Only slim immigrants need apply

ParkRunner

"33-year-old Rowan Trezise planned to move to New Zealand with her husband, but was told she was too fat. The British woman along with her husband tried to get into the country for residence, but were told they were too fat and could be a burden on their health care system."

Any thoughts on this? We wouldn't get away with this in a million years in this country for sure.

Morlar

EF wrote: »

"33-year-old Rowan Trezise planned to move to New Zealand with her husband, but was told she was too fat. The British woman along with her husband tried to get into the country for residence, but were told they were too fat and could be a burden on their health care system."

Any thoughts on this? We wouldn't get away with this in a million years in this country for sure.

I dont know the background or details to this but if they are looking at it from an economic perspective then it makes sense to me.

If you have a choice of admitting 2 different immigrants and one is morbidly obese (for the sake of argument possibly even borderline unemployable) and likely to be a burden on the welfare system or health system. The other is perfectly healthy - then is it not unfairly discriminative against the healthy candidate if you choose the obese person over them?

odyssey06

Once you have a free, universal health care system, you find that other citizens and politicians feel that they should have a legitimate say in how you treat your body. Look at how NHS hospitals in England try to refuse to treat obese people or smokers.

moe_sizlak

ive been to nz and i didnt think they had an NHS type universal health care system there

ParkRunner

I'm not sure what the healthcare system is like in NZ but can you imagine if an immigration officer in Dublin airport said to someone they were too fat to enter the country, it would be a national scandal

brianthebard

EF wrote: »

I'm not sure what the healthcare system is like in NZ but can you imagine if an immigration officer in Dublin airport said to someone they were too fat to enter the country, it would be a national scandal

What makes you so sure of that? And don't you think there's been quite a bit of media coverage about this event, seeing as it happened in NZ but has been reported in the British and Irish media?

Rev Hellfire

odyssey06 wrote: »

Once you have a free, universal health care system, you find that other citizens and politicians feel that they should have a legitimate say in how you treat your body. Look at how NHS hospitals in England try to refuse to treat obese people or smokers.

If a person is to lazy to look after their own body and health why should the system ( and by extension you and I ) accommodate them. I think it makes perfect sense and would love to see such criteria introduced here.

littlebitdull

You would have to hope that at the very least they were both morbitly obese, as opposed to simply fat.

Even within our own health system, when training to be a midwife/nurse you have to fit within guidelines on your BMI.

So by extention you could expect that there would be some guidelines to falling within some sort of healthy range when looking to take up residence within a country. So if say you had a chronic lung illness, that meant you were destined to be under full time care, would that also exclude you?

ParkRunner

Im not sure littlebitdull but it just seemed to be an 'arian race' type requirement to me. If someone was going to be excluded for being obese then surely they should be tested for all types of diseases and even disabilities as they could also be a burden on the healthcare system for those reasons.

Rev Hellfire

EF wrote: »

If someone was going to be excluded for being obese then surely they should be tested for all types of diseases and even disabilities as they could also be a burden on the healthcare system for those reasons.

There's one major difference between the typical obese person and a person with a disability, an obese person is obese though choice; to solve their problem all they need to do is walk away from the table.

Obesity is a major problem here in Ireland and certainly deserves more media attention than it is currently receiving (beyond the tv3 freakshows like 1ton man etc). A campaign to ultimately socially stigmatise it like occurred with smoking should be performed and the banning of adverts for fast food and high fat products from our televisions.

brianthebard

EF wrote: »

Im not sure littlebitdull but it just seemed to be an 'arian race' type requirement to me. If someone was going to be excluded for being obese then surely they should be tested for all types of diseases and even disabilities as they could also be a burden on the healthcare system for those reasons.

You've definitely taken the slippery slope route here, I don't see how it suggests arian race eugenics arguments at all. Just about every developed country in the world has a problem with obesity at the minute, but many of them are doing little about it, possibly cause they don't want to create an obesity lobby. Currently in NY, 1 in 8 people has type 2 diabetes, which is much more likely to occur in obese people. That is a definite health epidemic which is not what NZ wants. NZ is a country with a population around the same as our own-they probably can't afford to have to treat people with illnesses that they have brought on themselves, as well as those illnesses which are unavoidable.

ParkRunner

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

There's one major difference between the typical obese person and a person with a disability, an obese person is obese though choice; to solve their problem all they need to do is walk away from the table.

Not all obesity is through choice, I know a lot of it is but some people are naturally and genetically large. Even some rugby players would be classed as obese but theyre probably the fittest people in the country.

brianthebard

Firstly, the vast majority of obese people are not genetically predisposed to obesity. Secondly, just because a rugby player registers as obese on the BMI scale does not make him so, he obviously has a large amount of muscle mass. If rugby players were considered obese then NZ's own team would be in a lot of trouble wouldn't they?

Brendan552004

China brought in new rules this year for prospective International adoptive parents. You cannot adopt a Chinese child unless your BMI is within a specific range. In other words the Chinese do not want obese people adopting their children.

There are two types of obesity, one is a medical condition the other is self inflicted. Obesity is a major international problem, some of the stadiums in the US have increased the size of their seating because their clients would not fit anymore. I have also heard reports of people having to buy 2 airfares because they could not fit in one seat!!

Rev Hellfire

To even compare a rugby player to an obese person doesn't even merit a response.

I personally I feel the media has a lot of responsibility with regards the acceptability of obesity and its normalisation with regards to acceptability within Irish society. I’d certainly welcome a wholesale ban on sweets and fastfood adverts as per tobacco.

I'd wholly back the Chinese health criteria when it comes to adoption, lets face it if you can't be bothered to look after yourself properly then why you be made responsible for the welfare of another.

andrew

Seems a bit much to ban them from emmigrating to NZ. Why not just remove any entitlement to free health care once she becomes a citizen and make her pay?