Fair Employment Act can

- Page 1 of the morbidly obese the Ameri

In that 2003 case, a Hamden man was loss type of program,” Vining said. “That’s not what I do, people come to me to have a great experience, to feel good about themselves and to get stronger.”

Dr. John Morton, the director of bariatric services for the Yale New Haven Hospital System and a professor in the department of surgery at Yale School of Medicine, noted that while health effects from being overweight can decrease lifespans by eight to 12 years, there is a social element to what his patients face, which also needs to be addressed.

“What isn’t recognized a lot is the toll on patients,” Morton said. “It’s a disease that is very visible, you don’t need a blood test to ascertain if someone’s obese, people see that.”

Morton added the basis for many of the stereotypes about the overweight is not medically sound.

“There’s a belief that this is something that should be self-treated, but we have gained greater insight as to why people have difficulty in losing weight, and it’s called metabolic adaptation,” he explained. “When you get to a certain weight, usually above a BMI of 30, it becomes very difficult to lose weight on your own. As a result, only about one in 20 people are able to lose significant weight through dieting alone.” employer has a preference for a certain body type among employees. Activities costing more and actively discouraging

Morton estimated he has performed bariatric surgery on around 6,000 patients and he said that there were many cases where former patients reported significant changes in how others treat them, including in the workplace.

Ironically, missing out on job opportunities and promotions tied to better insurance can also limit access to quality health care such as bariatric surgery or increasingly popular but expensive weigh loss drugs like Ozempic.

“Patients with obesity are some of the hardest working people I know,” Morton added. “I’ve treated everybody from janitors to CEOs and they’re hardworking people. They can have triple indemnity, they get the stigma, they get decreased wages, and on top of that they have less access to care and therapies they need.” weight has been addressed by potential

From a medical and legal viewpoint, the best approach an employer can have in regard to overweight or obese employees is ultimately the same approach to take in regard to any employee: treat them with respect and assess them on the basis of their work.

“I don’t really believe in a weight

“It’s the right thing to do,” Avcollie said, noting he has long dealt with weight issues himself. “It’s a moral issue to treat people based on as Dr. King said, the content of their character not the color of their skin. In this case it’s the content of the character not their body weight. I would advise them to focus on a candidate’s qualifications for the job and try not to put, no pun intended, any weight on the candidate’s appearance.”