Originally Posted by Elite Nomore
Fat people are fat because they eat like pigs and don't exercise. Enough of this "I have a glandular condition" crap. If there are any fat people that are reading this you should put the donut down and go take a walk. It's time we all stopped being so PC to "people of size" and start making them pay for their gluttony and their lack of discipline and self control. They infringe on my personal space, they smell from not being able to properly clean themselves and they put all of us at risk by flying. My mother was over a hundred pounds overweight and now she's dead because her size. She could have cared less about her health and her size and just wanted to eat all the time. She flew all the time and I know for a fact that didn't give a rat's ... about the guy sitting next to her in 17A.
I cannot believe the number of people I see everyday that weigh 300, 400, 500, even 600 pounds. And many of them are young kids. Kids who have been brought up on processed foods and 64oz cokes and "all you can eat buffets". I think CO should institute a fat tax for any passenger that cannot fit under a standard seat belt. Perhaps $100 per inch for every inch of the seat belt extender. Maybe that'll discourage them from "supersizing" their next meal from Micky D's.
I'll go further than that. My wife was diagnosed with a "glandular condition" last year. The particular one she's got is called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, and it basically means that the immune system attacks the thyroid until the thyroid stops functioning completely. About 20% of the population has this particular condition, and it's treatable with a relatively inexpensive synthetic hormone treatment which has no side effects. The condition itself usually results in extreme fatigue, depression, and rapid significant weight gain when it first sets in. Any competent MD can pick it up with a routine blood test fairly easily.
Now, in order to be treated for this condition, someone has to (1) have a competent doctor, (2) see their doctor regularly enough that the doctor will notice sudden changes in energy level or weight, and (3) be willing to say to their doctor something to the effect of "I've felt a bit tired lately and I think I might be putting on a little weight." That's usually enough to get tested, since this condition is one of the most obvious diagnoses. The problem is that most Americans either don't have competent doctors, don't see them regularly, don't bother to give them enough information to do their jobs, or some combination thereof.
Sure, this "glandular disorder" causes weight gain, but I know several people who've had this condition diagnosed, and all of them returned to their original weight a couple of months into the treatment. If everyone who used a "glandular disorder" as an excuse for being heavy bothered to talk to their doctor when the symptoms first set in, there would either be a lot fewer COSs out there or a lot less use of the excuse.
The irony is that the government spends more money taking care of people who are on disability because they didn't have proper preventative care than it would have cost to pay for the preventative care in the first place. Unfortunately it's politically impractical to simply pay for everyone's preventative care going forward by writing off the 15% of people using 75% of medical resources...
-JMP