by Adrian Hall

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: November 04, 2009

Penalizing someone for being obese is absolutely insane. What has our society come to? Discriminating against a person's struggle to overcome weight problems I feel is "UNAMERICAN" . That term seems to be thrown around pretty loosely these days, so lets assign it to its proper definition. Anyway that an extra dollar can be made it seems we take that avenue. What if the bus driver or train conductor were obese? Do they get penalized just as a normal obese citizen would?

Obesity is usually referred to as a medical condition and often takes the help of a doctor to get under control. Charging someone extra money for being obese is the last thing we should do. Before it came to this debate, we should also penalize Burger King, McDonald's, and all of the grocery chain food stores for selling products to someone who qualifies as obese. To solve a problem, is to get to the root of the problem. Charging extra is not solving the problem for obesity.

I can't deny obesity has been on the rise for several years, but my God is being an overweight passenger a crime. Let's say that some type of law has been enacted to charge obese passenger's more, and a regular sized passenger shoots up a city bus full of citizens. They may have made a few extra dollars off the overweight people, but the damage and cost of lives is far greater. Let's get real here, are overweight people such a problem that we have to ostracize them in a way that they feel "UNAMERICAN." In what other part of the world has this debate been discussed. I have heard of instances when a passenger on a plane had to buy to two plane tickets because of his obesity, but come on those are rare cases that are usually resolve peacefully.

Most people know that obesity is at an all- time high and now the money hungry opportunist are trying to capitalize on another person's sickness. It is a shame that we have come to this debate, but along with gay rights and civil rights i guess you have to analyze the issue. There is an old saying in the Bible in 1 Timothy 6:10, "for the love of money is the root of all evil. Let's not jeopardize the AMERICAN WAY for a few extra dollars, but love one another exactly the way we are.

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