Obesity is a serious medical problem, and people who suffer from it need to achieve a healthy weight and maintain safe diet habits. But while getting healthier, obese people still deserve the same level of (in)dignity that everyone else gets these days.
That’s not happening. According to the International Journal of Obesity, reports of weight discrimination are increasing. Their research surveyed 2,000 U.S. adults in 1995-96 and again in 2004-06, comparing weight discrimination rates relative to other forms of discrimination. The results were alarming. 17% of men and 9% of women reported race discrimination, while among severely obese people, 28% of men and a shocking 45% of women said they have experienced discrimination because of their weight.
Institutional discrimination centered on health care, education or workplace situations, such as cases in which people said they were fired, or denied jobs and promotions because of their weight. Interpersonal discrimination occurred mainly via insults, abuse and harassment. There are currently no federal laws in the US for discrimination based on weight, and arguing weight discrimination as violating the Americans with Disabilities Act is debatable, since the ‘disability’ in question is – in some cases – reversible, and a product of individual behavior.
Adding a face to this debate was Peggy Howell (above), a librarian at a Northern California religious school. She weighed 280 lbs. and was directed by her employer to lose weight or be fired. Her job didn’t physically require a slender person, so legally there was no reasonable basis for her weight loss orders, but the boss said that Ms. Howell’s weight indicated her life was “out of control†and so she was “too fat too counsel studentsâ€. The school offered no help, apart from telling her to lose weight.
Feeling she had no choice, Howell lost 120 lbs. at Weight Watchers, and promptly quit her job a year and a half later. She then worked for a marketing company, and later as a bartender, standing on her feet all day and performing more physical exertion than she ever had as a librarian. Ms. Howell is now retired, but still supports the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance, which works with government to assure equal treatment for citizens of different sizes.
Las Vegas Assemblyman Richard Segerblom cites Ms. Howell’s case as an example of weight discrimination, and says that if nothing else, people should stop discrimination based on physical size for financial reasons. “Taxpayers pay for it if these people can’t get jobs, or good-paying jobs, and have to get unemployment, welfare or other benefitsâ€. To this end, he proposed Assembly Bill 90, which would have outlawed discrimination in the state of Nevada based on physical characteristics such as weight and height. The bill died in committee. --
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