weight loss and airlines

This past weekend we flew to Florida on a very interesting airline called Spirit. Kind of like a sardine can..packed in beyond belief with the space between your seat and the one in front of you minimalistic. When the person in front of you decided to put the seat back it was almost like you had the seat in your lap. As an aside, I saw on the news that Mitt Romney had an incident on an airloine where some guy physically attacked him when Romney complained about the guy putting the seat back. (I feel like attacking those people on airplanes who insist on bringing their onion infested burgers on the plane and eating it next to you....why cant they eat it at the terminal???) I also saw on the news that a pretty famous director was escorted off of a Southwest airline because he diod not adhere to that airlines policy of buying 2 seats if the persons size was such that their body spilled over to another seat.

Bottom line: flying airlines becomes particularly worrisome for markedly overweight people as they now need to worry about public humiliation or paying more money or bein g in credibly uncomfortable when the person in front puts the seat back. I have had some patients tell me they will not fly certain airlines because they are known to have smaller seatbelts. Travel plans can be limited because of these concerns. Losing weight makes all of these situations less of an issue....yet another great reason to be diligent in our efforts to become healthier and happier by losing weight.