#working while fat

[annabeleog]

More being fat at work!!!

[thisisthinprivilege]

"Obesity" as protected class in Washington state

Could someone address the case of Taylor v. Burlington Northern in July in Washington state? It defines obesity as a disability in a way the ADA does not. I’m glad for Casey Taylor himself, but I’m worried about unintended consequences.

(See, for example, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/obesity-is-a-new-protected-class-in-washington-state.aspx) This bit from the article: “Putting it bluntly, the court said that "obesity does not have to be caused by a separate physiological disorder or condition because obesity itself is a physiological disorder or condition under the statute.”“

How come nobody is talking about this?

Mod response: WTF, how have I not heard about this? I freaking LIVE in Washington.

Ok, yeah, labeling obesity as a disability could definitely have some unintended consequences, and reinforces the idea that being fat is an illness... but as a fat person in WA, I’m going to fucking take it and run. Fat people -- and not just people who are above a certain BMI, but anyone who is “perceived” as obese -- are now a protected class. We can get accommodations for our size as well as legal protections against discrimination. And while this article focuses on employment discrimination, this is going to be true across the board. They can’t refuse us service in a public establishment, for example. This might even mean doctors can’t refuse us as patients. It should definitely mean a change in the way we’re treated in hospitals -- if their equipment can’t accommodate us, that becomes their problem, not ours! We can also leverage it against doctors who accept us as patients but give us substandard care. That is now illegal discrimination.

So yeah, not wild about it being a disability, but for now, I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Obviously, this is a battle we should continue to fight. We should be a protected class because we are discriminated against, to the detriment of our lives, our livelihoods, our health, our wealth, and our survival.

On third thoughts... by the social model of disability (that (at least some) things are disabilities not because they naturally inhibit the capability of people, but because society does not account for them, and expects people to do things that some people can’t do; for example, I consider my ADD to be a social disability, while I consider my bipolar disorder to be an inherent one -- though not all people with either of those would agree with me!), being fat is definitely a disability. Depending on our size, we are excluded from being able to do things because the world we live in does not take our size into account. Are we “too fat” for restaurant booths... or are they too small for us, not taking into account that fat people exist? Almost any kind of seating can have this problem. Airplanes. (Holy shit!) Cars. Amusement park rides. As I mentioned before, hospital equipment that isn’t designed to take our weight is a huge problem -- some of us can’t even get our very real health problems diagnosed! The list goes on and on.

So yeah, actually, even from a disability rights standpoint, I think I’m... at least ready to fight the battles against unintended consequences, rather than wanting to throw out the ruling.

-MG

[annabeleog]

Calling these “The Duality of Annabel,” or “What Happens After One Cocktail on a Thursday”

[annabeleog]

Since being sk*nny is so fashionable again and I’ve been taking body pics at work for the hubs, please enjoy several shots of me Working While Fat. I have so many, I’ll do more than one of these!!

[annabeleog]

Since being sk*nny is so fashionable again and I’ve been taking body pics at work for the hubs, please enjoy several shots of me Working While Fat. I have so many, I’ll do more than one of these!!

[thisisthinprivilege]

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.

When I was 8 years old, I fainted in the back of my mother's Nissan Murano because I hadn't eaten in three days. Not because we were poor. Not because we didn't have access to food. Not because we had crash landed in the Andes or were recreating the plot of Castaway. I didn't eat for three days because my mother encouraged me not to.

She never said the words "don't eat." She never refused to buy me food or denied me meals. She didn't have to. There are 10,000 ways to get the point across that she felt my chubby little body was an offense to others around me. It came across in small ways - the way that she fussed at me when we went out to eat or were invited to dinner parties, the thinly veiled admonitions that I had eaten "enough," the constant picking and critiquing and worrying about clothes to cover my bulk.  She would worry and harass and beleaguer for the whole of my childhood on this point, under the guise of "looking out for me." I think in her own mind she truly believed she was. She loved me - but she grew up as a fat child and a fat woman and, finally, became a fat doctor who had been told from multiple directions that the reason she was lesser (not feminine enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough) was because she was fat. In her own mind, she probably was trying to look out for me in that she didn't want me to go through the same things she did. Not a bad woman, but a misguided one. But understanding her doesn't make up for my present and past reality. God, but did she f*ck me up good.

I remember-

I remember growing up afraid to be seen eating in public. You couldn't pay me to eat outside in a restaurant or eat lunch in the cafeteria when I was a kid. I ate quickly in hidden corners and survived off takeaway and drive throughs on long family trips. I remember being ashamed to wear the mandatory shorts in gym class because my fat thighs were on display. I invested in those tummy control slips and wore them religiously despite the fact that they made my abdomen ache and my chest struggle to breathe. I remember hating the sight of myself in the mirror to the point that I refused to look into one for more than a decade. I ducked out of photos and burned old family albums because when I looked at myself all I could see was a monster. I did everything I could to hide that monster away. 

Today, it is a constant struggle to unf*ck myself. Finally, a few years ago, I started going out to restaurants with my friends again. I am confident enough on most days to gladly give the stink eye to waiters who look pointedly at me when I order dessert. When I look in the mirror, I don't necessarily always see a monster anymore. On the best days, I am even a little charmed by my reflection, having invested in fabulous hip hugging dresses and tossed out all forms of slips and body binders. When a medical school interviewer asked me if it was irresponsible for a doctor to be fat because we are supposed to be "role models," I went to bat and threw the interview just to give them a piece of my mind. Today, I swim naked in the ocean and will talk to anyone who will listen about the joys of hiking, not caring if they believe me capable or not.

Today-

Today, I am a fat medical student, the only one in my school of 500 students. I stick out like a sore thumb, because I am fat, but also because I will stand up on my soapbox and educate the poor fool who saw fit to crack a fat joke about a body in the anatomy lab. I stick out like a sore thumb because I have a loud mouth and I don't care enough about my classmates' affections to let such things pass by.

Today-

Today, I am a fat medical student. Yesterday, I was a fat child. Tomorrow, I will be a fat doctor. I will not repeat the mistakes of my fore bearers. For every time a doctor told me that the ache in my knee was because I needed to lose weight (not the case, I have a congenital abnormality), for every doctor who assumed because I am overweight, I must be sick, I will remember to treat my patients better. Today, when I see a patient recently diagnosed with diabetes, I don't focus on their weight - I focus on helping them modify their diet to choose low GI foods (weight has nothing to do with it). Today, when someone comes to me with back pain, I get them help via physical therapy to strengthen the muscles to remove some of the strain (weight has nothing to do with it). Weight has nothing to do with it.

I still slip up sometimes. In a world where everyone is telling you that fat equals bad, stupid, ugly, diseased, it is hard sometimes to see through the bullshit. But, tomorrow-

Tomorrow, I will do better.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Thin privilege is your opinion mattering more than a fat persons in a professional setting. I wrote a commentary for my college paper about how it’s okay to be fat, and it’s been cut at the last minute because a thin person who’s pretty and does yoga disagrees with it.

[thisisthinprivilege]

one thing i don’t think we really ever talk about, at least in a healthy or deep way, is the sensory differences that come with being thin or fat. the things that make even the most basic aspects of our experience of the world different depending on body size, most notably weight, though only due to the emphasis put on it by society. if the world was critical of the diversity in height, (which it is, to a degree. if you're very short, you'll know what i mean), people would be hypersensitive of that difference instead. 

i’ve been a fat person my whole life, aside from a few-year stint with anorexia. when i was thin and that was new, it felt like living in a whole new world. suddenly i could slip through the world untouched and unnoticed. i didn’t really ever acclimate to not needing to move through the world as a bigger person, though. 

i always remember being hyperaware of how tiny i was, how i almost always fit through or between things. i could physically sit and bend in ways i could not before (well, barely. i am the least flexible person ever) and, though there’s nothing wrong with struggling with it, crouching or kneeling etc was suddenly easier. and i have to say, being aware of my smallness only served to fuel the disorder. to this day i still think often about being as small as can be. 

and later on, when i began to recover and return to my body’s (adult, by that time) set point (remarkably close to my mother’s, actually), my muscles were very weak due to being cannibalized by my body as it struggled to have even enough fuel to survive. and so every movement of my body was carrying more with less strength. and it hurt. the pain made my asthma spike to dangerous levels, and i couldn’t walk very far or very fast. so, when the elevator in the university parking lot was out, and i had to climb the five flights to campus, you bet your ass i felt something different than what a thin person would. (hell, i almost needed to look into applying for accessible parking, my muscles were so atrophied.) 

and unfortunately, because of how we are critical of people’s bodies, this world prioritizes thin experiences. we don’t laugh at all average to thin people because oh no they’re so small, oh no everything is too big for them, they need to change! no, we point at the people who the world is too small for, as if a planet could be too small for any of its inhabitants. even the goldfish, known worldwide to be a creature that will grow to the size of its tank/pond, does not get too big for its environment, its world. and even if the world isn't right or fair, that it's the people who have innocently outgrown their world that have to change. 

and it's a damned shame, because this topic could surely bring on interesting findings in the field of perception study, in the very least. 

#why are thin people like this