The end of fattism? : Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:01 am
Recent European decision by the Advocate General suggests that morbid obesity could be akin to disability and so disability discrimination legislation could apply to fat people. The case concerned a 25 stone Danish nursery worker who claimed he was selected for redundancy on account of his size and that he could not bend down to tie the kids' shoelaces. Case to go to ECJ, who normally uphold A-V's decisions.
Morbid obesity could be considered a disability where it impinges on the persons ability to carry out their professional duties and could therefore be subject to equality legislation.
So where does that leave us? Just suppose hypothetically speaking a RL club have a prop who is naturally a "big lad" and finishes the season with a man of the match performance in the grand final. To celebrate and relax in the off-season he binges for several weeks on pies and brown ale and when he returns to pre-season training he's 25 stone and cannot run. The coach has decided on some hard training on the sand dunes at Formby but "big lad" could not join in so the club need to make reasonable adjustment to allow him to join in. They decide the only reasonable adjustment is for the team to spend the week sitting on (reinforced) deck chairs as big lad can hardly walk let alone run. Come the first match he is dropped and claims disability discrimination. The club lose the case as objectively he was MOM last time out, has followed the same pre-season training as the rest and has apparently been dropped because of his fatness.
What would Billy Bunter make of this?
