To have told DP that it's nobody else's fault that he's fat?

[TMaysSexyLegs]

DP recently went on a training team building weekend with work. He kept texting me whilst there saying he was hating it and considering coming home.
Anyway once home he told me that he had been made to carry heavy stuff around all weekend and walk and run long distances with no regards to his health and he felt he was going to have a heart attack, which nobody cared about. He said he felt unfairly treated and discriminated against. I asked if he'd been made to do more than the others and he said he hadn't, but he had been made to do the same as the others despite his "obvious disability" (being overweight!). I told him being overweight is a reversible condition which he chooses not to reverse and it's not a disability! I also said he should have been expected to do the same as everyone else as it's not their fault he's fat!! Anyway he's decided I have proved his point that overweight people are discriminated against and he's going to raise an official complaint. I said he's unreasonable.

I would have more sympathy if he actually tried to lose weight but struggled to do so but he doesn't even try! A typical Saturday for him is a bacon, sausage and egg buttie (or two!) for breakfast, McDonalds for lunch (two cheese burgers as a STARTER before tucking into a king size Big Mac meal) and a huge dinner. And THEN a takeaway on the night. I have no sympathy at all. He thinks I'm unreasonable and at worse, discriminative. AIBU??!

although i've yet to meet an overweight person, myself included, that didn't overeat for emotional reasons. I do think you can be fit and fat, I think they're the rarer sort though, I agree prosecco

I guess it depends what people mean by "fit". I think of fit as meaning healthy and I would find it hard to believe a 300lb woman is healthy.
If you mean she has stamina then yes I imagine she does if she runs 3 times a week and bikes alot.

You could argue that he's been subject to indirect discrimination. Yes, everybody was treated the same but that can still be discriminatory - imagine somebody wheelchair bound; it clearly wouldn't be fair to expect them to run around hauling stuff. I thought obesity was counted as a 'medical condition' these days? What if he had had a heart attack due to his health problems being ignored (regardless of how those problems were caused)? Having said that, it'd be better if he took it as a wake up call for his health than look to complain.

You can be fit and overweight

Not according to the latest medical research. Obviously it is better to be fat and active rather than fat and inactive but active doesnt = fit.

not only stamina - if you lift a lot of weights, it tones your muscles and is better for you and your ability to survive health crises, regardless of how much fat you've got on you. Really, everyone should exercise, not for weight loss, because your body needs it. (I'm a total hypocrite - I've got small kids and a full time job, I can't possibly find time :)

whilst I don't think he should make a complaint, I do think some of there comments are rather disgusting towards overweight people.

There are many reasons people may overeat and I don't mean medically but psychologically, and calling people pigs etc. is helpful.

He was probably embarrassed by his limitations and whether he is fat or not, it seems a bit harsh to insist people do physical exercise until they feel like they're having a heart attack.

YANBU. Being overweight is not a disability and they aren't discriminated against.

It's not body shaming to point out how unhealthy being overweight is.

imagine somebody wheelchair bound; it clearly wouldn't be fair to expect them to run around hauling stuff

he's fat, it's in no way comparable to someone wheelchair bound.

Obesity is actually classed as a disability. I had my workplace training a while ago and this was specifically brought up.

Agreed pottered, I was just referring to the specific pp where someone said their 300lb friend was fit because they ran and cycled regularly

Here it can be a disability

Yes I agree with phoolani, its all very well to say "well he should be fitter" but the fact is that he is not fitter or lighter right now and therefore the work activity will have been actually exhausting, and probably humiliating and painful to an extent, in a way that it wasn't to the other participants.
You could argue that a broken leg from skiing is self-inflicted but they wouldnt have been required to carry an equal weight, a diabetic would not be required to do equal physical activity on a limited diet, this is not the only case where "the norm" is not always going to work.

I wouldnt think he has grounds for an actual discrimination claim, but it certainly should be brought to the attention of the trip organisers that if the aim of the trip was team-building then it did not achieve that for him due to the way it was run, and this should be something that they take into consideration for the future.

It sounds like he may have been embarrassed that he struggled to do what the others were doing. I doubt (I hope!) that on reflection he will really put in a complaint. I would focus on the positive - I'm really proud/impressed that you managed to do everything the others were doing - I'm really proud/impressed that you kept going even though you were finding it difficult etc. It sounds like his self-esteem took a hit and I think reacting positive might even inspire him to make some positive changes if he's had a bit of a wake up call!

I used to work with someone who couldn't pitch in due to their size. It left a bad taste among the rest of us as we had to do her bit as well. she felt left out of the 'group' and subsequently complained to HR about being bullied.

Not according to the latest medical research. Obviously it is better to be fat and active rather than fat and inactive but active doesnt = fit.

Of course a fit, slim person is better off than an active, fat person. But I guarantee there are slim people in a few offices that couldn't run like my friend does. And this bloke's argument is that he was being discriminated against because they were expecting him to run and lift things.

While I really don't think you were being unreasonable, from what I've seen, being obese does make you unable to do normal, everyday things, so in that sense it disables you. We were on holiday recently, and spent quite a bit of time on the beach (in the UK, so you'd have wanted to be active on the beach, not just sunbathing!). I saw more than one family with young children where at least one parent was sufficiently overweight, they either couldn't get onto the beach at all, or once on it sat down immediately, unable to play with their child(ren). It was really sad.

I do, however, realise that for most, obesity is self inflicted, and very much not in the same category as permanent disabilities such as MS, paralysis etc. And joining in the activities on the weekend can only have been good for your DP, in every sense.

this is the negative cycle of weight I find - you feel crap about yourself, so you eat more to avoid feeling those feelings. It's really hard for a partner to talk about that without reinforcing the negative feelings.

Well, a disability is defined as something which substantially affects your day to day life, you don't need an 'official' diagnosis/blue badge etc to be considered as disabled so while technically it is correct that an overweight person could be classed as disabled and therefore discriminated against, your H clearly isn't and he will look like an utter fool if he puts in a grievance to his employer.

Id probably put in about 1 minutes worth of work to consider his grievance before finding it unfounded.

Sounds like he really struggled at the weekend, also could have been hungry if he had much less food than usual, which would not help his mood.

Agree with pp, this could be the wake up call that he needs.

Wish him well.

Chic: they're clearly not comparable in many ways, but for that specific point they are.

What a bloody fool, announcing that his self induced obesity is a "disability". Isn't a disability something you can't rectify by your own actions, like a weak heart or a damaged spine??

Disabilities tend not to be reversible though, don't they? Which I thought distinguished them from health conditions/illness which can be cured.

No they're really not.

Just from a slightly different angle:

I was 19st 1lb at 5ft 5 at Christmas this year (I'm 15st 10lbs now)

Even at that weight, I walked every weekend 10km on a saturday, 15km on a Sunday with the dogs carrying 4 litres of water in a backpack and food for a picnic both days.

I could also run. Yes, RUN. I did my first 3k run at 18st 11lbs, about 9 stone overweight for my height.

Being obese is fucking HARD. People have this notion that you don't notice that you're carrying that much weight so fat people should just be able to do what the rest of the world can with no extra effort. I'm telling you now that's bollocks. You feel every bloody pound of it and now that I'm 3 anda bit stone down you realise just how bloody hard it is to be that fat.

However, your other half is an absolute wank badger. Tell him from a fellow obese individual, he's not incapable of doing those things, he's just the kind of fat person who makes the rest of us look like lazy gluttonous wastes of oxygen. Tell him if he makes this complaint with any grand ideas in his head that he's speaking out for the "minority", I'm happily speaking on behalf of all of us to say he can fuck the fuck off.

Being obese is hard, losing weight is hard. Tell him to choose his fucking hard.

If it was too much for him, surely he just had to say?

I'm average to skinny and do a running class. I'm the slowest in the class and sometimes it's a bit much for me. Then I slow down to a brisk walk or do intervals. I don't just keep going and then complain that nobody cares if I have a heart attack!

It sounds like he doesn't want to take any personal responsibility at all and instead wanted others to determine how much he could do without actually asking him, based on his weight. Which would be - wait for it - discrimination!