A British woman planning to start a new life with her husband in New Zealand has been banned from entering the country - because she is too fat.
Rowan Trezise, 33, has been left behind in England while her husband Richie, 35, has already made the move down under leaving her desperately trying to lose weight.
The reason for this:
When the couple first tried to gain entry to the country they were told that they were both overweight and were a potential burden on the health care system.
The UK already allows doctors to refuse service on "self-inflicted injuries" (and yes, obesity is considered self-inflicted), but this is the first i've heard of a country using immigration policy to optimize the risk pool.
Robyn Toomath, a spokesman for New Zealand's Fight the Obesity Epidemic and an endocrinologist said that obese people should not be victimised, but agreed with the restrictions.
"The immigration department can't afford to import people who are going to be a significant drain on our health resources.
"You can see the logic in assessing if there is a significant health cost associated with this individual and that would be a reason for them not coming in."
I wonder if this type of risk management will prove popular. Maybe countries will allow in more asian women (who have exceptionally good health outcomes, statistically speaking), or import a lot of young people, and disallow immigration of old people.
Freshprinceofbelair was originally majoring in actuarial science, but didn't like the first internship
A friend of mine living in France was recently told to lose weight by his bank before they would allow him to get a mortgage on his new house. The justification was that his weight increased his chances of dying earlier, which would threaten their ability to collect monthly payments. So he exercised and improved his diet and dropped a bunch of weight, and he's now living in his new home.
apesamongus said:
Wow. I was expecting morbidly obese. They really aren't that big.
Um.. yeah, they are. The clinical definition of morbidly obese is a BMI of 40. A 5'5 woman (average height) is morbidly obese, according to the BMI (which, despite it's multitude of flaws, is generally accepted by most insurance companies and many medical institutions as a standard indicator) at 245 pounds.
She looks like she could easily weigh that.
The article says his BMI was 42, which is clinically morbidly obese. For a 5'9" (average height) man, that's about 285 pounds.
I would reccomend to anyone to watch the movie Sicko. Not that I really appreciate Micheal Moore and his opinions too much, but the parts of it that actually stand as true really bring your attention to just how bad healthcare in the US is. It's so interesting because today I had to pick up antibiotics (In BC, Canada) and I was irritated to pay a 2.00 dispensing fee that my pharmacy charged because it has higher dispensing fees than the rest of Canada. It totally makes me realize I have it SO good.
I don't really know where I stand on this issue. I'm a pretty compact person and I have a friend that is obese, not morbidly so, but shes chunky in a way that could probably impact her health in her later years. It is really no different in my opinion not letting fat people into a country for fear of taxes going up than not letting people into a country because they have too many kids, are a minority or are ESL. However that totally doesn't make it right. I think people need to be assessed on a personal basis because some people really are fat because of their own doing, and some people are fat because they have thyroid or other metabolism related problems.
The sad thing is that if we addressed each case individually, it would probably cost more to pay the doctors than it would to pay for the morbid people that died/ had many health expenses, so just let them in already. It's a free country, isn't it? Anyhow, the lady's husband is apparantly a HUGE dick because he was just like see ya I'm going to the US, how bout you're just fat alone?
You just can't win with politics, especially American politics.
You just can't win with politics, especially American politics.
or...new zealand politics?
Haha, I worded that poorly. I was just implying that I'm sure things are better in New Zealand than they are in the US, what with childcare and healthcare and pretty much everything else.
freshprncebelair
Ellicott City, MD
June 2004
NOV 20, 2007 07:10 AM