Asked to contact work and declare obesity

[sillywoman456]

Hello,

So I've been feeling quite positive today. I came off all my ADs about six weeks ago after seven years because I'd gained so much weight on them, and it's been hard but I feel I'm coming out the other side. I had a bad binge yesterday, but today I have been reading my Overeaters Anonymous literature and feeling a bit better. All in all, I've felt more positive than in weeks, and then I got this email from work ...
In order to do a risk assessment, they want everyone who is obese to contact them to discuss. They want contacting by the end of next week.

Of course, I know I am morbidly obese (nearly 16 stone) and they must know to look at me, so it's not that I'm fooling anyone, but the thought of writing this email or going in for a meeting about it is just terrible. What should I do? If I ignore it, then someone will probably approach and ask me about it and that will be worse.

Please be kind. I know I shouldn't have got in this mess, but here I am and I just don't think I can contact them about this. I can't even ask anyone's advice in real life because I feel so humiliated. Thank you.

@Bluntness100

I think obesity is pretty obvious. The point I was making is that unless they are going to do this with every risk factor then its intrusive.
There is absolutely nothing my employer could do to make my working environment safer because I am fat.
And you don't necessarily know the health conditions of your staff unless it has an inpact on them doing their job. I have one member of staff who has a whole host of underlying conditions which I didnt have a clue about until she got pregnant last year.

The point is, they may well have done it for all vulnerable people, in fact it’s highly likely. The one factor they may be being cautious over is indeed obesity, just look at the responses on this thread to see why. People are offended if it’s mentioned. So you can write to someone and say come in, you’re asthmatic, or bame or whatever, you can’t write to them and say you’re obese, you need to do it gently as they have done.

Because the simple fact is there is no way to mention it to some folks without causing either offence or humiliation.

It shouldn’t be like this, but it is. The simple act of trying to address it as required to protect people is playing with fire.

@Bluntness100 - Your post about employers knowing who their BAME employees are is not necessarily correct. BAME people are not one blanket group who fit into some kind of ‘visual’ criteria

OP - I appreciate this email is upsetting, I would feel very uncomfortable too as my BMI is not what it should be either. I really think they could have handled this much better. I hope you can find a way to respond to this without it making you feel embarrassed as you shouldn’t feel that way. Also well done on coming off the AD’s, that is a great achievement.

This wasn’t addressed to the OP personally so surely she’d have known whether they also wrote to all asthmatics etc. It makes sense to do a full risk assessment in which high weight is one factor that can be taken account of. To just ask anyone obese to contact them is focusing solely on one risk factor that needs to be combined with factors such as age to get a true picture - eg a healthy weight 63 year old is statistically at higher risk of death from Covid than a 25 year old with a BMI of 34, but under their approach, only the latter would be targeted. Unless the OP’s weight bears directly on her ability to do her job (ie if she is operating equipment with a max weight limit) she should be able to decide for herself whether she wants the employer to do anything extra to protect her. The virus is likely to be around for a while and telling people with higher BMI that they shouldn’t come to work is an extreme overreaction and unsustainable in the long run.

We need to get away from this culture where naming someone as obese is considered rude. It’s not, it is a health condition. It wouldn’t be considered rude if all employees with diabetes were asked to fill in a health assessment. By not talking about the fact that someone is obese allows the obese person to kid themselves it is ok when it is not, it is very unhealthy. People who intervene when someone is seriously underweight are not accused of ‘thin shaming’.

I’m sorry you are embarrassed by your health condition but you can reverse it and have chosen not to.

BAME people are not one blanket group who fit into some kind of ‘visual’ criteria

How insulting, I never suggested suc a thing, but most employers are fully aware of the demo graphics of their workforce, many even Publish stats on it.

We need to get away from this culture where naming someone as obese is considered rude. It’s not, it is a health condition. It wouldn’t be considered rude if all employees with diabetes were asked to fill in a health assessment

Agree with this, though from a different perspective than the pp who posted it. Imagine if smoking was as high a risk for covid as obesity, and a colleague who smokes had to declare their smoking. Would you be disgusted? Or understand that it's a habit that they probably don't love, but is really hard to kick and maybe reflects other stresses they have in their lives?

You should be so proud of all your efforts, and be happy to work with a responsible employer that is trying to do risk assessment. Best of luck to you

We need to get away from this culture where naming someone as obese is considered rude. It’s not, it is a health condition.

Then you need to make a lot of structural societal changes because at the moment weight is entirely bound up with things like attractiveness. To say ‘it’s just a medical condition’ is unrealistic in this climate where people on here post how disgusted they are that they weight 10 stone and stuff. How do you expect people to react? And at the end of the day, it’s not really any of the employers business unless it directly affects the job the OP does. Weight on its own is meaningless as a risk factor without taking account of age. Also, obesity is generally bad for health and is likely to slow recovery of a variety of conditions and this has been the case forever, not just because of coronavirus. However, I haven’t seen employers give a shit about any of that until now so I think the OP is probably okay to ignore this call unless she wants to talk to them about it.

@Shedtheload employers are asking employees to declare conditions that might raise their risk in the case of contracting coronavirus. It's either being a decent employer or trying to ensure they don't leave themselves at risk of an employment claim.

Can you imagine the outcry if an employer didn't try to understand and manage health and safety when asking people to return to work in an onsite environment and then employees with known risk factors were falling ill or dying? I don't see it as different as the NHS looking at BAME status and trying to manage who is on the frontline - that was not racism and nor is this weight discrimination.

Apparently the government is going to push really hard to get us to be a healthy weight now. Maybe that's why obesity is to be factored in by employers?

Stuck then do a full risk assessment. Don’t just ask for obesity to be declared. An obese person below 40 is at lower statistical risk than an over 60 normal weight person if we look at the death figures. Yes, the obese person will be a higher risk than someone of the same age of normal weight, but if the overall risk is very low anyway, as it is for younger people, it doesn’t warrant special measures being taken, especially if they’re not being taken in respect of other factors. My employer is doing a full survey of staff which has a broad range of questions covering all known risk factors (only BMI of 40 is included here). They haven’t required us to be in work over the lockdown, unlike the OP’s employer, do them doing this now makes sense, whereas the OP’s employers have already required her to work and thereby ‘put her at risk’. It sounds like a pretty useless exercise because a) someone with a BMI over 30 is not necessarily at high risk as the cut off is 40 and b) this approach doesn’t look at the combination of factors that is needed to actually work out if there is risk.
Just saying it’s up to OP how she deals with it. She shouldn’t feel obligated to engage with it if she doesn’t want to. I can’t see why that is controversial. She’s an adult and her presence at work doesn’t put anyone else at risk.

Apparently the government is going to push really hard to get us to be a healthy weight now. Maybe that's why obesity is to be factored in by employers?

If that is the case, we should all be extremely concerned. I am all for people being healthy and have been on a health kick myself but the state absolutely cannot interfere in people’s private lives to that extent. Especially as it’s not offering real support, just blaming people for being fat.
Want to really improve health? Start teaching real meaningful physical activity at school, not the joke they have now where it only benefits those talented at sports and excludes so many others, causing them to hate sports for a long time. Teach kids that brisk walking, running, gym, swimming and yoga are just as good as the team sports where your classmates laugh at you for not catching the ball (or in my case, where the teacher does so too) and offer those activities as an alternative. Subsidise all gym memberships, build proper cycle paths away from roads and offer genuine support for those wanting to lose weight. Stop glorifying things like cake and making out like it’s not possible to get through a meeting without it (admittedly this last one is more cultural than due to the government but overeating is glorified in this country, as long as the person doing the eating is thin or of normal weight).

Telling fat people to discuss their weight with employers is not going to help.

Completely agree with the smoking comparison. Efforts to get people to stop smoking have been pretty successful over the years. Obesity is more complex as people obviously cannot give up food. I know from personal experience it is difficult to lose weight and for me personally I had to be very honest with myself and say no I do not look good, no I am not healthy, no i should not be using my underlying health condition as an excuse, no I should not listen to these bloggers who spend hours online telling other obese people that is is fine to be obese (it is one thing to risk your own health and quite another to tell their people it is ok to risk theirs).

I think this thread just goes to show how sensitive a subject obesity is, once again, there is simply no way to mention it without causing offence to one person or another. None whatsoever, the fact you might even think some one is obese is considered offensive by some.

So when it comes to Covid employers can’t go there, it’s the safest way, they have to pretend obesity isn’t a risk factor, even putting it on a list of risk factors would piss some folks off. You have to pretend you don’t know It, never mention it, and just act like it’s not a potential issue.

It’s needs to be the employee needs to mention it without ever being asked.

They can mention obesity, just not on its own. Do a proper risk assessment or don’t bother as it doesn’t tell you much just to look at someone’s weight.
FWIW I’m not someone who thinks it’s possible to be morbidly obese and it not affect your health but I do think it’s possible to be obese and healthiER than others who have other conditions. I just think it’s up to the individual to decide whether that’s something that their employer should know because employers haven’t given a shit to date about the increased health risks of obesity.

We’ve all had to do risk assessments as you don’t necessarily know who your BAME staff are. The onus is on the employee to take responsibility and complete the online form. It does include obesity. Your employer has to be seen to be looking after you but it’s really hard when obesity is such an emotive term.

There’s growing resentment about the shielded category as they cannot safely come to work, minimal can be done from home so they’re getting a full salary with no output and no budget to cover employing anyone else to do their roles. No one wants to feel like that and it’s not their fault but it’s hard to see what’ll happen long term. I imagine people will choose not to employ larger looking people even more than they do now. Employers are in a really tough position. How long do you pay someone who isn’t performing their job?

I don't think they're trying to help, I think they're trying to assess how many people are likely to become very sick and have lots of time off or never return. There's always a business reason when things like this occur.

They probably also want to be seen to be offering help.

Ignore it. They have no right to know your weight and Im pretty much certain they won't chase you.

@birthdaybelle if she’s NHS then it’s essential in our planning for recovery, ensuring staff are in the safest possible roles. The media are also constantly hounding us for our risk assessment numbers and slating us if they’re low. Employers really can’t win.

I don't understand when people are saying "it's to keep you safe" what are companies going to do when they know you're obese thats going to help you?

If it was NHS I’d expect a more competent risk assessment taking account of all risk factors. Also, obesity is very prevalent among nursing staff probably due to long hours and stress, so highly unlikely that they wouldn’t be allowed to work.

The vast majority of people who catch Covid have mild symptoms, including obese people. Younger obese people are still highly unlikely to be hospitalised and even less likely to die from Covid.

It’s not realistic at all to keep people with a high BMI at home indefinitely on full pay, even if they can’t do the job from home. It’s not fair to expect employers to bear that burden.

Oh I didn't see NHS, I assumed corporate for some reason.

I'm fat.... bmi 39 but I haven't always been and I would have been pissed off to be working only to have fat colleagues at home on full pay. That would surely create a lot of bitterness!

I don't understand when people are saying "it's to keep you safe" what are companies going to do when they know you're obese thats going to help you?

Not really that hard to understand. The same as any health related condition. OHD can provide support and advice, companies provide wellbeing services, they can make reasonable adjustments if possible.

If a BMI over 30 is so high risk it requires shielding, half of the nurses in the NHS would have to stay at home.

why are people now equating obesity with being shielded and unable to do perform a job properly?

I am fat, not mentally defective. I do not have any obesity related conditions such as diabeties. I am not shielded because I am overweight and will be back in my office doing my job as soon as we are all allowed, as I have been doing the last 5 months from home and for the last 30 years before that.

if employers decide fat people are too risky to bring back to work, then the same goes for other risk factors such as being from an ethnic minority - and I'm sure that would not be seen as acceptable.