"Fire services count the cost of rescuing obese people"

Interesting news article: "Fire services count the cost of rescuing obese people"

Raises a moral dilema though:

~ should "bariatric" people be charged?
~ or, we all foot the bill via our taxes/poll tax?

There was a case like this featured in "999 What's your emergency" recently and a bariatric lady had been stuck on her commode for 3 days. Removing her required a fire crew plus ambulance crews.

These incidents are increasing, year on year.

But, in the majority of cases, bariatric people will be on state funded benefits c/o tax payers contributions; so, this would mean tax payers are paying twice? If the person concerned *isn't* charged, that would mean our tax/poll tax portion increases anyway.

What would be an alternative?

 

I often wonder what will be the outcome of so many people becoming overweight. The government is always 'bashing' us smokers saying how much we cost the NHS etc, but at least we contribute by going to work, driving a car, paying our taxes, if you are so fat that you cannot move that is obviously going to be a much bigger drain on resources!!

Val

 

I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing.

On one hand, I think if you've got yourself so obese that you need special treatment, then you should be expected to cover the additional cost because it is partly your own fault.

On the other hand, it would set a dangerous precedent. Once someone rules it ok to charge someone to be rescued if they are over, say, 25 stone, then what if they can't afford to pay? Do we just leave them to die? Would Britain become like some other nations where the ability to pay is checked up on before assistance is given? What if the threshold is set at, say 30 stone, and then the nation hits hard times again, and cost cuts happen, and the threshold is lowered to 25, then 20, then 15 stone, just so that more people could be billed?

And what about the private sector? If there was legal precedent for treating people differently based on their weight, then how long before airlines and train companies started charging surcharges for every kilo over the NHS guideline ideal weight?

I think if that if anything like this was to happen, it would once again be the ordinary folk that got hit hardest in the pocket, while corporations and government bodies would just use it all as justification for liberating more cash from us all.

 

They could give advanced notice that after a certain date it will become chargeable and that you'd have to take out insurance cover.

I have to pay extra life insurance being a smoker. Why not if I were a fat smoker too?

 

overweight people do not live a fun life....that's for sure.

I would prefer to see more in terms of prevention, both with regard to obese people and frequent smokers and alcoholics. It is a small consolation to make them pay them more taxes, but this only solves part of the problem.

[Not to mention that an obese person who loses weight in the future will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to get back a reasonably pleasant figure.]

Starting from 45 years or so, it is very important to keep hydrated, but about the food, you need very little to keep going.

 

And therein lies the problem. Over many millenia, evolution has built into us all a drive to eat as long as food is available, even if we can see that we're getting fat, because the whole ability to get fat in the first place is a survival mechanism that mother nature gave us through evolution. It means we can store energy for a long time, which is essential if you want to survive a long winter when food is scarce.

Then very, very recently, less than 3 generations ago, something interesting happened in the developed world. Food became widely available at low cost to everybody, and then less than a generation ago, something else happened, there was a shift in the amount of physical effort we found ourselves having to go through in our normal day to day lives. The sledge hammer/pick axe/shovel etc got replaced by the keyboard and mouse and mobile phone.

So where does that leave an animal that's evolved over millenia to be effective at using and storing as much food as it can get, driven to never miss an opportunity to eat high calorie food, now finding itself in an environment where food doesn't run out and very little effort needs to be spent to get it? It leaves us in the difficult position of having to actively fight against the very instincts and sensations that were built into us to ensure our survival. Basically it means if we do what mother nature programmed us to do, we're stuffed (literally).

 

I am hearing, and agreeing, up to a point of your argument Clue (and well presented it is). However, your argument lacks a critical factor: that of sucrose! A very modern "invention"/manipulation

Physical effort vs physical intake has taken a rather divergent twist in modernity; it held true up until circa WW2. Once geniune "preserved foods" were manipulated into "convenience" foods the whole ball game altered: as did obesity/bariatic persons.

Nontheless the argument still stands: taxpayers will be damned if they do (providing an "emergency service") and damned if they don't (selective response with bariatic patients being an exclusion).

How much is obesity a consquence of marketing factors vs health issues? And, in light of either, how much should your common tax payer be expected to take responsibility *if* no responsibility is afforded to those who's condition requires the assistance of the emergancy services?

Is this an individual "issue" or a collective (societal) one? Or, maybe, the time has come to challenge those marketing ploys/pundits and call them to account as (partly) responsible?

Ultimately: just who is responsible? Certainly not the firebrigade or the paramedics!

 

I'm sorry, I know its PC, but Bariatric just makes me think of something that is just about to explode due to pressure differential.

 

The person themselves is responsible!! We live in such a nanny state that people have stopped holding themselves accountable for anything.

Val

 

It would be pointless trying to make bariatric people pay more taxes as I think it's very unlikely any of them work anyway.

Leaving overweight people to sort out the problems they have made for themselves would be inhumane - it would result in deaths if the fire service etc refused to intervene or charged the going rate.

I suspect in most cases extreme obesity is one part of a syndrome of problems such people have (which might include, for example, severe depression or learning difficulties) and they are indeed to be pitied. It would be harsh and unrealistic to expect them to adhere to the standards of self-control and self-responsibility that most of the population live by, because, well, it ain't gonna happen without lots of support and intervention.

I would feel slightly more comfortable with strong, possibly very strong pressure being brought to bear on individuals to effect lifestyle changes. Compulsory surgery and fat camps? I don't see how you could do that in society as it is today, but is it reasonable to allow taxpayers money to be wasted on people eating themselves to death? You can section people for being a danger to themselves for mental reasons, why not for physical reasons?

 

I heard quite a few years ago now from a nephew that P.E. lessons were no longer compulsory at school, and indeed many people didn't even opt for it.

If that was ever true, then it doesn't seem to be any more. My 3 year old son's class has PE day even.

I seem to remember when I was a kid, and from what I gather the same was true when my dad was a kid, that there was lots of inspirational characters in entertainment books and programmes. Every lad of my age group went through a phase of putting on a real bad fake Japanese accent and trying to use our mam's sweeping brush as a staff, inspired of course by the most excellent Monkey, and of course there was Bruce Lee, and up and coming masters like Jackie Chan and even, dare I say it, Mr Van Damme. Kids a bit older than me used to run around the street pretending to be Superman, and my dad was obsessed with Roger Binnister, and characters like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks.

Who is there now? I've seen all the CBeebies characters and most of Channel 5's Milkshake characters because I have a young son. There's Sporticus, who spends most of his time lounging in his airship until he's needed to briefly fight Robbie Rotten, but its hardly inspirational. Or there's Tree-fu Tom, who gets the kids to do Tree Fu (stretching exercises as far as I can make out) for about 10 seconds.

I realise that inspirational characters, real of fictional, aren't the ultimate solution, but they did help. P.C. put paid to kids having a good fake martial arts fight until they were physically out of breath, before resting for a minute and then leaping back into the action, and poor old Rogister Bannister's influence probably vanished around the same time that people's thinking changed such that a kid that's running fast must have just 'done somet'.

 

When I first trained (70s) it was the rule that infants should do PE every day. This has long since been ousted by the need to do stuff like learning objectives and success criteria. Now they are timetabled twice a week for PE.
Watching kids in the playground you can't fail to be impressed by the sheer energy and fitness of many, like little whippets they are. But not all - and they will be the hardest ones to get moving.
I don't think the problem lies in lack of role models or even formal schooling. Children these days are ferried around in cars/buggies to a far greater extent than when I was small. I probably only did a few car journeys every week aged 1-5, the rest of the time I was crawling/toddling/walking/ running. Today's youngsters spend far more time slumped in car seats and buggies - hours and hours every week. I really fear that they will never develop the muscular strength and coordination needed for good life-long fitness.

 

actually Sportacus is always jumping and moving-it is Ziggy who loves to eat candy and sweets...
to be an Icelandic production, it is amazingly lively...

 

Yes, but he is only active while he sorts out Robbie's aggro.