1st Public Debate-”This House would force fat kids to go to fat camps”
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to the summary of our first public debate of the year. We got off to a start that was bigger than ever with a large turnout of outspoken, opinionated audience members. The motion before the house was “The House Would force fat kids to go to fat camps”, controversial to say the least!
Before the debate the house was divided as follows:
Proposition: 13
Opposition: 44
Abstain: 8
Speaking in Proposition, Alex Kay and Yina Koh proposed sending all secondary school students who are medically obese to fat camps during summer holidays to help them kick their habits.
Alex kicked things off using himself as an example, stating that he had once been obese once and knew himself the trials and tribulations that overweight children go through and therefore the proposition were doing this for the children themselves. He explained that a large chunk (excuse the pun) of overweight children are the way they are because nobody tells them just how bad their weight really is and so they simply live in naivety. Therefore, by sending them to these camps it will be the wake-up call that they need. There will be counselors on hand to give the children support each and every step of the way. Alex then went so far as to say that what needed to happen was the initiation of “psychological warfare” on the children. These camps needed to shock them into losing the weight, making them realise that they will die if they don’t change their habits. However, Alex made sure to point out that the camp will have an enjoyable environment with strong comradery between the children, ensuring that they work together as a group to lose the weight.
In Opposition, Nathan Chalk and Jennie Hope were vehemently against the proposals put forward by the proposition. As the first speaker, Nathan began by refuting Alex’s points by stating that the psychological effect that this plan would have on some children would be unbearable. It would cause large damage to their already low self-esteem, which would work against them in the fight against obesity. Nathan also argued that under Alex’s assessment, surely all of this can simply done in school replacing counselors with teachers and therefore we can avoid taking these children away from their parents and stigmatizing them more than they already are. He also picked holes in the model of fat camps as the children will simply return home after the camps and gain weight again due to their familial surrounding. Therefore, according to Nathan, we should work to change these children’s daily lives through education and the family environment rather than just for a few months a year.
Yina from the proposition then came steaming back with the hard line by saying that they didn’t care if the children were miserable during the camps, that it was the government’s duty to do this. She refuted Nathan’s point about psychological damage by saying that the government forces children to do things against their wishes all the time like going to school and algebra. I personally loved algebra but anyway…….. Yina then said that the government have this duty to look after the children’s welfare as their parents are being negligent by letting them get this fat in the first place. She added that one of the government’s main aims is to protect the weak and vulnerable of society and that this scenario is no different. Some of the examples she used to back this up were children who are starving or being abused in their homes.
Finally, Jennie came back to clarify the opposition’s case. She began by rebutting Yina’a argument about negligent parents by saying that the government only intervenes when the child is about to die and that childhood obesity would not fall under this category. She then made it very clear that the opposition did not considering children being forced to do algebra anywhere near forcing them to go to fat camps. She argued against these fat camps saying that they may become more desirable than their home environment which is not good and may cause the children to over-eat once they are back at home and that these “yo-yo” diets are extremely dangerous. She also continued in the tone from Nathan’s speech by saying that children should not be made miserable through forced admission to fat camps and that it is simply counter-productive. Finally, she pointed out the fact that if the kids don’t want to be there they will simply distract the others and prevent them from making any progress (just like in school).
We then turned to the floor where we received a number of very interesting questions/comments. These included:
- The fact that obesity contributes a lot to society such through entertainment and Santa-Claus and therefore we shouldn’t be stigmatizing fat people!
- If the RSPCA take animals away from their owners are incapable of caring for them, that therefore we should be taking children away from their parents and putting them in these camps if the parents are not capable of preventing them from beaming obese.
- Alex from the proposition then claimed that the opposition were endorsing sex-offenders. I swiftly moved off the topic of rape…
- When did it become wrong to stigmatize people for doing bad things? Letting yourself become obese is a bad thing and therefore we should let these people know it.
- Why wait until these children are in secondary school and in the “whirlpool of puberty”? Surely we should take action from a much younger age.
Both sides then made their short summary speeches by looking at the debate as a whole and coming to their concluding points.
Finally we had our final vote to see if the audience had been swayed by the debate itself. The final vote was:
Proposition: 19
Opposition: 39
Abstain: 7
We hope those of you who attended this debate enjoyed it and we hope to see all of you again at our next public debate which will be publicised in the coming weeks.
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