That fattist discrimination is allowed in the workplace?

[SortedwishIwas]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/24/fattist-discrimination-should-be-outlawed-in-the-workplace-says/

Just read this article and it says it is not illegal to discriminate against overweight people.

Yet fat people are protected only if they can prove they are also disabled

from the article. So it is seems to be ok to discriminate against someone who is fat but not if they are fat and disabled?

This is worrying though but a separate issue from the same article

New forecasts show that obesity will soon be more common than being a normal weight.The figures from Cancer Research UK show on current trends, almost three in four adults will be overweight or obese by 2035.

Those saying eating is an addiction etc.... no it's not. Or they would eat anything. Apples/broccoli/lettuce.... you'd need to consume more than the body could cope with to get fat on those foods

We have created a culture of comfort eating. A culture of eating at every opportunity a culture of mindless SNACKING

The cinema is full of it. Can't sit for an hour or two without eating crap

There is a whole process of choosing to take drugs or drink that comes first

Not everyone that takes drugs or drinks becomes an addict. I've done both. I haven't taken drugs for about 20 years but I am an alcoholic. Go figure!

Not stopped

I agree... Our snacking culture baffles me.

Sandwiches which will be calorie content of a meal are often recommended as snacks on here.
Family bags of chocolate to keep people entertained on car journeys.

It's really not the end of the world if you are hungry for a few hours.

Sorry Gotta but that is just a pallid simplification. Lots of people start drinking to excess or taking drugs because its fun, or because their mates do, or because they like how it makes them feel. And very, very few have never heard of the dangers of doing so, many just don't care, or think it won't happen to them. Naivity, mental health problems, low self esteem is part of it for some but equally it can be breathtaking arrogance or ignorance or wanting to party.

Not everyone who smkes gets cancer Nathan. Doesn't make it less of a bad idea to start, or somehow 'not your fault' if you do.

I think the reason that so many people are obese is because what we call as obese isn't always obese. BMI is a really bad indicator as there are loads of factors it doesn't take into account.
A friend of mine recently lost loads of weight and went from a size 16 to a size 10 in 12 months but was still medically overweight according to her BMI (she is only 5ft tall). If you're a size 10 you are not fat.
When my eldest son was in year 6 and his class were all weighed and measured and out of 27 of them, 21 were overweight and 3 were obese, 1 was underweight and 2 were in the healthy range (my son was one of these). There were maybe 2 or 3 kids in that class who I would have thought of as chubby, which I guess were the obese ones, the rest all look totally normal to me.
We need to accept that whilst the extremes need to be addressed, people have always been different shapes and sizes and this modern obsession with making everyone the same is not as healthy as it's made out to be.

Capricorn if you are a size 10 and short you can of course be fat! size of your clothes has fuck all to do with anythig

A friend of mine recently lost loads of weight and went from a size 16 to a size 10 in 12 months but was still medically overweight according to her BMI (she is only 5ft tall). If you're a size 10 you are not fat.

Sorry, but you've got this the wrong way round. At 5ft you can most definitely be overweight in a size 10 - sizes are just arbitrary numbers, you weigh what you weigh.

Children who are fat are not because they are addicts or have issues..most who are fat are because their parents train them to be by allowing them far too much too often. This is where the future problems lie.
I have read posts on Mumsnet where mothers are worried their child will suffer if they don't have a bloody snack between school and dinner/tea time. I have also read posts about what goes into their kids lunchboxes and it is more than even an adult would need.
There is denial about how much sugar kids are eating. It is more about ignorance than addiction or illness.

Are people going to be disciplined for telling slim people to "eat a good meal" "have a cake", "you look like you'll snap in the wind"?

I could go on with the remarks I was subjected to every, single day when I was at work but it was "just banter".

Longestlurker - how do you think making weight a protected characteristic for employment would work? its extraordinarily difficult to prove discrimination on the grounds of gender or race but trying to argue that you were discriminated against in employment because the person they hired was size 14 rather than size 24 would be incredibly difficult, not to mention expensive.

"Rose person B may be more disciplined than A. Person B may be less unhealthy than A. You are assuming the reverse with no concrete evidence beyond stereotyping.

That is basically the definition of discrimination."

Don't be silly. When we hire someone, we meet them, we look at their CV, we draw inferences from them. We can't just throw our hands up in the air and say 'I have no possible way of predicting which person will likely perform their job better', we use indicators.

Every time we hire someone. If we don't 'discriminate', as you put it, we wouldn't hire anybody.

If a persons weight, under or over means they may be unable to perform a job efficiently then surely an employer has the right to disregard that candidate for a job application or re-consider a current employee if their work efficiency suffers due to weight issues?

Yes, I agree, but that's making a huge assumption that someone overweight won't perform as well as someone who isn't.

Sorry Gotta but that is just a pallid simplification. Lots of people start drinking to excess or taking drugs because its fun, or because their mates do, or because they like how it makes them feel. And very, very few have never heard of the dangers of doing so, many just don't care, or think it won't happen to them. Naivity, mental health problems, low self esteem is part of it for some but equally it can be breathtaking arrogance or ignorance or wanting to party

I said.. that when they CHOOSE to try drink or drugs - they do not think THEY will get addicted. I never said they had not heard of the dangers! Of course they think it is fun! Of course it i speer pressure and of course it feels good at first!
Many young people think bad things won't happen to them - They don't have a filter when they are immature.
The point is many never get addicted while some do...None of them expect to!

I would hate to think that people are discriminated against because of their weight but realistically there are certain jobs where it must make a difference. I'm thinking of police, firefighters, cabin crew. I'd imagine that being overweight would make it very difficult to carry out those jobs effectively. If being overweight became a protected status does that mean the police, fire brigade etc would have to start employing people who may not be fit enough to do those jobs?

*Person A is disciplined and studies trends in their field of work
Person B is undisciplined and doesn't bother

Person A is hired over person B

Person A is disciplined and keeps slim and healthy and less likely to be off work due to illness
Person B is undisciplined and is obese, and is more likely to be ill*

Shite or bollocks? Both.

I am slim, disciplined, eat well, do sports and I study all trends in my field of work. I am very knowledgeable and I learn new things easily.
I also suffer from fibromyalgia, migraines and my sinuses are fucked. Even though I do my best just to get on with it, from time to time I take the odd day sick when it's too much. Would you say a lazy person who just comes to work to sit out their time but are there every day are better than me? Don't think so. You can't say slim = healthy, disciplined = have no sick days.
Employees look at a variety of different things. There are people of different sizes and figures around me and it doesn't matter.
I can imagine the weight mattering in jobs where the physical weight could cause problems with let's say the machinery used or where agility is needed. I certainly won't go around and complain that I can't become a professional diver because of my bad sinuses or a basketball player because I'm barely over 5 feet. I can't even donate blood because I'm about 18 pounds below the limit. I don't scream discrimination because of that.

I once faced discrimination by a weightest boss, would never happen in my industry now.
It was awful.

We're quickly heading to a world where victimhood is the default

Ain't that the truth

I'm surprised no-one's yet mentioned what the obesity crisis is doing to the NHS. It's interesting to see that fatties, on the whole, attract far less vitriol than is poured on people such as smokers for what they cost society (and that's coming from an ex smoker BTW)

Who knows - maybe, at some point in the future, obesity might become the new "unacceptable" ...

My user name says it all and am severely obese. However I also work full time (and usually more than F/T hours) and I have had 1 sick day in about 5 years.

Not everyone who is fat, is slow or lazy or is going to be off sick. I agree that some will, some slim people will be off sick too. My weight doesn't affect my ability to do my job. And for the record, some of my bulk is due to food and some due to steroids taken for a medical condition (not weight related either!).

It's the generalisations that hack me off........

When my eldest son was in year 6 and his class were all weighed and measured and out of 27 of them, 21 were overweight and 3 were obese, 1 was underweight and 2 were in the healthy range (my son was one of these). There were maybe 2 or 3 kids in that class who I would have thought of as chubby, which I guess were the obese ones, the rest all look totally normal to me

27 kids were overweight, as per some expert measure (I assume as it was a school) and you say they all looked normal to you and therefore we shouldn't worry about obesity?!

I take my niece to swimming lessons every Saturday. I'd guess half the kids are heavier than they should be. At least most adults all have a choice. It's criminal what we are doing to our children.

We have to wake up, take some responsibility and stop looking for excuses for greed. Yes, some people have conditions and some people are on drugs that add weight. Most people are overweight because they eat too much of the wrong stuff and don't move enough.

I can assure you that fatties attract plenty of vitriol Puzzled
It's crap being fat. I have lost 4.5 stones in the last 6 months and still need to lose more to be a healthy weight. I have an underactive thyroid (now controlled by medication), that I am pretty sure went undiagnosed for many years.

I agree that everyone gets fat because they eat more than they need to - even those like me with an underlying medical problem. I also get that people are discriminated against due to their characteristics and that it's just human nature; however, it does seem that us fatties are the last acceptable group that people who want someone to blame can vilify... (...ok, and smokers... ). Blaming people isn't helpful or constructive.

For what it's worth, despite my weight, I have barely had any time off work due to sickness, and it does greatly irritate (but not surprise) me that people make assumptions about you based on your weight.

I think all the fat celebration etc. is probably just a backlash against the negativity (similar to some posters on this thread) that us fatties face all the time and an attempt to assert our right to exist, even though it offends the "perfect" people who can't see past the outward appearance of others.

'Pulling the race card'. Fuck off. I've been body searched on every flight since Brexit, including hands on my hips and bum. I've been called 'half-caste' and had strangers imply my mother was a slut who couldn't wait for a White man. Do I get to play the race card now, or do I have to wait for a physical beating or something?

The issue for me is why as a nation, in common with many industrialised & post-industrialised nations, we have progressively become overweight and succumbing to chronic debiliating diseases at early and early ages.

The weight issue is a symptom of the food culture: which presents us with hyper palatable, cheap and everywhere available overprocessed foods which stimulate the addiction centres of the brain, leading us to crave and you know the rest.

We are overfed, undernourished and making poor food choices for ourselves: the current food climate needs a reworking if it is to meet our genuine need for nutrition rather than our misdirected desire for stimulation and sensation.
We need a change in the food culture, one that reflects an understanding of how our economies, communities, health and sanity are all directly connected to the food we choose to buy and consume.

As regards making overweight people feel safe in the workplace, that is laudable as we all wish to feel safe. The shame issue (which I speak to as having been overweight for most of my adult life until I got the food right ) is often internally generated and deeply painful to live in.

Yes, we need to grow kinder with each other; and also honest about where our current choices are leading us, and brave about making new ones.

My youngest DD has got a heart murmur, and needed to go into cardiology outpatients last year for tests and to see the consultant. In a packed waiting room of about 60 people, I'd say 58 of them were significantly overweight. She's got a condition that she can't help, yet how many others taking up time and valuable resources were in the same situation? It's little wonder that the NHS is buckling given the funds taken by obesity related care - what will happen when 3/4 of adults are overweight in future???! What scares me is that we are moving away from people having to take responsibility for their choices in life. We blame stress, our childhoods, our metabolisms, the Government - everyone but ourselves. I'm also overweight, but that room was a real wake up call for me and I've since lost 3 stone with a fair bit more to go. There is a fine line however between making people accept responsibility for their own health and bullying, so I don't honestly know the answer.

Olly True, we've just lost sight of what normal (i.e. slim) is, in adults, children and pets. I used to walk a slim labrador for his elderly owners. You wouldn't believe how many people stopped me to express their concern over the 'poor skinny boy'!