05.14.07

Let’s Ban Fat People

Posted in Humour at 11:26 am by The Intellectual Terrorist

Fat people need to be banned. At least from public places.
Obese people consume a lot of space, especially in crowded cities. Valuable real estate is usurped by these large mammals. Just like you see signs on a small street that say ‘No Heavy Vehicles Allowed’, we should have signs on streets that say ‘No Heavy People Allowed’. Imagine having to jostle with the crowds in a Mumbai local. Throw a few fat people in and you stand no chance. Smaller people shouldn’t need to make space for these human equivalent of SUV’s.There are many other equally convincing reasons, both environmental and economical for fat people to be marginalized.
For starters they consume too much of the planet’s limited resources.
Half the world is starving and the other half is obese. This is just not fair. The situation needs to be corrected. Fat people need to be penalized for their excesses.

Let’s start with how we define ‘fat’. All health and nutrition experts have a chart that shows a reasonable height weight ratio depending on age and sex. As long as people remain between the higher and lower margins of this accepted average, they can be certified as ‘fit’. Anything above this is ‘fat’. Medical conditions may cause people to balloon in weight and such people can be exempted.

What are the problems that fat people cause to society?
In most places(public and otherwise), the doors, chairs, seats are designed keeping an average person in mind. Once a person exceeding this size occupies that space, there is a natural tendency for the excess bulk to cause those contraptions to experience stress-expand, weaken the rivets, screws or the glue that binds it together. This reduces the life of these objects. Take the case of public transport (cabs, autorickshaws, trains, buses, airplanes). The seats here need to be repaired or replaced regularly, adding to transporting costs and resulting in increase of downtime, causing commuters a lot of pain.

Fat people because of their bulk consume more resources; it takes more water to wash all that surface area, more food to feed that bulk, more oxygen inhaled and more carbon dioxide exhaled. Can you imagine the amount of global warming because of carbon dioxide release? And what if you’re in their way when they pass wind? I guess that’s what they call Bhopal. Global warming is definitely something that is attributed to greater consumption of resources and fat people are hugely responsible here with their indiscriminate consumption of resources.

Fat people cause fares to increase. Airplanes fares are calculated based on how much weight the plane is carrying. It takes more fuel to carry more weight. Pretty much you have a fat person sitting next to you and you are subsidizing his airfare since the fare is the same for both of you. He/she should be charged more, but isn’t. Their bulk overflows from their seat to yours, and they still pay the same fare. Similarly in buses and trains. These modes of transport consume fuel to carry larger body masses and this adds to the costs. But people are not charged based on what they weight. Essentially the thin people are subsidizing the fat.

Fat people are also unhealthy. They are more prone to all sorts of health risks. Greater cholesterol leads to heart attacks. A sedentary lifestyle with little exercise and greater food consumption puts a huge toll on various body organs, that have not been designed for this kind of abuse. Organs failing or malfunctioning cost a lot of money to medically treat and correct. This increases the burden on the public health system. The thin people, also being healthier, subsidize this cost.

Fat people are extremely dangerous to society since they affect the structural integrity of most public structures like buildings, roads, bridges. A bridge is built to hold say 10000 people of a particular average size. People of a bigger size in the same number standing on it affect its strength. This is the No 1 reason for bridge collapse at different places in the country.

All chairs and benches in offices, airports, parks, zoos, streets, theatres are also hugely affected by the increasing bulk sitting on them. This reduces their shelf life and they need to be replaced more quickly resulting in more consumption of sparse resources, adding to the deforestation and global warming.

More food needs to consumed by these bigger people and more land needs to be cleared to meet their needs for fruits, vegetables, food grains and meat products, further adding to the deforestation.
So what are the things that can be done to keep fat people in check and protect the environment and also themselves?

Themselves? Yes. Taking one’s life is a criminal offense, and is punishable under the law. Fat, obese people are a health risk to themselves. Their life span is hugely shortened by their food habits … and lack of exercise. Essentially a person who is obese is working at reducing his life span. Mercy killing in India is a criminal offense. Fat people should not be allowed to make this attempt on their life. They should be sent to a special prison which has an exclusive weight loss program. They would obviously need to pay for this service. A prison makes more sense than a gym, since they don’t have the option of opting out.
Fat people also need to be charged more for public services and utilities consumed:

Charge them a toll for using bridges, overbridges, elevators.

Extra ticketing fees in all modes of transport.

Add an ‘increased consumption tax’ to their income tax.

Charge an environmental fee that goes into planting trees equivalent to environment damage.

No health benefits. It’s dumb to allow people to harm their own health and then ask for health benefits or insurance.

For a healthier country, please spot fat people and report them to us.

The Intellectual Terrorist

-blows your mind

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