When someone else's fat becomes your problem

A few days ago I went kayaking on the Congaree River in Columbia, S.C. with seven other people.

Five of us were athletic. Three others, all women, were dangerously overweight.

And vividly on display.

At one point where the water was very shallow, one woman’s kayak got lodged on top of a sand bar, and she couldn’t free herself.

“I’m fat! I drag bottom!” she declared, as we craned our necks back.

The Congaree

At another point, when we had stopped to stretch ourselves out atop an old cement piling, the three women stood off to the side eating snacks. We had been on the water 90 minutes.

And later when we were climbing out of our kayaks at a landing, all three needed help from the men.

“I have no strength in my legs,” explained one, while one of the guys tried to negotiate her into a standing position, and I worried that he would injure his back.

The point is this -- These women were obese, but they still had the courage to come kayaking. Granted: Their experience was shaped by their limitations. Our trip was slower because of them. And they all had to put up with being a fat-themed spectacle to the rest of us.

(Also, lest I seem like an unmitigated jerk, let me add that these women were funny, interesting, good-natured,  and extremely successful in their demanding careers. We were happy to have them along.)

But what about other obese people who shun exercise of any kind? The ones who keep socialization to a minimum? Who are embarrassed and reclusive because of their swollen, laboring forms?

Sad, yes. But do we owe them a taxpayer-funded surgical solution?

South Carolina will be starting a first-come, first-served bariatric surgery program at a cost of $2.4 million to award the procedure to 100 obese state employees.

The idea is to save taxpayer dollars by nipping their obesity now instead of paying for potentially more costly obesity-related ailments down the road.

To Sen. Greg Ryberg, a Republican from Aiken, this is the wrong way to go.

Ryberg

“This is why people distrust politicians. This is the reason they think that politicians are crazy. And politicians prove taxpayers right when they spend their money like this,” he said, in a widely circulated blog post.

“People all over South Carolina successfully maintain healthy lifestyles," said Ryberg. "I drive by parks, tracks and neighborhoods, and at every hour of the day there are people walking, jogging, cycling, rollerblading, etc. These are the lifestyles we should be rewarding.”

But Patrick O’Neil, director of the Weight Management Center at the Medical University of South Carolina, said some people are physiologically, constitutionally more likely to be overweight than others.

He supports the state’s taxpayer-financed bariatric surgery program.

“It makes sense from a fairness point of view, from a humaneness point of view and from an economic point of view,” he said.

“Bariatric surgery is a very effective procedure, a very effective tool in treating obesity for people who have not been able to lose weight successfully by other means,” said O’Neil.

He called Ryberg “a smart man” and insisted he wasn’t speaking for the senator’s rationale when he explained the outrcy like this:

“Nobody likes paying taxes. Nobody likes tax dollars going to anyone but themselves ... . It’s been well document there’s a lot of prejudice and discrimination against obese people ... that all they have to do is shape up and get will power and lose all the weight they need. It’s just not that easy.”

So who is right?

Should someone else's fat be your problem?