MAKE FAT PEOPLE PAY MORE TAX

Dr Chand says the obese must take more responsibility for their health
Tuesday September 22,2009
By Tony Brooks

FAT people should be made to take more responsibility for their health and have perks taken away from them, a leading doctor said yesterday. Excessively obese patients should be made to walk rather than be given mobility scooters.

And fattening foods with little nutritional value should be taxed to help combat the obesity epidemic sweeping the UK, he said.

This would improve people’s health and reduce the burden on the health service, warned Dr Kailash Chand, a British Medical Association representative and NHS trust chairman.

At the same time, slim and healthy people should be rewarded with tax credits for looking after themselves. And so should mothers who breastfeed their babies .
The Indian-born doctor, who has been a practising GP in the UK for 25 years, feels some methods of combating obesity problems are actually contributing to them.

“I estimate that something like 50 to 70 per cent of my patients’ medical costs would not just be reduced but eliminated if their diets were healthier and they exercised more,” said Dr Chand, the chairman of the Tameside and Glossop Primary Care Trust, near Manchester.

“But we, as a nation, seem to be working on the other end of the problem. For example, motorised scooters are provided free to morbidly obese patients with weight-dependent arthritis, when the best remedy for these people would be to walk through their pain or avoid excess weight gain in the first place,” he said.

He wants financial rewards to be given to those with a body-mass index of less than 26 – a BMI of 30 is considered obese – and for those who can produce documented mileage from exercising on treadmills or bicycles.

Dr Chand made his controversial proposals as the annual cost to the NHS for issues relating to obesity was predicted to top £6.3billion by 2015. In 2007 it was £4.2 billion.

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Barring genetic or catastrophic disease, accidents and some aspects of ageing, our health is in our hands, said Dr Chand.

He warned that spending cuts by whoever wins the next general election could “cripple” the NHS.
“We simply can’t sustain a creaking system and patients must take more responsibility for their health,” he said. “The best way to save the NHS money is for fewer people to need its services – it is as simple as that.

“Obesity and lack of exercise are the prime causes of many common diseases. The problems start at the earliest stages of life. We have evidence to prove how excessive weight gain in the first three months of life is linked to cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes in early adulthood.

“Yet breast-feeding, which often prevents early and dangerous weight gain, just isn’t as popular as we might have hoped.”

He said many of the factors leading to obesity are “societal”, adding: “The mother who picks up hungry kids from day-care after working eight hours can be very tempted to stop at a fast-food outlet on her way home.

“In the old days, evening walks and chats with neighbours used to satisfy people’s evening leisure needs, but now our reliance on sedentary activity, watching the TV and working on computers has reached epic proportions.”

My Comment: Wow. Even the government is trying to prevent obesity by using tax. People rely so much on the nutritional labels. The real information is on the ingredients. I think first of all obesity persons should try to do cardio-vascular exercise. I do cardio with my workouts and it burns a lot of fats. I'm not talking about jogging with moderate heart 1 hour per day. I'm talking about 20-25 minutes of high intensity cardio workout. It's running and then walking afterwards. It's like Sprint.

By the way have you seen the bodies of the sprinters? Look at their build. It's awesome compared to the marathoners. Which one would you like to be? I think that answers the question which type of body you want.

Here's how to do sprint.

run for 1 minutes 7 miles per minute
walk for 1.5 minutes 3 miles per minute
run for 1 minutes 7 miles per minute
walk for 1.5 minutes 3 miles per minute

do this for 4 times and you got yourself a great cardio workout.

What if I hate running outside? Well that's were Treadmills came in. Buy yourself a Treadmill. It will be a good investment. The best investment with the highest return is your health so invest for it.

Stay healthy,

Jan Michael Buyco

P.S. Treadmills UK are great way for obesity to start.