Is being fat a disability??

Yes, if a person arrives at one or more of those conditions, they do have a disability. However, if the reason they got lung cancer was from smoking; lost their legs playing chicken with a train, do we, as a society, owe them the same level of empathy and or assistance that we have for those who are disabled through no fault of their own?

Yes.

That's not even a question. Morally and legally.

We'll have to agree to disagree there. As a former smoker, should I develop lung cancer in the future because of it, I do not want, nor do I think I deserve empathy and assistance from society. I was stupid for smoking in the first place. Stupid shouldn't be rewarded.

Rewarded would mean given a good thing.

Being helped out with cancer - that's so the opposite of a good thing that I'm a little baffled.

Look at it this way.....you help me with my lung cancer, the lung cancer that I got because I made a stupid decision in my teens; a stupid decision that kept making for 20+ years, because you're a good person. However, in doing this, you may be taking resources and/or time away from another person suffering from a cancer that they got not from making a stupid decision, but because sometimes bad things happen to people. In my view, it is that person who deserves your time and effort, not me. "Reward" might not be the best word to use there, but I hope the above conveys what I was getting at.

Luckily, we're not a Randian society. We're better than that.

When someone in society suffers, we all have the potential to be impacted. A man who needs money for his life saving medications will fall to theft to survive. That's his fault for his actions, but a significant societal failure that he was pushed to that. The stupidity of a decision notwithstanding, without belaboring examples, economically and socially it behooves us to ensure that these folks are cared for.

It's a matter of empathy and taking a long view on social issues, which is something we don't do or have anymore. *shrug*

You are so silly. Of course we still do. My neighbor's job is to schedule hearing tests for preschoolers. Human society isn't at 100% and it will never be, but we help each out in innumerable ways.

Some people have their act together. As a societal whole though, we don't. Otherwise we'd vote in different people, and there wouldn't be a group of the country squawking like gulls over refugee children.

Our society isn't 100%, we're not even 60%, but there is potential to fix that.

By that definition, a sprained ankle or even a broken bone would appear to be a disability. That's a really simplified definition.

To the man judging his "lazy" neighbor, how about you? You know her so well, why not try including her? Does it make you folks feel good about yourselves to speak about others with such righteous overtones? Grow up already.

I include her as little as possible. I tolerate her because my wife doesn't have as big of an issue with her as I do. As I stated before, being fat and lazy is only one of her problems....she is a sack of s**t. She games the welfare system, she was/is a s**ty mother (two of her three kids are in prison). She's had numerous dogs taken away because she'll just open her front door to let them do their business, and some people have been bitten (not to mention she leaves the dog crap all over the place). I could go on and on. Why? Because I know this woman. I'm not generalizing about everyone, I'm speaking of one person that I know.

As for growing up, do you know me, or this woman? Nice to meet you, kettle.

If being fat is a disability, why not give all fat people handicap stickers on their cars so they don't have to walk as far? Give them all tax-payer funded disability checks and wheelchairs and stair lifts in their houses so they don't have to move as much?

People think that their poor health choices make them deserve pity and special treatment from everyone else. The term disability is being used too loosely and it's insulting to people with legitimate disabilities. Why should all the scooters in grocery stores and all the handicap parking spaces be taken by someone who could use the little bit of extra exercise, when an 85 year old war vet or someone with an illness/disorder (cancer, CF, CP, etc.) needs it more? Come on people, have some responsibility for yourself and your choices.

(I'm talking about BEING fat, as in choosing to scoop up your half gallon of ice cream with twinkies while watching entire seasons of tv shows on netflix in one sitting fat. NOT fat as a side effect of another REAL disability.)

The OP either gave up or is trying to back squat 160 lbs to see what its like.

Crap. Now she's hurt her back and we're all going to have to pay for her choices when she stops being able to work because of it.

Oh that's cute. Well, I have a bad back, too. I inherited it, much like wealthy people inherit the family trust fund, but without the lavish lifestyle.

So with people like you crying in the workplace, I wonder, should I just go ahead and plan for a potentially disabled future now by taking up bank robbery? Or maybe vacation homes are a better target?

I would however agree that depression is not an acceptable excuse for obesity.

Someone should smack you for this statement.

That's like saying that someone who has post-traumatic stress disorder is not an acceptable excuse for anxiety.

Or saying that ADHD is not an acceptable excuse to do poorly in school and that person is perfectly capable to keep control over it without any help at all.

You people make me sick. It's no wonder there are so many mentally unstable people slipping through the system and going on wild shooting rampages. It's because everyone else is going "oh, they're fine. they should ust snap out of it and behave like a "normal" human being."

FFS.

1+ lets slap that person together.
People and there close minded views.

What about me? I started smoking when I was 15. I stopped when I was 24.

I'm 42 now, and haven't smoked in almost two decades. My risk of lung cancer is close to what it would have been if I had never made the juvenile decision to pick up a cigarette. I don't pay more for my insurance because I never had insurance when I was smoking.

If I got lung cancer, should I be treated or not treated?

Remember, I'm the main financial support for two preschoolers, and cancer treatment is well beyond the means of the average person.

Judging another person's choices is so complex that it's better just to look at the resources and the benefits and make your decisions without going into the history.

Should YOU, or anyone else, be treated is not what I'm discussing here. I'm saying that someone who develops cancer due to nothing they did wrong deserves to have assistance before ME. That is how I feel. I am the main financial support for a wife and two kids (the third has been on his own for a couple of years now) and knowing this, I have a butt load of life insurance. I pay through the *kitten* for this insurance because of my smoking, but the premium is supposed to go down once I hit the 5 year, smoke-free mark. I do this because I know my past decisions put my family at risk.

This is going nowhere, and judging ME for my beliefs about things oh how I want to deal with MY life is not something I'm going to care about.