Warning! Studies have shown that this rant will insult up to 66% of Americans. If you find yourself dizzy, nauseous, or experiencing chest pain while reading this, stop, get your fat ass up, call 911, and then think about the life choices you made to get here. Hopefully the paramedics will arrive in time with an extra large stretcher and fork lift to fish your overweight ass out of your house or apartment. You have been warned.
My home state, Colorado, has been the thinnest state in the U.S. for the last decade. Today we still hold that title, however obesity is creeping up even at our altitude. The dismay that I felt today upon discovering that we had broken the twenty percent mark was substantial.
You. Fat. Bastards.
One in Five Colorado Adults is not just fat, but obese. Do you even know what obese means? The Centers for Disease Control says obesity is a BMI of 30, and that’s good enough for me. Translation: if you’re a man and you’re obese, your body is more than twenty five percent fat! For a woman, you even get more leeway: you’re not obese until you hit thirty five percent fat!
For me, I would have to put on close to 70 pounds of fat to actually break into the obesity range, and twenty (give or take) pounds to be considered overweight. Sadly, I’m only 16 pounds from being underweight.
Enough about me. This is about you.
And being fat.
And the fact that you probably suck.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with your weight. There are over weight or even obese people who are absolutely wonderful human beings. In my mind though, they are the minority. My issue lies with the mentality of the majority of this demographic.
We’ll start with how you affect my life and move from there.
I am about one hundred sixty five pounds. This makes me, at six foot one, on the slender side.
Ok, to be honest, I’m skinny. Not emaciated or twiggy, but definitely skinny.
So, imagine if you will, any given mode of public transportation. Inevitably, if I am sitting by myself on a vehicle that is running out of space, guess who will sit next to me?
It is, often as not, some morbidly obese, mouth breathing, sweat pants wearing asshole. I have literally missed a stop on a subway once because the enormous bastard that sat next to me munching on his Gyro couldn’t get up and out of my way with any modicum of speed and intensity. In classic comedic timing I slammed into the subway doors right as they closed in my face. The person who had moved to take my seat asked the fat man to move to the window. Captain Donut replied that he couldn’t fit comfortably, and would not move at all.
This example highlights two things for me. 1) New Yorkers are ass holes. 2) When your weight is such that you are a burden to the productivity of other people, you should be penalized for it. The results of Mr. Wheezy getting up and out of his seat in such an excruciatingly slow manner was that I lost time and money. Me losing time meant that others were going to lose money. Me losing money meant that other people would not be able to get it. The effects of one grotesquely fat man’s inability to move like a normal person are immeasurable. In being overweight, that man single handedly affected the business of an untold number of people. Yet he did so with impunity and no repercussions would affect him.
Ah, imagine the joys of a “Fat tax.” Imagine all the benefits! One in three people in America would have to pay money because they have chosen a lifestyle which is a detriment to others. This would encourage so many positive changes. Those who disliked the tax would find themselves seeking to lose weight. They would become healthier and more productive members of society, giving a boost to any industry they find themselves in simply because they have the energy to actually contribute and advance. How much money do you think would be saved in such areas as worker productivity? Is it right for an individual to collect workman’s comp because their weight had something to do with an injury. Are they able to argue that they would have sustained their injury if they had been more able to move out of an area that was dangerous. Had their view not been obstructed by either their inability to see past their own body mass, or else the reduction in their situational awareness that was created by their own obesity, can it be argued that they may not have suffered injury as a result? These same people would be safer, healthier, and a boost on the economy as a whole, instead of a drain.
Those individuals who decide that obesity is a lifestyle they can afford, despite being taxed for it, they will contribute fiscally to the well being of Americans. That’s good enough for me.
Sadly, this will never happen. America is a democracy, and as you pudgy fucks make up the majority, the likelihood of you voting to lose the money that you need to get your daily serving of excess calories is about zero.
Another good idea was suggested a while back by health insurance providers - people who are obese would have to pay higher premiums. The uproar that was cause by that concept? Holy Fried Fucking Chicken Batman!
The talking heads immediately piped up about how obesity is genetic, and fat people shouldn’t pay more on their health insurance, they should (get this shit!) receive a discount! They need that money to lose weight!
Boo fucking hoo.
I’m a smoker. I pay more on my insurance because I make a lifestyle choice that has the potential to cause me more health concerns than a non smoker. I’m ok with this. I know the risks of my nasty habit, I accept them, and I do not feel that I, as a person with an unhealthy habit, should receive a discount on the basis that I might need the money to seek out a smoking cessation program. You know what I’ll do with that extra cash?
I’ll buy more cigarettes.
Or else, I’ll buy some booze.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell though, that I’ll quit before I’m good and ready to. I shouldn’t be rewarded for this. Hell, I pay extra taxes on every pack of cigarettes; even that isn’t enough of a deterrent! My habit also costs me and others money and time. I pay for it in kind though with my cigarettes being taxed almost two dollars per pack. That comes out to around $320 extra every year that I pay that non smokers don’t. I can live with it.
The favored argument of the morbidly obese?
“I have a gland disorder,” they sweatily puff.
Bullshit bitch. You have a Big Mac disorder.
This is science, no matter what your disorder is: if your caloric intake is equal to your caloric expenditure, you do not gain weight. If it is less than your caloric expenditure, you LOSE weight.
Hyperthyroidism is the most prevalent endocrine disorder blamed for obesity. Yes, it’s true that it can be associated with obesity, but you’re not gaining weight if you’re still maintaining a healthy lifestyle. My own mother is plagued with a bad thyroid. It’s to the point that she has to take drugs every day, or suffer a painful death. Yet she also exercises two to three times a week by swimming a kilometer in the pool. She stays outside and works in her garden during her free time. She eats healthy, and stays active.
At almost fifty one years old, She is not and has never been overweight, much less obese.
Hyperthyroidism is almost universally associated with a gain in weight that is correlated by stunted vertical growth.
So you’re a 6’ 1” man and you tell me that your weight is caused by a bad thyroid? Yeah, I’ll believe that the day that science proves that people with lung cancer are genetically predisposed to smoking.
It’s very obvious if you actually do have a disorder which causes you to gain weight. The only way I can describe it is that you’re almost built like a barrel. People who actually do have this problem don’t have rolls of fat hanging out under their t-shirts. They aren’t chowing down on a triple bacon-nater. They are active and healthy. This can be verified with just a lipoprotein profile. If your cholesterol is 240 milligrams per deciliter or higher, don’t try to feed me that whiny line that you have a bad gland somewhere. Now you’re fat, nasty, and a weak excuse making bitch to top it all. Do you really expect sympathy?
I don’t care if you’re overweight, I really don’t. The only thing that pisses me off is that you won’t own that shit. You make excuses for poor diet, for being sedentary, and then you expect the world to accommodate you???
Fuck you, and the poor, exhausted, arthritic horse that your fat ass rode in on.
If you think that you being fat should entitle you to a second airline seat, free of charge, you’re an asshole.
If you feel that you are entitled to drive a rascal around wal-mart because it’s difficult for you to lumber over to the processed food aisles, all while forsaking the produce section, you’re an asshole.
If you deprive an elderly person with a walker, or a handicapped individual with crutches of the chance to use that same rascal at the grocery store, you’re an asshole. You should also be charged a fine, or alternatively, punched in the face.
If you spout excuse after excuse about how you can’t lose weight, you’re full of shit. The world is full of people who have made an effort to do exactly that, and they have succeeded. You know what they had that you don’t?
Willpower.
If your cabinet has a bunch of ho-ho’s, twinkies, ding dongs, potato chips, you have lost the right to make excuses for your weight.
If you are the fat asshole that I’ve described, understand that you are a burden to yourself, your family, and society at large. Know that those of us who are not counted in your number really resent you bastards.
Until Friday,
Chris
Colorado Springs, CO.
October 10, 2012
