Why it is acceptable to criticize smokers, but not fat people?

PZF

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Sandor [The Hound said:
Clegane]
EDIT:
Kurokasumi said:
Someone else being fat isn't hazordous to my health.
No but what about the doctors and nurses who have to care for these people when their obesity leads to complications? Not only is it an extreme physical strain on the nurses but is also a gross waste of a Doctors time (as it is so eminently avoidable).
Also, what about the firefighters who might have to recuse someone from the 5th story of an apartment? The life guard who has to pull someone to safety if they drown? The police officer who has to wrestle a large person because they fight?
 

Peteron

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I don't really care in the slightest. I am neither and dislike both, I criticize them both, so who cares.
 

Johann610

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Because I've had wonderful intimate times with the overweight, and seen them break loose with moves (and strength) to rival their slimmer peers, but I will NOT kiss a god___n ASHTRAY! Smoker's mouth is a deal-breaker until you get mints strong enough to deal with it.
Chocolate mouth or bacon mouth, on the other hand, I can learn to love.
 

XandNobody

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Aug 4, 2010
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TacticalAssassin1 said:
DracoSuave said:
The difference is very simple.

A fat person doesn't force bacon down my throat in order for them to eat. A smoker does force others to breath in his drug.

One is immediately self-contained, and the other inconveniences those around you.
Uh... I've never had a smoker come up and shove a cigarette down my throat.
If someone's smoking in a legal place to smoke, that means there's somewhere close by I can go to stand without any smoke to deal with. If you don't like the smoke, just go somewhere else.
EDIT: By the way I don't smoke and I think it's a disgusting habit, but they have the right to kill themselves slowly if they want, and you have the right to avoid them if you want.
Save, if you have to work where they smoke, and cannot avoid it or quit because you have two kids and the economy is shit, eh? Ah, screw the bartender and waitress, I don't work there, I can walk away, so who cares about anyone else eh? Lord...
 

Johann610

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Also, regarding the waste leftover? Candy wrappers and crisp packets are brightly colored, at least. Every cigarette butt looks burnt. And oh yeah, the burning butts start a forest fire (or an office fire, or a bed on fire) FAR more often than crisp packets.
 

link35142

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Nov 21, 2011
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Brawndo said:
Let make this perfectly clear: being fat should not be a protected class like race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. Unlike those categories, being fat is almost always a choice. Only a small percentage of people are overweight because of a legitimate medical condition like hyperthyroidism. And sure, eating disorders with psychological roots exist, but let's be honest: most fat people are fat because of poor food choices and because they lack the willpower and motivation to exercise regularly. They just don't like to be called out on it.
You actually believe that being fat is a choice? YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT BEING FAT IS A CHOICE!? People don't wake up and decide they want to be fat. And for the record, calling someone fat for no reason is called verbal assault, or bullying, and that IS a crime, in the same way a black person shouldn't be called the N word, or an Asian person shouldn't be called the C word.

It is comments like these that make people commit suicide on a daily basis, and you want to dehumanize the large by turning them into statistics? And you do this without ANY knowledge of the groups background? In the great words of every ghoul in fallout: "Bigot."
 

Char-Nobyl

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Brawndo said:
I don't know how it is the UK and Australia, but in the United States, smokers have developed a pariah-like status over the years. There are all kinds of anti-smoking campaigns, city ordinances not allowing smoking within X number of feet from a building, etc. But at the same time in the US, it is politically incorrect to criticize those who are overweight and obese. Some might argue: "Second hand smoke harms other people, but it's my choice to eat what I want and this doesn't harm other people."
Erm...not really, no. In my experience, it's predominantly dickish people who openly criticize others for smoking on the basis that it might be harmful to the person doing the criticizing/people around them. It's the equivalent of telling someone that if they're going to kill themselves, they sure as hell better do it in their own home instead of jumping in front of a train or something: the only reason anything's even being said is that the person decided that another person's habit was destructive enough to warrant protecting themselves from, but they couldn't care less about the person doing it.

Brawndo said:
However, it DOES harm other people, just not in the same way as second-hand smoke. According to a recent study, annual spending on obesity-related diseases is expected to rise by 13-16% in the US by 2030, leading to 2.6% increase in national health spending. Total medical costs associated with treatment of preventable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and coronary heart disease are estimated to increase by $48-66 billion a year.
Whoawhoawhoawhoa.

Hold up there. Diabetes in on that list? I can name three coworkers of mine right off the bat who all have insulin injectors in their pockets. Two of them are fairly thin, and the other is actually really fit. None of them were ever morbidly obese, or even overweight. So why are you including diabetes on a list of "only fat people get these" diseases?

And stroke? Shit, my first driving instructor once had a stroke. Again, no obesity, and he resumed his life with a speech impediment, but nothing else. How are these diseases that you can attribute entirely to fat people?

Brawndo said:
That means as a fit person, my taxes will be higher and my insurance premiums will go up to fund increased health care costs associated with an increase in obesity. Also, children with fat parents are less likely to have access to healthy foods and are more likely to be overweight themselves. Other people ARE harmed by you being overweight.
So...in other words, you're equating "higher taxes" with "personal harm"? Do you also think that poor people are harming you for receiving welfare?

Brawndo said:
But instead of a nationwide effort to promote healthy eating, there is a culture in the United States of being fat and proud of it. Facebook groups promoting concepts like "big women are beautiful" have millions of followers, and criticism of fat people is called "hate speech". Clearly some overweight people don't want to feel guilty about their behavior choices, so they try to make others feel guilty or embarrassed for criticizing them.
Except those groups generally aren't for the morbidly obese, ie, the people who have significantly higher health risks than those of closer-to-average weight. They're not about trying to get obesity switched from "health risk" to "thing of beauty." They're women who are above average weight, but by no means are actually morbidly obese. There's a very distinct difference between those two.

Brawndo said:
Let make this perfectly clear: being fat should not be a protected class like race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. Unlike those categories, being fat is almost always a choice. Only a small percentage of people are overweight because of a legitimate medical condition like hyperthyroidism. And sure, eating disorders with psychological roots exist, but let's be honest: most fat people are fat because of poor food choices and because they lack the willpower and motivation to exercise regularly.
Yes, yes, we know. Fat people are fat because they're lazy pigs, poor people are poor because they're lazy drunks, blah, blah, blah.

Do you have numbers for this? Some means of confirming your blanket statement that "fat people," whatever arbitrary weight classification you've decided that is, are overwhelmingly spineless gluttons?
 

Char-Nobyl

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XandNobody said:
TacticalAssassin1 said:
DracoSuave said:
The difference is very simple.

A fat person doesn't force bacon down my throat in order for them to eat. A smoker does force others to breath in his drug.

One is immediately self-contained, and the other inconveniences those around you.
Uh... I've never had a smoker come up and shove a cigarette down my throat.
If someone's smoking in a legal place to smoke, that means there's somewhere close by I can go to stand without any smoke to deal with. If you don't like the smoke, just go somewhere else.
EDIT: By the way I don't smoke and I think it's a disgusting habit, but they have the right to kill themselves slowly if they want, and you have the right to avoid them if you want.
Save, if you have to work where they smoke, and cannot avoid it or quit because you have two kids and the economy is shit, eh? Ah, screw the bartender and waitress, I don't work there, I can walk away, so who cares about anyone else eh? Lord...
Okay...? You act as if they're somehow being condemned to the salt mines. They're not. Most bars have non-smoking sections (because they rightfully assume that not all of their clientele wants to smoke) and even then, why are you painting bartenders as victimized morons? Did they learn their trade and get a job, only to realize to their complete and utter shock that people were allowed to smoke in bars? And that says nothing about how horror-struck they'll be when they have to start interacting with (perish the thought) drunk people.
 

Ariyura

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Oct 18, 2008
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usmarine4160 said:
Johann610 said:
Also, regarding the waste leftover? Candy wrappers and crisp packets are brightly colored, at least. Every cigarette butt looks burnt. And oh yeah, no one's ever started a forest fire (or an office fire, or a bed on fire) with crisp packets.
and proven wrong in 5 seconds on google \o/

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/boy_denies_starting_fire_that_killed_family_1_269268
Hey lighting them on fire doesn't count.

OT: People don't chose to be fat, at times it's just how they are. I have a friend that was tooth pick thin all her life, until she found out she had several cancerous lumps throughout her body and brain. After she started going to chemotherapy and had them removed she plumped right up almost to the point you hardly recognize her anymore.

Also metabolism counts for a lot of it. A skinny friend of mine can and will any and all food around him and never go over weighing 140 lbs, while another friend eats one piece of chicken and a salad during the day and she can't drop under 269 lbs. Not everyone is the same so to say just because you are so why isn't everyone else is just wrong.
 

AndyFromMonday

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Of course it's acceptable to discriminate against fat people. Who cares about silly things like logic and shit? We've run out of groups to direct our hate to so now it's the fat peoples turn.
 

Char-Nobyl

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DeadSp8s said:
Can't we criticize both? Fat people get to eat deliciousness, but have no self-control
Wait...so you loathe them because they get to eat food that you like?

DeadSp8s said:
and smokers get free breaks at work for killing themselves.
...you realize that you can take breaks too, right? It's just that you don't call them 'smoking breaks.' If someone is being allowed to step out for a smoke, it's because their manager/boss is letting them step out, and they happen to be using that opportunity to smoke.

DeadSp8s said:
No one has it easy, except for single, white, land-owning males.
Well, duh. It certainly helps that we're granted millionaire status through a grant from the Well-To-Do White People foundation once we turn eighteen, along with a group of immigrants who "lost" their green cards.

Yep. Life sure is easy for us white guys. Except when things happen to less-important people and sort of get in our way. It's a temporary inconvenience, but by Jove, my timely arrival to the country club is far more important than that of ambulance racing to reach some colored man who was hit by a car or something.
 

lacktheknack

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Jan 19, 2009
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I'm a poor college student with too much homework and a slow metabolism.

Healthy food is more than twice as expensive as trashy food. I can't afford to go to a gym, nor do I have four hours a week to go. I'm gaining weight because all my exercise comes from running between classes.

What do, OP? What do?