| Fat 'Tax' - spin off thread 13:07 - May 16 with 2241 views | DanFord |
While there are some important debates going on in the other thread, I would be genuinely interested in specifically how the great public of TWTD would go about testing what is mental illness or physical illness and what is laziness and greed? I have often joked that fat people should pay more than clothes, as someone who fits small to medium clothes. An XXL shirt can be almost twice the material of that of an S. After all if you had a bigger house and needed a bigger carpet in the lounge you'd pay more the the square meters. It is clearly the case that some obese people will have comfort eaten due to traumatic events, bereavements, depression etc and some people are just fat, greedy pigs. Some people can't work due to genuine physical symptoms leading to weight gain and others are lazy and got fat through no such condition. So how on earth do you begin to tackle this? I mean in principal a fat lazy person wearing twice as much fabric as me should pay more. But specifically how do you ever determine that is what they are? Surely it is impossible? Or can we expect doctors to be able to confirm genuine medical conditions - physical or psychological - that have played a part? EDIT - 'Tax' is what it's been referred to, not what I consider it should be! [Post edited 16 May 2018 13:25]
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:12 - May 16 with 2223 views | Marshalls_Mullet |
Firstly we need to remove the 'tax' label. The decision was made on a commercial basis which is understandable, but the u-turn was made based on social media feedback.
Referring to the pricing as a tax is trying to politicise something that is not political.
I appreciate that you didnt coin the term. |  |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:13 - May 16 with 2218 views | SpruceMoose |
I suppose to me, applying the same logic to people and carpets is just eye roll territory. The principle is rejected by me before we even start.
I'm interested in what the real motivation is behind the folks who push this. I suspect for some who are keen on this idea it's about punishing people, rather than helping people, or even actually wanting to motivate people to improve their lives.
There are many reasons to not be overweight. Having to pay 50p extra for a pair of pants is not near the top of that list. So what will it achieve other than making people feel even worse about themselves? |  |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:14 - May 16 with 2215 views | TJS |
I can't really see the problem with charging more money for a product that requires more material and time to manufacture.
If companies want to do that it should be up to them - if you don't want to pay it don't buy it.
If you take this argument to it's logical extreme you could equally argue that fat people should pay the same for twice the amount of food - where does it end ? |  | | |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:16 - May 16 with 2209 views | J2BLUE |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:12 - May 16 by Marshalls_Mullet |
Firstly we need to remove the 'tax' label. The decision was made on a commercial basis which is understandable, but the u-turn was made based on social media feedback.
Referring to the pricing as a tax is trying to politicise something that is not political.
I appreciate that you didnt coin the term. |
If I buy two apples instead of one, i've bought two apples. The second apple isn't a tax.
It's pathetic and people should have been told to stop being stupid. Instead they are reviewing their 'pricing mistake'. It's not a mistake, it's absolutely right.
As for the OP, it's impossible for people to tell. Sometimes the person doesn't know why they're eating excessive amounts of crap until they have spoken to someone.
Rule of thumb for me: If someone is 100+ pounds overweight there is almost certainly an issue. Less than that: Still could be but less likely.
Obviously there are exceptions. Some people can gain that sort of weight eating rubbish and drinking 5 pints a night etc. |  |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:17 - May 16 with 2205 views | BlueBadger |
A lot of conditions feed off each other and lead to others developing. Simple low self-esteem, for example, can lead to comfort eating to obesity, which further fuels the low self-esteem, and so on. Realistically, in conditions related to obesity, most physicians will seek to address a number of underlying conditions and adopt a multi-pronged approach. The specialist obesity team at Addies, for instance, employ not only the requisite specialist doctors, nurses and dietitians as you'd expect but counsellors, psychiatric nurses, physiotherapists and surgeons as well as having 'link' people in specialities like respiratory medicine, endocrinology(glandular stuff, particularly diabetes) and even orthopedics(obese people tend to suffer all sorts of musculoskeletal problems) [Post edited 16 May 2018 13:21]
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:18 - May 16 with 2200 views | DanFord |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:13 - May 16 by SpruceMoose |
I suppose to me, applying the same logic to people and carpets is just eye roll territory. The principle is rejected by me before we even start.
I'm interested in what the real motivation is behind the folks who push this. I suspect for some who are keen on this idea it's about punishing people, rather than helping people, or even actually wanting to motivate people to improve their lives.
There are many reasons to not be overweight. Having to pay 50p extra for a pair of pants is not near the top of that list. So what will it achieve other than making people feel even worse about themselves? |
I suppose it's just part of the overall battle to try and control those that take the pee and expect others to pay. The same with sugar tax. Is it really going to make people healthy? No it won't because the people that drink 20 cans of coke a week will just pay that little bit more. On principal, why should I pay the same for a shirt as someone wearing twice as much fabric, but when a shirt costs £40 to buy and you take into account the labour, packaging and transport costs, then it may be that a shirt would be £40 for S, £42.50 for L and £45 for XL. So like you have said, does this alone encourage me as a lazy, fat person to lose weight. Probably not, neither does all the extra £5 over the year. So as you also rightly say, this would probably just make those with genuine physical or psychological conditions feel worse of victimise them. To answer the other post, of course it's not a tax and I just referred to it by the name it's been banded about under. When you say about motivation, I can imagine it's the retailers trying to make extra money, knowing that like sugar tax it'll have no real effect on units sold but will massively increase profits. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:18 - May 16 with 2200 views | J2BLUE |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:13 - May 16 by SpruceMoose |
I suppose to me, applying the same logic to people and carpets is just eye roll territory. The principle is rejected by me before we even start.
I'm interested in what the real motivation is behind the folks who push this. I suspect for some who are keen on this idea it's about punishing people, rather than helping people, or even actually wanting to motivate people to improve their lives.
There are many reasons to not be overweight. Having to pay 50p extra for a pair of pants is not near the top of that list. So what will it achieve other than making people feel even worse about themselves? |
Admire the sentiment but why should it be an exception? People should pay for the resources they use.I have no issue with that. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:24 - May 16 with 2168 views | DanFord |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:14 - May 16 by TJS |
I can't really see the problem with charging more money for a product that requires more material and time to manufacture.
If companies want to do that it should be up to them - if you don't want to pay it don't buy it.
If you take this argument to it's logical extreme you could equally argue that fat people should pay the same for twice the amount of food - where does it end ? |
Which is exactly the problem. An XL shirt compared to a S shirt is essentially going large on a McDonalds instead of a regular one. You should have to pay more. But I suppose in the fast food example you are choosing to eat more, in the clothing sense you are just buying the appropriate sized garment. It's impossible to know how someone got there. I would guess that for every person I see who is morbidly obese that 90% of them got there through their own over-eating and the 10% may have a medical issue, but I suppose within that 90% how many of them turned to eating due to a traumatic event, depression etc. How many of them were obese as kids due to their parents and have low self esteem as a result or have simply carried it on. It's a minefield. But my gut feeling (pardon the pun) is that if you did charge more for larger clothing that you'd penalise more people that deserved it than not, eg more people are just unhealthy as they choose to be, rather than due to mental illness or a trauma of some kind. But then you are still penalising those people. It's so tricky. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:25 - May 16 with 2162 views | itfcjoe |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:17 - May 16 by BlueBadger |
A lot of conditions feed off each other and lead to others developing. Simple low self-esteem, for example, can lead to comfort eating to obesity, which further fuels the low self-esteem, and so on. Realistically, in conditions related to obesity, most physicians will seek to address a number of underlying conditions and adopt a multi-pronged approach. The specialist obesity team at Addies, for instance, employ not only the requisite specialist doctors, nurses and dietitians as you'd expect but counsellors, psychiatric nurses, physiotherapists and surgeons as well as having 'link' people in specialities like respiratory medicine, endocrinology(glandular stuff, particularly diabetes) and even orthopedics(obese people tend to suffer all sorts of musculoskeletal problems) [Post edited 16 May 2018 13:21]
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I feel like the last two threads are at cross purposes - one was about plus size clothing being more expensive, and now it is about people that are so obese they are requiring clinical treatment |  |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:26 - May 16 with 2155 views | BlueBadger |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:25 - May 16 by itfcjoe |
I feel like the last two threads are at cross purposes - one was about plus size clothing being more expensive, and now it is about people that are so obese they are requiring clinical treatment |
I was ignoring the ramble and answering the question at the end. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:27 - May 16 with 2153 views | J2BLUE |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:24 - May 16 by DanFord |
Which is exactly the problem. An XL shirt compared to a S shirt is essentially going large on a McDonalds instead of a regular one. You should have to pay more. But I suppose in the fast food example you are choosing to eat more, in the clothing sense you are just buying the appropriate sized garment. It's impossible to know how someone got there. I would guess that for every person I see who is morbidly obese that 90% of them got there through their own over-eating and the 10% may have a medical issue, but I suppose within that 90% how many of them turned to eating due to a traumatic event, depression etc. How many of them were obese as kids due to their parents and have low self esteem as a result or have simply carried it on. It's a minefield. But my gut feeling (pardon the pun) is that if you did charge more for larger clothing that you'd penalise more people that deserved it than not, eg more people are just unhealthy as they choose to be, rather than due to mental illness or a trauma of some kind. But then you are still penalising those people. It's so tricky. |
You're overthinking it IMO. It doesn't matter how people get there. The fact is, for whatever reason, they are using more material etc and therefore have to pay more.
People who are 6 ft 6 need longer length clothing. More material = higher price. It's just how it is. Or at least should be. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:28 - May 16 with 2149 views | No9 |
Most of the problem comes from poor education. How can anyone consider what to eat & drink if they are never educated to the +/- of consumption and potential results.
Of course the food & drink industry don't want you to knowas it will affect their bottom line. & some people just don't want to be educated thinking it is some conspiracy - remember when Jamie O tried to introduce healthy eating the tabloid press called it the nanny state & had pictures of mothers feeding fattening food though the schoold fence - all set up of course.
What to eat & drink (food technology) should be a part of any education system. It used to be called 'Domestic Science' stopped - when? It should be re-introduced but that may not be in the commercial interests of those who now run many of our schools.
As far as clothign is concerned yes, as most of the procedures are not mechanised the cost of materials should formulate the retail price. | | | |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:28 - May 16 with 2144 views | SpruceMoose |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:18 - May 16 by J2BLUE |
Admire the sentiment but why should it be an exception? People should pay for the resources they use.I have no issue with that. |
Except people don't pay for the resources they use in many areas of life, so why should overweight people be singled out? Clothes are far too cheap as they are, for everyone. What of the person making Primark clothing in Bangladesh for pennies, just so someone can buy a 1.99 T-Shirt? Is that a fair use of resources? This claim that resources are going unpaid for rings a bit hollow to my ears.
I suspect the difference in price between making an XXL and a Medium shirt is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. So what's it all about really? What would it actually achieve? I suppose that's my main point.
What I suspect it would achieve is to put a small amount of extra money into the bank accounts of GAP or H&M or whoever. It wouldn't be put into initiatives designed to assist people in losing weight. | |
| Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country." | | Poll: | Selectamod |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:29 - May 16 with 2141 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:14 - May 16 by TJS |
I can't really see the problem with charging more money for a product that requires more material and time to manufacture.
If companies want to do that it should be up to them - if you don't want to pay it don't buy it.
If you take this argument to it's logical extreme you could equally argue that fat people should pay the same for twice the amount of food - where does it end ? |
The logical step is for those who are unhappy that they get less trouser for their money, because they are not overweight, to boycott cloth suppliers who have a one price approach.
Waits for the penny to drop....for low weights to start realizing that the truth of the matter is they are being overcharged, taken advantage of. [Post edited 16 May 2018 13:35]
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:30 - May 16 with 2136 views | Marshalls_Mullet |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:16 - May 16 by J2BLUE |
If I buy two apples instead of one, i've bought two apples. The second apple isn't a tax.
It's pathetic and people should have been told to stop being stupid. Instead they are reviewing their 'pricing mistake'. It's not a mistake, it's absolutely right.
As for the OP, it's impossible for people to tell. Sometimes the person doesn't know why they're eating excessive amounts of crap until they have spoken to someone.
Rule of thumb for me: If someone is 100+ pounds overweight there is almost certainly an issue. Less than that: Still could be but less likely.
Obviously there are exceptions. Some people can gain that sort of weight eating rubbish and drinking 5 pints a night etc. |
The danger of being too sympathetic to the obese (for fear of offending) runs the risk of it becoming more of a norm.
That doesnt help the person or the NHS. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:30 - May 16 with 2135 views | BlueBadger |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:18 - May 16 by DanFord |
I suppose it's just part of the overall battle to try and control those that take the pee and expect others to pay. The same with sugar tax. Is it really going to make people healthy? No it won't because the people that drink 20 cans of coke a week will just pay that little bit more. On principal, why should I pay the same for a shirt as someone wearing twice as much fabric, but when a shirt costs £40 to buy and you take into account the labour, packaging and transport costs, then it may be that a shirt would be £40 for S, £42.50 for L and £45 for XL. So like you have said, does this alone encourage me as a lazy, fat person to lose weight. Probably not, neither does all the extra £5 over the year. So as you also rightly say, this would probably just make those with genuine physical or psychological conditions feel worse of victimise them. To answer the other post, of course it's not a tax and I just referred to it by the name it's been banded about under. When you say about motivation, I can imagine it's the retailers trying to make extra money, knowing that like sugar tax it'll have no real effect on units sold but will massively increase profits. |
Interestingly enough, available evidence from Mexico is that a sugar tax can and HAS reduced consumption of very sugary drinks. In Mexico, it was to the point where the government had to reduce the level of taxation as it was threatening jobs at Coca-Cola plants(CC are HUGE employers in Mexico). Obvs, the usual caveats about Mexico being a somewhat different economy to the UK apply here, but there's certainly evidence to suggest that it CAN change habits.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/22/mexico-sugar-tax-lower-consumpti | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:30 - May 16 with 2135 views | DanFord |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:27 - May 16 by J2BLUE |
You're overthinking it IMO. It doesn't matter how people get there. The fact is, for whatever reason, they are using more material etc and therefore have to pay more.
People who are 6 ft 6 need longer length clothing. More material = higher price. It's just how it is. Or at least should be. |
Where does it end though? A pair of Size 14 shoes cost the same as Size 8. Can you punish people for having bigger feet, outside their control? We all know that the price is essentially what the average in and that those with smaller feet and paying more than they should, those with larger pay less and we all live with that. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:33 - May 16 with 2125 views | BlueBadger |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:28 - May 16 by No9 |
Most of the problem comes from poor education. How can anyone consider what to eat & drink if they are never educated to the +/- of consumption and potential results.
Of course the food & drink industry don't want you to knowas it will affect their bottom line. & some people just don't want to be educated thinking it is some conspiracy - remember when Jamie O tried to introduce healthy eating the tabloid press called it the nanny state & had pictures of mothers feeding fattening food though the schoold fence - all set up of course.
What to eat & drink (food technology) should be a part of any education system. It used to be called 'Domestic Science' stopped - when? It should be re-introduced but that may not be in the commercial interests of those who now run many of our schools.
As far as clothign is concerned yes, as most of the procedures are not mechanised the cost of materials should formulate the retail price. |
Education is only half the battle. It's all very well Jamie w@nking on about buying huge bags of pasta, massive joint of meat to last a week, etc but you have to have the capital there to make the savings.
The late, great Sir Terry Pratchett made a great point about this :
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:38 - May 16 with 2114 views | DanFord |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:33 - May 16 by BlueBadger |
Education is only half the battle. It's all very well Jamie w@nking on about buying huge bags of pasta, massive joint of meat to last a week, etc but you have to have the capital there to make the savings.
The late, great Sir Terry Pratchett made a great point about this :
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” |
Then along came the credit card and man bought a $200 pair of boots, that did the same job as the $100 ones and lasted as long, but had red painted soles. They then could never afford to pay back the extra $100. So borrowed it from Wonga and ended up owing $1,000. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:42 - May 16 with 2104 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:28 - May 16 by SpruceMoose |
Except people don't pay for the resources they use in many areas of life, so why should overweight people be singled out? Clothes are far too cheap as they are, for everyone. What of the person making Primark clothing in Bangladesh for pennies, just so someone can buy a 1.99 T-Shirt? Is that a fair use of resources? This claim that resources are going unpaid for rings a bit hollow to my ears.
I suspect the difference in price between making an XXL and a Medium shirt is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. So what's it all about really? What would it actually achieve? I suppose that's my main point.
What I suspect it would achieve is to put a small amount of extra money into the bank accounts of GAP or H&M or whoever. It wouldn't be put into initiatives designed to assist people in losing weight. |
Business will always set a price the customer will pay.
Take shirts as a good example slim fit shirts are not cheaper than regular fit shirts yet be definition they must use less material. | |
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| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 19:05 - May 16 with 2040 views | BlueBadger |
| Fat Tax - spin off thread on 13:30 - May 16 by Marshalls_Mullet |
The danger of being too sympathetic to the obese (for fear of offending) runs the risk of it becoming more of a norm.
That doesnt help the person or the NHS. |
Neither does being a pr1ck about it. The morbidly, clinically obese patient group tend to have problems, stacked upon problems that aren't easily solved by the standard Viz diet of 'less cake more exercise'.
In fact, evidence is beginning to suggest that an unsympathetic environment tends to push this group further away from seeking help. | |
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