As I type this blog, I can look out my office window above the street.  Because I am in a non-smoking building/property, anyone who wants to smoke, has to sit across the street. Across the street, I currently see two nursing students, just smoking to their hearts’ content. The eye catcher and contrast to this health choice, is that I saw a woman, probably in her 70′s, who just went walking by them. She was keeping up a good pace for exercise and looked great. She didn’t even appear to give them a glance.

     Seeing that course of events caused me to make a noise like the dog  Scooby who was on the cartoon. I think I even tilted my head. This next  story falls also into the question of health. Again, the Scooby reaction occured. It’s relevant to a legal blog because of how much I have blogged on the national health-care plan. In this instance, it involves a woman, who simply is flaunting her lackadaisical idea on health.

     The  story comes under the heading of “there ought to be a law against it”. Donna Simpson is in the Guinness World Record Books as the heaviest woman to ever give birth. Someone with a weight issue should not be the brunt of jokes. If her weight was the story, it would not be in my blog and not mentioned in the context of the health- care debate.

     Mrs Simpson is on a personal goal and  quest to reach 1000 lb’s. When Guinness rolls her out in September (the article wording, not mine) to recognize her for her Guinness achievement, Simpson wants to be heavier than her qualification “giving birth” weight of 600 lb’s. I’m not going to post the picture but I hope you will click on the attachment to see her and her husband and the description of why she is so determined.

     According to one calculation, she needs to eat 12,000 calories per day. She advises that not unlike when she was on a diet as a youngster, she refuses to count calories. Her food bill currently runs at a personal tab of about $400-$600 per week. When she eats sushi, for instance, she consumes 70 pieces. One disappointment is that she will not make it as the heaviest woman in Guinness who, in 1987, tipped the scales as a svelte 1,050 lb’s.

     In the article, she and her husband seem happy. I just wonder if you think that it matters whether someone is intentionally doing something adverse to their health. Should there be any exclusions in the government mandated health plans or should insurance companies be required to cover someone like Mrs Simpson, as she works toward her goal.