Uproar After Taxpayers Money Used For Weight Loss For Civil Service
Written by Jane Tucker | Monday, 25 May 2009 | There are 0 comments
speculated about whether spending money on weight loss programs was justifiable.
In Australia a row has broken out after it was noticed that the government was spending a huge amount of money on weight loss programs to encourage civil servants to lose weight. For example when public accounts were scrutinised it was seen that 32,000 Australian dollars had been spent by the Defence Department over six months on special weight loss courses for over 100 individuals. Another $30,000 program was also noticed to be underway for another part of the Australian civil service.
The information came to light after the tenders for the weight loss programs were published online which is a requirement of the Australian Federal Government. People were quick to criticise that it had been listed under the category of education and training which they felt was misleading. Even the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Kevin Rudd commented that this was “odd and unusual in the extreme” and he speculated about whether spending money on weight loss programs was justifiable.
At Ukmedix News we have seen research however which shows that by getting employees to lose weight you can greatly boost their productivity and morale and even have a significant impact on the profits of your company. If this is so it may well be justified and even prudent for the Australian government to invest in weight loss programs for the civil service because it could end up as a good investment for the taxpayer.
Nevertheless the idea that the taxpayer has to pay to get other people to lose weight sounds absurd and ridiculous and causes resentment because many people believe that overweight and obese people have weight problems because they are lazy and eat too much. If you want to get a good idea of the public perception of obese people you should see the survey done by the airline Ryanair which resulted in almost 50% of passengers saying that very overweight flyers should be made to pay extra for their seats.
