Moderation In Obesity

98121314 Hannah Ho

As more people getting fatter and fatter, “Is a person’s weight his or her own business?” asked Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, in an article titled “Weigh more, pay more.”  His answer is “No.” Obesity is now an ethical issue, because an increase in weight by some imposes costs on others. Peter Singer invoked data of the research and proposal of Tony Webber, a former chief economist for the Australian airline Qantas to illustrate how obesity vastly increases the cost of flight and exacerbates global worming. Signer further pointed out obesity raises cost in public transportation, medical facilities, and additional health care which results in more costs for taxpayers and policyholders. Obesity also results in a tremendous productivity loss. Obesity is second only to tobacco use as the leading cause of preventable death. All these fact justify Signer’s assertion that public policies shall discourage weigh gain, such as taxing foods that are disproportionately implicated in obesity.

Some people may argue for human rights and insist that a person’s weight is his or her own business. However, as the private issue concerned public issues, it is no longer a private one. Though many obese people cannot help being overweight–they just have a different metabolism from the rest of us for genetic or acquired factors, more obesity is resulted from intemperate food intake and lack of physical exercise. That is, this kind of obesity resulted from intentionally wrong behaviors. Most of these obese people acknowledge that they should control their body weight, but their reason give way to their appetite which is driven by their spirit.

Apparently, most obese people can no longer be a good master of their own body. On the contrary, they become slavery of their appetite and spirit. Since one has lost the principle and ability of self-discipline in body weight control, governments should intervene and correct the out of control obesity issue to help their people, society, country, most of all, the earth.

Reference

Singer, Peter. “Weigh More, Pay more,” Project Syndicate. March 12, 2012. web: March 28, 2012.

〈肥胖正在傷害地球〉 ，《商業周刊》1270期2012.3. pp. 28-30.