Sorry, you’re too fat to eat here

[groovedaddy]

Miss. bill would ban restaurants from serving obese customers - AP

JACKSON, Miss. - A state lawmaker wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers — but please, don’t be offended.

He says he never even expected his plan to become law.

“I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi,” said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, who acknowledges that at 5-foot-11 and 230 pounds, he’d probably have a tough time under his own bill.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22997073/wid/11915773?gt1=10914

[Connonym]

1. Gosh, all the restaurants in Wisconsin would go out of business

there aren't enough non-obese people here to keep them in business. I work in healthcare and I was reading a trade magazine the other day and they were discussing that one of the ways companies are working to defer the costs of insurance is charging employees more for insurance if they don't meet health criteria. Some of the factors they're measuring are blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol level, smoking status, exercise habits, etc. Employees have to undergo annual blood work and such and if they fail to meet the criteria they have to pay an increased share of their health insurance costs. Big Brother's watching...

[BridgeTheGap]

2. Kentucky too...they grow 'em BIG down here! n/t

[malta blue]

6. My company takes extra money for insurance if you smoke

and you have to sign a statement saying that you do/do not smoke during the open enrollment.

There are soooo many people who smoke who signed that they don't. I wonder what will happen when the company goes to check.

[geardaddy]

17. Same with MN n/t

[Arugula Latte]

24. Add Ohio to that list ... Wow.

I recall visiting family in northeastern Ohio several times and whenever we went out to eat I'd say about 70 percent of the people were in the quite-chubby-to-morbidly obese range.

[soleft]

3. This will sure help the economy

:crazy:

[Writer]

4. They should make people who are underweight eat MORE.

:P

[yurbud]

5. will they have a scale at the door or a dipstick they stick between the rolls to measure depth?

[groovedaddy]

8. Now, now...how PC is that comment? n/t

[yurbud]

11. by PC, do you mean pork chop or pudding cups?

[BridgeTheGap]

16. Would you like those deep fried? n/t

[yurbud]

20. of course. I'm not some kind of birkenstock-wearing vegan hippy who solar cooks his pork chops

[Hard_Work]

22. Mmmmm,

deep fried pork chop pudding cups...

and forbidden donut...

[yurbud]

23. we could all get along if there was a solar deep fat fryer

[groovedaddy]

27. I think you're on to something there...n/t

[yurbud]

33. I'm the Obama of the barbecue

[RedStateShame]

7. Wanna keep obese people out of restaurants?

Let smokers back in.

[KamaAina]

9. This could get ugly. They'd all cross over into Louisiana

where two gentlemen were recently ejected from an all-you-can-eat* buffet for being, well, large and hungry. :eyes:

[no name no slogan]

10. When only skinny people can eat at restaurants,...

...there's a catchy saying in there somewhere, but I can't find it.

[RedStateShame]

13. When fat people are outlawed from restaurants, the only fat people in restaurants will be outlaws?

I got nothin'.

[XemaSab]

15. Confucius say:

Restaurant that only serve anorexic go out of business soon. :P

[BOSSHOG]

12. Hmmmm, the number one problem in Mississippi?

Its number one in obesity and diabetes and teen pregnancy and high school dropouts, but maybe the number one problem in light of the other numbers is that it is number one in churches per capita.

[skater314159]

31. Nah,

its just they're #1 in dipshits who refuse "that fancy, uppity book-learnin'". *That* might account for the rest of those statistics...

[CJCRANE]

14. "You've had enough to eat, buddy.

C'mon, time to go home".

[guitar man]

26. oh yeah

I'll tell you when I've had enough, now keep 'em comin!!

:rofl:

[unpossibles]

18. how about instead the restaurants start serving normal portions again

instead of gallon-sized sodas and three dinners on one plate?

At the very least as an option.

[Sugar Smack]

21. THANK YOU. I was trying to figure out how

I was going to say that. I like leftovers sometimes, but enough for three days is absurd. The food supply is, according to GD and LBN, plummeting, but you'd never know from today's "Biggie" sizing & "supersizing". I suppose my complaint here is that there are so many people going hungry, and a lot of the things restaurants and fast food places have as options are cheap, but they're made of total crap, and ladled out like there's no tomorrow.

[unpossibles]

25. well, as a veteran manager of the food industry, I know why they do it

the largest chunk of the cost of food is usually not the food itself - it is labor and overhead. It takes essentially the same amount of labor to produce a huge sandwich as it does a little one, so they can charge more for the huge one because it looks like a better deal to the customer and it helps make up for that disparity in labor cost. In other words, larger portions = larger profit margins per unit of food.

Soft drinks, all that goes double or triple. There's almost no labor OR food cost, so it helps offset potential waste and loss elsewhere. Same with restaurants which serve alcohol - better profit margin generally speaking. Hell, I've seen some places where the bar essentially allows the restaurant to stay open.

All that said, I still am amazed by portion sizes. I love leftovers too, and often my wife and I will split a meal and I still have tomorrow's lunch from it, but... I don't know.

It's a catch 22 in some ways. We need to be more responsible on the consumer level, but good luck making people do that, and I'm not even saying we should try to force anyone to do anything, despite this being both a health concern and a resource concern which affects everyone. I love when restaurants start featuring small portions - and I've noticed a few recently which are bucking the Super Size trend, and try to support that by ordering smaller.

[skygazer]

19. Sounds like the number one problem is stupidity

[Shell Beau]

28. Obesity is a big problem here in MS. Apparently so is idiocy.

[Fleshdancer]

29. Forced discrimination.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous bills I've ever heard of.

[skater314159]

30. How the fuck is that not discrimination???

I mean, I KNOW it's Mississippi and all, but still... I thought they'd have learned what the hell discrimination is by now... and the whole "I never thought it would become law" is no excuse! Especially for a hypocrite!

[BridgeTheGap]

34. I think obese people will bring their weight to bear on this issue n/t

[flvegan]

32. Not to worry, it sounds impossible to enforce.

First, they'd have to define "obese" at which point they'd probably lose any ability to enforce such a law.