General

Needs a link:

stuff.co.nz/national/health/8970736/Too-fat-to-live-here

Seems that he's South African and moved there six years ago, and the Immigration Department has now decided to decline he and his wife's work visas recently due to his weight gain.

If smokers are still granted visas, which they are
then its obviously not about health and its laughable to pretend it is

I could understand if they were rejecting visa applications or renewals based on things like blood pressure and cholesterol but it seems as though you can be rejected based on your bmi alone
making it a ridiculous policy that is obviously about something other than health
much like just about every form of fat discrimination and shaming on the planet

This made me laugh, you know they do say that parsimony is often the answer.

Right, deny a whole country the benefit of free healthcare just because of fat people.

It honestly boggles my mind that there are Americans who have been convinced that being able to attend a doctor when you need to, rather than when you can afford it, is a bad thing...

I have to agree with Maximum. He's not a citizen of the country, and just because he paid into the system at one point doesn't mean the country owes him. If the government here in America promised free health care in exchange for booting all the 35+ BMI immigrants on work visas out of the country, the whole country would probably be applauding.

I think this would be more of a problem if it was actual citizens the country was booting, rather than immigrants. However I see several articles mentioning he has a chronic knee condition requiring surgery and "evidence of impaired glucose tolerance and an enlarged fatty liver." We don't have his medical report, who knows what's written on it. If you lie to your dentist about flossing, wouldn't you lie to the media about it to?

It might be that he was selected because he's experiencing these medical issues, and being overweight is just one aspect.

I feel like Maximum was being sarcastic.

also we cant really make up our own reasons for why he 'might have been selected'
we have to use the information we were provided
which implied he was rejected for visa renewal based on his bmi.

so yes while he might have been rejected based on his other health conditions, we have no evidence of this, the articles are clearly stating that the men was rejected because he was too fat, thats why were currently discussing whether its acceptable to deny someone a visa reliant on bmi alone and not whether its okay to reject visas based on pre existing health conditions.

all the articles are stating he was rejected based on his bmi/obesity

whether he had other conditions that contributed to his rejection we dont know, we can only go on the information weve been provided