Law: “No Fat People Allowed”
Published by Fred • February 6th, 2008
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Mississippi Law: “No Fat People Allowed”
If some Mississippi legislators had their way, they’d put forth a law that would ban obese people from being served at restaurants.
State Rep. John Read, a Republican who is one of the bill’s three authors, says he wasn’t trying to offend anybody and never even expected the plan to become law.
“I was trying to shed a little light on the No. 1 problem in Mississippi.”
This may sound humorous as you read along, but this isn’t a spoof. Obesity is a real problem with consequences for Americans and we’ve been unable to solve this growing epidemic without the use of drugs or surgery to solve the issue. Of course, exercise and dieting is ideal, but helping to fight obesity isn’t like having the flu or acquiring a chronic disease that can be cured drinking a Slimfast(tm) every morning.
The question that should be asked is whether the Republican Representative crossed the line by proposing such legislation. If you take him at his word that this was not a serious proposal, but intended to shed light on a serious problem in Mississipi, then maybe he has done his state a great service. Obesity is much like other sensitive subjects, e.g. Affirmative Action. No one wants to talk about it because it is a pretty prickly subject and people get hurt in the process no matter which way you roll on the issue.
Steve Holland, the Democratic chairman of the House Public Health and Human Services Committee, said in a statement he will “pocket veto” the bill. “It’s dead on arrival at my desk.” Although he appreciates the “efforts of my fellow House members to help curb the obesity problem in Mississippi, this is totally the wrong approach.”
How can you not laugh at the public press that the issue is receiving? First, you have a candidate with the gall to put forth such an ‘idea’, then you have a Democrat coming out to fight the ‘good fight’ and defending the rights of the obese. Way to stick up for the little… errr, big guy? Again,this is a serious problem so why are we walking on eggshells to get to the heart of the problem? Eventually, it may be policy makers that help America shed the weight.
About one-third of Americans are obese (30 or more pounds over a healthy weight), and 66% are overweight or obese. Even so, obesity experts are outraged by the bill. “It would be hard to concoct something more ridiculous,” says Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.
I’m no Yale expert and I haven’t spent my life studying the problems with obesity like Mr. Brownell, but maybe it is good to call a spade a spade? Instead of dealing with emotions that inevitably arise out of the hate and frustration, self-esteem problems and depression, maybe we should focus on the problem itself and find ways to encourage the masses to help combat the problem? Maybe this noise will help push obese people to stay away from the super-size or learn more about all the foods and drinks that are most dangerous to our health.
I don’t want to be insensitive about the issue, but it’s just not a simple problem to solve. Showing love and support isn’t everyone’s forte, so it’s a futile effort to try and control what politicians, celebrities and ‘experts’ say. The problems that stem from humiliation, shame and guilt are not trivial and it does offend and hurt some people:
“This brings bias against obese individuals to a new and appalling level, and at a time when significant progress is being made in the effort to stop blaming obesity on the people who have it and to address the social and political conditions that drive it.
Again, I cannot agree with the expert, it seems he’s too involved and has a hard time being objective. In my view, it never really is about blaming obese people, most people don’t think of it in those terms unless you push the issue. How often do you think “maybe he should stop eating, doesn’t he have self-control?” Most Americans don’t go about their lives thinking, “darn, she sure is fat, why doesn’t she just exercise or go on a diet?!”
If anything, the question most Americans are asking is “Am I fat and what can I do to keep myself looking good.” Sadly, the same areas of society that encourage obesity indirectly (e.g. super models, strip clubs, television and Hollywood) are also the ones that discourage people from eating that extra french fry. It’s easy to blame these vices on the problem of teenage anorexia, but in my view, both anorexia and morbidly obese people are also suffering from severe mental disease or stress and require the help of a mental health expert in addition to a physical fitness expert.
“Are these legislators fighting to get rid of soft drinks in schools? Are they working to stop the relentless marketing of unhealthy foods to children? Are they doing anything about the fact that poor people do not have access to healthy foods?”
This is the best argument made against legislators who would dare bring up obesity under such crass legislative proposals.
Restaurants and Corporations Encourage America’s Obesity Problem
Consumers are provided incentive to purchase fatty foods because they cost a lot less than the ‘premium’ low-calorie foods. Fast food restaurants are serving up individual meals that have as much as 50 to 75% of a typical calorie intake for the day and maybe doubling or tripling the fat intake. Consumers do have a responsibility to moderate their intake, but with obesity you have a special self-perpetuating cycle of guilt. People eat to deal with stress, they eat to socialize with co-workers, eat to handle depression and settle impulsive behaviors that would best be handled by psychiatric help.
While this is a problem that involves many factors, people have to be careful not to entirely shed the blame of obesity on society. Society is part of the problem, there is no doubt about that. We have to remain cognizant of the fact that shedding personal responsibility might be one of the biggest reasons that combating obesity has become so difficult to solve. It won’t be long before pharmaceutical companies or scientists design a solution that won’t increase the risk of heart failure or death. Until that happens, it is the duty of all Americans to help fend off this problem and it starts with YOU.
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This is absurd. A man can buy a tv. A woman can buy a dress. Let the overweight eat!
Big people like to eat, so what, People who like to eat bring money to restraunts NOT Skinny people or people who dont eat because they are afraid to get fat.
I just wanna know where to get one of those burgers in the picture!
Mississippi Law: No Fat People Allowed…
This story has been submitted to Stirrdup. Your support can help it become hot….
If you look at it from the government’s perspective, this bill is perfectly valid. This is a Socialist government, because that makes the most profit for the government. In a Socialist government, YOU are not responsible for yourself. The government is responsible for you. More and more people can not afford insurance (This is by design, by the way, of the insurance industry) so the government picks up the tab. YOU are not responsible for your healthcare, the government is. As your owner, the government is going to do what any other profit-minded entity is going to do: Maximize profits and cut loss. Fat people cost the government way too much money, so since they are responsible for your health, they can legislate anything that will protect their bottom line.
Vote Hillary, she will make healthcare universally paid for by the government, and make this hell a whole lot hotter!
This is an absurd comment, in fact studies have recently shown in SOCIALIST nations that fat people cost the state less. As they tend to die earlier, and not linger on the government dime. Get a clue you moron.
Right on Dave, another attack on the individual in favor of the state. I expect these people are serious and this was just probe to see how far they can push.
What annoys me is that anti-fat people never talk about the cost of anoriexia or bulimia. What about the 20 year olds with heart disease from busting vessels throwing up 10 times a day, buring their throats to mush and gattting blood in their eyes….slipping into comas, or being rushed to the hospital weekly from passing out! No…lets not talk about THOSE people because they don’t gross us out….skinny is sooooo beautiful and fat is well…you know…ugly.
The definition of overweight keeps changing but if we assume that fat is actually bad for you (as yet unproven in my opinion) and we assume that the current new low standard for fat that the diet industry is pushing is correct then how would this law work? What would the restaurants do, put a scale and measuring pole at the door and check a BMI table? Then stocky people and body builders won’t be able to go into restaurants (no more Brad Pitt and Arnold sightings); BMI is inaccurate for 8% of the population? So they will put a body fat monitor at the door? Those are by admittance not accurate for tall people, short people and asian people with small bones. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me!
The definition of overweight keeps changing but if we assume that being fat is actually bad for you if you can walk (as yet unproven in my opinion) and we assume that the current new low standard for fat that the diet industry is pushing is correct then how would this law work? What would the restaurants do, put a scale and measuring pole at the door and check a BMI table? Then stocky people and body builders won’t be able to go into restaurants (no more Brad Pitt and Arnold sightings); BMI is inaccurate for 8% of the population? So they will put a body fat monitor at the door? Those are by admittance not accurate for tall people, short people and asian people with small bones. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me!
Universal Healthcare is a ridiculous concept. Why should I have to pay the medical bills of someone who spends the money that could go towards health insurance on their 5000+ calorie per day habit.
I have enough money taken out of my paycheck for free hand-outs. It is not the government’s responsibility to pay your health insurance or for that matter, save for your retirement (social security). Save your own money and be self sufficient or don’t. Either way, I don’t want to pay to support you when I’m also paying into my IRA (personally set up) or my health savings account (personally set up) or my health insurance (bought independently of work).
If you want to support people that don’t want to work or save their money, then give them your money directly. Leave my paycheck out of it.
What about the people who have been injured on the job or have been in a car wreck and cant work? How do they save money to pay for health insurance, IRA, ect? Some people do honestly need the support from our tax money. Dont get me wrong i hate paying taxes for handouts, which has been well taken advantage of, but we cant cut out taxes. By the way, a lot of athletes eat 5000+ calories a day just to maintain there weight.
LOL…sounds like your already spending a lot of money on healthcare you moron!
I noticed your comment “Fat people cost the government way too much money.” Actually, that is incorrect. Skinny people, on average, cost more in terms of health care costs than obese people. This is backed up by a Dutch study published Feb 4th in the Public Library of Science. It’s also quite logical when you think about it. Skinny people, on average, live longer lives than obese people. They take up more health care dollars during their geriatric years, because they have more geriatric years, then they still have the same end-of-life costs as obese people. Same goes for smokers. It’s a common misconception.
One of the problems people have with a free society is that people make choices that others don’t agree with. Just because you have decided that being fat is not a good thing does not mean that others cannot decide they want to be fat. As a responsible adult people can choose to be fat or smoke or drink or eat saturated fats or have unprotected sex or whatever vice they decide they want to. Only socialism decides that others know what is good for you and take away your choices.
Well said Justin,
The idea that a hardworking family that grows some of their own vegetables and packs their own lunches to work should have to pay into a health plan that people who eat twinkies and fast food have equal access to is a ludicrous attack on rural working class people.
One study doesn’t change the fact that healthy people are paying for the bad habits of others in America. Fat is only one small example of a bad habit.
Well when that “family” who grows their own vegetables and packs their own lunches finds themselves homeless after mom and dad develop cancer or MS, or any other expensive illness, it’s nice to know you won’t shed a tear. To each his own, my brother’s keeper, Love thy neighbor…hmm. Thanks for letting us know!
We have universally paid health-care in Canada. Yet we have less obese people.
What’s next? Blacks are not allowed in front of the bus
Okay, so we should stop obese from eating at restaurants, hell a lot of them sell the bad food right? What about those that have slow metabolism and don’t eat much but gain weight — you have to eat to survive. Okay, so we chuck all those people together because they have all the same problem, food.
Lets put blind people in to this bill also because who wants to see a blind person eat, especially having their guide dog (which is protected under the ADA). Oh heck, lets put deaf people in to the mix because the staff have a hard time understanding their orders, right? Okay, so now we have obese, blind, and deaf. Lets put paranoid-scizoprenic on the list also because maybe the chief is out to get them. Oh, Oh I know, lets have separate places for different races, yeah that’s the ticket!
All of the above has a name and it is called discrimination. Thanks for supporting it, idiots. If you start with one group of people and ban them from doing an activity, then another one will come down the road and a another and another.
[...] Mississippi Law: “No Fat People Allowed”I thought this was kinda funny. If for nothing else, then for the big dude trying to power down that huge hamburger. [...]
“People eat to deal with stress, they eat to socialize with co-workers, eat to handle depression and settle impulsive behaviors that would best be handled by psychiatric help.”
You skinny people think this is the cause of obesity but have never been obese in their life.
The simple fact is that many people who are obese LIKE FOOD, and couldn’t care less that they’re overweight. Its a small price to pay for the ability to eat what they want when they want it. All the medical conditions that arise from being obese just simply are an inconvenience.
Kut I am a skinny person and I love food but I’m not a fat piece of shit like you cunt. I think that fat people have no rights or souls so I’ll see you in hell fat ass. Maybe if you got off your huge ass and did something besides eat and bitch about people treating you bad cause your fat you would be the giant piece of shit you are.
At least Kut’s not an ugly ass like you bitch!
Let individual restaurants decide who they will serve and who they will not serve.
The real question that should be asked here is how can poor people be so fat? You hear it all the time, that there are so wretchedly many Americans living in poverty, but if you look at these “poor” you discover that about half of them are morbidly obese.
The rest of the world’s poor (genuinely living in abject poverty) would laugh if they see what liberals here call “poor.” Not only do a great deal of America’s “poor” eat enough individually to support a family of four, many of them also live in air conditioned homes which have 2+ televisions and average 1.5 automobiles per “poor” family. Compared to real poverty, genuine third-world poverty, very few Americans are poverty-stricken.
Carey, the american poor eat the food of the americacn poor: fast food.
Funny the bill is originating from a Repug (keeping govt out of our lives – oops war of drugs that’s right nevermind). Where’s fat boy Dennis Hastert when you need him.
I would personally like to introduce a bill that restricts stupid people from eating out, at home, or in the car.
That’s just ridiculous.
Keeping overweight people in their homes is counterproductive. It’s also ludicrous to not allow any specific group of people to do something based on their appearance. I thought we realized that years go.
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Didn’t we already figure out a couple decades ago that ‘Just Say No’ is not any effective way of dealing with anything?
That’s one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard. One reason that people suffering from poverty can also be overweight is because of the convenience and cheap of unhealthy foods. The entire fast food industry is focused on selling the most food for the cheapest price, and a bunch of cheap food is far more appealing to impoverished people than healthy, expensive foods. Obesity is no longer a sign of wealth with how accessible cheap, unhealthy foods have become.
Poverty is relative, but this article isn’t referring to a third world country, but an important issue existing in the United States. There are of course poorer people in poorer countries than the United States, but that doesn’t make the issue of obesity any less prominent.
It’s not the government job to fix obesity, Politicians can’t legislate stupidity out of existence, ( if they could most of them would be out of a job). I believe if someone fat or smnoke it is their personal choice.
And they should be allowed to, but they also should not be able to sue Mc Donalds when their rearend have it own zip code. Politicains stick to fixing roads and stealing tax dollars, and leave otyher things alone.
As a current neighbor, allow me to state for the record that in my personally calibrated opinion, Mississippi possesses such an enormous, gargantuan fatness, that on a clear day I can practically see it from here.
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We all know this law is never gonna happen, but it does bring awareness to a very serious issue.
Ironic considering on a state-by-state ranking Mississippi has the most obese population. These legislators are clearly ignorant of their own state.
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What about people like Shaq who just happened to be huge? Scales wouldn’t work there. Are they going to have a doctor at every restaurant doing a physical saying what’s fat and what’s acceptable? What about women who just had babies? And while we’re at it…let’s stop alcoholics from drinking in bars, sex addicts from going to strip clubs, gamblers from goign to casinos and video game addicts from buying Nintendo Wii’s. MY GOD people get a life. For every addiction there is a market…live with it!
Not every overweignt person gorges on tire-sized hamburgers and twinkies. And not every overweight person eats at McDonalds or must have everything deep fried in cheese and bacon. And not every overweight person makes BAD FOOD CHOICES. Many overweight people were raised eating unhealthy foods and became heavy over time. Many try to make good choices, and do, but it is HARD TO LOSE WEIGHT. And it’s not just a willpower thing; it’s a biochemical, metabolic thing you can’t control. There are plateaus, there is eating TOO LITTLE AND GOING INTO STARVATION MODE, there are weeks one is too busy for the gym (not busy watching TV on the couch, but too busy with work, family committments, school), etc. Losing weight is HARD. As someone who’s lost around 80lbs… believe me: It is HARD to do and it’s no where near as simple as the ridiculously simplistic, unhelpful slogan of “diet and exercise!”
I’ve entered into what feels like a hopeless plateau, where I’m eating VERY healthily, exercising regularly, doing MUCH MORE for my weight and health than 90% of the thin people I know, but I just CANNOT LOST these last 20 – 30 lbs. It’s driving me crazy and it’s even more upsetting considering that people insist on assuming that I must have chocolate-fried lard for dinner every night because I’m (still) overweight.
Keeping people out of restaurants is a ridiculous idea and not a solution to anything. If the government wants to help people lose weight, they should sanction and outlaw 80% of the ingredients in almost all the conventional food products available in typical grocery stores. In a world before high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils, we were all, generally, much thinner. But of COURSE the food companies lobby so strongly to have things like french fries classified vegetables that any real, meaningful change is impossible. Maybe many overweight people’s bodies can’t take these “ingredients”? I dunno… I know a lot of overweight people and NONE are the food-crazed monsters fat people are “supposed” to be.
the USA is messed up!
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