Obese who refuse to exercise 'could face benefits cut'

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

*sigh*
Tories are the best...

Overweight or unhealthy people who refuse to attend exercise sessions could have their benefits slashed, in a move proposed by Westminster Council.
GPs would also be allowed to prescribe leisure activities such as swimming and fitness classes under the idea.
The Tory-controlled council said the aim was to save £5bn from the NHS budget when local authorities take over public health provision from April.
BMA member and GP Dr Lawrence Buckman called the idea "draconian and silly".
The measures are contained in a report entitled A Dose of Localism: The Role of Council in Public Health, in a link-up between Westminster Council and the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU).
Under the proposals, overweight benefit claimants could have their money docked if they refuse exercise regimes prescribed by doctors.
Smart cards would be brought in to monitor the use of leisure centres, meaning local authorities could reduce welfare payments for those who fail to follow their GP's advice.
Resident, housing and council tax benefit payments "could be varied to reward or incentivise residents", the report said.
It claims "early intervention techniques" could help save more lives and money.
These include linking welfare payments to healthy lifestyles and rewarding those who take responsibility for their own health, the report's authors claim.

(More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20897681 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20897681))

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

These include linking welfare payments to healthy lifestyles

'Cause it's so easy to be healthy when you're poor. :rolleyes:

[l'Enfermé]

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, less fat people is great. On the other, this is very stupid.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Lots of fat fuckers in the Houses of Parliament. If we want to reduce their numbers, why not start at the top? Make MPs' pay dependent on a healthy lifestyle.

More divisive bullshit from the master purveyors of it. Those privileged shitehawks really do live in a bubble don't they? I bet they'd scream the house down if they got a taste of their own medicine.

Oh well, at least as a naturally skinny person I would have an easy ride under such a system. Which goes to show how fucking stupid it would be, even by their own twisted standards.

[Futility Personified]

Absolutely and utterly divisive. Of course, being overweight is not exactly ideal, people should be encouraged to exercise to improve their quality of life, but threatened? Don't want to break Godwin's law, but is this not fascist? Or would fascist be killing them off. Either way, indefensible but I can see this taking up valuable attention that could be focused on resisting the cuts.

[hetz]

'Cause it's so easy to be healthy when you're poor. Is it really impossible to eat healthy in for example the US is you're poor?
I mean in my experience hamburgers and such should be more expensive than home-cooked food, but who knows...
In Germany I could make a good, healthy lunch from LIDL roughly for the price of a doner kepap or something like that.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Is it really impossible to eat healthy in for example the US is you're poor?
I mean in my experience hamburgers and such should be more expensive than home-cooked food, but who knows...
In Germany I could make a good, healthy lunch from LIDL roughly for the price of a doner kepap or something like that.

It's not just a matter of cash. The working poor have a great many demands on their time, and the accompanying haste and stress makes junk food an attractive prospect, being loaded with tasty salts, fats and sugars and requiring little or no preparation.

Another problem is food deserts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert). While I suspect that this is not so much a problem in Europe, the situation in the US sounds utterly dire, with hardly local stores stocking cheap and healthy goods. Here in the UK I can also report that home-cooking food with anything other than basic ingredients costs a fucking bomb.

Another problem may be education - there are reports that a lot of people, especially those from less privileged backgrounds, have poor cooking skills and knowledge. I'm not sure how credible these reports are, though.

[hetz]

The working poor have a great many demands on their time, and the accompanying haste and stress makes junk food an attractive prospect, being loaded with tasty salts, fats and sugars and requiring little or no preparation.
I guess that's what's it like in the West.
Here the working poor are really too poor to go even to the cheapest fast food stalls, so everything is cooked at home.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yet obese MPs get a food allowance that runs into the hundreds per month.:lol:

May as well laugh whilst we oppose these things, can hardly say this sort of nonsense is surprising or shocking, can we?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Eric Pickles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Pickles) definitely needs to spend a term at a "fat camp". That amount of chins cannot be healthy.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Is it really impossible to eat healthy in for example the US is you're poor?
Impossible? No. Difficult? Yes.

An example: in many poverty stricken communities, they don't have a full service grocery store, so fresh produce is difficult to obtain even if one can afford to buy some. The mini-markets sell frozen food and low quality processed food, so that's what people have to rely on if they can't get to a full grocery store.

The government gives me $200 per month in food stamps. $50 per week sounds like a decent amount until I'm actually in the grocery store looking at the prices of the healthiest items.

[blake 3:17]

More fascism. Fuck that.

[Hiero]

This is a common trend in the Western world. Here in Australia they were going to cut welfare to Aboriginal families if their children didn't turn up to school, there was even talk about cutting it if their children turned up to school without being showered. Other programs including cutting welfare if single mothers missed out on parenting or other education classes. I am not sure if these were followed through or maintained. The current trend is to use the welfare arm of the state as a punitive arm to coerce people into moral citizens (in the image of the white Middle class).

[Lynx]

They will keep squeezing until there is resistance.

[piet11111]

Its a small step towards refusing to provide medical treatment.
Your obese ? having a heart attack ? yeah good luck with that.
You smoke ? have cancer ? good luck with that.

Such criteria have to be fought tooth and nail because even if its not about you its for sure that they will be able to come up with something that will apply to you.

[Spartacist]

Considering the source of this it's easy to wave your hand at it and spit.

But the idea itself is right on. If the state is not there to make life better, what is it for? Life is better when one is fit and the kind of food marketed to the poor tends to be pretty rank stuff that makes them bloated and lethargic.

Make them get exercise by throwing bricks through bank windows and pummeling Tory MPs!

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Considering the source of this it's easy to wave your hand at it and spit.

But the idea itself is right on. If the state is not there to make life better, what is it for? Life is better when one is fit and the kind of food marketed to the poor tends to be pretty rank stuff that makes them bloated and lethargic.


And there was me thinking that all this Marxist theory i'd been reading was trying to direct me to the conclusion that the state is there to enforce the will of the ruling class - in this case, capital!

The state has never acted in the best interests of the ordinary person, and doesn't do so now, and will continue not to do so!

[goalkeeper]

Considering the source of this it's easy to wave your hand at it and spit.

But the idea itself is right on. If the state is not there to make life better, what is it for? Life is better when one is fit and the kind of food marketed to the poor tends to be pretty rank stuff that makes them bloated and lethargic.

Make them get exercise by throwing bricks through bank windows and pummeling Tory MPs!

What is wrong with you?

You think the state, the state of the bourgeoisie at that, should be able to force people to consume certain foods because you think it would make their 'life better'?

Sorry, but this is totally anti-socialist

1) you are accepting it legitimate or desirable that the state force poor people to make certain dietary choices
2) the concept is incredibly patronising: you dumb out-of-work proles can't decide for yourselves what to eat, I/we/the state will decide for you. It treats benefit claimants like children.

If you can let the working class decide for themselves what to put in their mouths at meal times, how the hell do you trust them to democratically run society after capitalism? I suppose the party bureaucrats and pencil pushers step in here...

[Ocean Seal]

Do they realize how difficult it is to exercise when you are already obese? Also do they realize that they could just offer healthier options instead, or build some fucking parks?

[Veovis]

How do people find time to go to the gym when they're working two jobs to support themselves?

Stupid fucking Tory bastards. I'm not even British and I HATE the Tories.

[EdgyandOriginal]

It's a little silly to say that obesity is unavoidable if you're poor. If you're obese you must have been (or still are) regulatory eating above your maintenance level of calorie intake. This might be heresy, but eating less would surely cost less money?

The policy is still ridiculous because the poorest members of society are usually the ones with the least time/money to attend the "leisure activities". The obesity pandemic is a cultural problem that won't be solved through coercing the poor into a few swimming sessions a week.

[hetz]

The government gives me $200 per month in food stamps. $50 per week sounds like a decent amount until I'm actually in the grocery store looking at the prices of the healthiest items. Hmmm, I don't know. Just checked the Walmart site and the prices for food are actually lower than here in my country and Europe in general.
And I live on less than 50$ a week.
Of course, gas is twice cheaper in America than in Europe...

[The Intransigent Faction]

It's a little silly to say that obesity is unavoidable if you're poor. If you're obese you must have been (or still are) regulatory eating above your maintenance level of calorie intake. This might be heresy, but eating less would surely cost less money?

Straw man. Nobody's arguing that all poor people will be fat, but it's more than a little silly to ignore the underlying economic factors in the obesity problem.

Fast food is cheaper, and well, faster than eating healthy. It's also an admittedly unhealthy way people can just let loose, and gets a hell of a lot of ad space.

[Os Cangaceiros]

^Fast food is definitely more convenient for people, but I'm not sure that it's actually cheaper...I mean, you can buy a big bag of dried beans at just about any grocery store for not much money at all, that constituted a pretty big part of my diet for a time when I didn't have much money. Beans and rice and basic staples like that are usually pretty cheap.

[The Intransigent Faction]

^Fast food is definitely more convenient for people, but I'm not sure that it's actually cheaper...I mean, you can buy a big bag of dried beans at just about any grocery store for not much money at all, that constituted a pretty big part of my diet for a time when I didn't have much money. Beans and rice and basic staples like that are usually pretty cheap.

Ah, fair enough. I guess I was thinking of some of my family on this health food craze stuff.
There's definitely cheap stuff that's not unhealthy (though fast food would be at least comparably cheap from what I've seen), but then convenience can tip the scale.

[Prof. Oblivion]

You can easily eat healthy on food stamps if you plan it right. You just won't have ready-made meals so it's more work preparing your own food.

[Comrade #138672]

This might be heresy, but eating less would surely cost less money?It's not really about eating less.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You can easily eat healthy on food stamps if you plan it right. You just won't have ready-made meals so it's more work preparing your own food.

In theory you're right, but it's kinda difficult if you're working an 8 hour day, travelling a few hours to and from work each day (transport costs), and your job is shit, and you feel shit the end of the day. Takes an awful lot of self-discipline to eat right and shit if there's no end in sight. That's why sometimes you just wanna have a drink, or something else, to forget about shit.

[EdgyandOriginal]

Straw man. Nobody's arguing that all poor people will be fat, but it's more than a little silly to ignore the underlying economic factors in the obesity problem.

Fast food is cheaper, and well, faster than eating healthy. It's also an admittedly unhealthy way people can just let loose, and gets a hell of a lot of ad space.


It's not really about eating less.
Think about how ridiculous that sounds - losing weight isn't about eating less. Everybody has a calorie maintenance level, you eat more than you require, you gain weight; you eat less than you require, you lose weight. It's pretty much that simple.

From the studies I've seen, income is inversely related to BMI. Probably due to the fact that the poorest now have enough money to eat in excess of their needs, yet they lack the education to prepare healthy foods, nor the time to cook it (speaking generally). Then there's the sedentary lifestyle that most people live today, made worse for the working poor who have little leisure time.

Forcing people to exercise a couple of times a week won't solve these problems. Significant weight loss requires a lifestyle change for most people.

[piet11111]

Cheap food is usually loaded with calories and all kinds of crap to increase shelf life.

1 hamburger is enough calorie wise to live on for a day but who is full hours later ?

[NewLeft]

It's not like the working class disproportionately consumes all the fast food, in fact they're more likely to consume less. Obesity is not class related. Food insecurity is a bigger issue.