UK family too fat to work; wants more money.

[Ranb]

The Chawners, haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5004431/Family-who-are-too-fat-to-work-say-22000-worth-of-benefits-is-not-enough.html

Any sympathy for this family? I am disabled and overweight (not as hefty as this family), but I work and do not depend on the government to support me.

Ranb

[drkitten]

Any sympathy for this family?

Depends. How much food does the government handout put on the table. If it's putting 1500 calories per person per day on the table, and they're still that fat, and they're still disabled, then, yes.

If it's putting 7000 calories on the table, my sympathy is rather muted.

[quixotecoyote]

Oy.

These are the kinds of chuckleheads that make it difficult to get popular support for a decent social safety net.

[quixotecoyote]

Depends. How much food does the government handout put on the table. If it's putting 1500 calories per person per day on the table, and they're still that fat, and they're still disabled, then, yes.

If it's putting 7000 calories on the table, my sympathy is rather muted.

according to the link:

The family claim to spend £50 a week on food and consume 3,000 calories each a day. The recommended maximum intake is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.

[NobbyNobbs]

"What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

a) Bills and food are covered. Sounds sufficient to me, considering they aren't doing anything to earn even that much.

b) "deserve more"?? That riles me. What do they think they have done that causes them to deserve more?

"We all want to lose weight to stop the abuse we get in the street, but we don't know how."

Hmmm....I can think of a way....

The family claim to spend £50 a week on food and consume 3,000 calories each a day. The recommended maximum intake is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.

[ZirconBlue]

The Chawners, haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5004431/Family-who-are-too-fat-to-work-say-22000-worth-of-benefits-is-not-enough.html

Any sympathy for this family? I am disabled and overweight (not as hefty as this family), but I work and do not depend on the government to support me.

Ranb

I'm generally fairly sympathetic to the overweight. I know that "just don't eat so much" is much easier said than done. That said, I'm not buying that they are all unable to work, and their expressions of entitlement are a little hard to swallow.

[Dr. Tobias Fünke]

The maximum recommended daily intake can be significantly higher if you *drumroll* move your carcass regularly :rolleyes:
So: more movin' = more eatin' = double the fun.
It's what I do.

[Ocelot]

Is still can't parse "too fat to work" I've worked with fatter people. I've seen fatter people doing very unskilled work.

[plumjam]

They could work as dockside buffering buoys for oil tankers. I hear the lifestyle is good in Dubai.

[Bob Blaylock]

Obesity runs solidly on my father's side of the family. I believe that my father is the only one among his brothers who was not fatter than the people shown in that article, yet all five of them have managed to have productive careers.

I have a coworker at the factory where I work who is considerably fatter than these people; and he does the same hard work that I do.

These people are not “too fat to work”. In fact, good, hard work might do them a great deal of good.

[aerosolben]

More context on the "charming" family: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1070624_x_factor_family_fights_eviction

I doubt anyone is going to come out in support of them, regardless of their political leanings.

[Rolfe]

I'm usually quite a sympthetic person, find the good in everyone and all that, but I'm struggling on this one.

Nope, stopped struggling.

Not too fat to work, on the photographic evidence. They're standing, right? The husband isn't even all that fat. The three women are grossly obese, but nothing I haven't seen often enough before. Hell, I even had an employee that fat once.

It's morons like that lot that give genuine benefit claimants a bad name. And what happened to the role of the GP in handing out health advice and support? Meh. What a laughing-stock.

Rolfe.

[Marquis de Carabas]

"OK, fine, you got us. We're not too fat to work. We are too whiny to work, though, so come on, give us more money."

[Bob Blaylock]

These are the kinds of chuckleheads that make it difficult to get popular support for a decent social safety net.


This is what your “decent social safety net” creates.

[NoZed Avenger]

"OK, fine, you got us. We're not too fat to work. We are too whiny to work, though, so come on, give us more money."


Hey, now. If whininess were a qualification for payment, I'd be buying and selling Warren Buffet every 2 months.

[Rolfe]

This is what your “decent social safety net” creates.


Or maybe people like that just exist everywhere. I've heard similar horror stories from the USA.

And in the USA these people are also getting social security assistance. And the rest of the population is calling them useless layabouts.

If there's a difference here, I'm not seeing it.

Rolfe.

[Ripley Twenty-Nine]

Hooboy. Check out this family in action when the daughter tried out for 'X Factor'. The phrase 'detached from reality' is putting it very nicely.

pjdUnVRzZjw

[quixotecoyote]

This is what your “decent social safety net” creates.

If that were true, this family would be not be a newsworthy freakish exception.

They are, so it's not.

[Cleon]

This is what your “decent social safety net” creates.

Just as much as the US military "creates" accounting practices that result in taxpayers paying $600 for a toilet seat.

Any program, government or private, is subject to abuse. The fact that there exists such abuse is not an argument either in favor or against such programs.

[Metullus]

Or maybe people like that just exist everywhere. I've heard similar horror stories from the USA.

And in the USA these people are also getting social security assistance. And the rest of the population is calling them useless layabouts.

If there's a difference here, I'm not seeing it.

Rolfe.It's the accent. And the way you spell color. And what you think the word "fanny" means.

[Ranb]

I'm generally fairly sympathetic to the overweight. I know that "just don't eat so much" is much easier said than done. That said, I'm not buying that they are all unable to work, and their expressions of entitlement are a little hard to swallow.

Losing weight is hard, I love to eat. :) Too fat to work is just plain silly though, especially for the ones in the OP.

Rolfe; there are plenty of "fat stories" in the USA. In fact the USA is one of the most obesity ridden countries in the world. The link below ranks USA, Mexico and the UK as the top three. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity

Ranb

[Dr. Tobias Fünke]

Just as much as the US military "creates" accounting practices that result in taxpayers paying $600 for a toilet seat.

Any program, government or private, is subject to abuse. The fact that there exists such abuse is not an argument either in favor or against such programs.


As far as I know (although I have but one source) the story about $600 toilet seats is bogus. I have to quote from a column on www.fredoneverything.net :

I want my money back.

I recently bought The Complex, by Nick Turse. It purports to deal with the militarization of American society, its economy, education, and so on. I can think of no more important topic. The militarization is happening. Huge sums go for weapons we don’t need to fight enemies we don’t have. Much of this waste is hidden in plain sight: What the press ignores doesn’t exist. The militarization now segues into the establishment of a full-blown national-security state, with further huge sums going to Homeland Security et al. The subject is ripe for a grown-up book.

But no. The Complex reads like a compendium of Google searches intended for a high-school newspaper. I spent thirty years covering the military and constantly saw the same appalling ignorance of weaponry, tactics, technology, history, the same missing of the important to concentrate on absurdities, the borderline dishonesty, the almost willful journalistic incompetence. Turse is par.

The $640 toilet seat. Oh god. There it was, page 83. It rose from the page like the stench from some fetid bog. Practically forever I had to hear about that seat from crusading twelve-year-olds at the Washington Post. It has probably given me PTSD.

You’ve heard this? The Navy was supposed to have bought a toilet seat for $640 for one of its aircraft. Cartoons by editorial idiots showed the Secretary of Defense with a toilet seat hanging around his neck. You could get one at Home Depot for $9, was the implication, yet the Navy paid $640. Bad old Navy.

The airplane in question was a PC3 Orion, a Lockheed Electra modified for long flights over the ocean in search of submarines. Such a plane needs a toiler for the substantial crew operating the avionics. You don’t put a heavy porcelain toilet in an airplane, perhaps in a wooden shack with a moon on the door. Do the toilets on airliners look like the ones in your home? The “toilet seat” in question was a complex injection-molded device with the plumbing in it, constituting most of the toilet. It was not remotely what one thinks of as a toilet seat. Yet Turse, like almost all of the reporters at the time, wants you to think it was. It makes a better story.

I remember that someone went to various makers of complex plastic things and asked for bids. They came in close to what the Navy paid.

On and on goes this drivel. Turse speaks also of the $7600 “coffee maker” bought by the Air Force. One thinks of course of the glass-and-plastic thing on the kitchen counter. Seven thousand green ones for that? Bad old Air Force.

Actually it was a massive stainless-steel appliance to make coffee for people aboard a C-5, a very large transport aircraft. Short of getting the specs and hiring an aircraft engineer and an industrial cost estimator, I have no way of knowing what it should have cost—probably $7600—but the thing bore no faint resemblance to what one thinks of as a coffee maker. But then, Turse bears no faint resemblance to what one thinks of as a reporter. Conservation of symmetry.

As a reporter myself I tracked down dozens of these horror stories, and they were almost always nonsense. There was the $17 (or was it $27?) bolt the Navy bought. The implication in the press invariably was that it should have cost twelve cents in your local hardware store.

The Navy had an attack plane, the A3, which, like probably all aircraft, used some nonstandard parts. One of these was a bolt for the nose gear. When the Navy, or an airline, buys a plane, it assumes a certain useful life. After all, aircraft don’t last forever. In this case it may have been twenty years. The Navy bought sufficient bolts to last that period.

Then Congress slepped the bird. (A verb from Service Life Extension Program.) The A3 would remain in service for a few more years, three I think. The Navy had run out of bolts and needed a few more.

Now, if you need, say, 29 unusual bolts, you have two ways of buying them. You can order 10,000, in which case mass production will keep the cost to $1.20 each, but then you pay 10,000 times $1.20. (Aircraft quality bolts cost more than the ones you have in your washing machine. Probably a good idea.) Or you can have a machine shop make them more or less by hand as a special order. They then cost $17 each times 29. The latter is far cheaper, but the price per bolt is much higher. This happened. Much too difficult for reporters, and it would never occur to them to ask.

I made the foregoing numbers up, and this many years later won’t swear by the details, but they illustrate the principle. This, for my thirty years in the trade, was the level of reporting. No research, no understanding, and no thought of asking the military for its side.



I don't think he's lying and he admits he's probably not getting the numbers exactly right.

[Policenaut]

These people are just plain lazy. I've seen many people fatter than them working just fine. Also the "healthy food is more expensive" is ********. I eat very healthy meals and spend less money than anyone I know on food. Frozen vegetables are cheap. Potatoes are cheap. Most fruit is cheap. Salsa, hot sauce and mustard are cheap condiments and healthy. Bulk frozen skinless chicken breasts are very cheap (10 pounds for around $20). Canned tuna is cheap. If you care about your health and you care about saving money it's not very complicated.

[Rolfe]

Quite right too. Lazy and stupid and antisocial. Lovely people.

The only thing I don't know is what to do about them. (Apart from not give them any more money no matter how hard they whine.)

Rolfe.

[timhau]

The Chawners, haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition

Strange that the Nazis managed to put millions of people in their concentration camps without finding a single person with such a condition.

[JihadJane]

Why should only very rich people get free money? Give these harmless eccentrics a billion dollars each. It'll stimulate the economy.

[TX50]

Hooboy. Check out this family in action when the daughter tried out for 'X Factor'. The phrase 'detached from reality' is putting it very nicely.

pjdUnVRzZjw

I wonder who's idea it was to introduce this clip with the theme tune
from "The Flumps" (a 1980s kid's show about a family of strange
bulbous "things"). :D

[Sun Countess]

I always wonder how much nerve a person (entire family!?!) needs to have in order to go to the papers for something like this. Do they honestly expect the public to be sympathetic? Do they understand that other people go to work everyday to pay for social services? That some people are even getting up in the morning and exercising before work, instead of staying up late at night playing loud music so they can sleep in and then sit on their behinds and watch tv?

Like so many have said, there are plenty of fatter people out there holding jobs. And to say that they don't know what to do to lose weight is a lie. They mentioned eating "healthier" but said they couldn't afford it. Who would take the bet that if they were given more money that it wouldn't go to healthier food and running shoes?

[Rolfe]

Whoever it was said "detached from reality" nailed it.

Rolfe.

[geni]

I'm usually quite a sympthetic person, find the good in everyone and all that, but I'm struggling on this one.

Nope, stopped struggling.

Not too fat to work, on the photographic evidence. They're standing, right? The husband isn't even all that fat. The three women are grossly obese, but nothing I haven't seen often enough before. Hell, I even had an employee that fat once.


The husband legitimately can't work as a driver. A bit of bad luck or lack of trying could have got him into long term unemployed and at that point shifting him over to incapacity benifit gets him out of the unemployment total.

[Eddie Dane]

Strange that the Nazis managed to put millions of people in their concentration camps without finding a single person with such a condition.

The people in concentration camps always looked remarkably thin, so I guess they must have selected the inmates on different criteria.

Disclaimer: as the grandchild of a holocaust survivor I reserve the right to make concentration camp jokes.
The most striking one I heard when I was a volunteer in a Kibbutz:
Jewish bloke: "why do you think we put barbed wire around the Kibbutz?"
Me: "Uh...to keep terrorists out?"
Jewish bloke: "No, to make the old people feel at home!" Roaring laughter.

Back to the Blob family:
Am I the only one who finds this whole affair rather depressing?
They are most definitely detached from reality, but various media happily exploit this (in combination with their looks, and stupidity).
The article from the OP is clearly intended to set them up as (gigantic) punchbags for the general public.
Nice sell: everybody gets to feel good about themselves because they're smarter, better looking, more productive, more stylish etc.

I'm a spokesperson for a company, I've had media training and sometimes I am shocked to see what my words look like in an article. Then I have to jump through hoops to get the journalist to change some words. (they don't like revising their articles).

This family is easy prey for the tabloid press and stupid TV programs.

[shuize]

Stories like this really let me start off my day with a laugh.

People are so freaking pathetic it's comical.

I understand that lots of people try to milk the system. What I don't understand is how these people could be so stupid to allow themselves to be photographed and quoted obviously attempting to milk the system.

I say cut off their benefits, promise the two daughters a couple of twinkies for a day's labor, and then see how their "too fat to work" claim holds up.

[Walk The Line]

I always wonder how much nerve a person (entire family!?!) needs to have in order to go to the papers for something like this. Do they honestly expect the public to be sympathetic? Do they understand that other people go to work everyday to pay for social services? That some people are even getting up in the morning and exercising before work, instead of staying up late at night playing loud music so they can sleep in and then sit on their behinds and watch tv?

Like so many have said, there are plenty of fatter people out there holding jobs. And to say that they don't know what to do to lose weight is a lie. They mentioned eating "healthier" but said they couldn't afford it. Who would take the bet that if they were given more money that it wouldn't go to healthier food and running shoes?

Never underestimate the capacity of humans to delude themselves.

[JihadJane]

Never underestimate how easy it is to tickle people's automated outrage buttons.

[geni]

Stories like this really let me start off my day with a laugh.

People are so freaking pathetic it's comical.

I understand that lots of people try to milk the system. What I don't understand is how these people could be so stupid to allow themselves to be photographed and quoted obviously attempting to milk the system.

Attempting suggests it's deliberate. I doubt you could prove that.


I say cut off their benefits, promise the two daughters a couple of twinkies for a day's labor, and then see how their "too fat to work" claim holds up.

Their claim? I don't know about the mother but the father aparently hit the job market in his 40s with no skills and no experence outside of driveing. In that situation it would have been very easy for someone at whatever the front line of the system was in 1997 to shuffle him onto incapacity benifit rather than spend time and money trying to find them a job.

Notice that Samantha is on JSA. That means she is at least meant to be looking for work. Emma's £58 looks like a topped up version of the Education Maintenance Allowance (something which the goverment screwed up at the start of this year much to the annoyance of colleges and probably the students).

So I'd say we have a couple of parents who have been shuffled onto incapacity benifit to get them off the unemployed list (which has the side issue that it may mean minium wage jobs may not be finacialy worthwhile). 1 kid who's haveing a hard time getting work but at least doing an impression of looking and one who is in legitimate training.

Unforunate but hard to avoid it happening from time to time.

[Ian Osborne]

"Too fat to work" my arse. Or more probably, theirs.

And if they actually tried to eat healthily, they'd be surprised how cheap fresh vegetables are if they avoid the pre-prepared, ready-packaged convenience shelves. But then, washing a carrot and peeling a spud is work, and they're too fat for work...

[shuize]

Yeah. I don't know how I could possibly conclude they're trying to "milk" the system:

A family of four with a combined weight of 83 stone say they are "too fat to work" and need more than the £22,000 they currently receive in benefits.

...

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."


You may be right, though. They may not be running a scam. They may just be pathetically ignorant:

"We all want to lose weight to stop the abuse we get in the street, but we don't know how."


Here, Emma. Let me see if I can help you solve that riddle: Eat less. Exercise more.

[Ian Osborne]

Here, Emma. Let me see if I can help you solve that riddle: Eat less. Exercise more.

Visit your GP and ask - it's free, y'know. And leave your microwave alone, unless it's to cook a baked spud, and start preparing proper meals with fresh vegetables and lean meat. Judging by what they say about bacon butties and microwaved pies, they live on convenience food. As if their lives are so full they don't have time to cook...

[IMST]

Caveat: I'm an American.

They're not that fat! WTF is the problem!

[kallsop]

They might not be technically too fat to work, but if trim and fit people show up for the job interview, the obese person might have a problem getting hired. That's assuming they are trying to find work rather than leeching off the taxpayers.

Genetics surely can play a role, but eating 3,000 calories a day is hardly a weight loss diet now is it?

[The_Animus]

Eat less. Exercise more.

Seconded.

A high majority of people who are overweight act like they have no idea how to do it. What they mean is they aren't willing to put in the effort needed.

"I don't know how to lose weight" is really "I like eating very tasty but unhealth food, and sitting on my ass so much that I'm unwilling to have less of this in order to attain better physical health."

[Kevin_Lowe]

I wonder who's idea it was to introduce this clip with the theme tune
from "The Flumps" (a 1980s kid's show about a family of strange
bulbous "things"). :D

Those "reality" show audition segments are deliberately constructed. There's no way every entrant gets to see the celebrity judges, let alone every entrant's parents - she got picked out for her dress, her mediocre singing voice, but mostly for having a family who are also overweight and willing to defend her. That scene was shot solely so they could make some good telly mocking the fatties. If she had a better voice, a better dress and a better figure she'd never have been seen on the show at all.

I'd also be willing to bet they made her sing her lungs out, cut that part out, and only showed the point at which she finally had to give up. Hey presto, the impression is given that she can't sing for very long because she's fat.

[ZirconBlue]

Seconded.

A high majority of people who are overweight act like they have no idea how to do it. What they mean is they aren't willing to put in the effort needed.

"I don't know how to lose weight" is really "I like eating very tasty but unhealth food, and sitting on my ass so much that I'm unwilling to have less of this in order to attain better physical health."

I'm overweight. I know exactly what to do to lose weight. Unfortunately, I lack the willpower to actually do it.

[funk de fino]

All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive

Good god.

[quixotecoyote]

I'm overweight. I know exactly what to do to lose weight. Unfortunately, I lack the willpower to actually do it.

Same here.

I do know that once I get out of school again and back to a normal job, I'll probably drop some weight. I think it's the extra stress that does it for me.

[dezrah]

It's not the social services that bothers me, I think it's our duty as fellow humans to help out those that need it. It's the sense of entitlement that fries me.

We're not helping them financially through a difficult situation, they DESERVE the money!

[plumjam]

They could probably find work in the Antarctic.

[JoeyDonuts]

They could probably find work in the Antarctic.

I rather liked your pier fender suggestion.

[Hittman]

This family is easy prey for the tabloid press and stupid TV programs.

They made themselves easy prey.

They could work, at least part time, as speed bumps.

[Policenaut]

Microwave pies = pizza? If so that is one of the worst things for you and one of the last few things left in the freezer aisle with a nice dose of trans fat in it and usually more than 100% of your recommended daily fat intake. That combined with mashed potatoes (aka mashed potatoes with butter) or chips (fried potatoes) probably adds up to over 2000 calories by itself easily. People who don't know about food will underestimate how many calories they intake daily. 3k calories is wishful thinking for this family I believe.

Edit- Here's a fun link - http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-tombstone-original-pepperoni-pizza-i22555

Eating a whole fresh made pizza would be better for you than that.

[timhau]

And to say that they don't know what to do to lose weight is a lie.

Not necessarily, but that level of ignorance is deliberate and thus no excuse for anything.

[Puppycow]

Good grief. When I hear "too fat to work" I pictured people who are literally bedridden and can't stand. Those people could certainly do some kind of work.

[bigred]

Any sympathy for this family?
You're kidding I hope. These worthless slugs should be put on the precipice of a cliff. I think we'd then be amazed at their sudden physical prowess.

But thx for reminding us that America doesn't have the market cornered on laziness and stupidity in the extreme (although I already learned that from "It's me or the dog").

[Elaedith]

The Chawners, haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5004431/Family-who-are-too-fat-to-work-say-22000-worth-of-benefits-is-not-enough.html

Any sympathy for this family? I am disabled and overweight (not as hefty as this family), but I work and do not depend on the government to support me.

Ranb

Well, to be fair the parents are not on disability benefit for being fat as such; they are on disability for epilepsy, asthma, diabetes and the man also has a heart condition.
Some of the health issues are of course related to weight.

The relevant issue during a recession is not whether people can work, but whether they can compete for work with other applicants and therefore cause these other applicants to miss out on the job and be the ones who might end up on benefits instead (unless you can show that there are suitable unfilled job vacancies with no applicants that they are refusing to take).

As a taxpayer, if there are more currently more applicants than job vacancies I don't care if those who miss out want to work or not since it makes no difference to me (unless you can show that it costs more to support someone who has no job and doesn't want one than it does to support someone who has no job and does want one). I would rather the jobs were left for those who really want them because I know how depressing it is to be unable to find work. Trying to increase the intensity of competition for available jobs has no useful social effects in my opinion.

What might be socially useful is either retraining for areas where there are skills shortages or for self-employment or doing some kind of voluntary work.

[JihadJane]

Being happy not to work is a valuable asset in a country on the verge of bankruptcy with two-million-plus unemployed. It is surprising to see so much knee-jerk Protestant work ethic foam on a forum aimed at critical thinkers.

[richardm]

The relevant issue during a recession is not whether people can work, but whether they can compete for work

That cock won't fight, they haven't worked for 11 years.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

OK I'll voice the minority viewpoint. I do have sympathy for them, quite a lot in fact as their lives must be thoroughly unpleasant. Admittedly a significant quantity of their problems are self inflicted, but I doubt there are many people on this forum who would happily swap places with them.

[Ian Osborne]

I doubt there are many people on this forum who would happily swap places with them.

If I woke up one day and found my body had been switched with one of theirs, the first thing I'd do is sketch out a healthy eating and exercise regime. Within a couple of years, I'd be much thinner, fitter and better able to work.

By which time, the person in that family who got my body would probably have gorged it to obesity...

[JihadJane]

If I woke up one day and found my body had been switched with one of theirs, the first thing I'd do is sketch out a healthy eating and exercise regime. Within a couple of years, I'd be much thinner, fitter and better able to work.

By which time, the person in that family who got my body would probably have gorged it to obesity...

You are separating body from mind.

[Elaedith]

That cock won't fight, they haven't worked for 11 years.

But people are complaining about it now. I don't see any point.

If there were ever employers longing to give jobs to these people because they had unfilled vacancies with no applicants, they should have done something about it then.

[Ian Osborne]

You are separating body from mind.

I don't see your point here. :confused:

[chillzero]

Well, to be fair the parents are not on disability benefit for being fat as such; they are on disability for epilepsy, asthma, diabetes and the man also has a heart condition.
Some of the health issues are of course related to weight.


And the fact they aren't out working every day means they have time to research nutition, and cook proper balanced meals every day. There are plenty of online resources, as well as at libraries. I know this from experience having just lost over two stone while off work for health reasons.

As to being too fat to work.... if you can sit down, you can work. Not every job is manual labour, and no experience is required for entry level jobs such as data entry, telemarketing, polling, and so on. No such thing as too fat to work in a country so dependant on electronic information.

The issue here is their sense of 'deserving' more. What are they doing to deserve more? The sense of entitlement instilled in those of us lucky enough to grow up in a country with a decent healthcare and social system is frightening at times.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

If I woke up one day and found my body had been switched with one of theirs, the first thing I'd do is sketch out a healthy eating and exercise regime. Within a couple of years, I'd be much thinner, fitter and better able to work.

By which time, the person in that family who got my body would probably have gorged it to obesity...

I didn't mean swap the bits you felt like and keep bits you wanted. Particularly, the two daughters have never known an alternative lifestyle, and may perhaps not be the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway. They are stuck as objects of ridicule, with no way out that they are able to take, and it's irrelevant that somebody else in their position would be able to escape.

I just don't get the 'fat whiny people=funny and undeserving of sympathy' idea. Mind you I never thought Little Britain was funny either so what do I know.

[Rolfe]

I wonder how much of these quotes were actually said? I've shaken my head in despair at what was printed in a local newspaper after a journalist had interviewed me about something as uncontroversial as a cat show prize.

However, they do seem rather intent on allowing the media to make a spectacle of them. And the bit about the eviction for anti-social behaviour suggests there are even further depths to their unlikeability.

What do you do about lack of intellect? You can't blame it all on the teachers.

Rolfe.

[richardm]

But people are complaining about it now. I don't see any point.

Well, they're complaining about it now. Yet they've scraped by for long enough on £22k a year without complaining (or maybe they have but haven't hit the papers until now). Could they have been out earning more when there was an abundance of jobs? I'm not one to take a "Get on your bike and look for work" stance, but have they made any effort at all, or are they sitting on a sense of entitlement?

I think what presses buttons is that fact that they claim to be "Unable" to work when unless there is some detail that the reports omit it seems clear that there's nothing physically stopping them, and that they further claim to "Deserve" more money. "Need" more money I might believe. "Want" more money I might understand. "Deserve"? Not in my book. They have a right to be supported by the state, but they also have to take some responsibility for themselves, they're just overweight, not incapable.

[Ian Osborne]

I didn't mean swap the bits you felt like and keep bits you wanted. Particularly, the two daughters have never known an alternative lifestyle, and may perhaps not be the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway. They are stuck as objects of ridicule, with no way out that they are able to take, and it's irrelevant that somebody else in their position would be able to escape.

But the point is they're not stuck. There's plenty they can do about it, and it doesn't take a genius to work out what. Generally speaking, I get irritated by the attitude which says, 'I did it, therefore anyone can do it', but let's not let the pendulum swing too far the other way. Sometimes, you really do have to take responsibility for your own situation. It's not as if their situation is particularly lamentable either. They're getting £22k a year - the equivalent of a £30k annual salary - for sitting on their arses for 11 years. And yet they think they DESERVE - yes, DESERVE - more money.

I just don't get the 'fat whiny people=funny and undeserving of sympathy' idea. Mind you I never thought Little Britain was funny either so what do I know.

Little Britain was about as funny as being trapped in a lift with a flatulent sumo wrestler, so no arguments from me there.

[H3LL]

Look on the bright side.

With that amount of weight the government probably hasn't got to worry about providing any of them with a pension.


:duck:


.

[Elaedith]

Well, they're complaining about it now. Yet they've scraped by for long enough on £22k a year without complaining (or maybe they have but haven't hit the papers until now). Could they have been out earning more when there was an abundance of jobs? I'm not one to take a "Get on your bike and look for work" stance, but have they made any effort at all, or are they sitting on a sense of entitlement?

I think what presses buttons is that fact that they claim to be "Unable" to work when unless there is some detail that the reports omit it seems clear that there's nothing physically stopping them, and that they further claim to "Deserve" more money. "Need" more money I might believe. "Want" more money I might understand. "Deserve"? Not in my book. They have a right to be supported by the state, but they also have to take some responsibility for themselves, they're just overweight, not incapable.

They are being encouraged to complain about it to sell news stories and help keep employees of news companies in work and off benefits. Perhaps they are being paid for this? (whether this would cause them to lose benefits, I don't know, but if it does then - problem solved).
Saying they 'deserve' more will sell more newspapers than saying they 'need' more, because it 'presses more buttons' as you say, which is the whole point. Possibly they didn't say this but it was worded that way for such a reason. Or perhaps they know very well what will sell a story and are actually not as stupid as people assume.

[richardm]

Saying they 'deserve' more will sell more newspapers than saying they 'need' more, because it 'presses more buttons' as you say, which is the whole point. Possibly they didn't say this but it was worded that way for such a reason. Or perhaps they know very well what will sell a story and are actually not as stupid as people assume.

Ah well, it's a fair point. However, suggesting that they're grasping and manipulative isn't much better than suggesting that they're grasping and ignorant ;)

[Darat]

I wonder how much of these quotes were actually said? I've shaken my head in despair at what was printed in a local newspaper after a journalist had interviewed me about something as uncontroversial as a cat show prize.

However, they do seem rather intent on allowing the media to make a spectacle of them. And the bit about the eviction for anti-social behaviour suggests there are even further depths to their unlikeability.

What do you do about lack of intellect? You can't blame it all on the teachers.

Rolfe.

Despite my general distrust of the media but given this family's previous efforts to gain media attention I would say they aren't allowing as much as encouraging media interest.

[Elaedith]

Ah well, it's a fair point. However, suggesting that they're grasping and manipulative isn't much better than suggesting that they're grasping and ignorant ;)

It depends ; being grasping and manipulative is often considered quite acceptable if the purpose is to profit.

[bonavada]

The numbers in that article puzzle me a little.
£22,508 works out to about £450 pw. It's stated they manage on £50 food......leaving about £400 pw. I assume they are in council/private rented housing so rent/council tax is covered by housing benefit. Heating/lighting/water would be a generous £70 pw. Leaving about £330 pw. Even if they spent 100 smackers pw on a few luxuries like car fuel, fags, beer, football and £100 on clothing, it still leaves a fair whack in the pot.

My household has 2 adults and a nine year-old. And there's no way we could manage on £50 pw shopping. As a seasoned trolley pusher, I do that without hardly blinking in Asda/Tesco, it's hardly half a trolley. OTOH fruit and vegetables are quite reasonably priced everywhere. £15 can get you bags of bananas, oranges, grapes, apples, cauli, swede, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce etc etc (all about 70p (about$1) per bag/punnet) in places like Aldi's or Lidl's.
Spuds are cheap everywhere, at about 40p (about 50c) per kilo. So is pure fruit juice < 50p per litre. Fish, particularly in Asda where you can often get 50% off deals, is always a good healthy option. I bought four excellent cod fillets there yesterday for about £2.50 (about 0.5 kg)
If anything, the rubbishy foods like frozen burgers chips pies sausages etc have shot up in price since Christmas.

IMO there is no way this family manage on only £50 pw food-wise. They have, by the looks, big appetites, I would venture their food bill is more like £50 pw each.

By the way, I stand 6' 2" and weigh around 22 stone bare arsed naked, not a really pretty sight but strangely I never get any street abuse scatched car or neighbour complaints. Then again I don't go complaining to the tabloids about my skintness, or warbling like a trapped boy in a lift on national telly :-]

BV

[Ocelot]

The numbers in that article puzzle me a little.
£22,508 works out to about £450 pw. It's stated they manage on a £50 food......leaving about £400 pw. I assume they are in council/private rented housing so rent/council tax is covered by housing benefit. Heating/lighting/water would be a generous £70 pw. Leaving about £330 pw. Even if they spent 100 smackers pw on a few luxuries like car fuel, fags, beer, football and £100 on clothing, it still leaves a fair whack in the pot.


Isn't Housing/Council Tax Benefit included in that £22,508?

[Darat]

Would have thought so however I do have to agree that I do not believe that they are only spending £50 a week on food (given the description of what they do eat).

[WildCat]

"We have cereal for breakfast, bacon butties for lunch and microwave pies with mashed potato or chips for dinner," Mrs Chawner told Closer magazine.
I read that as they each have a box of Sugar Pops for breeakfast, I don't know what "bacon butties" are (sounds like bacon fried in butter) but it doesn't sound like low-cal fare, "microwave pie" and chips for dinner for dinner?

I don't think the Onion could have made up a more ridiculous satire.

[chillzero]

A buttie is a sandwich, or a roll.

[RoboTimbo]

I'm reminded of Daisy and Onslow, except Daisy and Onslow were likeable.

[bonavada]

Isn't Housing/Council Tax Benefit included in that £22,508?

Yes looks like it is. Oops. But still, £350 pw is a fair old wedge for a "small" family rent paid.

When they say "we deserve more" I think they mean more Cadburys Moments or crumpets drenched in Welsh salted butter.

BV

[Rolfe]

Despite my general distrust of the media but given this family's previous efforts to gain media attention I would say they aren't allowing as much as encouraging media interest.


Darat, you need to go for the MDC. My fingers hovered over the keyboard with "encouraging" in mind at that point.

Rolfe.

[bob_cadaver]

We have cereal for breakfast, bacon butties for lunch and microwave pies with mashed potato or chips for dinner," Mrs Chawner told Closer magazine.

"All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive. We're fat because it's in our genes. Our whole family is overweight," she added.



Mystery solved: It's in their GENES, not their mouths...Phew, I was getting confused there thinking their weight problems came from their food choices and their only form of exercise apparently being watching the tv.

[bonavada]

Mystery solved: It's in their GENES, not their mouths...Phew, I was getting confused there thinking their weight problems came from their food choices and their only form of exercise apparently being watching the tv.

Hang on, what about all that tattie-mashing? That must burn up dozens of cals.

ETA For Wildcat, a bacon butty.


http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/874849c24dbf20e79.jpg


BV

[timhau]

The people in concentration camps always looked remarkably thin, so I guess they must have selected the inmates on different criteria.

Yes, not a single genetically obese person in there. They all withered down to skin and bone.

Apparently, fat freeloaders weren't considered untermensch.

[Piercy]

I had a teacher in junior high that was much MUCH bigger than any of these people. She could hardly stand. Ironically she was my health teacher, and a smoker until recently.

[Darat]

Was her funeral well attended?

[geni]

Well, they're complaining about it now. Yet they've scraped by for long enough on £22k a year without complaining (or maybe they have but haven't hit the papers until now). Could they have been out earning more when there was an abundance of jobs? I'm not one to take a "Get on your bike and look for work" stance, but have they made any effort at all, or are they sitting on a sense of entitlement?

The older daughter is aparently applying for about 30 jobs per week.

[Rolfe]

What about the allegations of threatened eviction for antisocial behaviour?

Rolfe.

[steffanie]

I would have a certain amount of sympathy. A tiny bit. But they should not have more money handed down. They could still work without a doubt. They could try loosing the weight definitely. A 20 minute walk in the evening would do wonders over a few weeks. Eat less.
I don't buy that they don't know how to loose weight for a moment. Surely if you are prone to weight gain and you exercise regularly while eating well you would keep the pounds down or at least see them come off.
I have a huge food bill every week or so because i eat very well. I refuse to eat processed rubbish. It can be expensive but i am lucky i can do it, but it can be done on the cheap also. There are no excuses.
Their hearts must be under savage pressure. I hope they find the willpower to loose some weight.

[Sun Countess]

I'm pretty sure I've got the same "genetic predisposition" to gain weight if I eat 50% more than my body requires. I've also got a genetic predisposition to getting extremely sunburned if I go out unprotected for more than half an hour on a sunny day. I do manage to get by, in spite of these horrendous hereditary conditions I've been saddled with.

The Chawmers do know what they could be doing as noted in the article: All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive.

I'm a student and don't have time to exercise.

[WildCat]

ETA For Wildcat, a bacon butty.


http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/874849c24dbf20e79.jpg


BV
Wow, I was expecting something like a BLT. That... is disgusting. Is there ketchup on it? :jaw-dropp

[richardm]

The older daughter is aparently applying for about 30 jobs per week.

I find that rather hard to credit. The only link I can find that says anything like that is this one (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/03/19/83st-family-s-too-fat-to-work-and-too-busy-watching-tv-to-diet-115875-21210567/) which says


Emma and Samantha - both trained hairdressers - say they apply for around 30 jobs every week but each time get refused.
Samantha says: "The thing is, you go into a hairdresser's and all you see are skinny girls working there. You never see bigger girls."


How long would it take to exhaust all the advertised jobs for hairdressers in Blackburn at a rate of 30 jobs a week? Additionally, the other article reckoned her sister is a student studying to be a hairdresser, so clearly we're getting slightly different stories.



Perhaps they're not just applying for hairdressing jobs since


She adds: "I'd do anything I reckon. Apart from a cleaning job. Urrrgh, cleaning after people. That'd be horrible."




Even so, applying for 30 jobs a week? My credulity is stretched.



Still, I'd also quite like to see what they're applying for and what their applications look like, and what support they're being given from the jobcentres. Surely someone so motivated to apply for jobs should be given more help.

[Ocelot]

Still, I'd also quite like to see what they're applying for and what their applications look like, and what support they're being given from the jobcentres. Surely someone so motivated to apply for jobs should be given more help.

If she's doing more than two applications a day then she's not giving each one the attention they deserve.

[timhau]

She adds: "I'd do anything I reckon. Apart from a cleaning job. Urrrgh, cleaning after people. That'd be horrible."

... so it's better to delegate that to other people. You know, the slackers who don't pay enough taxes to give this family what it deserves.

[Marquis de Carabas]

I'm fatter than all of those people and I'm missing body parts, and I've got a job...

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Hang on, what about all that tattie-mashing? That must burn up dozens of cals.

Fill kettle, put on kettle, open packet, pour contents in bowl. Whn kettle boils, pour water into bowl. Stir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smash_(instant_mashed_potato)

You didn't seriously think they were making it with hideously expensive fresh potatoes did you?

[Darat]

I seriously doubt they are doing anything so complicated and physically demanding as making Smash.....

[Jaggy Bunnet]

I seriously doubt they are doing anything so complicated and physically demanding as making Smash.....

Got to keep the cost down, that £50 a week budget won't stretch to luxuries like frozen mashed potato.

[steffanie]

The daughter said she 'is a student and doesn't have time to exercise'

This is a ridiculous statement to make. You have to make time. What can she possibly be doing that she cannot at the very least, walk around the block? Christ i sleep for 4-5 hours, get up exercise and feed a horse, start work at 7am and work the next 8-9 hours then visit my parents, put horse to bed, cook dinner and if it's a Tuesday or Thursday i gym for an hour also and on Wednesdays i have college for 3 hours.
Why can't she find time to exercise?

[Darat]

Yeah but I bet you've got that genetic disease "skinnyitus"

[Rolfe]

Steffanie, do you ever actually ride this horse? That's good exercise itself, or so I'm told. :D

Rolfe.

[geni]

Even so, applying for 30 jobs a week? My credulity is stretched.


Doable. See:

http://www.reed.co.uk/Job/SearchResults.aspx?l=Blackburn&lid=10174&lp=30&mxs=12000&sb=7&so=1&ns=True&da=173

[Patsy]

The daughter said she 'is a student and doesn't have time to exercise'

This is a ridiculous statement to make. You have to make time. What can she possibly be doing that she cannot at the very least, walk around the block? Christ i sleep for 4-5 hours, get up exercise and feed a horse, start work at 7am and work the next 8-9 hours then visit my parents, put horse to bed, cook dinner and if it's a Tuesday or Thursday i gym for an hour also and on Wednesdays i have college for 3 hours.
Why can't she find time to exercise?

What she said. I work every day, cook, do laundry, keep house, care for my parents, and still work out nearly every day. You cannot tell me that this young woman actually has more responsibilities or calls on her time than I do.

[AgeGap]

... so it's better to delegate that to other people. You know, the slackers who don't pay enough taxes to give this family what it deserves.
I work as a nurse and can clear up mess and do it with a smile on my face. If I became unemployed there are jobs I would not do. The girl won't clean, so what?
Manchester, close to where she lives, has ten unemployed chasing every job. It is hard finding employment, perhaps even more so if you are overweight.

[steffanie]

Yeah but I bet you've got that genetic disease "skinnyitus"

If that was directed at me i can assure you i don't have skinnyitus! I wish. If i stop exercising i will gain. :(

[steffanie]

Steffanie, do you ever actually ride this horse? That's good exercise itself, or so I'm told. :D

Rolfe.

:D Half hour flat work every morn. Lots more at the weekend. :p

[Neverfly]

Now...

I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression...

I'm just a curious guy is all.

How does one go about umm... putting a horse to bed?

[steffanie]

I make sure he's nice and cozy, has water and feed and a bed time story. Then i sing to him untill i see z z z z Z Z Z Z

Cheeky.

[technoextreme]

What can she possibly be doing that she cannot at the very least, walk around the block? Christ i sleep for 4-5 hours, get up exercise and feed a horse, start work at 7am and work the next 8-9 hours then visit my parents, put horse to bed, cook dinner and if it's a Tuesday or Thursday i gym for an hour also and on Wednesdays i have college for 3 hours.
Why can't she find time to exercise?
In that time period I can probably just about get my homework done.:) I've actually managed to loose weight on the Super Size Me diet while it nearly killed Spurlock. Then again I could just very well be underestimating the power of walking or the junkiness of the food I ate.

[shuize]

This article (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/03/19/83st-family-s-too-fat-to-work-and-too-busy-watching-tv-to-diet-115875-21210567/) is too good to be true. There are many funny lines, but I think this one is my favorite:

"I could do something from home but if I concentrate I could have a fit. That happened once and I broke the table leg as I fell."


Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeah, watch out. The first time it was just a table leg. If she concentrates again, she might fall and punch a hole in the wall ... or the fabric of space time.

I also like how the newspaper articles describe their weight in "stones" ... I know that's a British thing, but I still think it's funny that they're so damn heavy their weight has to be measured in rocks ... many, many rocks.

[steffanie]

I said walking as it is probably the safest, easiest exercise you can do. It has to have some benefit to some one so over weight if genetics are involved or not. Surely? Plus they would have to start off with walking, i don't see somebody suggesting intense cardio programme initially.
People differ when it comes to diets. What works for you may not work for me.

I refuse to believe she does not have time for college and getting a breath of fresh air in the evening or in the morning.

[Rolfe]

Spurlock's experience was interesting in that all the bad stuff happened in the first week. He stabilised after that. The really scary stuff was due to the sudden change from his girlfriend's healthy veggie cooking to the Big Macs.

He also showed a guy who'd maintained a normal weight and a low cholesterol on an absolutely eyepopping number of Big Macs. But that guy didn't usually eat the chips and his total calorie intake probably wasn't that mad. And probably took reasonable exercise.

Everything in moderation.

Rolfe.

[Neverfly]

I see this as just another part of the very strong socialist "pity me" trend.

[Rolfe]

This article (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/03/19/83st-family-s-too-fat-to-work-and-too-busy-watching-tv-to-diet-115875-21210567/) is too good to be true. There are many funny lines, but I think this one is my favorite:

Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeah, watch out. The first time it was just a table leg. If she concentrates again, she might fall and punch a hole in the wall ... or the fabric of space time.

I also like how the newspaper articles describe their weight in "stones" ... I know that's a British thing, but I still think it's funny that they're so damn heavy their weight has to be measured in rocks.


On TV it says unemployment levels have hit two million. Audrey [the mother] launches into a rant: "They should go to the JobCentre, look in the paper. People use too many excuses. You can't be fussy these days, you need to take what's available."


:dl:

Rolfe.

[steffanie]

In that time period I can probably just about get my homework done.:) I've actually managed to loose weight on the Super Size Me diet while it nearly killed Spurlock. Then again I could just very well be underestimating the power of walking or the junkiness of the food I ate.

You lost weight on a diet of big macs? Fair play. Did you have your cholesterol checked?
If i look at one i will gain 2 stone.

Walking is a fantastic exercise. Or the cross trainer, no impact on joints which is what they would need but the cross trainer is demanding. It's an evil machine.

[technoextreme]

I said walking as it is probably the safest, easiest exercise you can do.
Depends on where you are walking. Back where I lived there was no where to walk and it would become an act of whether or not you wanted to commit suicide.
You lost weight on a diet of big macs? Fair play. Did you have your cholesterol checked?
If i look at one i will gain 2 stone.

Actually, I should restate that. I've lived on a diet that has consisted of food that takes five minutes to prepare by someone behind a counter. I also remember during that time period consuming a bag of chips every week. And I think the only time I've ever had high blood pressure is when I literally ran to the doctors office because I was late.

[JihadJane]

If I woke up one day and found my body had been switched with one of theirs, the first thing I'd do is sketch out a healthy eating and exercise regime. Within a couple of years, I'd be much thinner, fitter and better able to work.

By which time, the person in that family who got my body would probably have gorged it to obesity...

You are separating body from mind.


I don't see your point here. :confused:


Is obesity all in the mind?

Can the mind control the body?

Wake up in a body, wake up in the mind. The two are inseparable.


“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. ...”

The Metamorphosis -Franz Kafka

http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm

[steffanie]

Depends on where you are walking. Back where I lived there was no where to walk and it would become an act of whether or not you wanted to commit suicide.

Actually, I should restate that. I've lived on a diet that has consisted of food that takes five minutes to prepare. I also remember during that time period consuming a bag of chips every week.

Where did you live? Then it's a tread mill if you cannot walk in your neighbourhood. Where this family is from is not as dangerous as where you seem to have lived.
At the end of the day this family needs to get healthy. Fact. They need to get off their arse and get active. In moderation slowly and carefully it will have a positive affect.

What diet were you on? I am curious.:)

[technoextreme]

What diet were you on? I am curious.:)
The whatever the hell I want to diet which technically doesn't qualify as a diet you want to be on. Admittedly, no Mcdonalds or Wendy's on that diet. Quizons, Subway, Au Bon Pon, Boloco, Qdoba, and pretty much everything else was fair game. For all I know the entire premise of Super Size Me could be entirely wrong and not all fast food is "Bad".

[Sunstealer]

We shouldn't be giving these people money we should be giving them food vouchers that they can spend as part of a balanced diet and not for buying pies, kebabs and chips.

People work hard to pay tax to keep these **** in a life of riley. They don't have to do anything to get shelter, water, food, electricity, heating, telly - they just sit back and it all comes to them.

There are thousands like this lot - personally I'd give em 6 months to sort it out then it would be to a fat camp and if they then couldn't hack it I render the useless fat b******s down. This is what is wrong with Labour and welfarism in the UK, paying people to do nothing all day. We should have a tax system that makes it worthwhile to work, but this is what you get with Labour's "social justice". Costs us £ Billions and makes a mockery of those who do have genuine problems and those that work on the minimum wage.

And breathe.....

[JihadJane]

We shouldn't be giving these people money we should be giving them food vouchers that they can spend as part of a balanced diet and not for buying pies, kebabs and chips.

People work hard to pay tax to keep these **** in a life of riley. They don't have to do anything to get shelter, water, food, electricity, heating, telly - they just sit back and it all comes to them.

There are thousands like this lot - personally I'd give em 6 months to sort it out then it would be to a fat camp and if they then couldn't hack it I render the useless fat b******s down. This is what is wrong with Labour and welfarism in the UK, paying people to do nothing all day. We should have a tax system that makes it worthwhile to work, but this is what you get with Labour's "social justice". Costs us £ Billions and makes a mockery of those who do have genuine problems and those that work on the minimum wage.

And breathe.....



It's hard to put one's finger on it but there's something unsavory about putting people in concentration camps, murdering them and turning them into soap.

I think I'll stick with the Welfare State.

Be grateful they're not costing you trillions.

[NobbyNobbs]

Mystery solved: It's in their GENES jeans,


You had a misspelling there. I fixed it for you.

[Policenaut]

Qdoba

Qdoba is good stuff. If you don't get any cheese it's a healthy and large meal.

[ZirconBlue]

How does one go about umm... putting a horse to bed?

Haven't you seen The Godfather?

[technoextreme]

Qdoba is good stuff. If you don't get any cheese it's a healthy and large meal.
True. As I said before I have no clue if I was just unconsciously eating healthy foods by accident.

[Neverfly]

It's hard to put one's finger on it but there's something unsavory about putting people in concentration camps, murdering them and turning them into soap.

I think I'll stick with the Welfare State.

Be grateful they're not costing you trillions.

Don't you think you're taking Sunstealers commentary literally?

There are no concentration camps, murdering or soap involved.

At all.

Using this to claim that it's best to stick to a welfare state is ... nonsense*.
And apologies in advance if you were joking, being sarcastic or if I read you too literally.



*The censor got me.

[funk de fino]

It's hard to put one's finger on it but there's something unsavory about putting people in concentration camps, murdering them and turning them into soap.

I think I'll stick with the Welfare State.

Be grateful they're not costing you trillions.

Are you a fatty boom boom?

[JoeyDonuts]

Qdoba is one of a small family of restaurants whose food results in satisfying well-formed ah..."excremeditations," to steal a phrase from Bob Dobbs.

Others include P.F. Chang's, Famous Dave's, and Subway assuming you bulk up on the spinach.

[Skeptic]

Am I the only one who thinks the solution is staring us in the face?

1). Give them nothing.
2). They won't have money for food.
3). They won't eat.
4). They'll lose weight.
5). They could work.

Problem solved.

[Skeptic]

It's hard to put one's finger on it but there's something unsavory about putting people in concentration camps, murdering them and turning them into soap.

Oh, I'm sure you don't believe THAT. It's all a Zionist myth to justify their imperialist conquests, remember? Just ask Al Quaeda and Hamas!

[plumjam]

The rest of the family are still in the front room. The only movement comes from their energetic Yorkshire Terrier.
:D

[jhunter1163]

I'm going to call out fat from work tomorrow.

[timhau]

I work as a nurse and can clear up mess and do it with a smile on my face. If I became unemployed there are jobs I would not do. The girl won't clean, so what?

Well, you have job history. The way I read it, nobody in this family has worked for over a decade. The girl has none. Prospective employers have no way of telling whether she can hold a job; obese or not, she'll always lose the competition to someone who has a record. That crucial first step gets a lot harder if you go "eww, gross" on non-glamorous entry-level jobs.

Manchester, close to where she lives, has ten unemployed chasing every job. It is hard finding employment, perhaps even more so if you are overweight.

All the more reason not to be choosy. That is, unless you're looking for excuses not to work, which seems to be at least as genetic as obesity in this family.

[Neverfly]

Am I the only one who thinks the solution is staring us in the face?

1). Give them nothing.
2). They won't have money for food.
3). They won't eat.
4). They'll lose weight.
5). They could work.

Problem solved.

Or...
1). Give them nothing.
2). They won't have money for food.
3). They won't eat.
4). They'll starve
5). The faulty genes get eliminated from the gene pool.

Problem solved.

[Ian Osborne]

Prospective employers have no way of telling whether she can hold a job; obese or not, she'll always lose the competition to someone who has a record. That crucial first step gets a lot harder if you go "eww, gross" on non-glamorous entry-level jobs.

True enough, but if you've been unemployed for more than six months in the UK, you can go on a government Training for Work programme which gives you both academic and on-the-job training. She'd come out of it with qualifications, references and something to brag about on her CV (resumé).

These programmes are not perfect, but they do a good job of breaking the vicious circle you describe.

[Darat]

And they can not claim to be victims of the recent economic problems.

[Ian Osborne]

And they can not claim to be victims of the recent economic problems.

Quite. They were sat on their butts during ten years of economic growth.

[JihadJane]

Don't you think you're taking Sunstealers commentary literally?

There are no concentration camps, murdering or soap involved.

At all.

Using this to claim that it's best to stick to a welfare state is ... nonsense*.
And apologies in advance if you were joking, being sarcastic or if I read you too literally.



*The censor got me.

Sorry, I was knocked a little unconscious by a tidal wave of unselfconscious, reactionary twaddle and used some poetic license.

For comparison, here are Sunstealer's statement and my revision together. Perhaps you can see that my reframing is not at all far-fetched:

There are thousands like this lot - personally I'd give em 6 months to sort it out then it would be to a fat camp and if they then couldn't hack it I render the useless fat b******s down.

If you render people down you get soap. The process is fatal

It's hard to put one's finger on it but there's something unsavory about putting people in concentration camps, murdering them and turning them into soap.

Later on, inspired by the lovely Skeptic, your own fantasies also reflect the realities of Nazi death camps:

1). Give them nothing.
2). They won't have money for food.
3). They won't eat.
4). They'll starve
5). The faulty genes get eliminated from the gene pool.

Let's hope that none of the bitter and twisted armchair fanatics on this thread ever achieves a position of political power.

[Neverfly]

Sorry, I was knocked a little unconscious by a tidal wave of unselfconscious, reactionary twaddle and used some poetic license.

For comparison, here are Sunstealer's statement and my revision together. Perhaps you can see that my reframing is not at all far-fetched:



If you render people down you get soap. The process is fatal



Later on, inspired by the lovely Skeptic, your own fantasies also reflect the realities of Nazi death camps:

All of the above is irrelevant.
Sunstealer was clearly not seriously advocating such things.
For you to use that a basis to conclude that belief in the welfare state is acceptable- is a pretty obvious fallacy.

ETA: Let me help provide even more clarity, as I don't feel like a useless argument:
In Real Life....
Obese people are not put into concentration camps and melted down into soap.
It is not happening.
This is not what goes on in Real Life.
Maybe it does in Make Believe...

Since we can accept that obese people are not being melted (fatally) down into soap... Does it seem illogical to then invoke Godwins Law and claim that supports the notion that the real life welfare state is acceptable?

Since dragons eat fairies, it's a good thing we have Democrats in office to balance them out.

[Bristow42]

I think these people are victums of the press and deserve the money. I know in this Country, Australia, we are socialy aware of the community needs of our unemployed people, give them $900.00 dollars each to three genarations of people who have never worked in their life, as well as dead people, cats and dogs, people who came here on a holiday and registered for the dole or lodged a tax return. To stimuate the econemy of pubs, pokermachines and plasma TV shops.

[Carnivore]

I work as a nurse and can clear up mess and do it with a smile on my face. If I became unemployed there are jobs I would not do. The girl won't clean, so what?
Manchester, close to where she lives, has ten unemployed chasing every job. It is hard finding employment, perhaps even more so if you are overweight.

This is true. At the small hotel where I work we have people calling and coming in to look for jobs every day. We don't have any, but large numbers of people are proactively looking.(We recently got over 200 applications for a part time reception position.) What most of them have in common is that they will consider anything. People come in looking for bar or reception work, and hearing we have none will often say "What about cleaning staff?"

If someone applied for an advertised job and I asked if they would consider an alternative position I would expect the answer to be "yes" unless there was a very good reason why they couldn't.

Someone who simply turned up their nose at a job because it's not very nice simply isn't serious about finding work.

[JihadJane]

All of the above is irrelevant.
was clearly not seriously advocating such things.
For you to use that a basis to conclude that belief in the welfare state is acceptable- is a pretty obvious fallacy.

ETA: Let me help provide even more clarity, as I don't feel like a useless argument:
In Real Life....
Obese people are not put into concentration camps and melted down into soap.
It is not happening.
This is not what goes on in Real Life.
Maybe it does in Make Believe...

Since we can accept that obese people are not being melted (fatally) down into soap... Does it seem illogical to then invoke Godwins Law and claim that supports the notion that the real life welfare state is acceptable?

Since dragons eat fairies, it's a good thing we have Democrats in office to balance them out.

Perhaps if your make-believe fantasies and Sunstealer's make-believe desires were about other groups besides unemployed, obese people you wouldn't be so blasé about "humorous" suggestions that they are put in camps and "rendered down" or simply left to starve to death.

I didn't say that the Welfare State was acceptable (though I think it is). I said it was preferable to mass murder.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Well a number of posters must be feeling better now after getting rid of all that poisonous bile from their systems.
And to all the sparkling geniuses posting their patented 'eat less exercise more' solution, thanks, that should cripple the multi-billion dollar diet industry and resolve the obesity epidemic within six months.

Seriously, these people have been living like this for 11 years, and their daughters have never known anything else, if there was a solution they were capable of implementing, they would have done it by now.
I acknowledge that they are not particularly pleasant sounding people, and if I was preparing my guest list for people to be stuck on a desert island with they would be pretty far down, but still some of the comments here are beyond the pale.

[richardm]

Doable. See:

http://www.reed.co.uk/Job/SearchResults.aspx?l=Blackburn&lid=10174&lp=30&mxs=12000&sb=7&so=1&ns=True&da=173

Doable, perhaps. Believeable might be another matter. I didn't say the jobs weren't available, I did say it stretches credulity that they're really applying for 30 a week.

In short: I don't believe it.

[bonavada]

Doable, perhaps. Believeable might be another matter. I didn't say the jobs weren't available, I did say it stretches credulity that they're really applying for 30 a week.
In short: I don't believe it.


To be fair, I think no-one in this family is quoted (in the press articles) saying that they are "too fat to work". The mother and father are claiming disability benefits for recognised illnesses and there's only a suggestion by Emma (?) that prospective empolyers prefer "skinny" types. It does seem like a little bit of creativity by the various journo's.

As for cleaning work, I can vouch from experience that it can be a strenuous occupation. A while ago I worked part-time with maintenance crews on a local fleet of coaches and busses. Each had to be cleaned to a high standard. Cleaning is not just a feather duster and marigolds. I doubt these girls could hack it.

Qualifications are the key here, maybe they should go back to college and re-train. If they were my daughters I would suggest the retail sector or perhaps even the caring professions.

BV

[steffanie]

Well a number of posters must be feeling better now after getting rid of all that poisonous bile from their systems.
And to all the sparkling geniuses posting their patented 'eat less exercise more' solution, thanks, that should cripple the multi-billion dollar diet industry and resolve the obesity epidemic within six months.

Seriously, these people have been living like this for 11 years, and their daughters have never known anything else, if there was a solution they were capable of implementing, they would have done it by now.
I acknowledge that they are not particularly pleasant sounding people, and if I was preparing my guest list for people to be stuck on a desert island with they would be pretty far down, but still some of the comments here are beyond the pale.

So what do you suggest? That they continue to not work and sponge from the government? What has been so wrong with people suggesting to eat less and get healthier? Are you so sure this family have tried every solution, have looked down every avenue, have exhausted every option? Where was the incentive for them to get off their arse when they've been handed cash every week?
Sparkling geniuses? Nice.

[steffanie]

The whatever the hell I want to diet which technically doesn't qualify as a diet you want to be on. Admittedly, no Mcdonalds or Wendy's on that diet. Quizons, Subway, Au Bon Pon, Boloco, Qdoba, and pretty much everything else was fair game. For all I know the entire premise of Super Size Me could be entirely wrong and not all fast food is "Bad".

I have only heard of Subway and McDonald's. Subway is yummy. I would not really consider it fast food, it's healthy enough I'd say? There is worse out there. I adore a Whopper after a few beers. :drool:

-Burger King that is.:D

[Sunstealer]

I have JJ on ignore - so I've just read the commentary. To clear it up. I'd give these people every chance to reform and not be a burden on the tax payer. These people are leeches - they live off the hard work of everyone else. The welfare system should be there for people who have fallen on hard times or cannot work through no fault of their own. Most of these peoples illnesses are self inflicted through eating too much and getting fat.

These people do not wish to reform, are quite happy to continue the way they are and actually want more of yours and my money. Why should hard working people who are on the minimum wage pay tax in order for these people to live a very comfortable life? No one minds paying the tax, hell I've had to get Job Seeker's Allowance a couple of times, but I got off my rear and got a job, it wasn't for 11 years.

I would give them the chance - 6 months - then I'd force a change of diet/exercise/learning new skills/retraining etc. If after that they went back to their old pattern rather than try I'd personally pull the trigger on each and every one of them with no remorse and no regrets knowing full well I'd done the UK a massive favour. And yes I'd render them down or use them as pig feed - waste not want not, it's green to recycle.

The way they are now is a waste of skin and oxygen. And people moan about huge immigration in the UK, but it's to do the jobs that these people won't. I'd much rather have the hard working Pole as a neighbour and welcome them with open arms than those 4.

These people wouldn't last 5 minutes in places like Africa where people have to graft very hard just to get enough food to eat or walk miles for clean water let alone live in excellent accommodation with electricity, gas, water, sanitation, free healthcare, etc, along with a generous benefit that allows them to purchase more calories than they need. It's disgraceful and yet they have the gall to say they deserve more. They deserve a chance and if they don't take it they deserve nothing.

Sorry to those thinking I wasn't serious and defending me (although I'm not talking about concentration camps as per Nazi Germany, but I am talking about killing these sorts of people after all other options have been tried), but I think if push came to shove I'd give it a go. I'm sure we'd see significant figures showing people actually going back to work. I'd also make it worthwhile to take low paid jobs by massively increasing the personal tax allowance to take low paid workers out of income tax altogether.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

I have only heard of Subway and McDonald's. Subway is yummy. I would not really consider it fast food, it's healthy enough I'd say? There is worse out there. I adore a Whopper after a few beers. :drool:

-Burger King that is.:D

As with most fast food outlets, it depends what you order. Subway came in for a lot of criticism in the UK recently for extremely high salt content in some of their products.

[Neverfly]

So what do you suggest? That they continue to not work and sponge from the government? What has been so wrong with people suggesting to eat less and get healthier? Are you so sure this family have tried every solution, have looked down every avenue, have exhausted every option? Where was the incentive for them to get off their arse when they've been handed cash every week?
Sparkling geniuses? Nice.

No, he's not sure.

But it's a safer bet that it's easier to sit on your butt than it is to work.

[steffanie]

As with most fast food outlets, it depends what you order. Subway came in for a lot of criticism in the UK recently for extremely high salt content in some of their products.

Nooooo! Ignorance was bliss. I would opt for Subway over Burger King thinking it was the healthy option, it probably is but not by much.
Salt. It all comes down to salt doesn't it.

[steffanie]

Indeed.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Nooooo! Ignorance was bliss. I would opt for Subway over Burger King thinking it was the healthy option, it probably is but not by much.
Salt. It all comes down to salt doesn't it.

To be fair, I think if you went for something that you thought was reasonably healthy you would be fine. The really high salt was in the Meatball Marinara (4.7g of salt in the six inch, 7.2g in the footlong) which I doubt many people were buying as a healthy option.

[ZirconBlue]

Seriously, these people have been living like this for 11 years, and their daughters have never known anything else, if there was a solution they were capable of implementing, they would have done it by now.

Based on the information we have, so far, that is not a logical assmption. Assuming people can't do something just because they haven't is illogical. Let me see if I can fix it for you.

Seriously, these people have been living like this for 11 years, and their daughters have never known anything else, if there was a solution they were capable of willing to implementing, they would have done it by now.

That's a little more accurate, I think.

[timhau]

That sounds about right.

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=3074423

[Skeptic]

Seriously, these people have been living like this for 11 years, and their daughters have never known anything else, if there was a solution they were capable of implementing, they would have done it by now.

The idea here seems to be that the most aid should go, not to those most deserving, but to those who can claim to have the bigger problem: if they tried to lose weight and succeeded, they would have no right for government money; but if they didn't bother and kept gaining weight, they deserve money.

The result of this, in many European countries (e.g., Britian) is, naturally, to expodentially increase "incurable" alcoholism and drug addiction, having illegitimate children to grow up fatherless, violent and asocial behavior, and so on: the more deparved your behavior is, the less you are willing to take responsibility for you own life and try to improve it, the more government help you surely need, and the higher your government dole will be.

These folks are just the logical conclusion of this policy -- if alcoholism and drug addiction already are treated as "diseases", resulting in government benefits without the least regard to the person's own responsiblity for becoming a drunk dopehead in the first place, why not obesity?

[chillzero]

But then the problem is one of priority. Why should additional money be channeled toward this family, who are housed and fed, when there are homeless needing assistance, hospitals needing heart machines, children needing social care.... the list is ridiculous.

[Policenaut]

Nooooo! Ignorance was bliss. I would opt for Subway over Burger King thinking it was the healthy option, it probably is but not by much.
Salt. It all comes down to salt doesn't it.

Salt doesn't make you fat though. It's not exactly healthy to load up on it and you will retain some excess water but you won't get fat on a salt diet. Actually you'd probably die from kidney failure but that's neither here nor there.

Also I agree with Zircon. They COULD implement a plan if they WANTED to. It's as if these are the first fat people in the world and there is no solution to their problem. The solution is quite simple. It's a matter of finding the solution (hello internets/library/doctor/etc.) and then having the will power to follow it.

[Seanette]

I'm dubious about the article's claim that the husband/father's epilepsy is weight-related (asthma being weight-related makes a little more sense in view of the extra strain that much bulk would place on the respiratory system).

OTOH, if they're really eating 3000 calories/day each, good grief! Let's at least cut the amount we're shoveling down just a bit. (I admit to being overweight myself, in part due to questionable dietary habits.)

ETA: Hmmmm, two different articles are stating the parents' medical situations rather differently. One had the husband as the epileptic (unless I drastically misread), the other has the mother with that problem. One article also did not mention anyone being diabetic (and as Bob can attest, weight loss would help that problem a lot too).

[JihadJane]

I have JJ on ignore - so I've just read the commentary. To clear it up. I'd give these people every chance to reform and not be a burden on the tax payer. These people are leeches - they live off the hard work of everyone else. The welfare system should be there for people who have fallen on hard times or cannot work through no fault of their own. Most of these peoples illnesses are self inflicted through eating too much and getting fat.

These people do not wish to reform, are quite happy to continue the way they are and actually want more of yours and my money. Why should hard working people who are on the minimum wage pay tax in order for these people to live a very comfortable life? No one minds paying the tax, hell I've had to get Job Seeker's Allowance a couple of times, but I got off my rear and got a job, it wasn't for 11 years.

I would give them the chance - 6 months - then I'd force a change of diet/exercise/learning new skills/retraining etc. If after that they went back to their old pattern rather than try I'd personally pull the trigger on each and every one of them with no remorse and no regrets knowing full well I'd done the UK a massive favour. And yes I'd render them down or use them as pig feed - waste not want not, it's green to recycle.

The way they are now is a waste of skin and oxygen. And people moan about huge immigration in the UK, but it's to do the jobs that these people won't. I'd much rather have the hard working Pole as a neighbour and welcome them with open arms than those 4.

These people wouldn't last 5 minutes in places like Africa where people have to graft very hard just to get enough food to eat or walk miles for clean water let alone live in excellent accommodation with electricity, gas, water, sanitation, free healthcare, etc, along with a generous benefit that allows them to purchase more calories than they need. It's disgraceful and yet they have the gall to say they deserve more. They deserve a chance and if they don't take it they deserve nothing.

Sorry to those thinking I wasn't serious and defending me (although I'm not talking about concentration camps as per Nazi Germany, but I am talking about killing these sorts of people after all other options have been tried), but I think if push came to shove I'd give it a go. I'm sure we'd see significant figures showing people actually going back to work. I'd also make it worthwhile to take low paid jobs by massively increasing the personal tax allowance to take low paid workers out of income tax altogether.

(My bold)
Does anyone have a more humane suggestion for alleviating the world's skin shortage?

[Sunstealer]

And that's why I used to have JJ on ignore - no comment about the general issue but a pithy reply that cherry picks a passage and misuses it. JJ you have no reading comprehension - back on ignore.

I wonder how many millions of people wake up every day, but will never have the opportunity that the four sloths have had every day of their wasteful lives.

[Sunstealer]

Epilepsy and diabetes can be treated with drugs (although the severity may obviously still not enable someone to work). The fit obviously doesn't stop him/her from sitting infront of the TV eating biccies all day.

I had a friend who had epilepsy after being attacked and his fits were mostly controllable by drugs - didn't stop him working because he wanted to work, 15 years after the attack he now doesn't have fits, is happily married earning good money in a career. I also know plenty of people with diabetes most notably one of my older cousins, she has to take insulin daily, but it doesn't stop her from working. Infact her mother was lost the use of her legs due to a spinal injury suffered in a car accident (she wasn't driving) and she still managed to find some work so why can't these people?

I agree with Skeptic and Chillzero - this sort of state indulgence means that we tolerate a society that only ever looks to the nanny state for help, but also means we spend money on these people rather than on other things. I'd much rather my money paid for greater support for care of those that have difficulties whether that be mental or physical, much better to help Mencap or Headley Court or Alziehmer's charities.

Imagine what would happen if we all though, "oh to hell with it" and gave up our jobs, sat on ours arses and ate biscuits all day infront of the telly. Who would pay for us? Where would the money come from?

[brodski]

And that's why I used to have JJ on ignore - no comment about the general issue but a pithy reply that cherry picks a passage and misuses it. JJ you have no reading comprehension - back on ignore.

I wonder how many millions of people wake up every day, but will never have the opportunity that the four sloths have had every day of their wasteful lives.

OTOH, I normally disagree with JihadJanes views, but frankly, given how repellent your views are on this issue (death camps for the "work-shy" to coin a phrase) she's going pretty easy on you.
Whilst it is perfectly possible to make rational, well thought out arguments against mass murder, it's usually not worth it. 'Cos if you need it explaining to you that rounding up people and threatening them death unless they lose weight (and then rendering them down for industrial purposes) is wrong, well, frankly you're beyond rational argument. Ridicule is an appropriate response to the ridiculous.

[Elaedith]

Well, you have job history. The way I read it, nobody in this family has worked for over a decade. The girl has none. Prospective employers have no way of telling whether she can hold a job; obese or not, she'll always lose the competition to someone who has a record. That crucial first step gets a lot harder if you go "eww, gross" on non-glamorous entry-level jobs.



All the more reason not to be choosy. That is, unless you're looking for excuses not to work, which seems to be at least as genetic as obesity in this family.

I still haven't heard any logical reason why it would be socially desirable to try to force them to compete with those other nine applicants and increase the chance that one of the other applicants who has a much greater desire to work will miss out on the job instead.

[Ian Osborne]

I still haven't heard any logical reason why it would be socially desirable to try to force them to compete with those other nine applicants and increase the chance that one of the other applicants who has a much greater desire to work will miss out on the job instead.

There hasn't always been ten applicants per job - during the 11 years they've been off work, we've had long periods of near-full employment. Fair play to the girls, they can't do more than keep applying, but their parents are just spongers who give genuine welfare recipients a bad name.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

The result of this, in many European countries (e.g., Britian) is, naturally, to expodentially increase "incurable" alcoholism and drug addiction, having illegitimate children to grow up fatherless, violent and asocial behavior, and so on: the more deparved your behavior is, the less you are willing to take responsibility for you own life and try to improve it, the more government help you surely need, and the higher your government dole will be.

This is a sceptics forum, and you have been posting here for some time, so I presume you omitted the links to evidence of the above assertions for brevity's sake. I'd be interested in reading them, so if you wouldn't mind posting them or PMing them to me I would be grateful. Particularly one showing that the increase in alcoholism in the UK follows a curve of the form y=e^t over recent years.


But then the problem is one of priority. Why should additional money be channeled toward this family, who are housed and fed, when there are homeless needing assistance, hospitals needing heart machines, children needing social care.... the list is ridiculous.

I'm not sure if this was aimed at me or not, but I think I am the only one whose posts could in any way be interpreted as advocating giving them more money.
To clarify my position, I don't think they deserve more money, nor do I think it would help them. I don't know what would, there is a steady increase in obesity rates across many countries in the world and the long term success rates of dietary and lifestyle changes are poor. (I don't have a cite for either of these assertions to hand, but I will get one if asked).

[geni]

There hasn't always been ten applicants per job - during the 11 years they've been off work, we've had long periods of near-full employment. Fair play to the girls, they can't do more than keep applying, but their parents are just spongers who give genuine welfare recipients a bad name.

Except they will have been told by people who they could reasonably regard as authorities that they had a dissability that prevented them from working.

[Elaedith]

There hasn't always been ten applicants per job - during the 11 years they've been off work, we've had long periods of near-full employment. Fair play to the girls, they can't do more than keep applying, but their parents are just spongers who give genuine welfare recipients a bad name.

People are referring to how hard the girls are trying NOW or how choosy they are NOW as though it mattered.

If there are more applicants than jobs, then whether or not they are trying, and whether or not they are choosy, makes no difference to anyone except themselves and the other job applicants.

It doesn't matter to the taxpayer which of the applicants gets the job.

If they try harder and become less choosy, they increase their chances at cost to the the other applicants. If they make less effort and become more choosy, this is to their own detriment but to the advantage of the other applicants.

If one of the girls finds a job tomorrow it would be no more rational to praise her for going off benefits than to criticise her for causing another applicant to stay on benefits.

[Kevin_Lowe]

To expand on Geni's point, there will always be people who make up the least-employable n% of the population, for any n.

Whatever the unemployment rate, unless it's zero, some people are going to be unemployable in the sense that there will always be more desirable applicants for any job paying enough to be worth the candle.

I just don't see the point in harassing the bottom 0.1%, or 1%, or whatever of the population to find work when the work probably doesn't exist for them in the first place.

[Ian Osborne]

The fat woman in the story clearly doesn't agree. She says the 2 million unemployed should go to the Job Centre and be less choosy.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

paying enough to be worth the candle

That is part of the problem - if they can get an income equal to a salary of £30k on benefits, there is little chance of them finding jobs that will pay them the same income.

Maybe there would be a lot more jobs worth the candle if after six months on jobseekers allowance without finding a job, they got support in kind only - rent paid, bills paid, a bus pass and a food parcel.

[shuize]

Maybe there would be a lot more jobs worth the candle if after six months on jobseekers allowance without finding a job, they got support in kind only - rent paid, bills paid, a bus pass and a food parcel.


My thoughts as well.

Take their discretionary spending out of the picture. Give them a monthly food parcel or food stamps that don't include Twinkies and cake and then see how long the "too fat to work" excuse holds up.

[geni]

My thoughts as well.

Take their discretionary spending out of the picture. Give them a monthly food parcel or food stamps that don't include Twinkies and cake and then see how long the "too fat to work" excuse holds up.

Not their excuse. You can't go to the unemployement office and say you are too fat to work. The goverment has decided the parents are too fat to work.

[shuize]

Not their excuse. You can't go to the unemployement office and say you are too fat to work. The goverment has decided the parents are too fat to work.


Fine. Take their discretionary spending out of the picture. Give them a monthly food parcel or food stamps that don't include Twinkies and cake and then see how long they agree with the government that they are "too fat to work."

[Skeptic]

So, let's see.

Some people tend to be fat. Some tend to be thin. Those who are fat find it very difficult to become thin, no matter how many diet books they read or how many diets they try. Therefore, fatness has to be some disease, or genetic disposition, a stroke of faith, and it is an awful injustice that some of the fat people suffer ridicule and discrimination for something they have no control over.

But if this is true for fatness, why not for laziness?

Some people tend to be lazy. Some tend to be industrious. Lazy people find it very hard to become industrious and hard-working, no matter how many "habits of effective people" books they read or "increased efficiency" workshops they attend. Therefore, laziness just has to be some disease, or genetic disposition, and it is an awful injustice that lazy people suffer discrimination and ridicule for something they have no control over.

This startling fact had been, in fact, already been discovered by the great sociologist, Jerome K. Jerome -- only, being a victorian, he blamed it on his liver, not on his genes, in Three men in a Boat:

I knoew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a liver-pill circular, in which were detailed various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all... beyond all mistake, the chief among them being 'general disinclination to work of any kind'.

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease ever hardly left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver... and they used to put it down to laziness. 'Why, you skulking little devil, you' they would say, 'get up to do something for your living, can't you?' - not knowing, of course, that I am ill.

What can you do to solve this problem? What can be done to cure the poor innocent victims of fatness and laziness?

Jerome has a solution:

They didn't give me pills' they game me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me -- I have known one clump on the head have more ffect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away to work then and there, than a whole box of pills.

I suggest the same solution. As horrible and incurable fatness is, I have a solution. Tell the fat bastards they simply don't get any money, and if they starve to death -- well, that's just too bad.

You'd be surprised how quickly this will seem to solve the incurable, totally helpless condition that is known as being fat.

[AgeGap]

BBC's Horizon had an episode called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?". It's conclusion was that everybody has an internal regulatory mechanism that controls their weight. Can't get Youtube but I am sure that the episode is on there.

[geni]

Fine. Take their discretionary spending out of the picture. Give them a monthly food parcel or food stamps that don't include Twinkies and cake and then see how long they agree with the government that they are "too fat to work."

What about say blind people? Would you take the same approach there?

[JihadJane]

I suggest the same solution. As horrible and incurable fatness is, I have a solution. Tell the fat bastards they simply don't get any money, and if they starve to death -- well, that's just too bad.

You'd be surprised how quickly this will seem to solve the incurable, totally helpless condition that is known as being fat.

What's your disease, Skeptic, and how do you suggest we treat it? It seems incurable to me.

[Dysphemist]

I'm not sure if anyone has already brought this up.. if not, I have a great solution! Firstly, is there a UK version of "The Biggest Loser"? The show is popular here in Australia (as far as TV ratings go). They could get the whole family to go on, maybe start some kind of family challenge series. Being notorious as they are, they'd probably pull in more viewers. PLUS, the attention-loving family could get their faces on TV every weeknight at 7! AND, we get to see them whinging (no doubt) while their only excuse to be lazy dole-bludgers gets burnt away. Fun, eh?

[Morrigan]

The older daughter is aparently applying for about 30 jobs per week.
If that is true, then she's clearly doing it wrong. For all we know, her "applying" means going up to some business and screaming "give me a job, I deserve one!" and whining when nobody agrees to give her a job.


How long would it take to exhaust all the advertised jobs for hairdressers in Blackburn at a rate of 30 jobs a week? Additionally, the other article reckoned her sister is a student studying to be a hairdresser, so clearly we're getting slightly different stories.
...
Still, I'd also quite like to see what they're applying for and what their applications look like, and what support they're being given from the jobcentres. Surely someone so motivated to apply for jobs should be given more help.
Indeed, that story is suspicious in the extreme.


Well a number of posters must be feeling better now after getting rid of all that poisonous bile from their systems.
And to all the sparkling geniuses posting their patented 'eat less exercise more' solution, thanks, that should cripple the multi-billion dollar diet industry and resolve the obesity epidemic within six months.

This "epidemic" only exists because people are too stupid or too lazy to actually do the "eat less exercise more" technique in the first place. And that industry is merely feeding on that stupidity. It's not like there's a deep, complex societal problem here, where figuring out how to lose weight involves thorough analysis of multiple difficult-to-control factors.


Seriously, these people have been living like this for 11 years, and their daughters have never known anything else, if there was a solution they were capable of implementing, they would have done it by now.

Or maybe, just maybe, they really are incompetent, worthless degenerates without a shred of willpower? Nah, that would not be "humane" or "politically correct" enough. :rolleyes:

[Darat]

Except they will have been told by people who they could reasonably regard as authorities that they had a dissability that prevented them from working.

I very much doubt that.

[geni]

I very much doubt that.

So what mechanism are you suggesting they qualified for dissability benifits by?

[Darat]

So what mechanism are you suggesting they qualified for dissability benifits by?

The standard ones.

[geni]

The standard ones.

Which involve some goverment employee at some point saying that you do indeed have a disability.

[chillzero]

The goverment has decided the parents are too fat to work.
Can you show me where they said that?

[geni]

Can you show me where they said that?

See the parents are on dissability benifit. Now job centre plus may not be the world's most competant group but for some reason you can't just walk in and say something along the lines of "I have a dissability that prevents me from working" and get money. Whatever the reason for this you don't get the money untill the job centre has said decided that by jove you do indeed have a dissability that prevents you from working.

[Darat]

Which involve some goverment employee at some point saying that you do indeed have a disability.

Which is not what you originally claimed....

[chillzero]

See the parents are on dissability benifit. Now job centre plus may not be the world's most competant group but for some reason you can't just walk in and say something along the lines of "I have a dissability that prevents me from working" and get money. Whatever the reason for this you don't get the money untill the job centre has said decided that by jove you do indeed have a dissability that prevents you from working.

So the government has not, actually, decreed this family too fat to work.

[sophia8]

See the parents are on dissability benifit. Now job centre plus may not be the world's most competant group but for some reason you can't just walk in and say something along the lines of "I have a dissability that prevents me from working" and get money. Whatever the reason for this you don't get the money untill the job centre has said decided that by jove you do indeed have a dissability that prevents you from working.To qualify for incapacity benefits, you have to have solid medical evidence that your chronic health problem prevents you from doing certain kinds of work. That means filling in a 56-page questionaire, getting a letter from a consultant, plus a testimonial from somebody unconnected to you, plus a medical examination from a board doctor.
I've tried it twice and been turned down both times, despite having arthritis, angina and very poor sight. So for me, it's bloody annoying seeing these fat slobs, who would be in better health than me if they just ate healthily and exercised, whining about not getting enough money.

[Mobyseven]

Those "reality" show audition segments are deliberately constructed. There's no way every entrant gets to see the celebrity judges, let alone every entrant's parents - she got picked out for her dress, her mediocre singing voice, but mostly for having a family who are also overweight and willing to defend her. That scene was shot solely so they could make some good telly mocking the fatties. If she had a better voice, a better dress and a better figure she'd never have been seen on the show at all.

I'd also be willing to bet they made her sing her lungs out, cut that part out, and only showed the point at which she finally had to give up. Hey presto, the impression is given that she can't sing for very long because she's fat.

While I agree entirely with the first paragraph, I highly doubt the second. I've known people who wouldn't let a person get even that far into a song if they started singing like that. Couple that with the fact that, even with screening people to see the judges there's a hell of a lot of filming to do over an extremely short period of time (especially compared to an audition process that isn't quite as heavily time restricted) and I'd be surprised if what we were shown of her and her family's time with the judges was not at least nine-tenths of full length. Away from the judges there may well have been slightly lengthier interviews though.

[Skeptic]

What about say blind people? Would you take the same approach there?

Probably not. Probably because there are few minor differences, of some moral and practical relevancy, between being fat and being blind. Can you guess what they are?

[Skeptic]

I repeat my perfectly serious point: being fatter than other people is like being lazier than other people: to a certain degree at least, both are probably innate dispositions: some people, it seems, for whatever reason (genes? Basic metabolic level?) simply need to eat more, or sleep and rest more, than others. What's more, such disposition are hard to change -- as anybody who tried to lose weight, or to change their working habits, found out.

So if you think being too fat to work is a disability that deserves government money, being beyond the agent's control because it is hard to change, why not being too lazy to work?

Why should the lazy be discriminated against?

Unfortunately, this is a serious question. Unlike in Jerome's time, where such a claim could be only used as an absurdist joke, in today's welfare state, it is only a matter of time until someone claims just that to get benefits.

[geni]

So the government has not, actually, decreed this family too fat to work.

The goverment has stated that they have a dissability tha prevents them from working. If you want to pretend that descision can reasonably be considered to be unrelated to their weight and/or conditions stemming from it then you are free to do so but I would not view such a pretense as reasonable.

[Skeptic]

I mean, folks -- we have here a family claiming to be too fat to work, and we have people on this forum actually discussing their claim seriously and weighting the pros and cons. That the family is being absurd, as it obviously is, I can undestand -- hey, maybe this long-shot bet will work. But it is beyond me what kind of addled brain will take them seriously.

[chillzero]

The goverment has stated that they have a dissability tha prevents them from working. If you want to pretend that descision can reasonably be considered to be unrelated to their weight and/or conditions stemming from it then you are free to do so but I would not view such a pretense as reasonable.

A government agency is paying them disability benefits. Media reports are mixed but I doubt any have access to medical records anyway. If they are disabled, then that is different from being too fat to work. What you said is unfounded.

[geni]

Probably not. Probably because there are few minor differences, of some moral and practical relevancy, between being fat and being blind. Can you guess what they are?

There are a dozen places where a line could be drawn but that was kind of the next step.

Still we have established that you are prepared to accept that goverments should support people with certain disabilities indefinetly.

One you accept that it just becomes an exersise in line drawing that will be unlikely to please anyone regardless of where you draw the line.

[geni]

A government agency is paying them disability benefits. Media reports are mixed but I doubt any have access to medical records anyway. If they are disabled, then that is different from being too fat to work. What you said is unfounded.

Are you suggesting that they have dissabilities that have not been mentioned? If so why didn't the mirror article (which was about as close to a defence as they are going to get) mention that?

[chillzero]

Are you suggesting that they have dissabilities that have not been mentioned? If so why didn't the mirror article (which was about as close to a defence as they are going to get) mention that?

I see mention of... asthma, epilepsy, a heart condition bad enough to prevent surgery, diabetes, and some un-named genetic disorder. I see the family claim that they are too fat to work (all according to the press). However ... you made the very clear claim that the government has decided this family is too fat to work. That's not the case. Show me anything where the government says they are too fat to work. You said this to disagree that the family make the claim, and in fact said Not their excuse.
It seems to me that it is their excuse - at least as expressed in the article - the family themselves claim they have genetic disorders and disabilities. Once you're on the system and claiming benefits ... that can go on for years.

[bonavada]

Re: the aspiring hairdresser in this family who doesn't like the prospect of cleaning work, I do believe she would find cleaning and other menial jobs to be the main duties for an apprentice in any salon.
Just a thought......

BV

[Rolfe]

I suppose she doesn't want house cleaning work. It's quite difficult to get someone to do that, even though it's just what most women have to do in their own house so not exactly rocket science to bring their standards up to commercial levels.

If someone really wants work, then cleaning work is usually available. Of course, most people are picky who they let into their houses, especially if it's while they're out, so someone with a past - like threatned evictions for antisocial behaviour - might find it difficult to get started. And if they're no good at it, then they won't keep the job.

Rolfe.

[shuize]

Re: the aspiring hairdresser in this family who doesn't like the prospect of cleaning work, I do believe she would find cleaning and other menial jobs to be the main duties for an apprentice in any salon.
Just a thought......

BV


I suspect she doesn't like the prospect of any work that does not involve her sitting on her ass and stuffing her face with Quavers and bacon butties.

[I Ratant]

First Lady Michelle Obama showed up Thursday as a surprise and welcome volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen for homeless poor people not far from the White House.

Can’t afford to buy food, not when you have to pay for the new cell phone with camera.

Maybe we can start a charity which donates unused minutes to the homeless and poor.

[Ian Osborne]

First Lady Michelle Obama showed up Thursday as a surprise and welcome volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen for homeless poor people not far from the White House.

Can’t afford to buy food, not when you have to pay for the new cell phone with camera.

Maybe we can start a charity which donates unused minutes to the homeless and poor.

Ever stopped to think that maybe - just maybe - that person fell on hard times after he bought the cellphone? Or do your possessions instantly disappear as soon as lose your job?

I hope you never have to fall back on welfare yourself, but if you do, you'll find the most annoying thing about it is the self-satisfied plonkers who think they have the right to make you account for every possession in your house and every penny you spend.

[Blue Mountain]

First Lady Michelle Obama showed up Thursday as a surprise and welcome volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen for homeless poor people not far from the White House.

Can’t afford to buy food, not when you have to pay for the new cell phone with camera.

Maybe we can start a charity which donates unused minutes to the homeless and poor.

Let's apply a little bit of critical thinking to that picture and your post:

Is the person taking a picture with cell phone a user of the soup kitchen?
If he is, is that his cell phone?
A telephone number is almost as necessary as a fixed address to get a job these days. Many people are opting to get cell phones only. In this case a cell phone is a necessity, not a luxury.
In today's economy, especially with so many working poor, it's possible to go from having a job that puts food on the table to no job at all awfully quick. The cell phone may be an asset from the days when the person holding it had an income.

[shuize]

I hope you never have to fall back on welfare yourself, but if you do, you'll find the most annoying thing about it is the self-satisfied plonkers who think they have the right to make you account for every possession in your house and every penny you spend.


Yeah. What a crazy idea. Those uppity taxpayers wanting to know where their money is being spent and all. Like, as if ...

[Ian Osborne]

Yeah. What a crazy idea. Those uppity taxpayers wanting to know where their money is being spent and all. Like, as if ...

So if you ever lose your job, you'll be happy to publish your household accounts for us all to scrutinise, and you won't mind us telling you off if we don't agree with your spending?

[Morrigan]

Can’t afford to buy food, not when you have to pay for the new cell phone with camera.
That's a rather dishonest and/or ignorant post. First, how do you know the person taking the cellphone picture is actually there for the help provided, and not because he wanted to photograph a famous woman who showed up in his area? And second, how do you know it's a "new" cell phone? Mobile phones with integrated cameras have been around for several years.
Then, there's the questions everyone else brought up... so yeah, that snarky comment about the picture is a tad unfair without more information.

Edit: not to mention, off-topic, too.

[Ian Osborne]

First, how do you know the person taking the cellphone picture is actually there for the help provided, and not because he wanted to photograph a famous woman who showed up in his area? And second, how do you know it's a "new" cell phone? Mobile phones with integrated cameras have been around for several years.

And third, how do you know it's a functioning cellphone? I don't know how things work in the States, but if it's the same as it is over here, it's entirely possible he cancelled his contract or stopped topping up his pay-as-you-go account, but still uses the phone as a camera.

[shuize]

So if you ever lose your job, you'll be happy to publish your household accounts for us all to scrutinise, and you won't mind us telling you off if we don't agree with your spending?


If I was claiming poverty, I would expect to have to document my assets. Of course, not being a welfare sponge myself, I'd probably try to make due on my own and sell as much as I could before ever applying in the first place. In other words, I wouldn't go to a soup kitchen and take food out of someone else's mouth when I still had the means to provide for myself.

However, if I was living on some form of charity, I would absolutely understand if the people who were giving me the money wanted to know where I was spending it. I can't believe the government doesn't check now.

[Ian Osborne]

Of course, not being a welfare sponge myself

That says it all. :(

[Checkmite]

Of course, not being a welfare sponge myself, I'd probably try to make due on my own and sell as much as I could before ever applying in the first place. In other words, I wouldn't go to a soup kitchen and take food out of someone else's mouth when I still had the means to provide for myself.

And how much money, exactly, do you think he could've gotten for that cell phone? I'm sorry, but the resale value of a cell phone these days depreciates to near zero the minute the box is opened. Meanwhile, the cell phone is still useful, possibly even essential as a job-finding tool.

[I Ratant]

Ever stopped to think that maybe - just maybe - that person fell on hard times after he bought the cellphone? Or do your possessions instantly disappear as soon as lose your job?

I hope you never have to fall back on welfare yourself, but if you do, you'll find the most annoying thing about it is the self-satisfied plonkers who think they have the right to make you account for every possession in your house and every penny you spend.
.
Mine did when I was on unemployment.
And cellphones generally have a VISA card supporting their use.

[I Ratant]

That's a rather dishonest and/or ignorant post. First, how do you know the person taking the cellphone picture is actually there for the help provided, and not because he wanted to photograph a famous woman who showed up in his area? And second, how do you know it's a "new" cell phone? Mobile phones with integrated cameras have been around for several years.
Then, there's the questions everyone else brought up... so yeah, that snarky comment about the picture is a tad unfair without more information.

Edit: not to mention, off-topic, too.
.
There's a church group that feeds the homeless near here every Saturday.
A good feed.
Many people walk to it.
More than a few arrive in their automobiles.
And people with a home and guaranteed food every day show up, because it's "free".
They're entitled to it. i've asked them.

[shuize]

And how much money, exactly, do you think he could've gotten for that cell phone?


More than the cost of that meal, I'd imagine.

But whatever. My post above related to the silly idea that people receiving public assistance don't have any duty to verify how they're spending taxpayer provided money.

I admit my feelings on this matter were largely shaped years ago back when I worked a job related to indigent defense and, like Ratant noted above, welfare sponges would routinely pull up to our office driving nicer cars and sporting more jewelry than most of our workers could afford and then proceed to lie their asses off about how they had absolutely no assets or income and thus needed free representation. This naturally affected the quality of representation for those who legitimately could not afford to hire an attorney on their own.

It especially pissed me off when the court employees in charge of qualifying them would ignore the SUV out in the parking lot and just blindly accept a "zero asset / zero income" statement from these jackasses and then turn around and deny someone who had foolishly filled the form out honestly but was just barely over the limit.

[ysabella]

I find a lot of this thread appalling, because I'm obese. I'm of similar weight to the daughters in this family, whether you measure it in pounds or compare it to rocks. Reading the thread gives me an idea of what you people would think if you saw me on the street.
Let's see: apparently I'm lazy, lack willpower, or possibly am just too stupid to make simple lifestyle decisions. Or just enjoy sitting on my ass too much to make changes. Someone else, put inside my body, would lean it right out. If I had been in a Nazi concentration camp I would have ended up starved skinny like everyone else. Lighthearted slurs for my appearance might include "blob" and "fatty boom boom." There's some mocking of the concept that obesity has anything of a genetic component, so clearly I brought this on myself, and deserve the health issues that I gave myself with it, as well as any ridicule it brings me. Apparently, I should aspire to imitate some of you, with your slimness-enhancing lifestyles. One person hedged their bets by stating facts about most fat people, instead of all, so I suppose they are only mostly likely to make these assumptions about me, not completely likely to.

What am I supposed to say? "I may look similar to that one daughter, but at least I can really sing! And I have a job, ha ha!"

[Philip]

I find a lot of this thread appalling, because I'm obese. I'm of similar weight to the daughters in this family, whether you measure it in pounds or compare it to rocks. Reading the thread gives me an idea of what you people would think if you saw me on the street.
Let's see: apparently I'm lazy, lack willpower, or possibly am just too stupid to make simple lifestyle decisions. Or just enjoy sitting on my ass too much to make changes. Someone else, put inside my body, would lean it right out. If I had been in a Nazi concentration camp I would have ended up starved skinny like everyone else. Lighthearted slurs for my appearance might include "blob" and "fatty boom boom." There's some mocking of the concept that obesity has anything of a genetic component, so clearly I brought this on myself, and deserve the health issues that I gave myself with it, as well as any ridicule it brings me. Apparently, I should aspire to imitate some of you, with your slimness-enhancing lifestyles. One person hedged their bets by stating facts about most fat people, instead of all, so I suppose they are only mostly likely to make these assumptions about me, not completely likely to.

What am I supposed to say? "I may look similar to that one daughter, but at least I can really sing! And I have a job, ha ha!"
I'm obese and I read the entire thread. Although, some posters used disparaging terms for fat people, the main complaint I've seen is that the family in the article could work but don't, that they claim to be too fat to work, and that they feel they deserve more taxpayer money.

A few posters even mentioned that they themselves or people they knew were as fat or fatter than the family members in the article but still had jobs.

I don't recall anyone saying that all or even most fat people are lazy.

Several people have said that fat people could lose weight if they tried, and I agree 100% with them. I'm not fat because of genetics; I'm fat because over time I've continually taken in more calories then I've burned. Even if I have a natural "set point" as some people suggest exists where my body's metabolism tends to decrease if I start losing weight, I could overcome that by eating fewer calories than I burn.

(I may be lazy, but it's not because I'm fat.)

[Seanette]

I don't recall anyone saying that all or even most fat people are lazy.

Nor do I. The only people I recall being described as lazy are these four professional welfare sponges, with all their myriad excuses as to why they can't do anything more with their lives than sit in front of a TV stuffing their faces with 3000 calories/day each.

Never mind all the blind, deaf, paralyzed, etc., WORKERS in the world. You know, the people who want to take care of themselves and want to be known for their abilities rather than their disabilities.

[shuize]

I find a lot of this thread appalling, because I'm obese. I'm of similar weight to the daughters in this family, whether you measure it in pounds or compare it to rocks. Reading the thread gives me an idea of what you people would think if you saw me on the street. Let's see: apparently I'm lazy, lack willpower, or possibly am just too stupid to make simple lifestyle decisions. Or just enjoy sitting on my ass too much to make changes.


As long as you aren't sponging off taxpayers to support your lifestyle, I don't give a damn what you eat or how little you exercise.

[Skeptic]

(Shurg)

Today most cell phones have cameras, and most people -- including the poor -- have cell phones. Don't look now, but the guy probably has a TV set, too. By the way, it's quite likely he does not have a HOUSE phone. Many people in hard times prefer, understandably, to keep only one phone, and usually it is the cell phone they keep.

[ysabella]

I'm obese and I read the entire thread. Although, some posters used disparaging terms for fat people, the main complaint I've seen is that the family in the article could work but don't, that they claim to be too fat to work, and that they feel they deserve more taxpayer money.

A few posters even mentioned that they themselves or people they knew were as fat or fatter than the family members in the article but still had jobs.

I don't recall anyone saying that all or even most fat people are lazy.

The people in concentration camps always looked remarkably thin, so I guess they must have selected the inmates on different criteria. --(response)--
Yes, not a single genetically obese person in there. They all withered down to skin and bone.
I'm not claiming to be "genetically obese" myself, but this seems to imply that no obese person has any legitimate reason for being that way, since starving in a camp would surely slim them down.

This "epidemic" only exists because people are too stupid or too lazy to actually do the "eat less exercise more" technique in the first place. And that industry is merely feeding on that stupidity. It's not like there's a deep, complex societal problem here, where figuring out how to lose weight involves thorough analysis of multiple difficult-to-control factors.
Apparently the increasing number of fat people merely reflects an actual increasing number of people who are too stupid or too lazy to make/keep themselves slim.

A high majority of people who are overweight act like they have no idea how to do it. What they mean is they aren't willing to put in the effort needed.
"I don't know how to lose weight" is really "I like eating very tasty but unhealthy food, and sitting on my ass so much that I'm unwilling to have less of this in order to attain better physical health."
This is saying that overweight people who claim they don't know how to successfully lose weight (and, presumably, keep it off) are in fact pretending not to know. They know how to do it, but instead eat unhealthy food and sit on their asses.

Several people have said that fat people could lose weight if they tried, and I agree 100% with them. I'm not fat because of genetics; I'm fat because over time I've continually taken in more calories then I've burned. Even if I have a natural "set point" as some people suggest exists where my body's metabolism tends to decrease if I start losing weight, I could overcome that by eating fewer calories than I burn.

(I may be lazy, but it's not because I'm fat.)
I might also point out how people want to distance themselves from the Chawner family. It's all over the thread. "Oh, I'm too fat myself, so I'll just admit I eat too much, unlike this deluded family." "Oh, I'm getting lots of exercise and I avoid that nasty junk food that those people eat, because I know what makes me gain."
I suppose it's natural that I would take this all a little more personally. How can I distance myself from this family who don't look so terribly unlike me? Should I be detailing my lifestyle habits to defend myself, lest I be lumped in with them?

Samantha Chawner:

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/09_03/chawnerPA2109_228x424.jpg

ysabella:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3097/3108098621_2c6240f87d.jpg

Actually, I weigh more than she does. About 20 pounds more, if the article's given weight for her is correct. And, obviously, I'm quite a bit older.

[ysabella]

As long as you aren't sponging off taxpayers to support your lifestyle, I don't give a damn what you eat or how little you exercise.
(my bolding)
Yeah, you're clearly not assuming anything about me. :rolleyes:

[timhau]

The people in concentration camps always looked remarkably thin, so I guess they must have selected the inmates on different criteria. --(response)--
Yes, not a single genetically obese person in there. They all withered down to skin and bone.
I'm not claiming to be "genetically obese" myself, but this seems to imply that no obese person has any legitimate reason for being that way, since starving in a camp would surely slim them down.


Given that one of those lines is mine, I'll answer:
There's no such claim there. However, the claim this family made was that being fat is in their genes, that they're genetically determined to be fat the same way I'm genetically determined to have blue eyes and a free earlobe. There are several metabolic conditions/illnesses that cause sometimes dramatic weight gain; some medications necessary for other ailments have the same side effect. These people claimed no such problems, stating boldly that being fat is in their genes and that they're thus fundamentally unable to shed the extra pounds. That is BS; the concentration camp example proves that when calorie consumption exceeds intake (and medical needs are ignored), everybody loses weight. (This is an example I only bring up when irritated by people who constantly claim that for them weight loss is physically/physiologically impossible; whether it's needed or sensible is an entirely new question.)

And by the way, you don't look heavier than that Chawner girl, quite the opposite. You look healthy, she doesn't. If you say you're in good physical shape and can beat me (6'3", 200-pound guy who hates long-distance running) in a 5-mile run, I'll believe you. If she makes the same claim, I don't buy it.

[dafydd]

I think these people are victums of the press and deserve the money. I know in this Country, Australia, we are socialy aware of the community needs of our unemployed people, give them $900.00 dollars each to three genarations of people who have never worked in their life, as well as dead people, cats and dogs, people who came here on a holiday and registered for the dole or lodged a tax return. To stimuate the econemy of pubs, pokermachines and plasma TV shops.

But not to stimulate spelling?

[shuize]

Yeah, you're clearly not assuming anything about me. :rolleyes:


Not when you announce it to the world:


I find a lot of this thread appalling, because I'm obese ...


... rolls eyes right back ...

[Checkmite]

More than the cost of that meal, I'd imagine.


Excellent! So he has dinner that night.

Of course, now he's unhireable because prospective employers can't contact him. So he has to go back to the soup kitchen anyway.

[dafydd]

[QUOTE=ysabella;4541861]I find a lot of this thread appalling, because I'm obese. I'm of similar weight to the daughters in this family, whether you measure it in pounds or compare it to rocks. Reading the thread gives me an idea of what you people would think if you saw me on the street.
Let's see: apparently I'm lazy, lack willpower, or possibly am just too stupid to make simple lifestyle decisions. Or just enjoy sitting on my ass too much to make changes. Someone else, put inside my body, would lean it right out. If I had been in a Nazi concentration camp I would have ended up starved skinny like everyone else. Lighthearted slurs for my appearance might include "blob" and "fatty boom boom." There's some mocking of the concept that obesity has anything of a genetic component, so clearly I brought this on myself, and deserve the health issues that I gave myself with it, as well as any ridicule it brings me. Apparently, I should aspire to imitate some of you, with your slimness-enhancing lifestyles. One person hedged their bets by stating facts about most fat people, instead of all, so I suppose they are only mostly likely to make these assumptions about me, not completely likely to.

What am I supposed to say? "I may look similar to that one daughter, but at least I can really sing! And I have a job, ha ha!"[/Q

Your weight is your own affair.Just don't expect the rest of us to support people like these because they "are too fat to work"

[Patsy]

I'm quite confused why any question of genetic obesity is coming into question in regard to this particular family. If they had been eating a reasonable number of calories from healthy food daily and exercising regularly, I'd say there were a metabolic or genetic problem that should be looked into. But there is no mystery here. If getting fat on 3000 calories a day of fatty garbage and a sedentary lifestyle is a genetic problem, then it is one we all have.

I guarantee that I'd be that size. Guarantee. Perhaps I have a genetic oddity that causes me to only bring lean and healthy foods into my house, instead of bacon butties and twinkies, and eat only an appropriate amount of them? A genetic oddity that forces me to spend an hour working out five days a week while others are vegging out to "The Bachelor who Survived American Idol" and snarfs cheesy poofs?

[shuize]

Excellent! So he has dinner that night.

Of course, now he's unhireable because prospective employers can't contact him. So he has to go back to the soup kitchen anyway.


Well, I guess I must be the exception. I didn't have a cell phone when I got my last job. Or the job before that. Wait, let me check ... No. I'm not alone. My wife didn't own a cell phone when she got her last job either. That's good. I was beginning to worry everyone without a cell phone would be unemployed forever....

But, whatever. I already responded that my post above related to the silly idea that people receiving public assistance don't have any duty to verify how they're spending taxpayer provided money.

[chillzero]

Well, I guess I must be the exception. I didn't have a cell phone when I got my last job. Or the job before that. Wait, let me check ... No. I'm not alone. My wife didn't own a cell phone when she got her last job either. That's good. I was beginning to worry everyone without a cell phone would be unemployed forever....


I assume you had an address? A landline? At the very least an address - how exactly did the company contact you to tell you you got the job?

[Blue Mountain]

Well, I guess I must be the exception. I didn't have a cell phone when I got my last job. Or the job before that. Wait, let me check ... No. I'm not alone. My wife didn't own a cell phone when she got her last job either. That's good. I was beginning to worry everyone without a cell phone would be unemployed forever....
Did you or your wife's employer at any time during the hiring process contact either of you by telephone, or did you or your wife have a reson to contact any potential employer by telephone? Or was it all done by e-mail / regular mail / telegram / message boy?

[timhau]

I'm quite confused why any question of genetic obesity is coming into question in regard to this particular family.

Perhaps because of this (cited from the story linked to in the OP):

We're fat because it's in our genes. Our whole family is overweight.

[Patsy]

Perhaps because of this (cited from the story linked to in the OP):

To be clear, what I mean is, I'm not sure why some posters are acting as if this excuse on their part might be valid. It seems like an easy excuse to dismiss and move on with the discussion, considering the obscene eating habits practiced in this household. Sorry for the unclear wording.

[Checkmite]

This is saying that overweight people who claim they don't know how to successfully lose weight (and, presumably, keep it off) are in fact pretending not to know. They know how to do it, but instead eat unhealthy food and sit on their asses.

Look, I understand why you might be upset, because many of the arguments used to criticize this particular family have been used to criticize or make fun of "all" overweight people at some point. It's easy to point at a fat person and just blithely assume that they eat too much and never exercise. It's not always the case.

But in the case of this family, the "eat too much and don't exercise" criticism is not a presumption at all. They explicitly state, in fairly transparent language, that 1) they overeat, 2) the food they eat is quite fatty and unhealthy, 3) they don't do anything all day. Moreover, it's obvious that they bring up the "genetically predisposed to obesity" argument not really to justify their being fat, but to justify their right to do all of the above without reproach because if they didn't do those things (so they say), they'd still be fat anyway. Patsy is quite right: it doesn't take a genetic predisposition to obesity to get fat, stay fat, and get even fatter when you eat bacon sandwiches, microwave pizza, and fried potatoes all day every day. It's not a "presumption because they're fat" - it's their own words, from their own mouths.

In addition, these people very clearly indicate that they have at least some idea of how to improve their quality of life - by eating "healthy foods", like "fruits and vegs"; their excuse for not buying them is that those foods are "too expensive" - a blatant lie, by the way, if their idea of "too expensive" is "more than what we spend on bacon and microwave pizza".

[shuize]

I assume you had an address? A landline? At the very least an address - how exactly did the company contact you to tell you you got the job?


Funny you should mention it. We were in the process of moving and the letter offering me my current job was sent to my old address and was forwarded late. I would have had the job outright but because of the delay I had to go through an interview process against several other candidates my employer had contacted in the meantime. I had a land line at my new address. I only bought a cell phone at my wife's insistence a few years ago and still hardly ever use it.

In my view, it's not the issue of one guy with a cell phone. You've convinced me that there may be a legitimate reason for him to have it. Although based on my past experience, I'd still wonder whether someone who walked in to a homeless shelter sporting a picture-taking cell phone was really bad enough off to need a free meal.

But, whatever. As I've stated several times already, it's the silly idea that those receiving public assistance have no duty to verify how their spending taxpayer money that prompted my post above.

[Rolfe]

Can you get a mobile phone that doesn't take pictures these days? My old phone died a month or two ago and I asked my provider for a new one as per contract. Just a basic model I said, I've got a digital camera and I surf the internet on my computer, I just want a telephone, OK?

So what turns up? All-singing all-dancing 2-megapixel white elephant.

Rolfe.

[I Ratant]

(Shurg)

Today most cell phones have cameras, and most people -- including the poor -- have cell phones. Don't look now, but the guy probably has a TV set, too. By the way, it's quite likely he does not have a HOUSE phone. Many people in hard times prefer, understandably, to keep only one phone, and usually it is the cell phone they keep.
.
I got another e-mail from the same redneck source as the Michelle Obama message that has a professional welfare recipient bitching because she can't get the 60" plasma tv she's entitled to because she's black, and tried working for 2 months way back when, but it was too hard, and now she's stuck with -only- a 48" plasma tv.

[I Ratant]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Chawner
We're fat because it's in our genes. Our whole family is overweight.
.
Golly, cut the gal a few yards of slack!
The eating gland is enlarged (as well as everything else) in that family!

[Euromutt]

Not when you announce it to the world:
[...]
... rolls eyes right back ...You said:[...] I don't give a damn what you eat or how little you exercise.Right there, you're making the assumption that because she's obese, she must be eating wrong and getting little to no exercise. Which was, I think, the point she was getting at.

Look, I understand why you might be upset, because many of the arguments used to criticize this particular family have been used to criticize or make fun of "all" overweight people at some point.At some point in this thread, in fact. Ysabella cited a brace of examples, all couched in general terms, not specific to the Chawmer family. If you (general "you") are going to backpedal, at least have the grace to acknowledge that you were committing a gross generalization, rather than pretending that ysabella's being unreasonable for calling you on it.

By the way, "pie" in a British context does not mean pizza. We're talking meat pie, such as steak & kidney or (as an example more familiar to Americans) chicken pot pie. Not that that's a huge improvement or anything, just a minor niggle.

[...] the concentration camp example proves that when calorie consumption exceeds intake (and medical needs are ignored), everybody loses weight.So far, so good. But the next question has to be, once you take the concentration camp inmates off the starvation diet, and stop working them to death, are they going to stay thin once they're no longer mal- and undernourished?

[Checkmite]

At some point in this thread, in fact. Ysabella cited a brace of examples, all couched in general terms, not specific to the Chawmer family. If you (general "you") are going to backpedal, at least have the grace to acknowledge that you were committing a gross generalization, rather than pretending that ysabella's being unreasonable for calling you on it.

I made no such generalization, and (general "you") did not author the post you quoted, (specific "you") did. I made no generalizations, therefore have no need to "backpedal", and you can direct your "at least have the grace" comments to those who did so; additionally, the entirety of my post stands: the family this thread concerns has explicitly declared that they eat too much and don't exercise, so it is perfectly valid to criticize their condition as self-imposed, or at least self-perpetuated.

[Morrigan]

Apparently the increasing number of fat people merely reflects an actual increasing number of people who are too stupid or too lazy to make/keep themselves slim.

Actually that is not what I said at all, you are taking my post (and a slew of others) out of context. Someone brought up the "weight loss industry". All I was saying is that this very "industry" exists because people are too lazy, ignorant or stupid to solve their own problems and spend money on fluff "miracle" diets and whatever other bollocks this industry is feeding them.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with being fat. My boyfriend's best friend is fat, knows it, doesn't really care, and I certainly don't think he's stupid nor lazy, nor would anyone who knows him make such a claim. He knows he could lose weight by eating less calories and/or by exercising more (hint: when I said weight loss wasn't rocket science and that this "industry" was frivolous, that's what I meant -- you don't really need to "know" more than that) ; he just chooses not to.

As for the increasing rates of obesity, it doesn't mean that the rate of stupidity/laziness (or even the number of stupid/lazy people) is also increasing. It could very well mean that people have always been roughly as stupid and lazy (and indifferent, and trying-hard-but-not-quite-succeeding, etc.) as always, but now that they are exposed to much more unhealthy food, the rates of obesity claim with it. ;)



This is saying that overweight people who claim they don't know how to successfully lose weight (and, presumably, keep it off) are in fact pretending not to know. They know how to do it, but instead eat unhealthy food and sit on their asses.

Yes, that's what he was saying. Do you seriously think that people are that ignorant? As I said, weight loss not rocket science: eat less calories, burn more calories. Now obviously, there may be plenty of factors that make this less than ideal for some people, such as a genetic predisposition and so on... and he didn't say it would be easy for everyone. But even the struggling, unlucky, genetically-predisposed-to-weight-gain person who's having little success in losing weight despite his best efforts, knows that to lose weight, he needs to eat less and/or burn more calories. If someone is really claiming they do not know what it takes, then their ignorance is pretty staggering, and it seems more reasonable to assume that they are pretending or suffering from extreme self-delusion.


Actually, I weigh more than she does. About 20 pounds more, if the article's given weight for her is correct. And, obviously, I'm quite a bit older.
You must be far taller then, because you are not obese and she is. So I don't know why you feel so defensive. :)

.
I got another e-mail from the same redneck source as the Michelle Obama message that has a professional welfare recipient bitching because she can't get the 60" plasma tv she's entitled to because she's black, and tried working for 2 months way back when, but it was too hard, and now she's stuck with -only- a 48" plasma tv.
I don't think anyone cares about the inane, unsourced chain letters you receive.

[Ranb]

Can you get a mobile phone that doesn't take pictures these days?

Yes you can, but they are not all that common. Where I work, cameras of any kind are not allowed unless officially authorized, this includes cell phone cameras. I use a T-mobile prepaid that cost me $40 to buy and is now about $50 a year to use. Needless to say, it does not get used much. :)

Ranb

[Euromutt]

[...] the family this thread concerns has explicitly declared that they eat too much and don't exercise, so it is perfectly valid to criticize their condition as self-imposed, or at least self-perpetuated.First off, I'd take anything that appears in the British press with a fair dollop of salt, because they've shown themselves time after time to not be above "sexing up" a story, i.e fabricating details. This is the Telegraph; it's a paper catering to a right-wing audience, so a story about some fat spongers with a sense of entitlement a mile wide is just up their alley, even if they have to jazz it up a little.

But even granting that the article is accurate, and such criticism is therefore justified where the Chawmers are concerned, that does not justify gross generalizations about overweight people in general. I refer you again to the brace of quotes ysabella cited that such generalizations have, in fact, been made in this thread. You may not have uttered any of them, but I do notice you were quick off the mark to defend them.

[Darat]

First off, I'd take anything that appears in the British press with a fair dollop of salt,...snip....

Struck out an unnecessary word!

[ysabella]

Given that one of those lines is mine, I'll answer:
There's no such claim there. However, the claim this family made was that being fat is in their genes, that they're genetically determined to be fat the same way I'm genetically determined to have blue eyes and a free earlobe. There are several metabolic conditions/illnesses that cause sometimes dramatic weight gain; some medications necessary for other ailments have the same side effect. These people claimed no such problems, stating boldly that being fat is in their genes and that they're thus fundamentally unable to shed the extra pounds. That is BS; the concentration camp example proves that when calorie consumption exceeds intake (and medical needs are ignored), everybody loses weight. (This is an example I only bring up when irritated by people who constantly claim that for them weight loss is physically/physiologically impossible; whether it's needed or sensible is an entirely new question.)
Thanks for the response. I disagree with the concentration-camp-as-proof, though. Lots of people died before they got that thin. Some were killed as unfit.

And by the way, you don't look heavier than that Chawner girl, quite the opposite. You look healthy, she doesn't. If you say you're in good physical shape and can beat me (6'3", 200-pound guy who hates long-distance running) in a 5-mile run, I'll believe you. If she makes the same claim, I don't buy it.
I probably do have way more muscle mass than the Chawner girl. I don't run very fast, but I do run.

[ysabella]

Not when you announce it to the world:

... rolls eyes right back ...
I announced that I'm obese. I didn't announce anything about my fitness regimen. But I do appreciate you demonstrating my point about people's assumptions.

[ysabella]

Your weight is your own affair.Just don't expect the rest of us to support people like these because they "are too fat to work"
No, indeed. I'm not trying to suggest that the Chawners deserve extra buckets of welfare cash.

[ysabella]

Actually that is not what I said at all, you are taking my post (and a slew of others) out of context. Someone brought up the "weight loss industry". All I was saying is that this very "industry" exists because people are too lazy, ignorant or stupid to solve their own problems and spend money on fluff "miracle" diets and whatever other bollocks this industry is feeding them.
You said the "people" who are contributing to the "epidemic," as in epidemic of obesity, and that the industry was feeding on their stupidity.
Look, I genuinely read your post, more than once, and felt you were expressing a very low opinion of obese people. If you just can't see how an obese person might read what you wrote and feel you are applying negative personality traits to them, I'm not sure how much more I can explain it.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with being fat. My boyfriend's best friend is fat, knows it, doesn't really care, and I certainly don't think he's stupid nor lazy, nor would anyone who knows him make such a claim. He knows he could lose weight by eating less calories and/or by exercising more (hint: when I said weight loss wasn't rocket science and that this "industry" was frivolous, that's what I meant -- you don't really need to "know" more than that) ; he just chooses not to.
For some people, it is that simple. For many, it isn't. People often say it's just simple arithmetic, in this column and that column. But you wouldn't advocate that someone eat 0 calories and burn 2000 a day, even if the math would look great. 1500 calories a day entirely from plain M&Ms isn't going to be an effective fat-loss diet for a lot of people. The real-life math is highly individual and it can be quite difficult to get it working, especially in a way that's livable.

As for the increasing rates of obesity, it doesn't mean that the rate of stupidity/laziness (or even the number of stupid/lazy people) is also increasing. It could very well mean that people have always been roughly as stupid and lazy (and indifferent, and trying-hard-but-not-quite-succeeding, etc.) as always, but now that they are exposed to much more unhealthy food, the rates of obesity claim with it. ;)
Not sure I get you here.

Yes, that's what he was saying. Do you seriously think that people are that ignorant? As I said, weight loss not rocket science: eat less calories, burn more calories. Now obviously, there may be plenty of factors that make this less than ideal for some people, such as a genetic predisposition and so on... and he didn't say it would be easy for everyone. But even the struggling, unlucky, genetically-predisposed-to-weight-gain person who's having little success in losing weight despite his best efforts, knows that to lose weight, he needs to eat less and/or burn more calories. If someone is really claiming they do not know what it takes, then their ignorance is pretty staggering, and it seems more reasonable to assume that they are pretending or suffering from extreme self-delusion.
I would agree that most people start there. But many find out that it's just not that simple, certainly many obese people. The reasons could range across physiological/medical issues, psychological issues, even work/life issues. Some people aren't ignorant so much as misinformed, too.

You must be far taller then, because you are not obese and she is. So I don't know why you feel so defensive. :)
I absolutely am obese. Extremely so, by medical reckoning (certainly by BMI, although I think BMI is pretty worthless). I'm 5'5" so I'm not very tall really. I do have way better dress sense, though.

[ravdin]

For some people, it is that simple. For many, it isn't. People often say it's just simple arithmetic, in this column and that column. But you wouldn't advocate that someone eat 0 calories and burn 2000 a day, even if the math would look great. 1500 calories a day entirely from plain M&Ms isn't going to be an effective fat-loss diet for a lot of people. The real-life math is highly individual and it can be quite difficult to get it working, especially in a way that's livable.

I'd say that weight loss is simple- it may be difficult but it's not complicated. I know what I'm talking about. I recently lost 50 pounds and I am, more or less, at what I think my ideal weight should be. People ask me a lot what my "secret" is, and I tell them that I decided to eat less and exercise more. I didn't really change what I was eating as much as I cut back on the portion sizes. You may not have fun in the short term consuming fewer calories than you're used to, but I guarantee you will lose weight if you do.

A disclaimer- by saying that I am in no way suggesting what anyone on this thread ought to be doing. If you are happy, healthy, and productive with your current shape, more power to you.

[Marquis de Carabas]

I think this thread would be a lot happier if everyone recognised that simple is not the same thing as easy.

[Ian Osborne]

I lost weight by making sure I ate breakfast, and stopped eating last thing at night too. A simple lifestyle change that goes a long way.

[Ian Osborne]

I think this thread would be a lot happier if everyone recognised that simple is not the same thing as easy.

Agreed, but the Chawners should realise that can't isn't the same as won't.

[Skeptic]

I don't see anybody here who has a problem with fat people in general. What annoys me, as well as others, is that some people use their fatness as an excuse to get government money they clearly don't deserve. It's like being annoyed at professional "I can't get a job because I'M BLACK" folks--does that mean you hate Blacks in general?