Germans prodded to lead healthy lifestyles

A bill which has just been initiated in Germany promotes active participation in health among its citizens by slapping a special tax on overweight people.

The bill's authors argue that  because overweight people  intentionally live an unhealthy life they've got to pay for it out of their own pocket.   

The bill has already received a nod from some leading members of the  ruling Christian-Democratic Union who say that obese Germans cost the country's health care system around 20 billion Euros annually and that making all taxpayers to foot this hefty bill is simply unfair.

Statistics say that nearly a quarter of all Germans are overweight, and the new bill is seen as an attempt to make people stop to think about their health.

Even though public reaction to the proposal in Germany and further afield has been pretty mixed, the majority of experts  agree that extra weight is a problem people simply can't afford to exacerbate.

Sergei Khotimchenko with the Institute of Nutrition in Moscow says that some people do not care much about their health. Which is bad, because apart from haphazard eating habits, obesity also results from malfunctions in one's endocrine system and genetic predisposition too.

 Cardiologist Natalya Perova disagrees, saying that obese people need to pay bigger health insurance bills simply because they intentionally drive up their body weight.

Extra weight is a major risk factor leading, among other things, to such dangerous chronic conditions as heart failure and diabetes. In the majority of cases obesity is caused by overeating, especially of refined, fat and sweet food, Perova.

Narrator: Extra weight is a truly global problem with more than a billion people now carrying more body weight than they should, including one in every five in America, a third of Britons and about 15 percent of Italians... Overweight people have more issues with their health and many need serious treatment.

By the way, those of us who weigh just 10 percent above normal live 15 percent less and those who are 25% overweight make their life shorter  by nearly a half...