4 ms·

And I'm glad it is.

• exabrial 8y ago
  Obesity is the #1 killer in America. Charging people more who are intentionally harming themselves with poor diet and bad exercise habits is both ethical and fair; to the people who are out of shape, and the people that are in shape [subsidizing the former's health costs].
  • neuralRiot 8y ago
    People who are "hurting themselves" are mostly in the lower income sectors, so is not just "gluttony" but the lack of resources including education about better diet choices. https://kevishere.com/2011/11/05/inequality-health-disparities-obesity/ https://kevishere.com/2011/11/05/inequality-health-dispariti...
  • jhayward 8y ago
    > Charging people more who are intentionally harming themselves with poor diet and bad exercise habits is both ethical and fair 0) Heart disease, not obesity, is the number one killer in america. There is not a particularly strong correlation (certainly not = 1.0) between heart disease and obesity, diet, or even exercise. 1) There is very, very little correlation between exercise and obesity. 2) The systemic origins of obesity are not well understood, certainly not well enough to declare "ethical and fair" any kind of punitive mechanisms. 3) Your argument appears to be steeped in Puritan ethics which are unsupportable given modern science and medicine about the nature of free will, how the biology and physiology of the mind affects heath outcomes, and even the effectiveness of punishment as a generator of "good" behavior.