MetaFilter posts tagged with Discrimination and obesity

Too fat to pass.

Ouisch — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:37:24 -0800

25 students at Lincoln University may not graduate, because they failed -- to lose weight. The students are members of "the first graduating class required to either have a BMI below 30 or to take 'Fitness for Life,' a one semester class that mixes exercise, nutritional instruction and discussion of the risks of obesity" in order to graduate from Lincoln. In a similar vein, you may remember last year's piece of stunt legislation that would have banned fat people from eating in Mississippi restaurants. The bill did not pass into law. The Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity conducts research on weight bias, and has found that bias against fat people is prevalent in employment, health care settings, interpersonal relationships, media, and education. Other scholars have recently suggested that the stigma attached to body size may contribute to diseases thought to be caused by obesity.

Discrimination to Fight Discrimination?

Effigy2000 — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:42:12 -0800

"How do black women fight crime? They have abortions." "How do you stop a poofter from drowning? You take your foot off his head." These and other 'jokes' featured in an advertisement on The Gruen Transfer, an Australian television program focusing on advertising. The ad, part of a segment called 'The Pitch' which usually produces humorous ads, was banned by the ABC, but the national broadcaster has still allowed it to be viewed online, and hundreds have now seen it. The ad was designed to sell "fat pride", with creator Adam Hunt explaining his motivation behind the ad being to say "if you discriminate against somebody on the basis of their shape then you are no different to someone who is racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic." Debate has raged online if the ad is offensive and discriminatory, as the ABC has declared, and whether or not it was effective. Watch the ad and judge for yourself.

johnnyace — Wed, 08 May 2002 05:48:38 -0800

Jazzercise Eats Its Words after being accused of weight bias. MeFites may recall the heated discussion this story originally garnered (and the associated firestorm in Metatalk) when Jazzercise refused to hire an instructor that did not meet their "fit appearance" criteria. They have since changed their policy "based upon the information and research that perhaps it's possible for people of varying weights to be fit." The barred instructor has gone on to start her own successful aerobics franchise based on her "fitness-at-any-size" philosophy.

SF area woman wants to be aeorobics instructor

KevinSkomsvold — Tue, 26 Feb 2002 10:00:02 -0800

SF area woman wants to be aeorobics instructor but she weighs 240 pounds. Company says they won't hire her because of her weight. She is suing.