No my response was to your comparison to someone who exercises and someone who doesn't is comparable in cost to the NHS, it just isn't. Serious health conditions will cost more in medication and time than minor ailments.
No. You do not know if this fattie will have serious health conditions. You just don't. You don't even know if he's going to be fat in the future. Just like you don't know if the jock won't have a serious injury and become fat or long term strain on NHS. It's easy and populistic for us to pretend that the fatties will be burden, but here and now, at this moment in time 20 year old jobless fattie is very likely to cost less in "public upkeep" than 20 year old jobless athlete. And here and now is what we are trying to fix.
The same mindset can be applied to alcoholics & drug abusers, if you're choosing a lifestyle that seriously degrades your health and you refuse/avoid help then you should have financial support the state gives you taken away to help pay for the fallout.
But benefits system is not popularity contest, we created it for entire society. We would all love to live in a country where we could cut off all the tax drains - the drunks, the druggies, second generation chain teen pregnancies, sex addicted jobless fathers of 10, people with tattoos all over their forehead and face done to never get a job or those who get arrested for the same crime third time in a row (how many times do you have to try to figure out you're **** at it). But we can't. Because benefit system was created mostly for them. They don't build anthill estates in rough parts of town, for people who occasionally need help and leg up between jobs. They build them as ghettos for people who are in permanent disrepair for whatever reason. The ones that would otherwise cruise the streets and sleep rough. The ones with issues. Or the chavy, rude ones with low IQ. The ones that do shoot up. The ones with trauma, from broken homes, hiding from their own shadow. Or the ones that are introverted and weird and give everyone chills. Or the ones that won't work, because they need to speak with God 20 times a day, as this life is only a brief journey to better things for them. Or the ones you would cross the street to avoid bumping into if you knew them. The system is
mostly made for them. So they have somewhere to go and do their thing, so they don't sleep on your doorstep or try to beg or steal your stuff.
It's not about picking one anyone, it's about a change in mindset towards personal responsibility. Money is what makes peoples lives go round and is something the government can actually legislate to ensure that movement starts.
But we pick on the fatties, specifically, because it's easy. Nobody likes a fattie. "Get slim or get no money". That's ignorance. Because being slim, but lazy, unemployable and chavy would make a world of difference to taxpayer?
Obesity has very little to do with personal responsibility. Being fat or going to gym has very little to do with employability. And you cannot legislate slimness. Not any more than you can legislate other social engineerings - even if you legislate that only fit and healthy people can reproduce. Guess what. Vikki Polards will still go and shag ginger kid in burberry hat for more council estate rooms in the Tower Hamlets concrete "Inn". And being fat will be the least of their lifecycle problems.
