Weight – Is too much a chronic illness?

Should being fat be considered a protected category? Should it be considered a chronic illness?

An article in last weekend’s Boston Globe Magazine,
Do We Really Need a Law to Protect Fat Workers?, talked about a bill that is being considered by the MA state legislature to protect obese people from discrimination. “… it’s hard to imagine that same employer refusing to hire someone with a chronic illness, such as multiple sclerosis …”

I’m sorry but I have to ask: what planet does this writer live on? A person would have to be either pretty stupid or naive to refuse to hire someone because of MS — or any chronic illness. The threat of a lawsuit is a big deterrent.

Might a person look for ways to avoid hiring a person whom he knows has a chronic illness? Absolutely. Let’s face it, a chronic illness can make an employee more complicated (and more expensive!) to manage. That’s reality. And, someone who is obese could also be a liability — because of future health risks and, in certain jobs, because it could hurt business. (That’s not to say the fat people or people with chronic illness never get hired. But only if this doesn’t prevent the job from getting done.)

I have a hunch that a person would more inclined to say that a candidate isn’t being hired because he or she is fat — because we do have this thinking that obesity is considered someone’s fault (although some people do “blame” individuals with chronic illness for being sick). But, I think that, in the final analysis, you can’t legislate what people think or feel. And bias and prejudice are tough to prove.
So, pass those bills to protect our rights. Argue over what makes something a chronic illness or not. In the end, we have to live with the fact that in our society, people prefer to surround themselves with thin and seemingly healthy people. Those of us who don’t fit that category have to suck it up and figure out how to get by, as well as we can.

So I suggest that we work on getting the help we need, where we can get it, to live as successfully as we can … with all our warts.

Rosalind