Hehehehe....

What’s fat got to do with it?
27-11-2007 10:34:36 AM
By MARY SCHNEIDER

I HATE to keep going on about weight, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult not to. Everywhere I look there are stories about people whose weight has ballooned; stories about people successfully losing weight; and stories about successful slimmers putting their lost weight (and some more) back on again as soon as they resume their old eating habits.
Just in case you’ve been living in a cave since mankind began expanding horizontally, it’s a well-documented fact that stuffing your face with junk food while adhering to an exercise regimen that involves nothing more than multiple presses on your TV’s remote control can lead to obesity. Other than the host of life-threatening illnesses and diseases that are associated with such a condition, obese people must now come to terms with the sad realisation that New Zealand doesn’t want them.
Seemingly, you can go to New Zealand on a holiday and spend all your hard-earned cash on trips to sheep farms and visits to the region where the Lord of the Rings movies were shot, but you might not be able to emigrate there if you are obese.
New Zealand has decided that it won’t accept severely obese applicants into its immigration programme because the country is already suffering from the consequences of having a hugely overweight population. As the number of overweight New Zealanders (more than half the adult population and nearly one-third of all children) rises, the health problems associated with obesity impose an ever-increasing burden on the country’s healthcare system.
One person who felt the full weight of this fatist policy is Briton Richie Trezise, who had his initial application to emigrate to New Zealand rejected on the grounds that he had a body mass index (BMI) of 42 (anything over 25 is considered overweight). Trezise managed to lose two inches off his waistline in order to be accepted, but his overweight wife hasn’t been able to shed the pounds so easily. She now sits home alone in Britain, unable to join her husband until she has a more svelte figure.
With its declining population, New Zealand will soon be populated by nothing but sheep if it insists on turning away prospective residents based on their weight.
If it helps to put things into perspective, Australia also takes into consideration the waistlines of its potential residents. But in the country’s defence, I have to say its emigration policy isn’t as one-sided as the one enforced by New Zealand. Last year, a British woman was refused Australian citizenship because she wasn’t heavy enough. It seems that people who are thinner than average are deemed to be anorexic and, therefore, a liability because of the associated mental health problems.
So the Australian government quickly weeds out the overweight and the thin but has no qualms about granting citizenship to drinkers, TV addicts, workaholics, control freaks, mat rempit and the majority of politicians fleeing from a disgruntled populace back home.
Still, Trezise can’t complain too much. He only has to look at some of the fatist policies in place in Britain to realise that the overweight are being discriminated against on his home turf.
A few months back, a Briton was told she was too fat to adopt – and she was an ex-nanny. It would appear that fat people are incapable of being good parents, simply because they are not agile enough to meet the demands of a normal, energetic child. So instead of being nurtured in a loving home environment, a child languishes in some adoption holding house, waiting for a slimmer, more energised woman to come along.
What happens if a slim person adopts a child but later gains weight? And should fat people have their natural children taken away from them? And what about anorexics, smokers, drinkers, TV addicts, workaholics, control freaks, et al? Should they be allowed to take care of children?
I know some overweight people who are just marvellous parents. I’ve also met many women of normal weight who should never have been given a womb in the first place; they have inflicted so much damage on their children.
If things continue as they are, the majority of people in countries like New Zealand and Britain will soon be considered unfit to parent a child. Still, I guess they could always adopt a sheep