The reason I mention the smoking and drugs is because everyone has their vices – well, most people do anyway. There are alcoholics, gambling addicts, smokers, junkies, stoners, all sorts of people who are professionals at throwing their money away doing something they really enjoy without thought of the cost or consequences. The reason I mention the restaurant part is because there is another vice I know of, a vice that brings society down and yet we still allow it to develop and get worse while doing nothing to prevent it - Obesity.
You might be thinking to yourself about now ‘Oh Javid, don’t pick on the fat people, (at which point I would correct you and say obese), they can’t help it, leave them alone’. First question – why should I leave them alone, are they going to chase me? No. Second – why can’t they help it? Do they just suddenly wake up one day and go ‘holy fuck where did this extra 80 kilos come from?’ Was someone force-feeding them for the duration of their entire lives? OK so I’m getting carried away but you get my drift. Slowly I make my way towards my point.
As a smoker, I have to put up with all kinds of campaigns against me for my lifestyle choice. I’ve been forced outside (which I’m fine with), I have to look at gross packaging (which I’m fine with), I have to pay nearly $20 a packet thanks to tax (which I’m NOT fuckin fine with) all because it affects my health. I can be looked at horribly by someone for sparking up a cigarette in a certain place, even though I abide strongly by the laws of smoking etiquette (that’s another blog for another time). Basically someone can make a hundred judgements against you simply because you’re a smoker. It’s the price you pay – but while I’m on this, if its so bad for my health, if its no good for me, or my kids, or anyone around me, or the earth – then why does the government still allow it to be sold? Because it’s an addictive substance that makes money, this is an undeniable fact. THEN they go and put the price up to an amount that would more than cover anyone who had to quit (the amount of which I assure you would have been minimal). They don’t want us to quit, they just want more of our addict money. Ban it and I will accept your decision. I dare you.
When I or anyone else in this country goes out for a drink, we are monitored. Anti-binge drinking ads are all over our TVs and laws are in place to regulate the service of alcohol. If you are drunk (which equates to ‘you’ve had too much’), you have to stop. If someone serves you a drink they and the venue can be fined a significant amount of money. The police breath test people to find out if they’re in excess of what is a legal blood alcohol level.
Now I work in a restaurant, as mentioned before. I have to obey the laws of RSA and comply with the standards and directives of the lawmakers, simply to make someone a drink. Even if someone hasn’t had a drink here yet they may be drunk, in which case they can’t be served. Some people handle their booze well, some don’t. It’s a contentious field of law that essentially relies on your own judgement, which is a bit shit. Someone might look completely wasted to you but still be under, because they’re an idiot. Someone might be twice the legal limit and sitting there comfortably, able to hold their booze well. If the officers were to come in and breath test the normal guy, you’re fucked. Go figure. It’s all contentious. Someone’s degree of drunkenness is merely a matter of opinion based on limited information (most of the time). Obesity is another story.
In the restaurant I work in we get our fair share of obese people coming in. It’s to be expected, if there’s food they’ll sniff it out. Our restaurant is primarily booths, with tables in two sections generally to accommodate bookings, the disabled, prams and what not, and yes, occasionally the obese. Some of these people won’t fit in a booth and quite often you won’t even know till you get over there, at which point you find a table ASAP and accommodate them and they conduct themselves appreciatively for quickly and nicely dealing with the issue of their size – some of these people are lovely like that and my hostility is not directed at them, though certain parts of this still are. Some obese people, however, will come into a restaurant, insult you for even THINKING of taking them to a booth and demand a table, treating you with hostility. Even on a Friday or Saturday night where the availability of free-standing tables is limited. They always know what they want and… well… it’s never a fucking salad is it? No. I have seen people break chairs, then demand a new one and an apology. Oh I’m sorry that our standard restaurant furniture can’t support your massive amount of weight you fat piece of… anyway. We have one guy that comes in and, I kid you not, when he sits in a chair his gut actually sits less than a foot off the floor. Many of these people are REGULAR customers and throughout my time there I’ve often wondered about it, and compared it with our smoking and alcohol legislation and standards. The following question came to mind;
I know there are laws in place to protect children from the advertising of junk food during their key television times but these companies, including the one I work for, all find their ways around it with bright colours, loud music and things that get kids attention nonetheless. I know that for a fact. Yet food, and in particular fast food and junk food, are still there on our TV screens. Many sports, such as the cricket, are sponsored by companies that are essentially peddling disgusting, unhealthy food under the guise of ‘our cricketers eat it so it can’t be bad’ – when the reality is our cricketers are taking a bite in an ad for the sake of Cricket Australia’s sponsorship deal and their own seasonal contracts.
Anyway, in regards to advertising – why are there no ads showing the ill effects of letting yourself become morbidly obese? Why isn’t there an ad where we all have to look at an obese person who hasn’t left their home in months, can’t fit in a car, gets taunted by people, can’t obtain and secure a regular job and sits at home depressed and eating all the time, with a Big Mac or something in the picture? I can guarantee you it would work about as well, if not BETTER than the smoking ads. Where’s the ad for the child who lost their parent to heart problems at a young age? Where’s the ad showing the remorse of the obese person as they sit there waiting to die? These are all the emotions that smokers are presented with and we have the same affliction. We both CHOOSE to get addicted and are then too WEAK to get out of the situation because of our dependence. So WHY DON’T FAT PEOPLE HAVE TO WATCH HARROWING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THEIR DISGUSTING HABITS YET I HAVE TO, EVERYWHERE, SIMPLY FOR SMOKING?
The other aspect of this question comes in comparison to alcohol legislation. When a drunk walks up to a bar and orders a drink, you must refuse them. To serve them is breaking the law. You may receive hostility, threats, physicality, emotion, but you have the law on your side, and you have to uphold it. Why then, when a morbidly obese person comes in to my restaurant, wanting to be seated in one of our potentially-breakable chairs because they can’t fit in a booth, must I seat and serve them? Shouldn’t the fact that they can’t fit in a booth be indicative enough?
Look at the reasoning behind service of alcohol. You’re harming the person physically, which may result in them harming others. You’re facilitating their addiction despite the fact it’s bad for their health. Ultimately, it is quite evident that they’ve had enough, and that’s when you step in. Why can I not do the same? Why can’t I have the law behind me saying that I have the right to refuse someone certain foods, when to keep feeding them IS bad for their health and they have, quite obviously, had enough? If someone is drunk you can offer them a glass of water. Why can I not offer a fat person a salad or offer to call them a maxicab?
If they want to go home and eat something they really shouldn’t, that’s their choice. I find it quite the double standard however that drinkers are subject to limits and regulations, and smokers are subjected to horrible, graphic advertising and social exoneration, and yet the obese get nothing except some shoddy laws aimed at keeping kids skinny long enough to get through adolescence without dying before bringing them into the whole machine again. I understand the smoking and drinking laws, for the most part they make sense and my point here is not to object to them, but to question why the obese, and those on their way, are allowed to continue down their merry path to an early grave and social exclusion without someone stepping in and saying something.
Food for thought (oh yeah, I went there): most of the smoking/alcohol laws you've mentioned aim at preventing the cost to society (mainly medically, but also socially in terms of alcohol). What about the costs tax payers bear as a result of obesity?
ReplyDeleteobesity, eating and cholesterol problems account for significantly more people in the health system than smokers. are we to carry the burden of taxation for everyone else to be unhealthy too?
ReplyDeletelets put a tax on food. the thing about food as opposed to cigarettes is its not a standardised unit or price, so there will be significant variables.
but hypothetically, say the government were to classify foods, or get an advisory body to classify them, say, A B C D E F with F being the fattiest food and A being the healthiest. buying X amount of F means you start to incur a fee or some kind of tax, buying X amount of A takes you further away from the threshhold. a very vague way of putting it, i'd go into detail but probably get there very slowly. but the same kind of idea. encourage health by targeting the hip pocket. take the revenue of the fatties off the top. or god forbid everyone would start eating properly, making their own choices, instead of waiting for Monsanto to monopolise the market and force feed us whatever they want.