eating junk food in pubs should be banned like cigarettes are. Completely false comparison because junk food doesn't harm other people around them who don't eat it. The only way she could make that comparison was if anyone who ate junk food around people shoved parts of it down the mouths of other people around them... and even doing that would be less harmful than shoving smoke down people's lungs. Unhealthy food is still at least a food. Not just a fucking addictive poison that harms other people around them who don't want to even consume that fucking addictive poison.

I stand by almost everything I said (except the tax rates, which was a little extreme, I typed it while pissed off), junk food should be taxed like cigarettes. Fat people are still a drain on the NHS, at least smokers pay their fair share towards the health system. Maybe age restrictions should be placed on unhealthy food as well to cut down on child obesity.

Do you think that eating junk food around people in pubs should be banned from smoking around people who don't eat junk food for exactly the same reason that smoking in pubs around people who don't smoke should be banned from pubs?

I personally think that there should be pubs for smokers. But I think pubs for junk food would be absurd.