Smokers at Canberra Hospital

maxblues said :

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

Weirdly, these mysterious diseases only occur concomittently with ultra-high-calorie diets and lack of physical activity….

Wrong again HenryBeeGee.

Why don’t you google for “fat people in somalia” and tell me what you find.

HenryBizarreGoogler, you certainly have bizarre googling habits and if you think you know the cause of pituitary adenomas then you are obviously smarter than every neurosurgeon and endocrinologist on the planet. Why, you could get a job at Canberra Hospital, tour the wards and personally insult every patient.

Well, I just googled for “pituitary adenomas” and nowhere does anybody claim that they cause fatness.
What they do say is that a hell of a lot of us have pituitary adenomas and we will never know because they are mostly benign.
What I suspect is that people who’ve taken a brief break from wolfing down mars bars and gravy-soaked chips to go to their doctor to complain about their mysterious and worrying weight gain, are getting medical check-ups which reveal the presence of benign tumours.
In the usual modern approach to personal responsibility, they then try to pin the blame for their fatness on these benign tumours instead of on the not-so-mysterious law of physics that says that you will inevitably get fat if there is a positive energy imbalance between what you eat and what you burn off.

They are doing the wrong thing, but they are contributing to the cost of their treatment by paying the additional taxes via tobacco purchase

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

Weirdly, these mysterious diseases only occur concomittently with ultra-high-calorie diets and lack of physical activity….

Wrong again HenryBeeGee.

Why don’t you google for “fat people in somalia” and tell me what you find.

HenryBizarreGoogler, you certainly have bizarre googling habits and if you think you know the cause of pituitary adenomas then you are obviously smarter than every neurosurgeon and endocrinologist on the planet. Why, you could get a job at Canberra Hospital, tour the wards and personally insult every patient.

maxblues said :

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

Weirdly, these mysterious diseases only occur concomittently with ultra-high-calorie diets and lack of physical activity….

Wrong again HenryBeeGee. By the way, I thought Barry was the only surviving BG.

The fact is that,from ABS, ‘while genetics may play a role in a person’s propensity to become overweight or obese, the fundamental cause is an imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended. Shifts towards energy-dense diets and decreasing physical activity are two of the factors that have contributed to increases in rates of overweight and obesity’.

I would suggest that there are only a very small percentage of people who are obese,due to a medical condition.

maxblues said :

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

Weirdly, these mysterious diseases only occur concomittently with ultra-high-calorie diets and lack of physical activity….

Wrong again HenryBeeGee.

Why don’t you google for “fat people in somalia” and tell me what you find.

HenryBG said :

maxblues said :

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

Weirdly, these mysterious diseases only occur concomittently with ultra-high-calorie diets and lack of physical activity….

Wrong again HenryBeeGee. By the way, I thought Barry was the only surviving BG.

maxblues said :

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

Weirdly, these mysterious diseases only occur concomittently with ultra-high-calorie diets and lack of physical activity….

HenryBG said :

TheDancingDjinn said :

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life?

For a start, when you get on a plane and sit next to me, you bend the armrests towards me, further diminishing the already restricted space I am occupying. Not content with that, you then overflow your seat and spread over the armrests filling up the tiny amount of space that was left between me and my armrest.

I knew a guy who died of emphysaema – the hospital gave him an oxygen bottle on a little trolley and he trundled around at home wheezing and sucking oxygen from his bottle for a couple of years before he died. Cost to the taxpayer? Hardly anything. Costs saved? 20 years of old-aged care nursing = an incalculable amount saved.

I also knew a woman who was obese. She was in hospital on a regular basis – her gall bladder packed up and had to be removed. She got gangrenous toes that had to be operated on. She had a fall necessitating surgery. She was a walking talking imposition on the healthcare system and of course being obese, she was very rarely available for work and in fact got herself an invalid pension, another outrageous cost to the community resulting from her lifestyle choice to eat like a pig.

HenryBileGenerator, you are showing your ignorance if you think that all obesity is the result of lifestyle choices. Many overweight people can be affected by a range of diseases and endocrinoligical disorders such as pituitary adenomas that often go undiagnosed by GPs.

HenryBG said :

TheDancingDjinn said :

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life?

For a start, when you get on a plane and sit next to me, you bend the armrests towards me, further diminishing the already restricted space I am occupying. Not content with that, you then overflow your seat and spread over the armrests filling up the tiny amount of space that was left between me and my armrest.

I knew a guy who died of emphysaema – the hospital gave him an oxygen bottle on a little trolley and he trundled around at home wheezing and sucking oxygen from his bottle for a couple of years before he died. Cost to the taxpayer? Hardly anything. Costs saved? 20 years of old-aged care nursing = an incalculable amount saved.

I also knew a woman who was obese. She was in hospital on a regular basis – her gall bladder packed up and had to be removed. She got gangrenous toes that had to be operated on. She had a fall necessitating surgery. She was a walking talking imposition on the healthcare system and of course being obese, she was very rarely available for work and in fact got herself an invalid pension, another outrageous cost to the community resulting from her lifestyle choice to eat like a pig.

Im sorry sir – did i single out you in my comment? such a personal tirade for something that was not pointed toward you or any comment you have made ever.
Read all my comments slowly from now on before you attack ok scrappy doo ?

( you might catch that i am personally not heavy nor am i a smoker – nor have i ever ever in my life been on an airplane to spill into your precious seat.

YeahBuddy said :

TheDancingDjinn said :

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life? apart from people’s beliefs that they have health issues that need hospital treatment. Someone’s smoking can make others sick, i used to smoke – it was not difficult for me not to smoke near entrance ways, and it was not hard for me to put my cigarette out before i threw it away, and it wasn’t hard for me to make sure my smoke didn’t go near some other peoples kids – those people and children didn’t chose to ruin their lungs – i was that moron.
Being heavy and smoking are both bad for your body, and they are both things we are never going to be able to control in others. If people want to do it then let them do it – as long as it doesn’t infringe on you, what do you care?

I was expecting way worse than that (probably still coming though!). I agree, your weight has no impact on me, and neither does someone else’s choice to smoke …. until you start throwing around that “cost to public health” argument, and then it affects us all. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t care if you smoke, or if you are overweight, I just think it is unfair that smoker’s cop it worse. Start a scare campain about the effects of being overweight and tax fatties for their unhealthy food.

I am neither fat nor a smoker… i once was both but no longer ( i mentioned that in my first post ) and i agree i think its bullshit that either of them cop crap from people. But it wont stop them eating or smoking and it wont stop people thinking its ok to put their 2c in about another persons life. People are sucky – its true.

HenryBG said :

NoImRight said :

So obesity is a choice and the taxpayers shouldnt have to pay but private schools are a…….?

um…a red herring? An irrelevant tangent?
(As well as being a far more efficient and effective alternative provider of education, of course).

How about a “hypocritical double standard that even its fans know they should avoid trying to justify whenever possible”?

Could we please have the pool-room quotes back? I would like to nominate HenryBG’s “I also knew a woman who was obese.”

NoImRight said :

So obesity is a choice and the taxpayers shouldnt have to pay but private schools are a…….?

um…a red herring? An irrelevant tangent?
(As well as being a far more efficient and effective alternative provider of education, of course).

HenryBG said :

TheDancingDjinn said :

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life?

For a start, when you get on a plane and sit next to me, you bend the armrests towards me, further diminishing the already restricted space I am occupying. Not content with that, you then overflow your seat and spread over the armrests filling up the tiny amount of space that was left between me and my armrest.

I knew a guy who died of emphysaema – the hospital gave him an oxygen bottle on a little trolley and he trundled around at home wheezing and sucking oxygen from his bottle for a couple of years before he died. Cost to the taxpayer? Hardly anything. Costs saved? 20 years of old-aged care nursing = an incalculable amount saved.

I also knew a woman who was obese. She was in hospital on a regular basis – her gall bladder packed up and had to be removed. She got gangrenous toes that had to be operated on. She had a fall necessitating surgery. She was a walking talking imposition on the healthcare system and of course being obese, she was very rarely available for work and in fact got herself an invalid pension, another outrageous cost to the community resulting from her lifestyle choice to eat like a pig.

So obesity is a choice and the taxpayers shouldnt have to pay but private schools are a…….?

poetix said :

milkman said :

I wouldn’t mind smookers so much…

….

Smookers are so annoying, with their burning cues and tendency to block you in.

I enjoyed this post way too much.

Thanks. 🙂

Watson said :

m_ratt said :

Someone else’s choice to smoke has no impact, UNTIL they smoke where their smoke mixes with the air I am breathing. Smokers 10m upwind are almost as bad as smokers adjacent. The smoke doesn’t just disappear.

Honestly… I challenge you to go stand somewhere blindfolded and then point out people smoking 10m away from you by smell..

Well, I could probably take you up on that. On occasions I can smell people smoking in cars around me, and I can certainly smell people lighting up outside on the floor below me at work. For some people, cigarette smoke is the nasal equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.

I honestly don’t go out of my way to be offended by cigarette smoke, and generally I believe in live and let live. If smokers want to choof themselves to death, fine. Give them pleasant spaces and butt-disposal bin away from everyone else. I just don’t want to have it inflicted on me in a space where my options to avoid it are limited, like work or eating at tables.

My general ambivalence changes when I see a smoker throws a lit cigarette out of a car window during hot summers. They should be done for attempted arson. And should a cigarette butt that causes a bushfire ever be traced back to the smoker, they should be held to account for all the death and destruction caused by the fire and face lengthy prison sentences; arson, manslaughter, assault, destruction of property, cruelty to animals, the lot.

Community service should include being made to help graziers and rangers go around and put down all the stock and wildlife that have been cooked and are somehow still alive after several hours of agony.

milkman said :

I wouldn’t mind smookers so much…

….

Smookers are so annoying, with their burning cues and tendency to block you in.

I wouldn’t mind smookers so much if they didn’t leave the butts on the ground, or throw them out of car windows.

Yeah, yeah, it’s not ALL of them, but it’s enough that the bloody things are everywhere you go.

TheDancingDjinn said :

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life?

For a start, when you get on a plane and sit next to me, you bend the armrests towards me, further diminishing the already restricted space I am occupying. Not content with that, you then overflow your seat and spread over the armrests filling up the tiny amount of space that was left between me and my armrest.

I knew a guy who died of emphysaema – the hospital gave him an oxygen bottle on a little trolley and he trundled around at home wheezing and sucking oxygen from his bottle for a couple of years before he died. Cost to the taxpayer? Hardly anything. Costs saved? 20 years of old-aged care nursing = an incalculable amount saved.

I also knew a woman who was obese. She was in hospital on a regular basis – her gall bladder packed up and had to be removed. She got gangrenous toes that had to be operated on. She had a fall necessitating surgery. She was a walking talking imposition on the healthcare system and of course being obese, she was very rarely available for work and in fact got herself an invalid pension, another outrageous cost to the community resulting from her lifestyle choice to eat like a pig.

m_ratt said :

Someone else’s choice to smoke has no impact, UNTIL they smoke where their smoke mixes with the air I am breathing. Smokers 10m upwind are almost as bad as smokers adjacent. The smoke doesn’t just disappear.

Honestly… I challenge you to go stand somewhere blindfolded and then point out people smoking 10m away from you by smell.

I bet you that the car fumes when you walk near a busy road are more harmful than that. So is indeed all the crap they put in our food. Hell, just the generalised overuse of salt will kill you way faster than a few smokers in open air.

YeahBuddy said :

your weight has no impact on me, and neither does someone else’s choice to smoke ….

Someone else’s choice to smoke has no impact, UNTIL they smoke where their smoke mixes with the air I am breathing. Smokers 10m upwind are almost as bad as smokers adjacent. The smoke doesn’t just disappear.

What would the reaction be if I carried noxious poison around and started spraying it on random members of the public? – I imagine it wouldn’t go down well. But tobacco smoke….

cross said :

Yep KFC should be heavily taxed and come in plain packaging with graphic and disturbing pictures.

I actually had the same thought about cars and alcohol.

So much judgement, so little tolerance. What if the poor smokers actually enjoy their habit? It might be the only thing they have to live for.

Yep KFC should be heavily taxed and come in plain packaging with graphic and disturbing pictures.

TheDancingDjinn said :

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life? apart from people’s beliefs that they have health issues that need hospital treatment. Someone’s smoking can make others sick, i used to smoke – it was not difficult for me not to smoke near entrance ways, and it was not hard for me to put my cigarette out before i threw it away, and it wasn’t hard for me to make sure my smoke didn’t go near some other peoples kids – those people and children didn’t chose to ruin their lungs – i was that moron.
Being heavy and smoking are both bad for your body, and they are both things we are never going to be able to control in others. If people want to do it then let them do it – as long as it doesn’t infringe on you, what do you care?

I was expecting way worse than that (probably still coming though!). I agree, your weight has no impact on me, and neither does someone else’s choice to smoke …. until you start throwing around that “cost to public health” argument, and then it affects us all. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t care if you smoke, or if you are overweight, I just think it is unfair that smoker’s cop it worse. Start a scare campain about the effects of being overweight and tax fatties for their unhealthy food.

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

Need to make smoking tobacco illegal first, surely?

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

You will be assimilated resistance is futile

YeahBuddy said :

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

how does someone’s weight infringe on your life? apart from people’s beliefs that they have health issues that need hospital treatment. Someone’s smoking can make others sick, i used to smoke – it was not difficult for me not to smoke near entrance ways, and it was not hard for me to put my cigarette out before i threw it away, and it wasn’t hard for me to make sure my smoke didn’t go near some other peoples kids – those people and children didn’t chose to ruin their lungs – i was that moron.
Being heavy and smoking are both bad for your body, and they are both things we are never going to be able to control in others. If people want to do it then let them do it – as long as it doesn’t infringe on you, what do you care?

Surely it’s time to start forcing smokers into government funded stop smoking programs for their own good.

What about the fat people? Can we force them to join Weight Watchers or the gym?

And on another note – why is it not PC to call a fat person fat, but you can bag smokers? New research has actually shown that being fat is worse for your health long term than smoking (and don’t ask me to find it and post a link, I don’t have the time nor inclination, search yourself).

They are smoking outside right?

The way people carry on you’d think they were related to these people. You’re gonna die from something, and are probably more likely to get cancer or heart disease because of crap genetics or from the additives in the food you’re eating or from air pollution, or any other of a million different reasons, than from passing by someone outdoors smoking.

I remember a while back seeing from the NCPH, the back entry to the Admin building resembling a cigar lounge. Doctors, nurses and patients with general visitors, all in a circle smoking, with literally clouds of smoke around. Why it sticks in my mind is there was an ACT Public Health sign behind them – great irony.

m_ratt said :

HenryBG said :

Why do the staff not have an area in which to have a cigarette where it doesn’t affect people?

1. Smokers should be considerate enough of their own volition to ensure they go somewhere that their actions won’t affect people.

2. They do – it’s anywhere that’s not on the hospital grounds. It’s not far from anywhere in the hospital to the edge of the campus.

1. People in general are not considerate.

2. Wishful thinking isn’t the same thing as competent management. Hence the problem described by the OP.

People want to smoke. You get rid of the smoking areas, and people smoke anywhere and everywhere. This is hardly rocket surgery.

dpm said :

[Just ask for a health insurance quote – those guys do their sums on this stuff pretty well.

No they don’t. It’s one of the reasons I refuse to purchase private health insurance. In Australia health insurance premiums are in no way based on risk factors of those being covered, so a healthy, non-smoker who exercise for 45 minutes a day and eats a good diet of lean proteins and vegetables pays the same premium as an unhealthy person who smokes a pack a day, eats nothing but cheeseburgers and considers walking to the fridge for another can of coke as their daily exercise. The premiums of healthy people effectively subsidise the private health care costs of unhealthy ones.

I’m not sure if the ‘smokers vs fatties’ war is all that helpful. For example, level of exercise is a factor that’s very important when you discuss serious/expensive health conditions too. It seems logical that most people who are overweight probably don’t exercise much, but there are plenty of skinny people who don’t either. Exercise is vital for cardiovascular health and has been mentioned as a factor in preventing alzheimers and other chronic illnesses.

And to those who say the staff at TCH need to get off the premises to smoke: why? How does that even help anyone at all? Surely there is some area somewhere where non-smokers would rarely pass and where there’s no aircon vents or exits where they could smoke in peace.

Smoke-free workplaces/premises aren’t about the effect on other people. It’s patronising “we will punish you for doing something we don’t like and think is stupid” bull crap.

Also, now we cannot fart outside either?! So where should I go to fart? Is there a designated farting place somewhere I didn’t know about?

Tetranitrate said :

I don’t understand why the government and anti tobacco folks in general are so puritan when there are good harm minimization alternatives. Nicotine itself isn’t that much worse than caffeine provided it doesn’t enter the body with an added helping of carcinogenic tar.

Because the wowsers want it to be immoral and wrong more than they want it to be illegal. And to quote PJ O’Rourke:

“…I care so much I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I’m a better person. And because I’m the better person, I have the right to boss you around.”

That said, smoking near AC vents is a nuisance.

dpm said :

At the population level obese people generally suffer worse health and die earlier. Just ask for a health insurance quote – those guys do their sums on this stuff pretty well.
As for no one being in hospital due to being overweight, try dialysis, endo or podiatry for starters….

I work with a guy in his 30s who I’d regard as moderately overweight, and he could not obtain life insurance when he got married. Nobody would would insure him at any price. Says a lot about the actuarial data associated with excess weight and poor health.

TheDancingDjinn said :

I was once rather heavy – (i have lost 120 kgs and am now a healthy weight – just to give you an idea on how big i was) Not once did i ever need medical attention at the hospital, for anything. I have not met one person who was heavy EVER that has gone to the hospital to get medical treatment from something to do with their weight. I have no idea where people came up with this crap that all these heavy people are in hospitals all over the world, but i haven’t met one, and i wasn’t one myself.

The same things that effect heavy people effect small ones, my tiny mother had to have her gall- bladder removed from the stones she got ( never drank, never ate s*** nothing) my thin brother has Chrones Disease, and here i was never sick, never needing a doctor and hugely hugely fat.

1) One-off ‘case studies’ aren’t the best form of evidence. Nor is ‘I know lots of people who….’
2) Weight-related health problems are generally chronic. You dont often overeat one night and get T2DM. However, do I long enough and by the time you’re in your 40s, problems generally start appearing. At the population level obese people generally suffer worse health and die earlier. Just ask for a health insurance quote – those guys do their sums on this stuff pretty well.
As for no one being in hospital due to being overweight, try dialysis, endo or podiatry for starters….

HenryBG said :

Why do the staff not have an area in which to have a cigarette where it doesn’t affect people?

1. Smokers should be considerate enough of their own volition to ensure they go somewhere that their actions won’t affect people.

2. They do – it’s anywhere that’s not on the hospital grounds. It’s not far from anywhere in the hospital to the edge of the campus.

Kim F said :

It is really sad seeing patients with a drip in their arm and sucking on a fag !

Lets cut to the chase here people. Is it patients smoking or ‘seeing’ the patients smoking?
Me thinks it may be the latter, as smoking at a health facility just ramps up the perceived level of filthiness in some do-gooder eyes.

How Canberran

neanderthalsis said :

The current measure for obesity is the Body Mass Index, a rather simplistic measure of body density. The BMI puts every single member of the current Australian Wallabies rugby team in the overweight or obese category. How dare those elite athletes who train hard and represent our country in competitive sport set such a bad example to the kids that look up to them by being statistically obese. Now they’re filling up hospitals with their pulled hamstrings (obviously self-inflicted, no-one forced them to train) when the beds could be better used for treating smoking related illnesses.

You’re being a little disingenuous here. A lot of people trot out this old chestnut when faced with the fact that we’re getting fatter. There are two problems with your assertion. First, and most obviously, is that our BMI is changing over time. This means we are heavier for our height than people used to be. You don’t even have to go back very far. 10 years will do. Now this might be due to all of us bulking up at the gym, but it’s much more likely that we’re porking it on instead.

This segues nicely into the second problem. High weight to height ratio can be because of lots of things. Lean body mass (muscle), fat, water and so on. The Wallabies, being pro rugby players have a very high proportion of lean muscle tissue. This pushes up their weight, and yes, BMI is not very useful for them. It’s also not likely to be useful if you’re a weight lifter, body builder or male gymnast. If you’re none of these things it’s likely to be reasonably useful in a coarse sort of way. If you’re not totally muscle-bound and your BMI is 30 you perhaps need to consider the possibility that you’re carrying excess fat. If that doesn’t bother you, then no harm, no foul. Also, the broad range of ‘healthy weight’ for each height does not mean that all women of 167cm are equally healthy at 53kg and 70kg. The range is partly to account for different body types.

It’s obviously not foolproof and doesn’t apply equally to all people, and you have to consider your own situation and not just BMI. Having said all that, it’s not as useless as some people make out, either.

cross said :

The answer is electronic cigarettes, if you can’t or don’t want to give up the nicotine habit replace it with a relatively harmless and odourless substitute.
After 35 years of smoking a pack a day and not wanting to give give up I stopped the day I got one with the added bonus of saving $100 a week and have not felt the need for an “analogue” ciggie for over 6 months.

This.
I don’t understand why the government and anti tobacco folks in general are so puritan when there are good harm minimization alternatives. Nicotine itself isn’t that much worse than caffeine provided it doesn’t enter the body with an added helping of carcinogenic tar.

neanderthalsis said :

HenryBG said :

Seeing as over 40% of people are obese in this country these days, there are far more seriously expensive things to worry about than smoking.

40% of Australians are obese! Call Today Tonight!

The current measure for obesity is the Body Mass Index, a rather simplistic measure of body density. The BMI puts every single member of the current Australian Wallabies rugby team in the overweight or obese category. How dare those elite athletes who train hard and represent our country in competitive sport set such a bad example to the kids that look up to them by being statistically obese. Now they’re filling up hospitals with their pulled hamstrings (obviously self-inflicted, no-one forced them to train) when the beds could be better used for treating smoking related illnesses.

I was once rather heavy – (i have lost 120 kgs and am now a healthy weight – just to give you an idea on how big i was) Not once did i ever need medical attention at the hospital, for anything. I have not met one person who was heavy EVER that has gone to the hospital to get medical treatment from something to do with their weight. I have no idea where people came up with this crap that all these heavy people are in hospitals all over the world, but i haven’t met one, and i wasn’t one myself. The same things that effect heavy people effect small ones, my tiny mother had to have her gall- bladder removed from the stones she got ( never drank, never ate s*** nothing) my thin brother has Chrones Disease, and here i was never sick, never needing a doctor and hugely hugely fat.

http://youtu.be/MToRvo5RExg

HenryBG said :

Seeing as over 40% of people are obese in this country these days, there are far more seriously expensive things to worry about than smoking.

40% of Australians are obese! Call Today Tonight!

The current measure for obesity is the Body Mass Index, a rather simplistic measure of body density. The BMI puts every single member of the current Australian Wallabies rugby team in the overweight or obese category. How dare those elite athletes who train hard and represent our country in competitive sport set such a bad example to the kids that look up to them by being statistically obese. Now they’re filling up hospitals with their pulled hamstrings (obviously self-inflicted, no-one forced them to train) when the beds could be better used for treating smoking related illnesses.

The answer is electronic cigarettes, if you can’t or don’t want to give up the nicotine habit replace it with a relatively harmless and odourless substitute.
After 35 years of smoking a pack a day and not wanting to give give up I stopped the day I got one with the added bonus of saving $100 a week and have not felt the need for an “analogue” ciggie for over 6 months.

Alderney said :

How’d they like it if I stood next to them after a, I don’t know, how about a juicy vindaloo, and farted next to them for five minutes, or, chucked my guts up in their laps and let them reek of my vomit for the rest of the day.

This image just made my day – I laughed a good laugh.
Thank you

Quick somebody call the WAH-mbulance!

I think police officers can issue fines based on the smoking proximity to a licensed venue?? maybe that fine is to the venue though, and i don’t think the hospital counts anyway so doubt that would help. Also seems like a huge misuse of time for a patrol unit to be running around the hospital doing that.

there’s a fine that parks or someone can use for the littering of cigarette butts. was a big fuss about tens years ago with them trying to enforce that. I remember being in the city when a guy was being issued a fine. the inspector asked the guy for his ID but he said he doesn’t have any due to just ducking down for a smoke, so he gives his name as Hugh Dumass and some equally fake address. poor inspector didn’t even catch on till the guy ripped up the ticket and threw it on the ground as he was walking away.

hell that strategy would probably even work with police.

Photo request for: -35.344368, 149.101588

This is outside the makeshift corridor to the new Maternity wing.

Where pregnant women occasionally congregate to have a smoke.

We could call it the Powerpuff Women & Tots Corner.

gasman said :

And you assertion that smoking does not cause conditions requiring long-term and expensive treatment is just plain wrong. I’ll take you on a ward visit through the respiratory ward, the oncology ward, the vascular surgery ward and the coronary care unit, and you may change your mind.

This is probably one of the most oft-cited empirical analyses of the proposition that smokers die earlier and therefore there is a net saving to society in terms of avoided pension and aged care costs:

http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ppr24a99/pdf;jsessionid=B2095054BFB3A36389C6DFD4069F121A.tobacco03

Since then some studies have sought to dispute the findings, but relying on different methodologies and definitions of what ‘costs’ are attributable to smokers (and different evaluations of the counterfactual). Those studies put the societal cost at something like 5-8 per cent increase above the status quo.

HenryBG said :

As for “contribute to the cost of their own treatment”, smoking as an activity is probably a net gain to the healthcare system, as it rakes in huge taxes and shortens people’s lives without creating conditions that require long and expensive treatments.

Seriously?

Tobacco rakes in about $7 billion per year in taxes (Federal, State, GST, excise, duty) in Australia, about 2.5% of tax revenue.

The costs to society are estimated at $31 billion per year, including both health and social costs. That means that non-smokers are subsidising smokers’ health costs to the tune of $24 billion per year in this country. Assuming we have 12 million tax payers, we each pay $2000 *extra* tax to support the addiction of smokers.

And you assertion that smoking does not cause conditions requiring long-term and expensive treatment is just plain wrong. I’ll take you on a ward visit through the respiratory ward, the oncology ward, the vascular surgery ward and the coronary care unit, and you may change your mind.

54-11 said :

Erg0 said :

They could probably also have a chat with a few of the nurses that I see furtively puffing away behind the corners of the buildings each morning…

The worst area for staff smoking where they shouldn’t is on the western side, near Yamba Dr. there is a sign saying “Strictly No Smoking.” It goes on to say that “Smoke from this area is affecting staff and patients in Medical Imaging”.

Never stops some nurses, including some in scrubs, from sending smoke plumes up the staircase straight into Imaging. They actually sit on the stairs directly below this sign, and where there is a direct flue created by the stairs into the Hospital.

Security staff patrol past the area many times a day but never is anything done.

Well, the hospital isn’t managing the issue properly then. Why do the staff not have an area in which to have a cigarette where it doesn’t affect people?
Putting “No Smoking” signs up everywhere doesn’t stop people from smoking, so it’s not a very clever thing to do.
I worked in a large hosp[ital once, and at one stage the eager beavers got it into their heads to remove all the ashtrays, get rid of all the nominated smokers’ corners, and put no-smoking signs up everywhere.
The consequences?
Without nominated areas, people started smoking everywhere, including under aircon vents, etc…
Without ashtrays, cigarette butts ended up everywhere.
With “No Smoking” signs up everywhere, smokers had no choice but to smoke in front of “No Smoking” signs – right in front of doorways, etc…
Complete disaster. Pisspoor management.

If you want to get rid of smoking areas, FIRST, you have to get rid of smokers, not the other way around.

As for “contribute to the cost of their own treatment”, smoking as an activity is probably a net gain to the healthcare system, as it rakes in huge taxes and shortens people’s lives without creating conditions that require long and expensive treatments.

This is unlike fatties, who eat low-taxed food and gain various conditions which cause enormous expense to the community including clogged-up hospital waiting lists and broken chairs at the Centrelink offices.
Seeing as over 40% of people are obese in this country these days, there are far more seriously expensive things to worry about than smoking.

This is the entrance to Canberra Hospital a few days ago:

http://www.gasbag.net/kayak/ciggies.jpg

It is a disgrace that the ban on smoking is not enforced at a major health institution, and that those of us that work there must walk through a cloud of second hand smoke to get into the building.

tate_alec said :

Surely the air your breathing is much cleaner up on top of that horse of yours. You’re pretty high up.

Your right to do as you please ceases the moment it impacts on another.

How does the height of your horse (or mine for that matter) differ from the OP?

I for one believe it would be easier to regulate the places in which you are allowed to smoke rather than those you are not. Corral the #@$@#’s, they stink the place up for the rest of use (just to use some horsey language).

How’d they like it if I stood next to them after a, I don’t know, how about a juicy vindaloo, and farted next to them for five minutes, or, chucked my guts up in their laps and let them reek of my vomit for the rest of the day.

Erg0 said :

They could probably also have a chat with a few of the nurses that I see furtively puffing away behind the corners of the buildings each morning…

The worst area for staff smoking where they shouldn’t is on the western side, near Yamba Dr. there is a sign saying “Strictly No Smoking.” It goes on to say that “Smoke from this area is affecting staff and patients in Medical Imaging”.

Never stops some nurses, including some in scrubs, from sending smoke plumes up the staircase straight into Imaging. They actually sit on the stairs directly below this sign, and where there is a direct flue created by the stairs into the Hospital.

Security staff patrol past the area many times a day but never is anything done.

Stop the fags.

Kim F said :

It is really sad seeing patients with a drip in their arm and sucking on a fag !

What has this got to do with smoking? Oh you mean fag as in cigarette. Ok carry on.

Who is going to give out the fines?

I agree that it’s a pretty sad state of affairs, but I’m not too sure about the legality of the hospital imposing and enforcing on the spot fines.
Surely the air your breathing is much cleaner up on top of that horse of yours. You’re pretty high up.

Kim F said :

It is really sad seeing patients with a drip in their arm and sucking on a fag !

I reckon there’s nothing more aussie than seeing a patient wheeling out a stand with drip attached sucking on a fag 🙂

They could probably also have a chat with a few of the nurses that I see furtively puffing away behind the corners of the buildings each morning…

It is really sad seeing patients with a drip in their arm and sucking on a fag !