Italian mayor offers diet subsidy
The mayor of a town in northern Italy is offering overweight residents a cash incentive to slim down.
Residents of Varallo Sesia who lose 3kg (6.6lbs) in one month are entitled to 50 euros (£34). A doctor must certify dieters as being overweight.
They can claim a further 100 euros if they keep the weight off for another five months.
Well hey, why not?
It would be interesting to see the longterm results of this scheme …
casa azahar 
Yeah, why not indeed? If the taxpayer is OK with this then I don’t have any objections. That’s around $70/month – way more than my gym membership costs me per month…It could also mean the difference between lots of fresh produce and crappy food, too, for people on lower incomes.
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I never thought of that, WC. 50 euros a month would more than cover my gym membership as well.
As far as the taxpayers are concerned, I’m sure they would end up paying less in health care costs as obesity-related illnesses declined. Win-win! 🙂
It’s certainly a better incentive than that idiotic Italian mayor (can’t remember the city) who banned fat people from the local beach because they were too ‘unpleasant’ to look at and supposedly put other people off.
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My God, I hadn’t heard about that banning of fat people! That’s awful!!!
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I can’t find a link for that, WC … it was something I read online (maybe the BBC news?) a couple of years ago.
It was a beach resort for ‘beautiful people’ and the mayor stated that FAT people were banned from going there. As I recall there were guards posted at the entrance to the beach and if you were deemed *too fat* you weren’t allowed in.
🙄
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