Get your wallet out.
FAT people are costing you two trillion dollars a year.
Yes, a recent study shows that people who are over-weight cost more to the economy than all the health costs of smoking, the combined impact of armed violence, wars going on right now and world terrorism.
Consider this impact. Start with armed violence. You get mugged one night and can't go to work the next day because you have a bullet lodged in your skull. That's gonna hurt the economy.
Fat people are worse that that.
not really funny |
You want to go into that building to pay your bills but you can't get past the smokers standing outside. So you become delinquent on your bills. Their puffing hurts the economy. But fat people are worse than that too.
Or you go past a hospital and see that tubby standing outside the door in his jammies with an IV drip plugged into his arm while dragging on a fag! He's just had a freakin' lung operation for Pete's sake and look what he's doing! Fat people are worse.
And even those wild-eyed bearded basement plotters plugging away with plans to destroy the skinny and plump people of the democracies are still not costing you as much as fat people.
The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147
billion in 2008 U.S. dollars, what the heck is it now in 2014? (2022 All that's been done so far is that we cannot call fat people fat people any more!) And the medical costs for people who are obese
were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight. See what it is?
The impact of fat people's gluttony takes up 2.8 percent of global gross domestic product! And 2.1 BILLION people are now obese! How many zeros IS that? I'll tell you what it is, it's a porky 30 percent of the entire global population. (34.9 % in America) These waddlers in red pants are costing everyone!
Jabba the Hutt |
Nearly half of the world's population will be overweight by 2030. Global warming? What about global tipping? Do we want to end up living like Australians? Upside down. Fat people might cause that tip. The magnetic poles are shifting. Is it because so many fat people are generating their own gravity and magnetation? Did you notice if birds are now flying east or west for the winter?
BMI, Body Mass Index for a normal person should be less than 25. If you are 300 lbs and 5'4" tall your index would be 52! Obese on any scale.
What are we gonna do about this plague of quivering breathing expanding gelatin encased in stretched skin? Ask Jenny Craig for help? Not an option, look how many people she has fired for rebounding. Weight Watchers doesn't actually say weight losing. Do they take the mirrors out of your house and put carnival mirrors in? Dr. Atkins? Dr. Pshaw might be better! Personal trainers? Gyms? Machines?
Discipline? OMG, anything but will power!
Black people have the highest rates of obesity at about 47.8% while whites are not that far back at 32.6%. Chinese are way down there at 10.8%. Do fat people get beri beri from rice! Noooo. Statistics show that as Third World economies emerge into prosperity, the ratio of fat people rises in proportion! And today in our society it is becoming that so-called Morbid Obesity, weighing twice a normal weight!
What can be done about it?
Is prosperity the cause? All the gadgets and gizmos that are supposed to make life easier for us are causing us to relax into a lethargic smudge? Not television but the TV remote? Too far to walk way over there. If you watch any TV you'll be aware of the massive flood of fast food advertising, all slobbery and dripping with deceitful enticement. Can Jamie Oliver overcome Guy Fieri? Can the Mediterranean Diet beat the Big Whopper? We know who's losing.
The new cars don't even ask you to lift your foot across to the brake pedal! They brake the car for you! You can pig-out while your Tesla drives you to work. Your smart phone even puts words into your text on your behalf. Not always with intended results. Saves your thumbs for holding that bulging burger.
Should we get tickets for being fat? Fat cops patrolling? No wait, there are too many fat cops already. Maybe CCTV could just use body recognition to send you tickets.
keep eating and you're still dead |
Do I really need to list this? Obesity causes or is closely linked with a large number of health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol, asthma, sleep apnea, gallstones, kidney stones, infertility, and as many as 11 types of cancers, including leukemia, breast, and colon cancer. No less real are the social and emotional effects of obesity, including discrimination, lower wages, lower quality of life and a likely susceptibility to depression. Whew.
The WHO, World Health Organization has recognized obesity as a global epidemic. There is actually such a thing today as a Fat Phobia Scale, to measure how much people hate fat people. Maybe it is time to be cruel to the ones afflicted with the disease of obesity? Instead of psychologists continually studying fat people and making up new names for the aspects of obesity - like what is her Fatness Quotient? We could be honest. Couldn't we?
Tell it like it is, is that cruel? To tell them they are the fat people. If you have to move your mirror into the hall and walk to the other end to get your body inside the frame, you are fat. You need to toss out the chocolate cake and cherry pie and endless fries and free refills. And we need to toss out political correctness and replace it with honesty.
Which might well be the kindness needed to help them. And save the world economy.
Harvard obesity prevention