Why it is acceptable to criticize smokers, but not fat people?

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd suggest we've always had the potential for fat people, go back a few hundred years and in some cultures being fat was seen as an admirable trait, an obvious sign of wealth.

Nowadays, many of us still have the natural built in urge to eat as much as we can, in case of a drought, famine, blight, or whatever. Fortunately they're rare, unfortunately, evolution hasn't caught up, and food manufacture is now all about convenient, easy calories, not about basic nutrition.

Sure fat people are in the main, psychologically weak to the temptations of 'bad' food, but are all people with good figures entirely mentally 100%? No weaknesses, no addictions?

Fat people are VISIBLY failing at adhering to society's whims, as are smokers and drinkers.

I'm not saying any of them are good, but are they worse than other flaws like racism, selfishness, cruelty, manipulativeness? I don't think so, but they're easy to see in others, so they're targeted more. After all, we're pretty much universally united in hating bullying, but it goes on, because visible weaknesses are easy prey. If bullying made you grow horns for example, it'd be far more easy to stop.

Really, I think the only way out is the 'fat tax' where all unhealthy food is priced more than the healthy option, or scientists need to get onto a replacement for sugar and fat that passes thru the body untouched, but fools the taste buds. (Though I've heard even artificial sweeteners can lead to more cravings as the body realises it hasn't recieved what it thought was coming in.)

What a lot of people here do need to realise is that losing weight is not some easy thing anyone can do without effort, and it's harder for some than others, and it's also a lifetime of work. Same as for some people a cigarette years after quitting can spark the cravings once more.

 

[Silk_Sk]

Because fat people get ugly faster and are hence easier to offend. Smokers take years to get ugly, if they weren't already that is.

 

[j0frenzy]

I don't have the time to read through the whole thread, but I thought I'd just leave my two cents because even if they have been said, it needs repeating.
First, it is important to keep in mind that attacks on smoking date back to at least the 1950s in the United States and it only really became socially unacceptable to smoke in public in the mid-90s at the earliest. The tobacco companies were able to keep up the charade of not being that bad for you and running a good counter campaign for decades. Our understanding of eating and health has only relatively recently fell into public debate.
More importantly, American understanding of health is kind of whack. It is possible to be healthy and fat. If fact, fat really has little to do with actual health. What you really need to be aware of is things like blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar intake. Our primary concern really should be changing the way we teach healthy living.

 

[generalvash]

Fat people don't see their being fat as a choice because they won't do what's necessary to lose some weight. Plus fat is a subjective term.

Smokers are using poison and poison others around them without their consent. Fat people aren't stealing OUR food or anything.

Second hand smoke doesn't actually do anything cancerous like some want you to believe. All of those things stay in the smoker's lungs

 

[Altorin]

it's not ok to criticize either. Who the fuck are you to criticize them? Let he who is without anything wrong in their life cast the first stone.

 

[Rin Little]

I tend to criticize anyone who doesn't have a decent amount of willpower and control over their urges. I have smoked and I have eaten very unhealthy foods. Now what I did (whether through choice or because of medical reasons) I cut back or stopped. You'll almost never catch me in a fast food joint anymore (partially because I can't afford it), I exercise regularly, and although I almost never smoked to begin with unless it was a particularly stressful day, I completely quit and haven't really thought about it since. Whether you're a smoker or fat doesn't make a difference, you control your body, it shouldn't be the other way around.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm going to throw out something here I remember from a Scott Adams book, and he never pretended he was right, he just chucked out ideas to talk about.

What if fat people are just instilled with a different level of willpower to other people. If it's just another statistic like height? I'm fairly sure people don't choose to have low willpower.

I wonder if, for instance, you took 100 people from a famine stricken part of Rwanda, trained them in English and set them up in the US, with jobs and homes, and then left them to live their lives.

I wonder how many of them would be overweight when you returned in 5 years time? Perhaps even more than the US average, given that they're so used to eating everything they can to survive.

I personally got tired of drinking in my early 20s, but I don't feel it gives me the right to mock alcoholism. I also quit smoking a little later on, but I sure as hell can't stay away from chocolate n cheeseburgers.

Maybe we've all got weaknesses, and just because cake isn't yours, doesn't mean you're safe, maybe you just haven't found it yet.

 

[Exile714]

I know this is getting buried, but I don't care.

I hate it when people claim that being fat (or smoking) somehow hurts our ability to get medical care.

Fat people get sick and injured, so one could argue that they add to demand for health care and when demand rises, prices rise. But that's not the whole story.

Nurses need to get paid, doctors need their money, hospitals have CEOs to worry about... and all of these things are paid by insurance, the state, and individuals in that order. You can argue that fat people, when they get medical care, raise insurance rates for the rest of us or burden the state thereby increasing our taxes.

Everyone will need end-of-life care. Everyone dies. That's when the highest rate of medical costs per person happens. The most cost effective person from a medical standpoint is one who dies instantly at a young age. When it comes to fat people, their total cost of care is actually only slightly higher than a person who lives to be 80.

BUT, fat people pay more to insurance companies through deductibles, and they are less of a burden on Medicare (since most of their costs occur before they are eligible). Being fat costs more out-of-pocket, and is therefore less of a burden on the medical system than living to old age.

The addage that fat people make medical costs higher is absurd, and a political tool to justify government intrusion on people's personal lives. People need to stop playing this card in arguments because it's just wrong. The same goes for the anti-smoking health care cost argument, so it's a wash for this thread.

Also, I don't know where you're from in the US, but being fat is way less acceptable than smoking when it comes to GOVERNMENT. The government is working very hard to promote healthy weight, way harder than it is to stop smoking. However, SOCIETY is more against smoking than fat people, but not because society thinks fat people are better. In fact, it is more socially acceptable to smoke than to be fat. The problem with smoking is that it harms and annoys other people when it is done nearby. A fat person may have body odor and be unsightly, as is often the case with smokers, but their vice is eating and eating is something EVERYONE does. You're not going to be harmed when a fat person eats a second hamburger when they should have only had one, but someone smoking a single cigarette will leave a taste in your nose for hours to come.

One last thing: people on here are confusing fat with morbidly obese. The fat statistics, and the proposition that the United States' population is generally fat, are based on BMI for overweight, not obese or morbidly obese. Overweight people don't have any more body odor than anyone else. Being overweight means, given an average height, that you're 10-15lbs more than your target weight, and that's it. The US redefined this standard in 1996 and instantly 44% of US citizens become overweight, and 22% obese overnight. Oddly enough, people who are "overweight" actually tend to live 5-10 years more than people who are "target" weight, which completely accounts for certain claims that being overweight increases health care costs.

TLDR: You're being fed lies about health and weight by the government because government officials hate fat girls. They're looking for any excuse to regulate food and fat, so they make up facts and numbers which... you know what, you're not really reading this anyway.

 

[Phisi]

Why on earth do you criticize smokers? They help the public, there are taxes imposed on cigarettes (at least here is Aus) which raise revenue and the premature deaths cause by smoking don't cost as much as other illnesses that come later in life that need full time care e.g. dementia. Yes it smells terrible and the litter is annoying but to criticize all smokers because some are pricks is like criticizing someone because their race commits the majority of crimes isn't it?

Source:
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pubs/2010/pdf/social_cost_of_smoking.pdf

Yes, but when the majority of them get lung cancer for literally breathing smoke into their lungs the health care industry pays, so we pay. Not sure if the cigarette taxes that go to the government really help our health care costs.

I think you missed the point, it IS cheaper to have smokers in the healthcare system because the treatments for or lack thereof are cheaper than treatments for illnesses that develop later in life (e.g. full time care for dementia). The money from taxes I think just joins other taxes.

 

[BX3]

Have you turned on a TV? Ads for diet pills, low-calorie foods, excessive equipment, and fast food places like McD's and Wendy's go on and on about how fresh their food is. Turn on any comedy based show, perhaps Comedy Central, you'll see some pretty mean fat jokes throw about. Turn on the news about the obesity epidemic.

America kinda hates fat people, we just try to be passive about it.

 

[ballen96]

Both get where they are by choice and only a very small percentage of fat people have a medical problem that causes them to be fat.

The problem is that neither one is very inclined to stop. You can have the perfect diets and exercise routines but they simply won't put forth the effort to start and finish it in full. Similarly, even a smoker that wants to quit can't build up the determination to do so.

People have the right to fuck up their own lives as long as they are aware of the consequences of their actions and the combination of ignorance and arrogance allows the frivolous lawsuits like the classic "McDonalds made by child fat" accusation possible. But that's where smoking has no place in the world- when you choose to smoke, you also choose to expose everyone else around you to the same vapors except without a filter so it's even worse for them. You may as well shoot everyone in your family in the foot every time you walk past them and let them bleed out. And the tools that want to legalize marijuana would speed up the cancer creation process by 500% per smoker.

 

[Scrimshaw13]

Until fat people start giving off poisonous gases that kill the non-fat people around them, even having this discussion is ridiculous.

 

[esliang]

Well, smoking is generally viewed as socially unacceptable: it's kind of like a rebellious statement, whether the smoker means it to be or not. A fat person just eats a lot, or (theoretically) could have a health issue. One of my coworkers commented on another person once, saying "of course she smokes, she has a tattoo." So I guess smokers get criticized because there's a social dimension to what they're doing.

Also, they smell a lot worse than fat people.

 

[Chevalier noir]

it's not ok to criticize either. Who the fuck are you to criticize them? Let he who is without anything wrong in their life cast the first stone.

This right here is an /topic.

Of course, concepts like tolerance and compassion are over the folks here at the "last bastion for intelligence".

Agreed. Judging others isn't cool and this is a pretty frivolous thing to judge someone by.

 

[brainslurper]

Why on earth do you criticize smokers? They help the public, there are taxes imposed on cigarettes (at least here is Aus) which raise revenue and the premature deaths cause by smoking don't cost as much as other illnesses that come later in life that need full time care e.g. dementia. Yes it smells terrible and the litter is annoying but to criticize all smokers because some are pricks is like criticizing someone because their race commits the majority of crimes isn't it?

Source:
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pubs/2010/pdf/social_cost_of_smoking.pdf

Yes, but when the majority of them get lung cancer for literally breathing smoke into their lungs the health care industry pays, so we pay. Not sure if the cigarette taxes that go to the government really help our health care costs.

I think you missed the point, it IS cheaper to have smokers in the healthcare system because the treatments for or lack thereof are cheaper than treatments for illnesses that develop later in life (e.g. full time care for dementia). The money from taxes I think just joins other taxes.

You made me think of an interesting question, what would be more expensive to the health care industry, someone dying early of lung cancer/heart attack, or them living and dying of old age at 95?

 

[Caliostro]

Catching a wiff of smoke while you are outside IS NOT going to kill you. That kind of 2nd hand smoke is a drop in the bucket of carcinogens you inhale everyday from industrial sources, unless you live 100's of miles away from the nearest industrial city. Even buying new furniture/carpeting, you are filling your home in the country with carcinogens. If that's all the justification you need for decapitation, be prepared for me (or anyone else) to remove YOUR head for being such a... well I could tell you what you are if it werent for TOS of this forum preventing me.

Now where did I say it would kill me? Everytime you throw that shit into someone's face, consider how you would enjoy it if someone walk up to you and ripped a massive, utterly disgusting fart right in your face. Not in your general direction, in your face. Maybe with a little "extra" for the trouble. What? It wouldn't kill you! You probably wouldn't be very amused though.

So here's my deal, I find it pretty reasonable: Keep that shit to yourself. I don't care if it doesn't kill me. A punch to the face won't kill you, but unless you're willing to trade a full swing to the face with every whiff I get, I say perhaps "killing someone else" isn't the only necessary condition to not do something. As long as you're not throwing it on other people who chose not to smoke, I couldn't care less if you smoke or not. If you can't understand that basic principle, then diplomacy has failed and there is only room for violence.

 

[GhsCrysis]

To be perfectly honest, I'd rather hang out with a bunch of smokers then a bunch of fat people. I actually really like the smell of smoke (no idea why, I personally have never even touched a cigarette) but I can't stand being around fat people.

It's disgusting to me that people let themselves get that way, and I don't care what anybody says, it is absolutely 100% entirely a choice to be like that. It isn't hard to stay in shape, I've never been to a gym, I've never attempted to eat healthy, I'm still under 150 pounds, 5'11, just from exercising at home/runs. In total I've spent about $50 on exercise, and it was all buying music from iTunes to listen to while I do things. Music I probably would have bought anyway.

The only reason to be like that is from medicine/medical condition, my mom for example has trouble losing weight because of her cancer medicine. But she isn't fat. Sure, she may not be able to drop the 20 pounds she wants to drop, but she's still under 200 pounds.

I honestly don't know how people can be 300+ pounds, those people are worse for this planet then any smoker. And as for the economy, tobacco is one of the most profitable businesses there is. What do fat people offer us? Nothing. They're just gross and take up space. I have no issues at all being mean to them, I have no problem at all criticizing them. I think it's very weird that it's completely acceptable to criticize smokers and not obese people, especially when obesity is a bigger problem in our country.

I understand secondhand smoke is bad, but there's also (this is gonna sound bad) population control. Some 43,000 people a year (in the United States) die per year from secondhand smoke, over population is already a massive issue in the world, I'm all for anything that helps with it. Though, I think taking all the obese people and just disposing of them would solve far more issues but I guess that's another debate for another time.

As it stands, I'll continue hating on fat people until they all leave me alone, when I used to work near customers at a car dealership I always avoided any fat ones, always. Doesn't matter if I lost out in a car deal and ~200 dollars, was worth it to not have to interact with them.