Fat People Should Pay More to Fly on Airplanes and to Use Mass Transit

Thank you for responding daev, I was getting worried that you wouldn’t. Con is trying to make 4 primary objections to my argument: Obesity is caused by environmental and genetic factors and therefore obese people are not responsible for their obesity. Surcharging customers according to their weight will disproportionately affect the poor. Passenger discomfort is mainly due to the choice of airlines to use smaller seats; and The economic impact of overweight passengers is minimal For number 1, a close look at the evidence surrounding obesity rates and causes will show you that they are not caused primarily by genetic factors. If genetic factors were the primary cause of obesity, we’d see a more or less even distribution of obesity rates around the world, but we don’t. We see it concentrated in first world countries like the US, in countries in Europe and in Australia. This is because people in these countries consume the most calories. According to the World Health Organization, between 1997-99 average calorie consumption in industrialized countries was about 3,380 calories per day compared to just 2,195 per day in sub-Saharan Africa, and 2,403 in South Asia.[i] The additional 1000 calories per day consumed by first world citizens shows that obesity is caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, where people choose to eat foods that are high in fat. Also, if genetic factors were primarily to blame, that wouldn’t fit into the rapid rise in obesity rates in the past 30 years. One Canadian study found that there was a ten percentage point increase in the rate of obesity from 13.8 in 1978, to 23.1 in 2004[ii]. The study also concluded that the primary cause of this increase in obesity rates was an increase in calorie consumption in the diets of Canadians during those years and that obese people consumed on average, more calories per day. The same results have been found in other industrialized countries like in the US where there has been a sixfold increase in the obesity rate since 1960[iii] and in developing countries like China, where increased food availability in recent times is contributing to growing obesity rates.[iv] All of these statistics show that it is the availability of food and a person’s lifestyle choice of what foods to eat that are the primary causes of obesity. Diet and exercise are available options for most if not all the people affected by obesity, therefore it is certainly possible for people to control their weight and we cannot lay the blame on “genetics and chemical influences.” For number 2, I agree that obesity primarily affects the poor in industrialized countries. However, the poor who are obese are already affecting healthcare premiums for all Americans by adding $190 billion to the annual healthcare price tag.[v] That affects those who are of average weight and who are poor. So why is it OK to tolerate obese people who lack the will power to eat healthy and exercise costing us all more in many areas of our lives like in health insurance, while it is not OK to single them out and surcharge them more for their unhealthy lifestyle? For number 3, Con shows evidence that airlines are squeezing customers into smaller seats. Certainly this practice is going to exacerbate the problem I am pointing to and I would support something like a federal regulation preventing airlines from making seats too small or below a certain size. But even in the absence of shrinking plane seats, the expanding waistlines of the world will guarantee that the problem I outlined will still occur. Are the airlines supposed to “size up” to the heaviest passengers? Should there be seating just for the obese at a higher price? My definition of “fat” at a BMI of 27.5 or higher allows those who are reasonably overweight not to be penalized, it is only those who are very overweight and obese who are negatively affecting the experiences of other passengers that should rightly be affected. Like this guy:http://www.nypost.com... The additional revenue that airlines and mass transit systems will generate from implementing my plan could off-set the desire to shrink plane seats to make more money. For number 4, Con says that the economic impact at least on airlines is minimal. I’m not sure how he calculated that $9 million dollar figure for the fuel costs of a 20 hour airbus flight, but if fuel cost $9 million, no airline would ever make any money. It is not that expensive to fuel an airplane. According to airliners.net an Airbus A340 can carry 54,023 gallons of fuel with a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles[vi]. That adds up to 6.84 gallons per mile and .017 gallons per passenger per mile. With an average gallon of gas now at $3.528[vii], the highest possible price for a fully loaded Airbus A340 is $190,593, far lower than Con’s estimate. And also, studies show that airlines get discounts for fuel and pay on average about $1 less per gallon than the public because they consume fuel at bulk prices[viii]. On Con’s $9 million fuel price tag, each passenger would have to be paying about $36,000 on a plane of 250 passengers for the airline to break even just for that flight. Clearly Con’s math is wrong. The extra $1 million in annual fuel costs for a long distance airline route due to fat passengers is something an airline company will take notice of. According to a 2010 report by the Brookings Institute, the annual jet fuel costs attributed to obesity is a staggering $742 million dollars.[ix] And as obesity rates increase into the future, the problem will only become worse not just for airliners, but for mass transit as well. Implementing a surcharge will encourage weight loss and healthier lifestyles for all people affected, and will encourage a culture in which people take personal responsibility for their lifestyle choices. This will help mitigate the discomfort regular sized passengers experience on planes, busses and trains who are being unfairly chastised. Conclusion So the evidence suggests that the rampant increase of obesity is a modern phenomenon, primarily caused by the easy access to unhealthy foods combined with a sedentary lifestyle. Fat people simply lack the will power to resist eating more calories than average weight people, and their inability to control their desires results in more costs for all of us both in economic terms and in the sheer space they take up. I take care of myself by eating healthy and exercising regularly. There is no reason any able-bodied person shouldn’t be able to do the same. As such, my proposed surcharge only impacts those who are towards the obese end of the scale, not those who are mildly overweight. The hundreds of millions of dollars in additional airline fuel costs, the billions added in health insurance related costs[x] and the impact dealing with the sheer size of overweight people in our personal lives means that it is perfectly reasonable to consider penalizing those whose lifestyles negatively impact all of us, both physically and economically. [i] http://www.who.int... [ii] http://www.statcan.gc.ca... [iii] http://www.forbes.com... [iv] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn... [v] http://www.forbes.com... [vi] http://www.airliners.net... [vii] http://fuelgaugereport.aaa.com... [viii] http://elliott.org...[ix] http://www.brookings.edu... [x] Ibid