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EU's Top Court May Define Obesity As a Disability
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes The EU's top court is considering a test case which could oblige employers to treat obesity as a disability. Denmark has asked the European Court of Justice to rule on the case of a male childminder who says he was sacked for being too fat. The court's final ruling will be binding across the EU. It is seen as especially significant because of rising obesity levels in Europe and elsewhere, including the US. If the judges decide it is a disability then employers could face new obligations. Employers might in future have a duty to create reserved car parking spaces for obese staff, or adjust the office furniture for them, she said.
i'm sorry europe.
Where's my tab?
God spoke to me
as long as the legislation includes mandatory diet and exercise regime.
King-Size Homer: In the episode, Homer despises the nuclear plant's new exercise program, and decides to gain 61 pounds (28 kg) in order to claim a disability and work at home.
The number of medical problems that actually cause obesity is very, very small.
The primary cause in 99.99% of cases is a higher intake of calories than output of calories as activity.
MD anonymous coward here, and sorry, that is how it is.
If this goes through, they should mandate a strict diet of vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fish and water for the duration of their benefits collection period. If this could somehow be enforced, very few of them would be on "disability" for long. By the same token, getting drunk should be considered for disability. The solution is simple. Stop eating processed garbage and eat lots of whole foods instead.
So the people who could most use the exercise are going to have to walk the least.
I guess the overall plan makes sense; if you were to chop off your own leg you'd be considered disabled; I don't think the law makes any exceptions for self inflicted disability. It just seems wrong, though. Eat your way to not being able to fit in the office cubicle and your boss has to accommodate your mass by re-engineering the doors and floor to handle your breadth and heft.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Actually, in the olden days, they'd likely be the ones doing the rounding, locking and burning.
Historically, obesity was only a problem for the very well off.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
If obesity is a disability, and the legal definition of maiming is to disable or disfigure, will McDonald's advertising -- particularly when it materially misleads about health issues, like their Olympics sponsorship campaigns -- be ruled negligent maiming?
Not saying it should or shouldn't -- just raising the question.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
And governments should be looking for ways to curb/eliminate obesity (as incredibly hard as this is).
I expect governments to do the opposite, however, and not fight against obesity and instead grant it privledges (special park spaces, etc.) and such.
Bloomberg was one of the few politicians willing to stick his neck out and implement common sense reforms.
Obesity needs the treatment that smoking was given.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Obesity is a mental disability, most often an addiction to a wrong diet containing many addictive ingredients.
The way most people feed themselves is by stuffing enormous amounts of carbs, often a lot of them sugars in their face. Combine those with a little fat and all your body does is store fat and try and balance the glucose content of your blood. The carbs make your gut bacteria generate "happy hormones" that get in your blood, making you hungry and cranky if you don't get your fix, whether your body actually needs food or not.
The symptoms of this addiction are obesity and diabetes type 2. Please treat it as an addiction, not as a phyisical disability. If you do that, for example being taller than 6ft5 should be treated as a disability too and be given all benefits that should come with such a status. If being a size that's outside of what society will cater for is a reason to call people disabled.
Tall people can't help being tall, fat people in over 95% of the cases can help it if they kick the habit. If you treat obesity as a physical disability, you are insulting everyone with a physical disability for which there is no cure.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You weren't sacked because you were too fat.... you were given the reason for dismissal: shortage of work. Now you want to invent an excuse that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything? If you were my employee, I'd sack you for being an asshat with an overinflated sense of entitlement.
Frankly, I have a far bigger problem with this guy's attitude than I do with them considering obesity a disability... not that I think that is a good idea either.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think they should clarify that they are talking about morbid obesity that servery impacts a persons ability to freely move about their surroundings. It is quite easy to became obese and a large portion of the population are obese, however few of them end up becoming morbidly obese no matter how poor their diet. The truth is that without additional risk factors, a medical condition such as hyperthyroidism, broken genes related to the normal function of appetite or a mental condition such as compulsive overeating disorder, it would be very hard for someone to reach the point where obesity is not just increasing their chances of a early death but also servery affects their mobility.
It all comes full circle. First black lung was a disability because once you get too old and too stupid to be a coal miner, they no longer want you in that profession. The very opposite is true of a judge. I guess now that they have gotten too fat and too stupid to ever be anything but judges, that must be considered a disability.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Not sure it's entirely true that it's the individuals to blame.
A large part is changing lifestyles, it's really hard to get enough exercise in day to day life now, that's not just motivation, it used to be inevitable.
"When I was a kid":
10km walk or pushbike ride to school, every day.
I used to pushbike to work as well, but at least around here where the urban planners are car friendly, it's just too dangerous. I ride a motorbike, so I'll accept a certain amount of risk, but a pushbike is just insane. There are bike lanes, but token ones, not ones designed to allow large volumes of cyclists to get from A->B safely.
No usable stairs in buildings - fire stairs yes, but not ones you can walk up and down without setting off alarms.
A lot of little things have changed which make it easy to NOT get exercise.
If it where a medical condition i could understand it, but it is mostly a problem of having the wrong style of life. Making bad decisions and being a lazy bastard makes you fat. The next logical step is to label being a complete idiot a disability (not low iq, just making bad horribly wrong decisions like turning up at work naked or sexually assault the photo copier etc.)
HTTP/1.1 400
Look, that would break the law of conservation of mass and energy. Thyroid condition or not, what mass you acquire can be in two form : water (the case of people having water retention) and real fat/muscle. In the first case there are rare people having such a problem. In the second case, this is bullshit that people cannot lose weight or avoid gaining it when they are aware of their condition. That mass is not coming from their "thyroid". It is coming from stuff they eat, and therefore limiting intake and practicing sport would fight the weight problem. Stating "I have a thyroid condition" is not an explanation of an obesity. In the very end you are still eating that mass and getting those calory from food.
Eh... no. This decision will have no effect on the US whatsoever. Or are you trying to say obesity in the US had some effect on the European decision? Either way, it's not relevant.
Reserved car spaces where, 3 miles away so they can't avoid a miniscule amount of exercise each day?
Coming from a big guy, I think this is a horrible idea. It's not a disability. M.R. is a disability. Quadriplegia is a disability. Not being able to pull away from the table shouldn't be a reason to get disabled parking spaces. They should put them at the FAR END of the lot so us big guys get some extra forced exercise. No one should have to adjust office furniture because I'm fat. You can only help people so much. You can't care about someone's healthy more than they do. If i'm fat, I'm fat. It's not like it's a surprise to me, and if my shirts cost extra because there's more fabric used, so be it. Don't cater to people because they're fat.
"the lifestyle choice to be homosexual."
You high?
Everyone is responsible for what they eat. Stop fucking blaming everyone else if YOU decide to eat shit. Based on your logic, everyone would be hooked on heroin, but they aren't because people choose not to put shit in the blood stream. This should be no different for food.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
You seem to be confusing sexuality and sexual practice.
Yes, some people's metabolisms are more efficient than others', but not by an order of magnitude. But the fact remains: if you put on weight you're eating too much for you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
At least then when the smart enough people involved in the process to determine whether FAT PEOPLE are disabled and deserve protection, they can say "What the fuck is wrong with you" to their coworker or boss that proposed it - and not get fired for doing so.
I'm not sure how to interpret that. Are you objecting, saying who you sleep with isn't a choice? Perhaps all homosexual are rape victims, even if they thought it was consentual adults out for a fun time? Or maybe it is genetic, some defect that needs to be cured?
It is already known that homosexuality is genetic. The exact gene(s) are not yet known, though. If someone is gay, there is a high chance that his uncle from the mother's side is gay too.
That would be a better argument if we didn't actually have a problem with people being hooked on heroine.
One difference is that we rarely introduce children to heroine.
I don't have a parking space at work, reserved or othervise. And the office furniture is uncomfortable as-is. Might just take up obesity for its benefits, if this law passes.
(non-Anonymous MD chips in)
That's why you can have someone who's had their stomach stapled and can't eat more than a plate's worth of food a day get fat.
They don't get fat. They were fat in the first place, if they had their stomach stapled. I've seen people who worked industriously to overcome their stomach stapling surgery to fit in as many calories as possible ; making sure they consumed only the lowest-bulk, highest-calorie foodstuffs, and wonder why they didn't lose weight. I mean, they had the surgery, and that's a miracle golden ticket to weight loss, right???
Also note that fat isn't just made of food. The air you breath and the water you take in also adds to the chemical process.
Mhhmmm, but it's the same air and water pretty much everywhere. Unless you live in a cotton candy cloud next to the gravy pond, it's not a factor in determining your weight relative to the next guy.
The two overwhelming factors that govern weight are....
* Dietary habit. Not just how much you eat, but what. Because "what" has a serious impact on "how much" - like those stomach stapler guys, it's much easier to eat too many calories if you ingest it in the form of low-bulk, highly processed foods. Yes, if you choose your car based on whether it has a beverage holder which will take a Big Gulp, you're one of these people. You can eat huge plates of vegetables and not gain weight, because they are mostly composed of that water you're talking about, and you can make them tasty with herbs and spices and ... canned tomatoes, makes any plate of veggies 100% more interesting. The other important habit is your shopping habit - just not buying those low-bulk calorie-dense foods and not having them around is very effective.
* Excercise habit. The simplest being to walk and not drive. This is why America is so far ahead in the fat stakes compared to Europe - many things are too far apart from each other to walk, in contrast to Europe which is a little more compressed. I visited Oregon and people looked at me funny because I annouced I was going to walk to places as far away as half a mile or so. Where do you have the least obesity? Places like New York, where everything is in practical walking distance. Once you get fat, it's like a trap - everything feels like too much effort to do, so you do less and less. Your knees end up too damaged to walk or gasp run.
All this is from experience (although I've not been what I'd call "fat" in a long time, I'll raise my hand to being overweight). My marriage ended last year, and feeling the need to make myself a little more attractive for the dating game, I dropped over 20 pounds in 6 months from cooking for myself instead of buying pre-made food, and getting off my butt and going for a run once or twice a week.
I completely get that people find this hard, because I do. For most people, weight is a psychological issue, beause as a species we're hardwired to get as much food as we can, so to maintain a proper diet we have to use our front brain instead of our lizard brain. But the excuses like "it's my metabolism" or "it's the water" do nothing to improve the condition, they're just the mental equivalent of more junk food - something that makes you feel better about the problem but gets in the way of resolving it. Hence the emphasis I place on the word "habit" - making decisions is tiring, but if it's just "what you do"... then not so much. Cooking decent healthy meals for my daughter twice a week (with enough for leftovers to keep me eating well the rest of the week), and hopping on the rower for a minimum of 10 minutes a day, is now "what I do".
So when did you first choose to be straight?
because thats what it is and it should be treated the same way.
If the judges decide it is a disability then employers could face new obligations. Employers might in future have a duty to create reserved car parking spaces for obese staff, or adjust the office furniture for them, she said."
Don't forget the super-large portion of chips they require in the canteen too.
Yeah, obesity is a disease... affecting about 0.1% of the obese people. For everyone else, it's called not having your life under control.
We need to get back to a time where fat people are ridiculed in school, not accepted as the standard. But we need to add another message as well: That it's something you can fix. Eat right, exercise and you can stop being fat.
And that's why it is not a disease. Because people don't need medicine or treatment or anything, they just need to get their priorities right. Or not, frankly I don't care. Wait, I do care. Fatties are more expensive on the medical system, meaning I already pay for their lifestyle choice.
I have a very simple principle in life that has gotten me far: I don't feel pity for things that people do to themselves. Obesity falls into that category. Sure, if you grew up badly, thinking pizza and McD are normal food, blame your parents. But as soon as you're an adult, you can take care of yourself, you can learn to cook, you can do sports. Maybe it's tough, but that's life.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Minor correction guy, here. That's a proportionally higher chance, not a high chance. Since the best estimates for being gay put it at less than 10% of the population, a high chance of their uncles from the mother's sides being gay as well would mean, for example, for all those mothers that have a male sibling, there's at least a 25-50% chance those siblings are gay too. Since having a brother is so common, that means that if 10% of the populace is gay, somehow, there's also a general 2.5-5% of the overall populace that needs to be added to that. As a more specific example, if it's 'the future' and everybody who is gay feels absolutely no stigma about it, reports honestly, and we come up with a number such as 8%, we should add about 25-50% to it and report that the gay percentage of the population is really 10-12% or so, even if there's no other reason in such a case to think those uncles are not being counted already.
That's not really something that makes sense in this example - we can't have a gene that is detectable by its effect on a major behavior and argue that being someone's maternal uncle stops that behavior but the gene is still present, for example, So let me give you an example where adjusting the incidence for what we know about genetics just might make better sense, for contrast.
The genetics of schizophrenia have the highest corollation known for a genetic illness (not that being gay should necessarily be counted as a genetic illness, let's just stick with it being an effect with a genetiic component - but I think it's safe to identify schizophrenia as a generally undesired and dehabilitating condition.). If a person is schizophrenic, and has an identical twin, that twin has about a 50% chance of also developing schizophrenia. That's the top of the charts high chance corollation. Since many schizophrenics do go undiagnosed for substantial time, and many families attempt to hide the incidence of related cases in the family tree, or are in broad denial, it makes good sense to ask patients if they have an identical twin, warn them of the high potential for the disease, and to figure that the real niumbers of people at high risk or as yet undetected, should include a factor adjusting for the presence of occasional identical twins in the population. The link between male homosexuality and maternal uncles also bing gay is a lot less statistically significant than that, even though being somone's maternal uncle is a lot more common than being someone's identical twin.
Who is John Cabal?
The difference is that heroin isn't relatively cheap, legal, easy to obtain, and necesary for continued life (addiction notwithstanding).
I started doing the 5/2 fasting.
The first two weeks are hell - hunger pangs, cold sweats. Then you get used to it. Metabolic pathways that have fallen into disuse start to work properly again. The pangs go away and you are aware of your hunger but not ruled by it.
I agree, people who eat too often have a broken hunger drive. They broke it, because when you eat to regulate your blood sugar, your body stops having to do it for you. If those parts of your metabolism don't get the exercise, they seize up. But the good news is that it only takes a few fast days to get them working again ; your liver is extremely good at adapting.
Instead of regulating your blood sugar by putting a twinkie into your face when you feel a hunger pang, your body starts to be able to regulate it on it's own again, and you are once again in charge of how often you eat.
The next thing to do is to break the little-and-often habit - since it usually involves opening a wrapper, because who cooks that often? Anything in a wrapper is probably high in sugar, because it prolongs the shelf life. Use those fast days to fantasize long and hard about the delicious home-cooked meal you're going to break your fast with, and it tastes all the better and feels like a real reward.
Either you obesity causes you to have some real disabling condition like joint damage or breathing problems in which case you don't need a special 'obesity disability' to be considered disabled, or it doesn't cause you any disabling conditions and again, you don't need to be considered 'disabled.
It's like saying everybody that has been in a car crash should be defined as disabled.
So if lack of self control is a formal disability, what about other consequences of lack of self control?
Seriously folks, what's with all of the hate? If a person can perform their duties, there is no reason to dismiss them regardless of whether obesity is a disability or not. That is a discriminatory practice. A person's condition is also no reason to speculate upon its cause without evidence. We have a name for that too, it's called prejudice. (There is the "bad habits" comment, but that actually provides very little information. Is it due to a lack of exercise? Is it due to overeating? Is it even a medical diagnosis?)
That said, I am a bit concerned about the "sit on the floor and play with them" comment made by Kaltoft. Childcare does involve a degree a physical endurance, since you have to be on your feet and moving all day. Heck, even playing with children involves some running around.
It is the American system coming to EU: political decisions decided in the courtroom using law instead of letting the politicians decide. I sympathize with this guy but I will not have neither the courts, nor EU to interfere. I want the our national parliament in Copenhagen to make law saying it is illegal to lay of people for being obese when they otherwise perform their job.
Being fat is (for 99% of people anyway) a lifestyle choice rather than a genuine disability or medical condition.
If you choose to eat Big Macs and Original Recipe and M&Ms and Popcorn and Coke and other high fat/high sugar foods in quantities that are too big and if you choose not to get the exercise required to work off those calories and you get fat as a result, its your fault.
If you choose to buy your kids junk food instead of feeding them healthy food, its your fault that they are fat. If you choose to allow your kids to sit around in front of a screen all day instead of getting exercise, its your fault they are fat.
1. make them run at work, they want special furniture give them a hamster wheel, and make them chase a donut. ..
2. generate electricity
3. burn the dead ones for fuel.
5. profit
Why would any employer refuse to hire obese workers as long as they can pull their own weight, so to speak ?
If obesity is treated as an disability, then stupidity would be not that far off
And when stupidity is treated as an disability, then employers are forced to hire people no matter how fucking stupid they are !
Just how far are we going to allow this political correctness madness to spread ?
"Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having. Goddamn it Otto, you are an alcoholic! Goddamn it Otto, you have Lupus! One of those two doesn't sound right."
Iraq was always fucked up
You go fuck yourself !
It was USA which was so FUCKED UP that it goes around the world and fucked up other countries
In Latin America it fucked up Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, amongst others
In the Carribean it fucked up little island nations there
In Africa it fucked up Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, amongst others
In Asia it fucked up Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran
Iraq was much peaceful under that dictator Saddam Hussein, who was obviously very far away from an angel, but at the very least that motherfucker managed to keep Iraq in one fucking piece
Because of America, because of George FUCKING Bush's goddamn lie about Iraq having the motherfucking WMD and used it to invade and destroy Iraq, now the innocent people in Iraq is paying the fucking price for the total fucked up things created by the totally fucked up America !
Go fuck yourselves, you mother-fucking Americans !
"who you sleep with isn't a choice?" - Who you sleep with is a choice, who you fancy isn't.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
I'd +1,Insightful this if I was able to. I'd not really thought of it like that, but the comparison seems sound.
My initial reaction was like many, that this would be a bad thing, and everyone would be playing the "I stuffed myself, now I'm disabled and so don't have to work / am able to get handouts, discounts and special treatment" card. I'm sure there are some people who would do just that. But maybe the majority would think "oh shit, I'm disabled" and be more motivated to do something about it.
That said, it would seem that "disability" usually implies that it's a long term / lifetime problem. "Illness" may be closer to the mark.
I've been obese. The cure is a balanced diet, exercise, and expending more calories than you ingest. The first step towards that though, is caring about your long term health MORE than you care about short term enjoyment. For me that didn't apply for a while, and you will find a lot of people saying the same as what I did: "I don't care about living to be 90 if I have to be miserable along the journey".
I think in those cases it could be considered a mental illness sometimes. A combination of low self esteem (in the form of not caring about your own life enough) and just the inability to get one's head around the fact that you can still enjoy yourself and will not be miserable at all. And heck, almost nothing is bad enough in moderation to matter. I still drink beer. I still sometimes indulge in some chocolate (though rarely, as I'm more aware of how densely packed the fat and sugars are and don't like to do that to myself). It's just that I don't throw them down my neck as fast as possible, and I've acquired the taste of fruit and veg and other healthy foods (just like we all did with beer, did anyone like it the first time they tried it?).
We just tend to need a push start, a reason to care about yourself, beyond "other tax payers hate me because people like me cost the NHS billions" (more self loathing, yay). Being considered disabled? That might the the push that a good few need.
In Japan, it seems to be illegal to be obese.
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker
His wording was poor, and possibly intentionally provocative, but his point was that how a human being chooses to live their life is not solely dictated by their genes.
A person may have homosexual urges, but can choose to engage in heterosexual behaviour instead, for one reason or another.
A person may have an urge to rape, but can choose not to.
A person may have an urge to kill, but can choose not to.
And to bring it back to the on-topic comparison: A person may have an urge to eat, but can choose not to.
That we can make rational choices in defiance of our genetic and immediate emotional drives are what seperates us from base animals.
For that to be true, it has to be the case that every prison rape incident is a result of sexual desire. You entirely ignore the possibility that prison rape is not only about sexuality itself, but about domination and power.
Citation: Juhani E. Lehto, Homoseksuaalisuus luonnontieteiden näkökulmasta.
There must be also some chromosome that causes these retarded angry AC comments.
Minor correction guy, here. That's a proportionally higher chance, not a high chance. Since the best estimates for being gay put it at less than 10% of the population,
Well, You are only off by 100%, that's not bad. In a Microsoft or Congress kind of way, that is. 50% is a failing grade.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think you're confusing "being homosexual" with "having gay sex". A homosexual finds themselves attracted to the same sex (and may or may not have sex with them) whereas prison populations might just be subscribing to the "any hole is a goal" philosophy and prefer gay sex to no sex.
Remember, sexuality is a continuum and the difference between a straight man and a gay man is generally about 8 pints of beer.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
I am not pretending anything. I do not claim to understand almost anything about genetics, epigenetics (whatever that even means), or the causes of homosexuality.
Mostly carbs? If it's made of maize, potatoes, rice or just has tons of croutons I can agree but if it's simply a bowl of leaves, I would say there's nothing. Of course there's various nutrients and useful fiber ; but no calories.
Ditto for a dish with only vegetables. You need calories no matter what, even from just olive oil and bread (real bread, i.e. which does not contain any sugar)
Our prejudices are showing. The real question should be can morbidly obese individuals do everything a "normal" (whatever that means) person can. If no, then they have a disability. We seem to be confusing the cause of the disability with the existence of the disability. If I consume more calories than I burn, I may be the cause of the obesity, but that doesn't make anymore difference than if I am thrown from a four-wheeler and break my back. It's not the cause of the disability that determines if it is a disability, it is the result of the disability.
If obese people cannot do everything a non-obese person can, then they have a disability. Luckily, for many, it doesn't have to be a permanent disability. It also doesn't mean they need special accommodations by their employer (anybody with other than 20/20 vision also has a disability, that their employer normally does not accommodate unless very severe). However, by recognizing obesity as disabling, would mean that people could not be discriminated against.
People would fight back if an employer wouldn't hirer people who needed glasses (at least without good cause), why should we tolerate it if they won't hire overweight people? Some airlines want to charge more for overweight people. They say it is because their weight causes them to burn more fuel. That could be true, but if their real concern is about fuel, then they should discount the fee to underweight people because they are burning less fuel.
In the end, if obese individuals in Europe and elsewhere weren't being discriminated in some way, then this bill wouldn't be working it's way through the system.
When being fat has become a protected disability, it is time to start removing people from this world.
We should start with anonymous cowards, first.
Being obese certainly is disabling. However, it seems kind of weird to define a "disability" something that can be easily (if temporarily) cured by a fairly simple operation. It might even be cheaper for society to pay for periodic liposuction for "sufferers" than it would be to start accommodating the obese with bigger doors, chairs, seats, lifts, etc. everywhere. It would be an interesting economic study for someone.
How is it possible that obesity has been declared a disease? Well I do support obesity as a disease when it's the cause of a medical issue, just has a blown thyroid gland, I don't support it when you just decided to yourself to a blimp. We need to stop creating this culture of "It's not your fault you have no control, it's a disease." Obesity just like alcoholism is NOT a disease, the only thing that could be called a disease is your lack of will power and control. Lets stop blaming the situation and blame the person. We can't move forwards when we never take responsibility for our problems.
they are a burden on us all, and in my opinion should be lined up against a waill and pissed upon, until cured or dead.
The protection of law is vital and it can work in two directions. A heavy person shops for a bicycle and discovers that all of the department store bicycles have a weight limitation and it would be unsafe for him to ride any of them. Some people will say that is ok. But that same person may walk into a diner and sit and have the seat or stool collapse and suffer great injury thus generating a large loss for the business or their insurance company. It becomes obvious that products released to the public must have a set standard of safety. The question is where we set such limits. We know that people that weigh 450 lbs. are common enough that products should be built to accommodate them. However 900 lb. individuals are rare and most businesses will never see a person of that weight. So maybe a 600 lb. user should be the mark by which products are designed to meet. Height is a similar issue. In a town that permits taxis to operate a man who is seven feet tall should be able to use a taxi just like anyone else. A permit to use a vehicle as a taxi should require that various sizes of people can fit with reasonable comfort and safety. As far as firing a child care worker due to his weight I think it only matters if the worker can not do the job. For example attending the children in the bath tub means that the worker must be able to fit into the bathroom. He does not need to look good doing it.
Right, so all those gay people should either have sex with people they feel no physical attraction to, or abstain from sex entirely. Consigning them to a life of never having sex with someone they are attracted to is clearly far more socially responsible than making the homophobes uncomfortable about the existence of relationships that are none of their business.
(I would have rather replied to the provocateur directly, but their comment seems to have vanished entirely, despite my browsing at -1)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's only a disability if it can't be corrected. Being fat is easily corrected.
We're sorry, the fingers you have used to dial... are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm... now.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Sure, the doctor isn't going to just recommend "stop cutting/head-bashing", he's probably going to prescribe some anti-depressants, recommend you see a shrink, etc. However to what extents are those protected disabilities?
These may be forms of mental illness, but they're not automatically disabilities (though they can be). There's also the differences between overeating, and eating too much of the wrong things. These would often have more in common with nicotine/alcohol/etc addiction, which again can have a varying range of impacts on one's ability to work (and/or legal implications for the workplace).
They're mostly empty calories.
1) It's not about how much you eat, but how much your body converts to fat. I went on Atkins and lost quite a bit of weight while still eating lots of calories.
2) If you severely cut down on calories, your body can become more efficient at using the calories it does eat.
So the trick is to convince your body that it's not hungry, doesn't need to be efficient, and doesn't need to store fat against future needs.
You will not metabolize carbon dioxide from the air, and nitrogen is inert.
Breathing converts oxygen and carbon into carbon dioxide, therefore breathing should actually make you lose weight.
Water may add to weight, but you will keep to a fairly narrow range of water content if you want to survive.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
About the stomach-stapled, yeah... I have several friends who went that route. Most managed to change their eating habits to match their new stomachs, lost the weight and kept it off -- but one, who very successfully lost her lard (and thereby got rid of all her medical issues) then learned how to eat small amounts continuously, literally all day long, and within months regained all of it. So it's only a 'cure' if you do pretty much the same things as you would for a weight-maintenance diet.
Which brings up something else, the issue of "diets don't work". Certainly they work... the problem is that most people who lose weight via dieting reach their target weight, then revert to their old eating habits. Naturally they soon gain it all back, since once again they're doing the same things that led to obesity in the first place. Hence the only way a diet really works for the long haul is if you pick one you can live with for the rest of your life, and stay on it for life.
Also, see my comments above about hypothyroidism and depression-related weight gain.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Except for a very few whom have medical issues. The majority of us, including myself, became overweight due to eating more calories that we could ever burn thanks to processed foods that contain high sugary content. Sodas are a huge contributor, HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) is in just about everything. Look at the ingredients. I didn't get the way I am overnight, it happened over several years...I am in the process of losing weight, which means diet modification and exercise. I have given up all sugary drinks. I am no longer eating processed foods. You would be surprised at how much weight you can shed by making simple choices. SODAs were the single biggest contributor to my weight. Obesity rates are a result of choice. People choose to be this way and not holding ones self accountable for your actions.
If being fat is a choice, why are more people choosing it now than in the past?
For years on end spamming us with their euroscepticism "we dopnt' want the EU do force us, blah, blah, our taxes, blah, blah" and now they want to make that the EU considers a self inflicted state as a disability costing us millions of EU in taxes if all the overweight start asking for subventions and the companies have to start adapting their locations for the fat.
The obese (with a few exceptions that are not statistically significant) are the way they are because they are lazy and overeat. Sorry, that's how it is. There is no obesity virus, no obesity gene and nobody forces anybody to stuff their faces and use the car even for going to the toilet.
These bastards already costs us a fucking lot extra in medical insurance bill
What's next?, yonkies? Smokers?
-- 29A the number of the Beast
I, for one, do not see obesity as disability in the same way that intellectual impairment is. You are not born obese and you do notbecome obese as a result of a car crash. You become obese because of your inability to control the amount and type of food that you eat. Lack of exercise probably helps. To call this a disability suggests that this is something over which you have no control. This is not true. We haveto hope that the trial does not go to an obese judge. Given that the number of obese people is increasing at aan alarming rate removing one of the incentives to have some control over ones weight is not recommended. There are good reasons for not wanting to hire obese people. They are more likely to need sick leave. How does the guy in the day care keep up with the kids? What if he fell on oone of them. This is a really bad idea.
There is too many people here justifying discriminating against overweight people as well as too many people justifying being overweight.
Why can't we just hire people based on their skill sets, instead of our biases?
I suppose I have a live and let live attitude about people that just isn't popular anymore, even on a site billed as "for nerds".
Weren't enough nerds like us tormented in our youth for the way we looked? I swore I would never torment people that way, and it saddens me that the "nerd culture" has become some close minded self righteous group of people.
//rant ended
All else being equal, I do and will continue to "discriminate" against obese people for most roles in my companies, even in the US - unless the candidate can demonstrate skills which far "outweigh" their thinner counterparts.
Many of the reasons have already been discussed (health and people "prone" to taking more days off, causing financial "loss" to me and unfair increase in workload on others; perceived lack of discipline, higher insurance costs et cetera), but one to be considered is that of safety.
Some of what we do involves being at 20ft or more above the ground, so I'm not going to hire a 300+lb/150+kg person because they won't be able to climb a ladder or because I don't trust the weight distribution on a cherry-picker.
Or if you're in the office, the last thing you need is a job that has you sitting on your arse all day unless you in a wheelchair for reasons other than being obese. And there is no way in hell I'm buying extra-large chairs or widening the doors because you call yourself "husky".
Or if you're out in the field, I don't want to give a bad impression to prospects & clients by having a sweating, wheezing mass wearing a now damp shirt with our logo on it (most of the areas in which we operate are fairly warm and humid).
In fact, I can't even really think of any jobs in my companies where obesity would be an advantage, save maybe being an anchor for someone on the side of a building.
While I accept that there is *some* truth in obesity being a medical condition (people don't know when to stop eating because the mechanism is broken, they quit smoking etc), it's still by and large a choice for the vast majority of excuse-makers. You're not big-boned, you're big-arsed. Either get used to it or change your habits - you can eat tasty food without resorting to the drive-through and you don't have to stick to a carrot a day to lose weight, either.
If you're obese and you really want to work for me, get to a healthier weight and then come back to me so that I can pick (or reject) you based on your merits.
Actually, I'd quite like to see something like the Japanese law that fines the obese implemented in the west.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)