No one gets benefits for just a diagnosis. People get / don't get benefits and help on the grounds of how those illnesses effect them personally. It's about the effects, not the germ/gene/etc itself.
I think some people are radically over estimating the level of help or adjustments given to disabled people... And therefore what impact recognising obesity in the astray of things that can cause disability would have.
The criteria for being disabled enough to get help of any kind, is shockingly high. Fat people who need a different kind of chair to be comfortable wouldn't exactly make it high on the list. No way they'd be taking funds off someone else. There are no funds available for anyone needing such a miniscule thing. And by the time obesity would be causing such major problems to allow access to help and benefits, the impact on health would be major and then you're not really talking about fat, but about major organ damage etc.
Reminds me of the way officialdom dealt with HIV/AIDS in the 90s. Death certificates would say pneumonia/ TB etc to draw a veil over the shame and blame of it. And it would be true in a way, as having AIDS would mean that the immune system was so compromised and therefore pneumonia would develop from a very minor bug, and kill the poor person. Classifying deaths and hospital admittance etc in this way was really necessary in situations where haiV had such stigma, insurance companies would openly screen out such distasteful 'lifestyle diseases' etc. I can imagine similar scenarios where fatness is so despised and penalised, that the kind would find ways to avoid linking it with any health or disability problems. Or even just to avoid breaking their hippocratic oath.
Anyway, I digress!
Work adjustments are not an easy area to discuss, as it depends on so many variables, but taking one of the scenarios mentioned on this thread... A fat person not fitting into a normal chair with arm rests. The solution is very unlikely to be a break the bank kind of adjustment. In the first instance it would be taking the arms off the chair, or ensuring there was one armless chair in each meeting room, or giving the prison the flexibility to use a sofa or bench. The 'right to reasonable adjustments' is not about breaking the business or giving someone a cushy privaleged work life. The majority of adjustments can be done without major spending, although in my experience, companies tend to favour tangible adjustments which involve a one off payment of some kind. It's a hell of a lot easier than attitude and behaviour change!
Anyway, work adjustments are one small part of a wider picture of the support a disabled person may need. These two sources of support I think are the litmus test of disability thresholds. I haven't looked at disability unemployment benefits to get away from the wider debate around unemployment and feckless thieves!
The dla/ pip or access to care/ direct payments. Both are about disabled people in society, helping people live life like everyone else does, as much as possible. They're not instead of working... Which I think people don't really understand. And they are both absolutely essential, making the difference between life or death for many people accessing them.
Now, I will admit on here that I get higher rate DLA (God willing it carries on next year), and employ a few carers with Direct Payments (& have a whole host of adjustments in order to work including working from my bed majority of the time) ... But I also work AND pay higher rate tax. I am also a mother, an employer. I pay HMRC for my employees (tax and NI), as well as employers national insurance contribution.
However, I really struggle, exist in a state of permanent and intolerable choices (eat OR wash, cuddle my child OR do my exercises etc. didn't bathe or wash my hair for 5 months this year, it was foul & humiliating)
This really fucks people's heads up!
Which group do I belong to? The scrounger or the strivver, the asset or the dead weight, scum or 'one of you'?
Without this help I couldn't function, let alone actually work. I'd either be dead or in an institution, and my child would be in foster care. And that would cost a lot more..I live right on the edge of managing/ complete collapse. My health often comes bottom of the list as just to keep basic functionality I have to prioritise other things over physio or consultants. Especially physio unfortuneately. Getting to each appointment causes such damage that I just can't absorb - physically or practically.
Imagine what any pressure on that fragile Eco system would do... Everything comes tumbling down, permanently. And imagine the years of battling to get any help/ support. It just wouldn't have happened if I had anything other than a massively complex, severe and deteriorating health condition, or if I hadn't battled and diverted every bit of resource to the cause. You don't just turn up and get it! In fact I can't even 'turn up' as I cannot even get to the council offices...
If someone decides that I want to live like this, or am stopping myself being well by my choices... Well they can do a running jump. But if they took away support until I lost weight, or made myself better... I would die, not revive!
And can you really imagine someone who's simply obese ever getting support and help... It just wouldn't happen.