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Overweight people should pay more tax. Others can't pay for our folly

Operation Transformation is not fat-shaming. We can’t mollycoddle to spare people’s feelings, writes Aaron McKenna.

A BLISTERING ROW broke out on Claire Byrne Live during the week as the show munched on the topic of Operation Transformation. Some folks were critical of the now well established RTÉ series for, essentially, being a form of “fat shaming”.

We seem to now live in an age when every group needs to be mollycoddled. The avoidance of offence seems to be the highest priority of discourse.

So it is that a show about promoting a great public good, fighting obesity, can be a source of controversy.

Claire RTÉ RTÉ

Ireland is a fat country. There is no getting away from it: 60% of us are overweight or obese, and the World Health Organisation reckons that 87% of adults will be overweight by 2030 if current trends continue.

This is not a long term, maybe-it-will-maybe-it-won’t type problem. As a nation we are in first world demographic decline: We are getting older, we will have fewer people at work for everyone retired, and we are getting lazier and fatter and will be unable to properly support ourselves in the decades ahead.

Our health service creaking

Overweight people are sicker people, and the more of them we have the more the health service will creak under funding difficulties. 

That’s the economic argument, quite aside from the personal one. For all that, we get to enjoy guzzling pints and rich meals, overweight people suffer poorer quality of life as their health deteriorates. Our loved ones will, ultimately, get to spend less time with us on this earth.

In short, being fat is a serious problem.

rte A heated debate broke out on live television this week.

Some people don’t like to be told the harsh truth. They’re offended by “fat shaming” or uncomfortable being confronted by the topic. If we mollycoddle these people, so that they can continue to live in cotton wool and ignore the problem, we will do them and our society a disservice.

A TV show that helps us lose weight – what’s the problem?

We need to fight obesity as a national imperative, and a show on TV is the least we could be doing to help the country lose a bit of weight.

Fat shaming as a form of bullying is not okay. It is not fine to abuse someone for their weight. But what passes for “fat shaming” is relevant. A show like Operation Transformation is clearly not shaming overweight people: It is trying to help them, by showing the real struggles that other people have with their weight and by encouraging folks to get active in a positive and shared experience.

If your doctor tells you to lose some weight, they are not “fat shaming” you. If you’re having an argument with someone and they remark on your weight, it’s bullying. There’s a clear distinction.

We rightly abhor bullying as a society, but we cannot give up entirely on prodding people to do the right thing when advice is proffered in a contextually relevant way.

We need a national strategy on obesity that goes beyond a TV programme and some quangos to distribute leaflets. I’m not a fan of the nanny state, but at the same time I recognise that when you effectively live in one the costs of something like obesity will only be passed on to the taxpayer down the line.

Tax relief on gym memberships 

Government could try a number of innovative and not so innovative approaches to get people moving. Gym memberships could become something we provide tax relief on, the way certain insurance policies and even – until recently – mortgages got it. Folks who don’t attend the gym could have the tax relief cut off and clawed back, creating a carrot and stick incentive.

On the not so innovative side, we operate a health insurance system that is rigged to be as fair as possible. So overweight people don’t pay more for insurance, nor do they bear the additional costs on the public health system when they do not have health insurance.

Someone else can pay for the trouble they are inflicting on themselves.

I disagree with a sugar tax as it’s too broad a measure to impact on those that need it. Taxes on cigarettes affect all smokers, but taxes on sugar would catch healthy as well as overweight people.

But there is a real cost to obesity, currently pegged at about a billion a year off the health budget, and we should look at levying additional income taxes or shaving cash off welfare payments for people presenting with weight related issues.

Think that’s unfair? Well, being overweight is a choice for the vast majority of people.

There are cases of people suffering from real medical ailments, and let them get doctors notes. For the rest of us, we’re just too gluttonous and too lazy for our own good; and for the good of the people we expect to pay for our folly.

Aaron McKenna is a businessman and columnist for TheJournal.ie. You can follow him on Twitter here.  

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214 Comments
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    Mute Patrick Daly
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    Dec 10th 2019, 9:48 AM

    By all means protest but now they’re preventing people from working and breaking the law so it should be broken up by gardai

    227
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    Mute Karl Charlie
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:00 PM

    @Patrick Daly: garda wont do nothing against farmers they dont have to follow the same laws as the rest of us, the processing plants should lower the amount they pay farmers until they cop on and stop preventing people from working especially so close to christmas going around blocking roads in their 100k tractors their job is to throw out a bit of food and water every day then go back to their big farm houses and do nothing the rest of the day

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    Mute pat seery
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:12 PM

    @Karl Charlie: you must live in Bubble

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    Mute ruairi
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    Dec 10th 2019, 1:51 PM

    @Karl Charlie: An effective demonstration of your ignorance of farming there Karl.

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    Mute Paul Mcnevin
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    Dec 10th 2019, 4:22 PM

    @Patrick Daly: Block the farmers in.

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    Mute Karl Charlie
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    Dec 10th 2019, 8:56 PM

    @Paul Mcnevin: Gardai would be straight down moving you on

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    Mute Conall
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    Dec 11th 2019, 9:47 AM

    @Karl Charlie: Have you been on a farm recently? How many self-employed people do you think have time to do nothing the rest of the day?

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    Mute John gaughan
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    Dec 10th 2019, 9:57 AM

    Farmers are the biggest shower of moaners in this country we all work and if we don’t like conditions we have two choices stay or get out
    If it not beef it’s milk crop’s so my advice to you farmers get out of it if there’s no profit and stop protesting and stoping people going to work
    I had sympathy for your case at the start but I think you had your say and there’s blockades are not on

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    Mute Keelan O'neill
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:05 AM

    @John gaughan: the irony that follows “shower of moaners” is delicious *chef’s kiss*

    51
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    Mute @at
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:20 AM

    @John gaughan: you ignorance on the subject is astounding. You won’t be a FFG cheerleader by any chance ?

    FG gave the beef processing price control to one man. The same man is a big FG donor. The same man that flooded the Irish market with horse meat. The same man who’s niece is married to the then minister for agriculture

    This is a protect against corruption as much as anything else. You seem to have no problem with corruption

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    Mute John gaughan
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:27 AM

    @@at: as I said I did have sympathy for them but blocking others going to work is not on
    I am not a ffg cheerleader

    51
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    Mute Dermot Foley
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:56 AM

    @@at: and how is it that the farmers have no coop? Chickens come home to roost.

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    Mute Stephen Walshe
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:04 AM

    @Keelan O’neill: ha ha

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    Mute @at
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:05 AM

    @Dermot Foley: another one with complete ignorance on the subject. Are you not embarrassed commenting on a subject here that you clearly don’t have a clue about ?

    Simon Coveney basically blocked independent processors/co ops etc from operating in this country by licensing the disposal of the animal waste/Offal to one man

    This gives the one man control of all the beef processing in this country. Control the waste disposal, you control the processing. Control the processing, you control the prices

    This one Man has a niece that is married to Simon Coveney. This one man is a big donor to FG

    Next time do a bit of research before you come out with daft comments

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    Mute jamesdecay
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:08 AM

    @John gaughan: tune in next week when John sorts out the Middle East crisis.

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:40 AM

    @@at: Dead right my friend but I have to warn you that trying to explain the facts to that shower of anti-farmer, anti rural morons is like trying to teach the virtue of chastity to a pen of yearling bulls

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:49 AM

    @@at: to be accurate, it wasn’t the government that sold the processing business to Goodman.
    That would have been the farmers.

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    Mute Thomas Harrington
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:29 PM

    @@at: he has a point – farmers were happy enough to vote Co-ops out of existence when there was a pay out to be had

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    Mute Smiley
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:34 PM

    @John gaughan: sorry “milk crops”…whatever your into. Says it all.

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    Mute Sam Cairns
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:21 AM

    I am going to come out in support of the farmer and will not buy red meat again this year.

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    Mute Bernard Sweeney
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:37 AM

    @Sam Cairns: That’d be an honorable gesture Sam if it was March or something.

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    Mute Ivor McCormack
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:03 PM

    Why not camp outside Larry Goodman’s home?
    Why not put a blockade on Larry’s businesses?
    Beef prices are set by the processors, not the supermarkets.
    I’m not sure why this hasn’t been highlighted by the meeja, but it is something that people don’t seem to be very aware of.
    The profits for beef are ripped from the hands of the Farmers by the processors and they are being protected by the politicians who are happy to let people believe that it’s all the fault of the buyers, shops and customers who want to have their beef at the lowest price.
    Anyways, this will probably be lost in the noise… Feel like i’m shouting in a forest that a tree has fallen, but can’t be heard above the storm….

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    Mute Mick Byrne
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    Dec 10th 2019, 1:33 PM

    @Ivor McCormack: I hear you & agree.

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    Mute Michael Reilly
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    Dec 10th 2019, 5:50 PM

    @Ivor McCormack: Larry would be upset and stop the deductions that keep the IFA lads on mega salaries and expenses.
    Why not camp at the gates of a former IFA president that has a sweet heart deal with Larry to fatten his cattle.

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    Mute Smiley
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:36 PM

    @Ivor McCormack: best comment on this mess so far

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    Mute Kev Kev
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:24 AM

    Why is 90% of our beef exported?? And why are we selling imported beef?? Makes fcuk all sense

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    Mute Dermot Foley
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    Dec 10th 2019, 10:57 AM

    @Kev Kev: money and money.

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    Mute Stephen Walshe
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:06 AM

    Go on lads the whole country could learn from the farmers!!!! Bring the country to a standstill. They’d soon come to heal.

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    Mute Roger Paltry
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:14 AM

    @Stephen Walshe: The people who could not get to their hospital appointments when the moaners blocked the city centre will be delighted with you. If the whole country behaved like spoilt brats our economy would be fupped.

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    Mute Decko49
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:27 AM

    @Roger Paltry: Our economy is f#cked. We are relying on corporate tax to keep our economy going. When the other countries go as low as our corporate tax rate we are f#cked too

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    Mute Karl Charlie
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:04 PM

    @Stephen Walshe: you wouldnt see farmers protesting against the health system or homeless crisis they care about one thing and one thing only…. Themselves and to hell with the people who have to work 40hrs+ per week to put food on the table where you inherited your farms from the family, you dont like it then build houses on your land and get yourself a job

    22
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    Mute Eamonn O Connell
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:54 PM

    @Karl Charlie: do you protest about various things that don’t affect you or do you expect the people affected to do it. Stop spouting rubbish., farmers are protesting about the low price of beef being paid by factories and retailers who are making huge profits from itAs for the 40+ hours. Well that would be a short week for a farmer.

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    Mute Roger Paltry
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    Dec 10th 2019, 1:38 PM

    @Decko49: So you think Irekand should revert to an agrarian economy? These moaners are freeloading off of the taxpayers.

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    Mute Thomas Harrington
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:26 PM

    Here’s a thought stop selling to people you feel so t give you a fair price – go and find another market liver every other business in the world

    16
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    Mute Thomas Harrington
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    Dec 10th 2019, 12:31 PM

    @Thomas Harrington: fat fingers like a farmer!

    If you don’t like the price find another market like every other business has to do

    18
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    Mute Sheila Teehan
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    Dec 10th 2019, 2:12 PM

    Will the supermarkets be able to rid us of the 4 moves limit and the 30 months age limit ? Joe Healy must not be thinking at all.

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Dec 10th 2019, 11:48 AM

    Yes!!!!

    3
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    Mute Councillor Bill Clear
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    Dec 10th 2019, 7:08 PM

    Ifa piggy backing on beef plan group. They did all the heavy lifting

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