NationStates Jolt Archive

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKN0433367720070404?feedType=RSS


I think once they have been weighed they should be raced round the course a couple of times.

With jockeys and saddles.

...So yeah, any problem with that? Look, a good horse is more valuable than an extremely obese human; check the markets if you disagree. The hospital lacks the equipment - so it can either send them home, or send to where there's equipment.

I fully support the racing idea, though. It would help.

i really struggle to empathise with these people. if they're so embarrassed to go to a racetrack to get x-rayed why aren't they embarrassed enough about the condition they've got themselves into to not get fat in the fucking first place. i mean i know there're some people who have thyroid problems or whatever who really cannot help being fat, but then they have something wrong with them and ill people tend to accept what needs to be done to fix them. fat wasters who don't have the self-control to not eat that 3rd pizza or 2nd 3litre bottle of coke or to get off their arses and go for a walk and so opt for stomach stapling just do not get my sympathy. /rant

i guess i just completely fail to understand how people who get themselves morbidly obese think they deserve any sympathy.

First, I'm glad I'm not in Rio!

I figure if they get the stomach stapling, they're soon not going to be so fat.

So, they should suck it up, go to the stables, and consider it as another reason to go ahead with the operation. If the operation works, soon they won't need to go to any racetrack except to bet.

Or, they can go to a more enlightened country and have it done there, if they can afford to.

Here in the US, I'd be surprised if there weren't multiple hospitals in the major cities with the XL versions of things. If they tried something like Rio's doing, someone would surely enlighten them that such crap is not acceptable, via a lawsuit or several. The result would probably be that ill-equipped hospitals just wouldn't offer the surgery, but the market would easily handle that by condensing the demand into specialized clinics.

Which I think has happened: there are several US clinics which specialize in bariatric surgery, and I'm sure they have all the XL versions of everything. It's simply good business for any place with such a specialty.

It's situations like this where private enterprise actually excels in medicine. Rather than trying to convince a federal body to open a clinic and buy proper equipment for maybe 5% of the population, some entrepreneurial type just goes and does it.


ill people tend to accept what needs to be done to fix them. That's why they were going for the stomach stapling!

Anyone willing to have their stomach capacity radically reduced via major surgery has got to be frickin' desperate. I figure they're at their wit's end when they agree to that.

But as for the general premise of the quoted statement: It depends on what it is that needs to be done. Sometimes the only "treatment" currently available is worse (or no better) than leaving things alone, or just switches one set of problems for another. I've seen this to be the case with quite a few disorders, many of them not obesity-related.

Personally I think bariatric surgery usually falls into this category. But if someone's that desperate to lose weight, then the avenue should be open to them without extra hurdles.

Graco staged a small protest on Tuesday outside the state legislative assembly and met some legislators to try to oblige hospitals to buy stronger equipment, including stretchers and wheelchairs for the obese, and to authorise more hospitals to perform stomach stapling surgeries.
"I'm obscenely fat because I chose to eat too much and now you - the taxpayer - have to do something about it!"