for thinking everyone at work should not have to pick up the slack because a colleague is too overweight to do her share?

[Twigggy]

I work in a job where some of the tasks involve lifting carrying and moving things. It is not all heavy labour but everyone is expected to take turns so the workload is fair.

One of my colleagues has been with the company for years. Over time she has gained a lot of weight. She is now morbidly obese and is very open about the fact that she eats too much and does not have any medical condition causing it. She even jokes about it sometimes.

The issue is that as her weight has increased her ability to do the physical parts of the job has decreased. Management have quietly stopped assigning her any of the lifting or carrying tasks. That means the rest of us have to do more to cover her share which can be exhausting especially on busy days.

A few of us have raised this with our manager and HR but both said there is nothing they can do and that we need to be sensitive. Essentially we were told to just keep doing the extra work so we do not upset her.

No one has said anything to her directly because it feels like a sensitive topic and I do not want to be accused of being discriminatory. But it is frustrating that the burden is falling on the rest of us for something that is not due to illness or injury and that she openly admits is her own lifestyle choice.

I am starting to feel resentful. AIBU for thinking this is not fair?

I agree.

If OP's colleague is too fat to meet her contractual obligations, neither the employer, nor fatty should expect her colleagues to pick up the slack.

And if mental health is the root cause then this is discrimination as reasonable adjustments are needed.

Reasonable adjustments have to be just that - reasonable.

Adjustments that mean her colleagues have to do significant parts of her job aren't reasonable.

Employers don't have to keep staff who - even with reasonable adjustments - can't meet their contractual obligations.

Which is reasonable. How is it not? It isnt a significant part at all. If you read the OP it says it is sometimes part of the job. It isnt that they are doing nothing, they would then be doing some other task that needs doing. Working in a different way.

What would happen with a pregnant employee? Would that be not considered reasonable? I imagine it would be because pregnancy is supported and mental health not.

If she was working in construction and there was no reasonable way to support her doing a very manual job, that's fine

If it's an office job where 90% of the time is sat at computers, doing work there but 10% of the time might include them having to shift the stationary order into the cupboard, bring up the new delivery of tea and coffee from downstairs with no lift and taking the bin bags out on a Friday then it is reasonable to expect the disabled/pregnant/overweight colleague to do those tasks.

The barrier isn’t her mental health though, it’s her physical ability. You can dress it up as much as you like but it does no one any favours to pretend that everyone who is overweight has a mental health issue, and it’s actually really offensive to people who do have mental illness.

Mental health causes overeating in the same way it causes undereating. No one has mental illnesses. They have trauma responses. To use stigma is a bit low and offensive of you.

Pregnancy is a choice so one could say they put themselves in that situation so why the need to accommodate?

Yes, it does. But so does greed, enjoying cake, a lack of exercise.

And mental illness exists in the same way physical illness exists. Nothing offensive about acknowledging that. Not all mental illness is a trauma response.