Potential immigrants should be screened for obesity and smoking habits because they place such a heavy burden on health services, respiratory specialists have suggested.
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South African chef ‘too fat’ to live in New Zealand
27 July 2013
27 July 2013
Authorities in New Zealand have told a South African chef he is too fat to be allowed to live in the country.
Immigration officials said Albert Buitenhuis, who weighs 130kg (286 pounds), did not have “an acceptable standard of health”.
He now faces expulsion despite shedding 30kg since he moved to the city of Christchurch six years ago.
New Zealand has one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world, with nearly 30% of people overweight.
Mr Buitenhuis and his wife, Marthie, moved from South Africa to Christchurch in 2007. At the time, the chef weighed 160kg.
Until now, their annual work visas had been renewed with “very little problem”, his wife said.
“We applied year after year and there were no issues,” she said.
“They never mentioned Albert’s weight or his health once and he was a lot heavier then.”
But in early May, the couple was told their work visas had been declined because of Mr Buitenhuis’s weight.
“The irony is that at the moment he weighs less than when we first arrived in New Zealand and also less than in his first medical, which was accepted by [immigration authorities],” his wife said.
The couple has appealed to New Zealand’s immigration minister, citing the chef’s recent weight loss.
An immigration spokesman said Mr Buitenhuis’s application had been rejected because his obesity put him at “significant risk” of complications including diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
“It is important that all migrants have an acceptable standard of health to minimise costs and demands on New Zealand’s health services,” he said.
Everyone needs sugar – let’s tax it!
28 December 2011
An op-ed in the New Zealand Herald calls for a tax on sugar. Nothing special about that, but the article—written by one Tony Falkenstein—uses so many of the neo-prohibitionist’s rhetorical tricks that it should be regarded as a classic of the oeuvre.
It starts with the inevitable argumentum ad tobacco:
Remember the Marlboro man who rode across billboards, cigarette hanging from his lips? Remember Benson & Hedges, which sponsored the tennis, Rothmans which sponsored the cricket? – all brands promoting healthy living when the exact opposite was the truth.
Ignoring the fact that tobacco isn’t essential to human life but sugar is, Falkenstein then draws a spurious comparison:
It took a tax to dramatically slow smoking addiction; a tax on sugar and fat products would do the same.
And let’s have that parallel with tobacco again…
Thirty years ago nobody would have imagined that cigarette advertising would be banned, workplaces would be smoke free, and that cigarettes would attract an excise tax of 24c a cigarette.
Perhaps not, but thirty years ago there were people who warned that the anti-smoking campaign would set a template for food faddists, teetotallers and other puritans and cranks. This was always strongly denied, but it is now glaringly obvious that they were right.
We now have two newer addictions – sugar and fat.
These are not addictions, let alone “new” ones. Fat and sugar are essential to sustain life, hence the body naturally desires them.
These are the major cause of Diabetes 2
Hardly the “major cause”. According to Diabetes UK, the causes of diabetes are many and varied:
You should ask your GP for a test for diabetes, if you:
are white and over 40 years old
are black, Asian or from a minority ethnic group and over 25 years old
have one or more of the following risk factors.
are black, Asian or from a minority ethnic group and over 25 years old
have one or more of the following risk factors.
The risk factors
A close member of your family has Type 2 diabetes (parent or brother or sister).
You’re overweight or if your waist is 31.5 inches or over for women; 35 inches or over for Asian men and 37 inches or over for white and black men.
You have high blood pressure or you’ve had a heart attack or a stroke.
You’re a woman with polycystic ovary syndrome and you are overweight.
You’ve been told you have impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glycaemia.
If you’re a woman and you’ve had gestational diabetes.
You have severe mental health problems.
You’re overweight or if your waist is 31.5 inches or over for women; 35 inches or over for Asian men and 37 inches or over for white and black men.
You have high blood pressure or you’ve had a heart attack or a stroke.
You’re a woman with polycystic ovary syndrome and you are overweight.
You’ve been told you have impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glycaemia.
If you’re a woman and you’ve had gestational diabetes.
You have severe mental health problems.
He continues:
Sugar is an addiction…
No. No, it isn’t.
…so a gentle weaning off the addiction will make it more manageable for consumers as well as giving manufacturers time to adjust the composition of their products.
The excise tax I propose would be 20 per cent on all products with more than 10 per cent sugar content.
Apples and mangos are 15% sugar. Bananas are more than 50% sugar. Are you sure you’ve though this through?
Each year the sugar content bar would reduce by 1 per cent , so that in seven years the 20 per cent tax would apply to all products with more than 4 per cent sugar,which is considered an acceptable level.
This would mean a sin tax on all fizzy drinks, of course. But it would also mean a sin tax on most fruits, all smoothies, all desserts and a good proportion of yoghurts. From taxing Marlboros to taxing grapes in thirty years. If this is not a slippery slope, what is?
Of course, the food industry is equated with Big Bad Tobacco.
The food and beverage industry, like the tobacco industry before it, can afford to outgun health spending for its own benefit.
And there is the usual appeal to the economy:
The country cannot afford the cost of diabetes, and a sugar tax will force the industry to adopt better standards, and consumers to reduce their addiction.
If the country cannot afford diabetes, how can it afford a Pigouvian tax levied to pay for diabetes? The idea, surely, is to be Pareto efficient?
And finally, the massive conflict of interest. Who is this Tony Falkenstein who wants a 20% tax on all sugary drinks?
Tony Falkenstein, ONZM, is chief executive of Just Water International.
Just Water International makes its money from selling water coolers. Fancy that!
“New Zealand bars British man’s ‘fat’ wife
By Paul Chapman in Wellington and Graeme Baker
19/11/2007
19/11/2007
A British man who moved to New Zealand has been told by officials that his wife is too fat to join him.
Richie Trezise, 35, a rugby-playing Welshman, lost weight to gain entry to New Zealand after initially being rejected for being overweight and a potential burden on the health care system.”
Click the link. This couple looks like your average visitors to Disney World.
Socialist medicine isn’t just medicine anymore. Who would have seen this coming?
‘Wobblebottom MPs should be fired’
Wellington – A health spokesperson for a fringe New Zealand political party urged the government on Tuesday to sack all obese members of parliament until they lost weight.
Richard McGrath, of the Libertarianz party – which campaigns for freedom from government controls but has not succeeded in getting any of its members elected to parliament – was commenting on a revelation that prospective immigrants must meet obesity guidelines.
The Immigration Service will not approve any man measuring more than 102 centimetres around the waist or woman with an 88 centimetre measurement. The maximum allowed body mass index (BMI), based on a person’s weight and height, is 35.
In a press release headed, “Wobblebottom MPs Should Be Stood Down,” McGrath said, “Our health minister should organise a weigh-in of those bloated power-lusting parliamentarians who have grown fat at the public trough.
“Fat politicians are a burden on our collapsing health system, on the seats and floorboards of Parliament, and on productive New Zealanders.”
The issue made headlines when Welshman Richie Trezise, 35, said he had to diet to meet the requirements after being head-hunted for a job in New Zealand but his wife, Rowan, was still trying to lose weight so that she could join him.
McGrath said it was hypocritical of Prime Minister Helen Clark to refuse entry to Rowan Trezise “when she tolerates the presence of several rather corpulent colleagues in the debating chamber”. – Sapa-DPA
Keep smokers and obese people out – Doctors
June 30, 2007
By Catherine Masters?
By Catherine Masters?
Potential immigrants should be screened for obesity and smoking habits because they place such a heavy burden on health services, respiratory specialists have suggested.
Doctors Jeff Garrett and Andy Veale from Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland say obesity is a huge and increasing problem in Counties Manukau but chronic health disorders are not funded adequately.
Obesity leads to a range of problems, from diabetes and cancers to respiratory disease and sleep disorders, and severely stretches an already cash-strapped budget, they say.
Their comments follow the death of Samoan mother Folole Muliaga, who was obese. She died after her power was cut off and she could not use her breathing machine.
Mrs Muliaga arrived in New Zealand in 2000 and was first treated at Middlemore in 2002. Dr Garrett says South Auckland has more obese patients than most areas.
“We’ve got something like 40 patients who are very similar to her in terms of their needs.”
The area has a high immigrant population and Dr Garrett says doctors are seeing people migrating to New Zealand who are “very high users of the health system, and that’s a particular problem for South Auckland”.
Health systems in some Pacific islands are not good and this is reflected in the health of the people.
“So we’re inheriting that … and they’re not being screened appropriately at the border.”
Dr Veale said: “I personally think that healthcare delivery to the Pacific Islands should be part of our foreign aid and should be accepted as such.”
While immigrants were screened for tuberculosis, their body mass index (BMI), which can indicate obesity, was not checked. And if NZ let people in who were obese, this must be acknowledged in health funding, he said.
A World Health Organisation report this year shows that of the top 10 countries for overweight people, seven are in the Pacific.
Dr Garrett suggested New Zealand could screen for smoking, which can lead to expensive health treatment.
Muliaga family spokesman Brenden Sheehan said he was not impressed with the idea of screening for obesity, or smoking.
“The issues of obesity are a problem facing both New Zealand and the Pacific community.
“I mean, if you’re going to discriminate against people who are overweight, what’s next? Do you then discriminate against people who are blind or who are deaf or are we back to the dark old ages of discriminating against people with disabilities?”
He said more education work needed to be carried out about obesity both in New Zealand and the Pacific.
Health Minister Pete Hodgson refused to comment but Immigration Minister David Cunliffe said processes were tightened in 2005 to provide more comprehensive health screening.
This was done by medical professionals – and obesity and smoking were both canvassed.
Having just one risk factor might not exclude the person from consideration, Mr Cunliffe said.
“Our approach to immigration is to weigh up a variety of factors and to balance a person’s health status against the potential benefits they may bring to New Zealand.”
