Double The Cost For A Flight?

[simcha]

I am heavyset myself. I lost 20 pounds since moving to Florida. It just came off it was stress and misery weight. I grew up heavy. My mother was stocky but not obese as was my paternal grandfather. I lost the weight at 17 gained it back and then lost it again. I was not heavy for 15 years. It then crept back on as I got lazy. I can pretty much each whatever I want and keep the weight that I am at now. I would love to lose 30 or 40 pounds, but I don't want to do the work that it takes. I taught myself not to go crazy and eat a large bag of Doritos at one sitting. I am tall and broad shouldered and people were often surprised when I told them how much I weighed.

I feel bad for morbidly obese people. They have different genetics that a slim person. Some people can eat all they want and not gain weight. Most people can eat all they want and never get to 800 pounds. A conjoined twin with one body and two heads may take up only one seat but will be charged for two people.

I always choose a window seat. I don't want to be in between two people ever. I don't spill into anyone else's seat. when I was a bit heavier I noticed that the seat belts on airplanes are not very big. I had a 40 inch waist and the slack on the seatbelt was only a few inches.

It's not discrimination that some helicopters will not let you on if you weigh over 300 pounds. It's a safety matter and a matter as to how the weight is distributed.

FYI, I don't spill over into the seats next to me. I usually order a window seat because I like to look down and see the world.

I am a large guy. And even if I were to lose weight I'd still be uncomfortable in airline seats these days. It's just a matter of chest size and hip size. You can't lose bone (unless you have osteoperosis or you shave bone).

I'm so glad that even you who has experienced being fat makes assumptions about why other people are fat. Do all fat people eat bags and bags of Doritos without ever moving? Really? That's the level of discourse that is acceptable when talking about fat people? And this isn't bigotry? Really?

Your experience is universal to all fat people? Really? You claim you got lazy, have you done any research on what failures diet and exercise have actually been at controlling weight? Did you consider that you are being lied to by the weightloss industry and the medical industrial complex that likes people spending money on products that don't work?

I'm playing devil's advocate because I work with all sizes of people and have truly observed people's eating choices and activity levels in relation to their size because I wanted to live in reality about this for my own health. I've seen that yo-yo dieting is one of the number one killers of fat people in this country, not cholesterol, not the fat itself, but yo-yo dieting. What causes yo-yo dieting? I'll tell you. It's the vast amount of misinformation given to fat people about the effectiveness of dieting and exercizing and their utility in maintaining a lower weight and the alleged health benefits of losing weight.

My Dad was a prime example of this. He died early in has early 60s. My Grandfather (his Dad) is large too. My Grandfather turns 90 on Tuesday. Both men were consistently active throughout life. My Grandfather who golfs and bowls at 90 and even plays softball has never, ever dieted or started an "exercise regime" to attempt to control his weight. He wasn't raised with propaganda about size and health. My Dad on the other hand tried countless diets and exercise regimes. He lost weight, he gained weight. He was almost never at rest with his weight. He'd always end up gaining more weight after the diets and exercise failed. He didn't have high cholesterol, he had no heart disease, and he had no high blood pressure. He never suffered from diabetes. He never had cancer. What killed him? He had a massive heart attack that they still can't explain after exercising in the morning. Two months before he died he had a stress test and an entire physical/medical workup. He was given a clean bill of health.

What do I believe killed him? I believe his heart gave out due to the strain of the body's weight fluctuations. There is ever more evidence about this in medical literature. It's just beginning to come to light.

You know what? Statistically, and using Grandpa as a model, if he simply lived reasonably while doing the sports he loved and eating reasonable amounts of food (which many fat people do) without having the large weight fluctuations, he'd still be alive. I believe that Grandpa is alive because he never put his body through the stress of following bad medical advice to diet or exercise compulsively. Dad's dead because he internalized the bad medical advice and society's assault on the esteem of fat people.

I won't fall victim to it. I refuse. I'm quite healthy and my cholesterol is fine now that I've learned what I need to do to keep healthy (and it most certainly isn't dieting and exercising compulsively or taking dangerous diet drugs).

So, I don't expect attitudes to change. I just wanted to make sure that the other side got heard. Now that this has happened, I'll leave this place to its continued lack of ability to hold intelligent discourse about any subject.

 

[simcha]

From your article:

The Middle Seat Factor
Boeing has patented what they call the Personal Space Model, a formula that accounts for seat pitch, width, and similar quantifiable measurements, along with more subjective elements of passenger perception of space.

Some of the findings:
- Leg room and seat width account for 60% of the average traveler's sense of comfort
- Putting the widest point in the cabin at eye level (approx. 48 inches) "tricks" passengers to experience a sensation of greater roominess.
- The overarching factor determining passenger perception of comfort: whether or not the middle seat is occupied.

The Standard Seat: 17.2 Inches Wide; 31-32 Inch Seat Pitch
During the development of the 777 family of planes, Boeing took their findings and decided to add 5 inches to the width of the plane. It permitted them to put in wider, 18.5" seats without diminishing the overall capacity.

The standard airline seat is 17.2" wide, while seat pitch ranges from 28" on some short-haul, down-and-dirty charters, to 33-34" on some planes.

Boeing is also putting 18.5" seats in the 787. Since these are the only new models in the past 25 years, it seems the seats are increasing in width, not getting smaller as you said. Perhaps the aircraft manufacturers and their customers are not so greedy after all and the seats have grown to match the ever expanding waistlines of the public.

What the article doesn't show is what seats were like before deregulation. I'm trying to find that data and I can't at the moment. I just realized that I've put too much energy into trying to educate the ignorant who refuse to spend any energy in trying to do any research to become educated.

I don't care to be the poster boy for the truth about fat. I've learned that people will believe what they want to believe. TTFN.

 

[thadjock]

I feel bad for morbidly obese people. They have different genetics that a slim person.

i'm not sure a general statement like that is accurate.

I'll agree after you get to 400 lbs it's probably a real bitch to lose it, but the only way to get to 400 is to stuff yourself every day and never get any excercise.

there's no way you could gain that kind of weight eating 1200-1500 calories a day and getting some kind of moderate excercise, no matter what your physiology is.

the psychology of eating disorders & food dependence is a whole different matter from genetics.

 

[Mem]

The main reason I like the window seat is that I like to look out at the clouds and the ground, also I get prone to motion sickness and looking out the window helps that pass.I have never been uncomfortable in a coach seat on an airplane. Over 3 hour flights are tough on anyone, otherwise no problem.

I didn't say all fat people are lazy. I said I got fat when I got lazy. When I stopped going out clubbing and dancing a few hours a night. You can't say that some fat people are not lazy because some are. You can't say that many don't overeat, because they do. I know how to lose weight. I don't need a product to do it. they know how to lose wight, but I understand that it is difficult.

Calories in minus calories out. It's that simple. No one ever left a concentration camp after a few year and was still obese. There are some other factor and your metabolism can slow, but in general we all know how to get fat. I am blessed with good genetics when it comes to cholesterol, just luck. I also do not have high blood pressure.

 

[simcha]

And one last little morsel for the road:

Obesity is a sham by the weight-loss industry, says academic

 

[B_FakeSize]

I like fat people because they're so cuddly and funny.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Just as I expected. There's nothing but abject denials from the haters who are in complete denial that they are, in point of fact, bigots.

That you perceive only what you expected is proof that you are prejudiced.
Which is bigotry.
It is entirely possible to have a position on this that has nothing to do with bigotry agaisnt the overweight. Those who weigh far more than average driving up MY cost for travel is purely an economic concern.

Overweight people cry about their rights to mask the plain fact that they are demanding that other human beings pay for part of the cost incurred in their desire to travel.

Fact- if you weigh 300 lbs- you pay more for gas and car maintnence than a person who weighs half as much.
The idea that the obese should travel by plane for the same price as those who are not obese would be no different than asking thinner people to chip in for the cost of YOUR gasoline.

I know that what I say is extremely unpopular today. So it was over 50 years ago with the struggle of black people to gain civil rights. So it is today with the gay movement. I know that society moves at a painfully slow pace so I give it about 50 years for people's blinders to be removed.

the plight of the obese is not analgous to the plight of a race of people held as slaves.
There is nothing a black man could do to alter his race.
People who are overweight are overweight from overeating. That is a personal choice.

People who smoke do not have special rights as a result of their choice, nor do people who eat too much.

IT is flatly insulting and ignorant to liken the condition of being overweight to Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement.
Blacks were agitiating for equal treatment.

What you ask for is law to force the less obese to partly pay for the freight of the overweight.

Why stop there? Why not have those who are shipping a 1 pound parcel pay the exact same amount as those shipping a 100 pound parcel?

Why not price gasoline by the MILE... so that those driving Hondas have to pay part of the costs of those who choose to drive Hummers?


Spare me your sob story. I understand that being overweight has consequences in terms of attraction and employment... but then so does being ugly, or being obnoxious...

What next? a civil rights movement to somehow force people to like everybody the same?

Its really very simple. tell the overweight that If they want to pay less for an airline seat, skip a meal now and again. The extra weight they are carrying is nothing more than food reserves.

They can spend less on clothing, less on gasoline, less on air fare, and less on food....

I am not particularly thin... but if I paid for 20 full inches of seat, I don't want someone elses' flab carving 6 inches off of that space.
Nor do I need to pay more so that every seat can be wider to accommodate the 1 in 8 who might overflow a normal seat.

Like it or not, excess weight has consequences and costs.
Those who elect to over-indulge in food are no different than any other narrow group that must pay their own way.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

PS- fat people do not have different genetics.
sure there is variation in human metabolisms, and yes there are a couple of known diseases that can cause obesity.
But that is not the case with 80% or more of obese people.

Compare their caloric intake and you will find that the rail thin eat a fraction of the calories consumed by the obese.
I recall an obese friend of mine complaining over breakfast about how it was his glands, his metabolism, how he just turned food to fat where other's did not...
meanwhile, in one sitting he downed half a box of cereal, a quart of milk, 6 teaspoons of sugar, AND a stack of waffles with a quarter stick of butter and syrup on them...


Its very simple... outside of a few medical cases, over wieght means you are eating more food than you require.
Period.