Now that I got your attention I want to say that I'm not asking for the obese to be charged more for everything - but I am supportive of the latest efforts to force them to pay for two airplane seats if they can't fit in one.
Did anyone see the news that United Airlines is going to start forcing obese passengers who cannot fit into a coach seat to either:
- Buy a business or first-class seat
- Buy two economy seats
If those options aren't available then guess what? The passenger gets bumped off the flight.
United is creating this policy, which is similar to one Southwest has had in place now for over 5 years, because it has been receiving a large number of complaints from passengers who have had a seat neighbor ooze into their seat - which creates an uncomfortable flight.
A United spokeswoman tells the Chicago Tribune that the carrier was moved by hundreds of complaints from fliers "who did not have a comfortable flight because the person next to them infringed on their seat." A Southwest Airlines rep tells a similar story: The company, which has already cracked down on oversize passengers, still gets more angry mail from encroached customers than from fat ones.
I find this logic hard to argue with - if you take up more space then you need to pay for more room.
But if we're going to use this logic then why would we not expand it into new areas. For example - why not make the obese pay more for health insurance? It's inarguable that the obese cost the health system more and since it's becoming easier and easier to target smokers then why not the obese? Smokers can be fired from their jobs for refusing to quit because smokers aren't considered a protected class - should it be easier to fire the obese, who definitely cost their employers more in health insurance costs?
Some states are considering banning smokers from adopting children because tobacco smoke is dangerous to kids. Would it then be OK to ban the obese from adopting because the kids are going to be exposed to "bad foods" and too much of them? Or because, statistically, kids who grow up in obese families have a higher chance of then becoming obese themselves?
I've drawn a not-direct line from the decision of United, which I support, to the logical extension of broad brush policies targeting unpopular "groups," which I don't support. But don't be at all shocked when exactly what I'm stating might happen actually does start happening. States have pretty much gone as far as they can in regulating smoking and stigmatizing smokers (other than banning cigarettes entirely, which if they weren't such a cash cow would probably happen sooner rather than later), it's now fat people's turn.
And FYI - I don't smoke.