Fri 22 Feb 2008
“Have you noticed how there are more fat people in the gym recently?”
My mate asked the question over a pint in the local. Yes, I had noticed actually, but I had put it down to the fact that the new years resolutionists were hanging around longer than expected, or making much slower progress than they had hoped.
“Well, it’s because the Doctors have started prescribing gym memberships to the clinically obese.”
I am stunned.
Being the completely normal, middle-of-the-road, non-member of any minorities that I am, I have never felt discriminated against.
Until now.
I am truly shocked that the fat people are getting free membership, whilst I have to pay full price. Without wishing to regress to my fourteen year-old self, this is just so unfair!
If getting fit is considered an NHS priority, then let us see everyone given complimentary memberships to the nearest gym, regardless of physical conditioning. Surely this granting of freebies to the overweight is just a case of closing the door after the horse has bolted?
I know this policy is designed to help fat people get thin, and reduce the burden on an already at-breaking-point NHS, but where do we draw the line? Free Mr Kipling’s to the painfully thin? Jongleurs tickets for the clinically depressed? Free Rohypnol to the frighteningly ugly?
It is utter madness I tell you. That said, Fat Jim made his appointment with the Doctor first thing this morning.
29 Responses to “Free for the fatties”
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:18 am
Great point.
How about free razor’s for those with comedy facial hair ?
Keep up the good work my san…………
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
You best be joking, I am going to have to pay full whack for gym membership to get my leg in shape after I get off the cripple sticks, I wont be getting membership off the NHS!
This is weightism of the highest order!
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
Having not been able to exercise since before Christmas (no, not even that!) due to 3 separate unwellnesses and having to pay full price for an osteopath for a trapped nerve I have gained just over a stone in weight. Maybe I will be able to get free swimming and yoga classes - I reckon not ….. boo sob, sob. Having said that are they now making bus seats smaller?
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
The thing I notice about going the gym is not how many lardarses there are but how few hotties there are.
The adverts led me to believe it would full of hot blonde models in tight leotards but mostly its people my age in tracksuits huffing and puffing on the treadmill.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Having suffered a coronary last year because of my own excesses, I found the six months gym work (at reduced prices) rather helpful in losing a little weight and regaining a little mobility. Not being able to afford the extortionate fees for an annual membership, I found it cheaper to buy and install equipment at home.
Unfortunately there are no blonde hotties here either, just Mrs. Curly!
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
[...] the subject of exercise referral schemes, which the NHS is taking to like a duck to water, Mr. Angry is feeling all indignant (naturally) about the amount of “fatties in the gym.” I’m not so sure whether to [...]
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
Without a word of a lie, I’ve prescribed both Guinness and whisky on the NHS. Amazing what you can get, eh?
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:23 am
Bob - I have no idea who would benefit from such a thing…
Oli - True, it is blatant discrimination.
Lin - Yes, they are definitely getting smaller. That is it.
Keef - You should come to my gym. I once spent nearly an hour on a bike just because Natalie Imbruglia was on the treadmill directly in front of me (this was a few years ago mind you)
Curly - Hello, and glad to hear you are on the road to recovery. But your case is a bit different to just being, well, fat.
TheShrink - Really? Can you actually prescribe absolutely anything? Can you try prescribing a couple of dozen flights of stairs, three times a day, to these fat fuckers?
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
“Free Rohypnol to the frighteningly ugly?” - OK, I think my boss has reaslised that I’m not concentrating on work after I sprayed tea all over my keyboard.
Excellent!
GH
PS - Keef - go to a gym in the centre of london at lunchtime, full of city chicks fighting to stay slimmer than everyone else in the office.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
What happens when the weight is lost? Is there a weigh-in at the desk “you are too light, you have to pay”? Many people would fuck off home and eat buns until they were heavy enough to go for free.
Nice to know my tax money is being well spent - gym for fatties and water for council workers - lovely.
Do they wear special clothes? I would print them with the logo “Too fat to pay”.
AND - I’m not exactly Ally McBeal meself.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Never mind. There are still some gyms in London which ONLY accept toned, beautiful and non-sweating applicants.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Its good to know that people are turned down by doctors for life saving treatment so that the budget can be used for people who are just lazy and greedy….
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
It’s supposed to be an investment, isn’t it, if they get more fit and less fat then they’ll have to spend less scooping fat out of their arteries or bulking up wheelchairs for them to trundle down to Greggs in. I do wonder if there will be more heart attacks, though.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
See this is what happens when you get rid of the old fashioned doctors like Harold Shipman , he knew how to save the NHS money, and the thin, depressed, ugly would all be prescribed the same medication - one quick injection, one less number on the waiting list. Bet he didnt get many time wasters in his surgery.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Where is this gym in London where they only accept toned, beautiful and non-sweating applicants……..don’t mind going there and stalking!
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
GH we have a family membership to one of the big chains and I mostly go 6.30am when they open before work, this has the double advantage of beating the crowds and I leave my wife to referee our squabbling teenagers getting up. Cowardly perhaps but hey she’s the one who was so keen on having kids.
For all I know it could be packed to bursting with hot sexy babes at lunchtime and in the evenings but first thing in the mornings there’s usually only a dozen or so old farts.
Sometimes apart from the staff I’m the youngest person there and I turned 50 a couple months ago, I find this rather scary
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
See, it’s working. All this media manipulation to make obesity anti-social and to make obese people unpopular. It worked with smokers too. Who will be the next target - drinkers? Then what? My GP has never offered me free gym membership, but then I am healthy despite being obese.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just wire the fatties mouth’s shut?
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The Shrink,
When I tried to prescibe whiskey on the NHS, I got an arsy phonecall from the pharmacist telling me that “They don’t have any in stock and the patient would have to bring in their own”
- Michael
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
AND they take up twice the space in trains and aeroplanes and only flippin pay for one normal sized person’s place! And they eat more, so food should be sold to them thus: three cheeseburgers? The first one’s a quid, the second’s four quid and the third’s a tenner you fat lardy ******
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
That’s ridiculous. I bet they’ll never even bother to go and use the gym anyway.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
You do realise, Mr (slim) Angry that with all of us once-fat or still-fat persons on the interwebnet - you’re destined for a lardy future with knobs on?
February 24th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Free membership through your doctor??
My jovially rotund shape is about to increase to Orson Welles proportions. Not that I’d do any excercise I just want some’at for free.
February 24th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Fatties at the gym? I’m all for it. It’s so much better than the muscleheads occupying the machines for an hour at full capacity so they can get their bulk on. Meanwhile, I’m on the next machine going moderate speed when another muclehead taps my shoulder to ask me when I’ll be done. Jerkoffs. I’m so glad that while the muscles in their arms and legs get bigger, the one in between their legs looks relatively smaller.
I’ll take a fattie with a body complex and a low threshold for workouts any day.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:40 am
I’m voting for free deoderant to those who fucking stink because I’m sick to death of spending 10 minutes choking in a cloud of BO every time I go past Stinky Sheila’s desk to get to the photocopier.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Why don’t gyms just make their doorways narrower? That should sort the problem out discount or not.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Doesn’t the same argument apply that GPs often use for smokers - if they die younger as a result of being overweight, surely they cost the NHS less in terms of long-term geriatric care?
It won’t help anyone if you can just come out of the gym and buy chips and beer in the cafe though - I do hope that’s not free…
February 26th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I had to quit the Gym because I couldn’t afford it anymore. I can understand GP transferrals for physical problems, but weight? Unfair. I had a car accident (non fault) - maybe I should have asked my physio for a letter saying I can have free membership?
February 26th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
A wiser government would give 50% discount on super-size meals at McDonalds, put grills on the doors of all NHS facilities to deny access to fatties, and then pocket the pensions.
It’s called ‘Natural Selection’.