How to Avoid the “Fat Tax” on Overweight Travellers
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 Subscribe To Our Feed
In 2002, a woman holiday traveler from Swansea won a £13,000 settlement after being injured by an obese passenger on an 11-hour flight from Heathrow to L.A. Barbara Hewson suffered torn leg muscles and hematoma on her chest after being “crushed” by an obese passenger seated next to her.
The passenger was too large to get into her economy-class seat without raising the armrest and rolling into the adjacent seat. Her legs were pressing down on Hewson’s and her elbows rested on the latter’s chest as well. The sheer size of the passenger pinned Hewson to her chair throughout the 11-hour flight so badly that she was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital in a wheelchair and injected with painkillers. Damage was extensive on the buttock muscles and sciatic nerves of her legs. Close to two years after the incident, she was still experiencing some pain and walked with a cane.
Hers is just one of the thousands of horror stories of unpleasant experiences on board due to obese passengers. The US-based United Airlines received 700 complaints about overweight passengers in a single year alone, pushing it to create a new policy to charge larger passengers for two seats.
The issue of how airlines should deal with obese or severely overweight passengers and the imposition of the “fat tax” has sparked endless debates in the US, where a third of the adult population is clinically obese. The policy has caused some outrage among pressure groups, but when you look at the numbers, it all makes sense. A 747 aircraft for example, seats 467 passengers. America’s obese account for 30.6% of the population. That’s roughly 143 overweight passengers per fully-booked commercial flight. If each passenger just weighed 50 pounds more, that’s about 3.25 tons more weight to carry!
The obesity problem is no longer restricted to America, with the United Kingdom coming in third worldwide. Half of all its adults are heavier than the recommended weight, 2 in 5 are overweight, and 23 percent at the obesity level.
The figures have become so distressing and people should realize that if only they can begin to lose 10% of their current weight, there will be much improvement in their quality of life – they will have more self-esteem and energy and are less likely to develop numerous disease symptoms.
The difficulty usually stems from not knowing how to lose weight effectively. In desperation, most subject themselves to fad diets which usually do more harm than good. What one needs to do to start losing weight effectively is prime the body into a weight loss mode by getting rid of the toxins that can hamper the process. This can be achieved through a simple detox regime.
One such comprehensive detox program is The Clean 9 Nutritional Cleansing Program – an extensive detox process specifically designed to eliminate harmful chemicals and toxins from the body. As it cleanses and purifies, Clean 9 subsequently improves metabolism and digestion, thereby producing more encouraging weight loss results.
The Clean 9 detox regimen just takes 9 days and consists of a variety of natural products designed to eliminate toxins. It also includes specialty meal substitutes and nutritional supplements containing well-known natural products such as aloe vera and bee pollen. The Clean 9 Program is a good and reliable detox package that will start you on an effective long-term weight loss program. Clean 9 will definitely put you on the path to optimum total wellness.
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