<p><a href=“http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/richardson-obes.html[/url]”>http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/richardson-obes.html</a></p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Next thing on the list–protection for homely people…</p>
<p>That’s absurd. Most fat people eat too much crappy food and don’t exercise enough. Federal protection? Where does it end?</p>
<p>Is being dumb a disability? Should we force employers to not discriminate based on intelligence? I just don’t know where this kind of thing stops.</p>
<p>
Not quite true. There is a great deal of research about the causes of obesity.</p>
<p>Being dumb may be a disability, but being unkind is worse, imo.</p>
<p>"Richardson, who has managed to lose 30 lbs. since December 2006, made light of the fact that he was the only presidential candidate to address The Obesity Society. The group, whose membership includes 2,000 basic and clinic researchers, held a conference this week on the campus of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C…</p>
<p>As governor of New Mexico, he banned junk food from being sold in vending machines in schools, he worked to ensure that children have access to a healthy breakfast, and he put a new emphasis on physical education."</p>
<p>So instead of putting obesity under ADA, why doesn’t he hold up his own standard for obese people, encouraging them to lose weight? </p>
<p>Regardless of the research on the causes of obesity, the vast majority of it is too many fried foods, donuts, chips, etc. and sitting around being sedentary. The research money should be put into how to convince people to get off their behinds and move, while removing their hands from the bag of chips.</p>
<p>And I am excluding those of you who are overweight, not obese, and have so many stories of not being able to lose “those last 10-20 pounds.” That’s much different than being 50-300 pounds overweight, ie true obesity.</p>
<p>Obesity is like alcoholism. It is a disease of chronic self-abuse. ?Federal protection for drunks, too?</p>
<p>What about civil rights for average weight people. Have you ever been in coach when the plane is full and the person next to you takes up one and a half seats? Can we talk?</p>
<p>So…When do we add chain smokers? Just curious. While genetics and other uncontrollable factors may add to a persons ability to gain weight quickly and not lose it easily one would suspect that living a healthy lifestyle can go a long way.</p>
<p>“What about civil rights for average weight people. Have you ever been in coach when the plane is full and the person next to you takes up one and a half seats? Can we talk?”</p>
<p>I take an express bus every day for at least 1 1/2 hours each way and I happen to be really tiny (less than five feet and just over a hundred pounds), so the big guys stake me out on the bus. I can’t stand them sweating on my, breathing on me and sleeping on me. Makes me crazed! Oh, and my husband is obese, lest you think I discriminate just for the fun of it.</p>
<p>Wow, “Obesity is like alcoholism. It is a disease of chronic self-abuse”. </p>
<p>That is exactly why we need to extend civil rights protection to curb bigots like you. A vast majority of obesity is caused by genetic composition.</p>
<p>BTW, I am not overweight or obese.</p>
<p>No, a vast majority isn’t. A vast majority is caused by a combination of genetics and unhealthy eating patterns.</p>
<p>But yeah, some people have naturally slow metabolisms. So what? The solution is simple: eat less, exercise more. These people may never be thin, but if they try, they can avoid true obesity. Almost anybody can do that, some just have to try harder. It’s truly a very rare person who is actually incapable of maintaining their weight at something under obesity due to genetics.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/27/health/webmd/main1757772.shtml[/url]”>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/27/health/webmd/main1757772.shtml</a></p>
<p>Quote: “That is exactly why we need to extend civil rights protection to curb bigots like you. A vast majority of obesity is caused by genetic composition.”</p>
<p>Since it has so quickly occurred, there is no way that all of that DNA could have changed so quickly in the past 20-30 years. It is a condition generally of lifestyle. </p>
<p>Instead of money being spent getting it covered under ADA, let’s spend that cash getting people up and out and off of the bad food and beer. Or let them pay more for their health insurance, along with drinkers and cigarette smokers. Maybe that will provide an incentive, but doubtful when one watches the way these obese people eat and drink. It is really disgusting. Such as fries with thick cheese and greasy hamburger meat on it. That is a side dish, in addition to a double bacon cheeseburger. And 10 beers. That is not a genetic condition. It’s just stupidity.</p>
<p>the reasons cited in the cbs article cited above are not the reason for the boom in obesity. The article states that “Obesity researchers should broaden their horizon, they argue. So the researchers propose 10 other explanations for obesity, which are also supported by circumstantial evidence.”</p>
<p>They want to blame the cessation of smoking, too few thin teenaged European-American mothers, and too many overweight older Hispanic-American mothers having babies for the obesity crisis. </p>
<p>That way individuals do not have to take responsibility for their actions, but can blame it on something like pollution, one of their theories. I don’t think that there was that much more obesity prior to the Clean Air Act or other environmental acts. Also they blame air conditioning, but there are plenty of obese poor people who cannot afford AC. </p>
<p>Overall, a very weak article, not supported by evidence at all.</p>
<p>But collegialmom, if the DNA hasn’t changed, why have the people? A roundabout way to get to my point, which I’ve made before in other contexts and which is still true: People in the aggregate don’t change. Their circumstances change, but the essential bell curve of humanity with regard to every human characteristic doesn’t. So if we find that there’s a huge increase in obesity, it’s not because people are worse than they used to be, it’s because their circumstances have changed. And they have. We design cities these days to make walking impractical and dangerous - but require every new building to have enough parking spaces so that everyone can park their car. The development of means of extracting high-fructose sweetener from corn coincides pretty closely with the increase in obesity - and it’s in virtually all foods these days and reportedly has some disturbing interactions with the hunger mechanism. Pollutants, air-conditioning, etc. etc. etc. -they all add to the problem. A big hit at every city planning conference I attend is the picture of the workout studio with the escalator from the parking lot. Blaming individuals is actually the easy way out: that way we don’t have to take responsibility for the society we all have shared in creating.</p>
<p>We are creating fat people with the society we have developed - almost as if that was what we intended. Kanamits?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pre-packaged foods maybe. Otherwise not true at all.</p>
<p>The original thread is about obesity and civil rights, i.e., the right of obese person not to be discriminated in work places etc. What we have from many of the posters here is bigotry.</p>
<p>zoozermom, we make accomodations for handicapped people on buses so that front seats are accessible for walking imparied riders or people in wheel chairs. Perhaps the right way to think about it is to reserve “obese seats” in public transportation to accomodate such people. History has repeatedly told us that civil rights are to be won through overcoming misconceptions. Judging from the posts here, it would seem that we will have a long way to go.</p>
<p>A couple of comments from the middle of the road: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>My son just lost a great deal of weight. It took a LOT of work including exercise and strict dieting. There is a history on one side of our family of overweight individuals. Interestingly enough, I have a sibling with the opposite problem-anorexia. I see both as two sides of the same coin in a lot of ways. Both are perceived differently by the public because of the way they look/looked. </p></li>
<li><p>I recently was on a flight where DH and I were in aisle seats across from the other. His window seatmate was a man who probably weighed 350 or more. They literally had to put up the armrest between them and he had to place his arm behind my husbands back so that the two of them could fit. Needless to say, he needed a seatbelt extender. The flight attendant just laughed, asked “are you two gonna fit?” and walked away.<br>
My husband, God bless him, didn’t blink an eye. He proceeded to have a conversation with the guy, he had nothing going on at all about the inconvenience. When the flight attendant came back she said “you two are getting along great, we might have to get you a room” and laughed again. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>It was interesting to me. A few years ago Southwest talked about making larger people buy two seats and they got slammed with comments about discrimination. After seeing this situation first hand, I could see there point. </p>
<p>Truth be told, I would have been irritated to be squashed during the whole flight. I don’t believe it is right to discriminate but I am not clear on how we deal with this in such a way that it doesn’t totally inconvenience the other travellers. </p>
<p>This is completely different from wheelchair because a wheelchair next to you doesn’t take up your space. I also have a friend in a wheelchair and I do think they should be able to access places. She can’t take her children to a particular dentist because it is on a second story without handicapped access. If she really wanted to, she could make a stink, or sue the guy and make him provide access.</p>
<p>A person with muscular distrophy, who should be protected under ADA, is a lot different from an obese person, because the person afflicted with MD had no control over his affliction. Protecting people who just like to eat too much and exercise too little is not comparable.</p>
<p>As to society causing obesity, it may contribute, but it does not preclude people from walking outside for exercise or eating less. A lot of the obesity that I see now is from fatty food and too much beer, and I don’t feel that these people qualify for ADA protection. In fact, I would like to be protected from having to see their bellies hanging out of their uniforms and watching them consume massive, fatty meals where I currently work.</p>