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Obesity as a Disability (or Slow News Day)
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Obesity as a Disability (or Slow News Day) The European Court of Justice ruled that obesity can be a disability if it hinders “full and effective participation in professional life.” This opened up a rather interesting series of questions for me. The first question was whether obesity hinders the participation in professional life due to perception or limits in capacity to perform the tasks at least to the set minimum acceptable standard. Where people may view those who are obese or (as in the case of the man suing for being unfairly fired for being fat, at 350 pounds) morbidly obese as being lazy and slothful based on their size alone, this does not necessarily impact their performance of their duties. They may need to work smarter to accomplish the same goals or, as in many cases of employment that attract the less physically active members of society, not require a great deal of physical fitness. Being morbidly obese might not effect the quality of care that you provide as a -minder (unless one needs to crawl into small spaces to retrieve the strays one undoubtedly encounters during the course of wild kingdom/ play by small ), but it would certainly endanger citizens if you weren't able to rush into a burning building, climb the stairs, and carry out a fellow morbidly obese person in the course of fire fighting. The second question is how this determination could impact others who are discriminated against for reasons other than those specifically protected by laws. To be sure, I'll be talking about those in the US rather than internationally, so we need to keep that in mind. Where (in the US) one is not able to discriminate based on race, creed, color, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or military service (I might have left off one or two), no protection is granted for perception. Placing obesity under the auspices of disabilities provides a protection for those who are obese from being discriminated against and offers an avenue through which they can receive reasonable accommodations for their specific needs, but it also infers that there are limitations and needs that the individual has that are not found in the average worker. The thoughts of greater risk of health issues (including heart problems, diabetes, strokes, and premature death on the short list) make the obese individual a greater strain on the insurance, if only in potential, and could engender more sick days than the average employee. But making obesity a disability would open the door for other groups to follow. Smokers are viewed negatively. Perhaps they would benefit from the accommodations of a disability status, where they are allowed five minute cigarette/ cigar/ pipe breaks every hour. I don't agree that being fat, regardless of the degree, is a disability, though it does come with a stigma attached to it by many employers. An employer forms a snap judgment about an applicant the second he or she walks into the room. That will start with sex and race, include body type, and drift off to address dress and demeanor prior to the first question. If, in that moment, an obese person encounters someone who feels that they are not competent to do the job based on the employer's perception, the obese person is experiencing discrimination. The existing protections against discrimination do not include snap judgments on another's worth based on shape or size, but expanding the definition of disabilities would allow for the protection of individuals from discrimination that occurs every day. People discriminate against fat people. Fat people deserve to be treated equally. Perhaps labeling obesity as a disability is the quickest solution to ending the negative treatment. It wouldn't do to add body type to the list of people you can't discriminate against. That would just muddy the waters and give men with Napoleon complexes another thing to complain about. If sarcasm was like chocolate, I'd be great with<b> strawberries.</font></b> |
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