Cash for shedded pounds. Not funny

In an absolutely asinine move, the British government is now looking into introducing financial incentives for people to maintain healthy diets and shed extra pounds. The move is in large provoked by the staggering statistics of child obesity in England and the huge costs of obesity-related health issues passed down to the NHS.

In a Department of Health report entitled Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives published on 23 January, Gordon Brown cracks up scary figures:

In England alone, nearly a quarter of men and women are now obese. Almost a fifth of 2 to 5 year-olds are obese, while a further 14 per cent are overweight.

This is presumably what got the DH moving.

The Health Secretary Alan Johnson stands behind this £372 million strategy that is meant to help cut the proportion of obese and overweight children by 2020 back to levels in 2000.

Obesity has been linked to every ailment from heart disease to cancer followed by hysterectomy. Obesity has been affecting not just the adults, but children and even pets (according to RSPCA). Projects like 'Pets get slim' have made human stories out of pets fighting the challenge of weight loss. This spirit is about to be echoed in humans.

While it might be unfair to assume that all this weight came from wealth (money translated into food), and using money to gag the mouth is at best counter-productive, it's equally unfair, on the other hand, that alcoholics, smokers and drug addicts never got paid for fighting their demons with their bare hands.

Luckily, the Health Secretary is not entirely ignorant. According to TimesOnline, Mr Johnson said: "The core of the problem is simple — we eat too much and we do too little exercise." Bless thou who sees the truth. Shame on those who try to put out a fire with bottles of cooking oil.

Has anyone thought: oh, if I put on some weight now I'll get paid for losing it! It is not entirely impossible that even if this short-sighted move will be effective, it still runs the risk of developing into a dependency on this financial incentive and create a different form of addiction. Such embarrassing plans should not even pause in the heads of the normal thinking members of society.