The stupid explodes: obesity now a disability

[bluesjnr]

I admit that this runs through my mind every time I see a fat person on the free handicarts at the grocery store. I have zero sympathy for them. And then I see the utter garbage they fill the little basket on the front of the cart with and have less than no sympathy - I actually fantasize about slashing their car tires. Here I am trying to feed a family and these porkass bastards are using the handicapped features of modern society as if they *********** deserve special treatment for being selfish, lazy, greedy, self-indulgent human trashbins.


**** em. They should die in a ditch.

You're kidding surely? Fat people bother you that much?

Assuming you're serious, in what way do they interfere with you feeding your family?

 

[Checkmite]

Obesity differs in that it's reversible. If someone can still get paid for being disablingly obese, they're going to be less inclined to reverse the habits that led to it.

You can't base decisions such as these on what people are theoretically 'going to do', because it's something you have to guess and not everyone will guess the same outcome as you. Disability allowance isn't exactly a living wage. At least not in the US (other countries may differ); disability might get you substandard housing with rudimentary utility and usually not enough left over for groceries. It's not an enjoyable lifestyle and not the sort of thing people who have a choice would prefer to languish in.

 

[Checkmite]

But with your example, it's one accident. It's not a lifestyle.

With obesity to the point of disability, it's the result of years of choices, and at any point there's the opportunity to make different choices, and to reverse the effects.

But again, what difference to the fact of whether or not a person is by definition disabled?

 

[Pulvinar]

You can't base decisions such as these on what people are theoretically 'going to do', because it's something you have to guess and not everyone will guess the same outcome as you. Disability allowance isn't exactly a living wage. At least not in the US (other countries may differ); disability might get you substandard housing with rudimentary utility and usually not enough left over for groceries. It's not an enjoyable lifestyle and not the sort of thing people who have a choice would prefer to languish in.

I'm only thinking of average tendencies-- I don't expect everyone in this situation to react the same.

I would hope that a condition for getting disability pay for this would be entering a weight loss program and showing continued progress. The alternative of getting no pay would eventually cure the disability too.

To continue to literally feed their bad habits would not be helping them.

 

[rustypouch]

But again, what difference to the fact of whether or not a person is by definition disabled?

Yep, the morbidly obese might be disabled.

But the difference is that they want to be disabled.

 

[bit_pattern]

But the difference is that they want to be disabled.

A ludicrous statement. Not having control over one's impulses, or having been trained from an early age to have bad nutritional habits is not the same as "wanting" something.

There is increasing evidence that obesity is linked to addictive behaviour

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910406/

An addiction is never just a matter of choice.

Also, there is evidence to show that sugar in particular rewires the developing brain, people are developing addictions during childhood - just how much agency does an addicted child have over the trajectory of their development?

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/05/02/jn.111.149575.full.pdf

 

[Walter Ego]

I'm not fat, but I've seen fat people. (I'm trying not to be racist here, but some fatties do stand out from the crowd.) Some of them have a hard time getting around. Some ride motorized carts to do their shopping. Some sweat a great deal and spend a lot more on food than I do.

Sounds like a disability to me.

Is this place to admit I don't like fat people, especially the ones who take the last available cripple cart at the supermarket? I am disabled as the result of a stroke. I can walk but I have very poor balance and have to use a wheeled cart as a walker if no motorized cart is available. I do get a little steamed when I'm hobbling around the store and see people, invariably women, riding past me whose "disability" is being lazy and having a fat ass.

(For the record I'm 5'10" and weigh 130 lbs.)

 

[The Atheist]

So you're breaking the law too? Classy...

Pretty damned simple to me - if I don't assist them breaking the law, they will anyway and I'm handing money to a competitor.

Actually, it doesn't. It just requires easy availability to high calorific foods, bad habits (generally instilled in childhood, people get addicted to sugars and fats at a young age), a ****** society that doesn't do much to enable parents to make good nutritional choices, and a sedentary lifestyle. Sitting in your ****** office in front of a computer all day to make your clients rich probably doesn't help.

Those are all things which are highly controllable, especially sedentary work. No doubt when I swapped from 40 hours a week of physical labout to 40 hours a week bound to an office or car that it took care not to pile on weight, but it wasn't all that difficult.

I am, however, highly amused by apologists for fatness.

Like I said at the start, obesity is just abdication of personal responsibility and I'm not about to help them with it.

 

[The Atheist]

I would hope that a condition for getting disability pay for this would be entering a weight loss program and showing continued progress. The alternative of getting no pay would eventually cure the disability too.

To continue to literally feed their bad habits would not be helping them.

10/10

I am constantly amazed that such a rational position isn't espoused by everyone. It may already be held by everyone not obese.

 

[The Atheist]

Is the place to admit I don't like fat people, especially the ones who take the last available cripple cart at the supermarket? I am disabled as the result of a stroke. I can walk but I have very poor balance and have to use a wheeled cart as walker if no motorized cart is available.

(For the record I'm 5'10" and weigh 130 lbs.)

Thanks for that - it is exactly one of my points. Why should you compete with someone who hasn't got the willpower not to put another damned cookie in their face?

 

[bit_pattern]

I am disabled as the result of a stroke.

I don't want to come across as an ******** here but there are a lot of lifestyle risk factors associated with strokes. If (and I say 'if' here, because WTF do I know) your own disability was a result of such factors it would seem to me a tad hypocritical to be judging other people for the same thing...

 

[bit_pattern]

Pretty damned simple to me - if I don't assist them breaking the law, they will anyway and I'm handing money to a competitor.

So we can can assume you're probably not the best person to be making ethical pronouncements around issues relating to discrimination then?

Those are all things which are highly controllable

<snip>

Like I said at the start, obesity is just abdication of personal responsibility

The scientific literature (some of which is cited above for you convenience) disagrees with your feelpinions.

 

[bit_pattern]

Thanks for that - it is exactly one of my points. Why should you compete with someone who hasn't got the willpower not to put another damned cookie in their face?

So if someone who was skinny as a rake but ate a ****** diet their whole life developed arteriosclerosis and had a stroke, they would be more deserving of your empathy because you couldn't see any outward signs of their lifestyle choices?

How do you determine if a disability is the result of lifestyle choices or just dumb bad luck?

Again, this is just your prejudice speaking - there's nothing rational about your deeply held feelings on the matter.

 

[marplots]

The disability pay should be tendered using calories as the unit. The fatter you are, the more calories you should qualify for.

 

[Walter Ego]

I don't want to come across as an ******** here but there are a lot of lifestyle risk factors associated with strokes. If (and I say 'if' here, because WTF do I know) your own disability was a result of such factors it would seem to me a tad hypocritical to be judging other people for the same thing...

Okay, fair enough but if you can walk without falling over or having a heart attack, don't take the last cripple cart. I might need it.

ETA:

For the record let me say I've been thin all my life and don't really hate fat people, just the ones who inconvenience me at the store when they are not handicapped and can walk better than I can.

 

[bpesta22]

A ludicrous statement. Not having control over one's impulses, or having been trained from an early age to have bad nutritional habits is not the same as "wanting" something.

There is increasing evidence that obesity is linked to addictive behaviour

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910406/

An addiction is never just a matter of choice.

Also, there is evidence to show that sugar in particular rewires the developing brain, people are developing addictions during childhood - just how much agency does an addicted child have over the trajectory of their development?

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/05/02/jn.111.149575.full.pdf

How much of obesity do you think is genetic? There's a 75/0/25 model that works surprisingly well for psychological variables (iq, personality), and I wonder if it applies to medical stuff.

Of the variance in obesity:

75% is caused by genes
0% by shared family environment (e.g., parenting philosophy)
25% by non-shared family environment (e.g., your sister but not you works for Hostess).

Anyone know?

 

[The Atheist]

So we can can assume you're probably not the best person to be making ethical pronouncements around issues relating to discrimination then?

No, I would have thought my totally impartial view is ideal for a moral perspective on it.

I really don't give a damn how fat people are. As an example, my mother-in-law is grotesquely fat with a BMI I estimate at 50+. She suffers from Type II diabetes. I don't think she's a bad person, but she is unquestionably the architect of her own forthcoming destruction.

The scientific literature (some of which is cited above for you convenience) disagrees with your feelpinions.

Really? I don't see anywhere there is any scientific literature posted which shows that obesity is not abdication of personal responsibility.

Thanks.

 

[The Atheist]

So if someone who was skinny as a rake but ate a ****** diet their whole life developed arteriosclerosis and had a stroke, they would be more deserving of your empathy because you couldn't see any outward signs of their lifestyle choices?

No.

How do you determine if a disability is the result of lifestyle choices or just dumb bad luck?

I'd leave it to medical science to guide me.

Again, this is just your prejudice speaking - there's nothing rational about your deeply held feelings on the matter.

See above. I don't have any feelings on the matter beyond it's stupid, and they're certainly not deeply held.

Did you not see where I said that if the law changed I would make more money? I would personally make money out of it, it would make no change to my recruitment process for new staff, and the ironic part that you seem to avoiding entirely is, if this becomes law, it will most detrimental to obese people's employment prospects.

Maybe you think that's a good thing.

Hey, but you are keeping me amused. Defending obesity makes me smile. Do you also defend smoking, drink driving and substance abuse?

They all seem pretty equivalent, since all of them are more or less just addictive behaviour.

I take this crazy approach that if someone has addictive behaviour/s, they should seek help - help that I'd gladly give, by the way - because defending their right to destroy themselves seems quite perverse to me.

 

[rustypouch]

A ludicrous statement. Not having control over one's impulses, or having been trained from an early age to have bad nutritional habits is not the same as "wanting" something.

There is increasing evidence that obesity is linked to addictive behaviour

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910406/

An addiction is never just a matter of choice.

Also, there is evidence to show that sugar in particular rewires the developing brain, people are developing addictions during childhood - just how much agency does an addicted child have over the trajectory of their development?

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/05/02/jn.111.149575.full.pdf

I'd say that engaging in behavior with known outcomes says at the very least that you're comfortable with those outcomes, if not want them. If someone has a reversible condition, but does nothing to change, I assume they want to be that way.

It's not fair to kids to bring them up like that. The same can be said for many ways kids are raised.

Regarding hiring, I've no problem if employers don't hire the morbidly obese. You're right that it shows poor impulse control, and also a lack of long term thinking. Neither of which are desirable in an employee.

 

[qayak]

. . . she is unquestionably the architect of her own forthcoming destruction.

I guess from a naive, uninformed point of view this might be true, but for anyone half a brain +, it's just B.S.

Next you will be telling us you are impervious to advertising.