Weight Discrimination

Fat prejudice and discrimination is endemic to our society. We have all been indoctrinated to it, even those of us who are obese or morbidly obese. Each of us carries our own beliefs about obese people, their abilities, and their value, most of which are based on misinformation and lack of education. As a society, we are prejudice against obese people, and “obesism” is rampant.

Prejudice is the prejudging of a person or situation based on attitudes, not perceptions. Discrimination is behavior for or against a person or situation. Discrimination under the law is the behavior or actions in specific situations of an individual, business entity, governmental entity, or their agents for or against a person based on the protected characteristics of race, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, ethnic origin, pregnancy, and in some states, marital status and sexual orientation. Weight is generally not a protected characteristic.

Weight may now draw more open and widespread discrimination than race, gender, or age, and the prejudice turns up in almost all spheres of life. Obese people are far less organized as a group to fight discrimination than minorities, women, or the elderly, and thus prejudice and discrimination rage through our society. The only state to have legislated against weight-based discrimination is Michigan, but recently the District of Columbia has followed suit. Weight discrimination can be considered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), but not always. The ADA defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of [an] individual.” Disability also includes a record of having such an impairment, or being regarded as having such an impairment. The statute, then, neither expressly includes nor excludes obesity. The Department of Labor's implementing regulations suggest that obesity was not a consideration for a disabling impairment except in unusual circumstances. Courts tended to discount ADA claims based on obesity, and many still do, particularly when all that is presented is a plaintiff who is not morbidly obese, or who does not suffer from a physiological disorder causing the plaintiff to be obese, or one who is simply heavier than average.

Recently, however, courts have been taking a different view of ADA obesity-based claims. In a 1993 Rhode Island case, the federal court held that although simple overweight or obesity probably would not qualify, morbid obesity caused by a physiological disorder would be a disability entitling the plaintiff to ADA protection. The court concluded that the disorder was permanent, and that the plaintiff's weight gain was not meaningfully voluntary. A 1997 decision of the New York federal district court agreed that morbid obesity could be a qualifying disability under the ADA, although it denied the plaintiff's claim because she could not demonstrate that her obesity substantially limited her ability to work as required under the Act.

In 1996, the New Hampshire federal district court held that a teacher had adequately stated an ADA claim by alleging she had been fired because of her weight, and student perceptions that she was less intelligent based on her size. The Pennsylvania federal district court awarded damages to a fired employee in 1997 when he showed that his former manager had made derogatory comments about his weight. And a 1996 Texas decision found that a bus company had improperly decided against hiring an obese woman as a driver because the company could not demonstrate that her obesity would prevent her from performing the necessary functions of the job.

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