idiotic fat policies. seriously?

[keryx]

If you haven't seen it yet, you should: at least one company cutting employees' pay for being fat. Apparently that's serious. I assume someone will press a legal challenge, but since fatness isn't exactly a protected -ness... Well, that's an argument in favor of the we-can't-help-it-fat's-just-like-gay position, right there [Leaving aside that fat is, in my mind, a lot like gay - a complex and individual combination of nature, nurture and choice just like many many other things].

The fucked up thing about the fat clause (which I don't expect will really take off, legal challenges aside - it doesn't seem like something most companies could sustain) is that it not only penalizes people for a -ness they may or may not be able to change, but it's not a -ness associated with disease. If I have normal blood pressure and cholesterol and reasonable activity and eating habits, I may yet be fat (indeed, as it turns out, I am), but have in no way increased health care cost (it's true - I get allergy meds once a month and generally don't even see a doctor more than once a year). Having no other indication of likely illness, I'd still get reduced pay unless I could lose weight, likely at the expense of my otherwise good health. That? Is just bad, expensive, corporate policy. Like, are we sure The Onion didn't report that? policy.

Comments

[vesta44.livejournal.com]

This will change when people like Shaq and Bret Favre are charged more for insurance because their BMIs are in the overweight/obese range. And what about women athletes? Anyone who carries more muscle than fat will probably have a higher BMI because muscle, square inch for square inch, weighs more than fat. Anyone who has started working out and not changed their diet can tell you that they lost clothing sizes but their weight did not get lower and might have gotten higher (they lost fat and gained muscle). Been there done that myself (175 lbs in high school, not very fit, wore a size 18, 2 years later, 175 lbs, sorta kinda fit and a size 14).
Basing insurance rates on BMI alone is not a wise decision as it penalizes healthy fat people as well as the unhealthy. And fat is not as changeable as people would like to think. If I'm going to be penalized by my employer on my insurance coverage, it should be because I'm sick all the time and I use my insurance all the time, not because I'm fat, healthy, and don't have a reason to see the doctor all the time.