{"id":1922,"date":"2005-11-01T18:22:35","date_gmt":"2005-11-02T01:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2005-11-01T18:22:35","modified_gmt":"2005-11-02T01:22:35","slug":"wal-mart-no-fat-chicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1922","title":{"rendered":"WAL-MART: No Fat Chicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giving us all yet another reason to fight for universal health care in the United States, a recent memo from Wal-Mart indicates that the business strategy to deal with rising health care costs is moving rapidly towards discriminating against sick people. Or, at least people who look like they must be sick like old people and fat people.\n\n

The New York Times<\/em> published a report<\/a> based on a leaked internal memo from Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for benefits. While it does a lot of hand ringing about fatness and long-term employees, there was no indication that any active discrimination was being advocated. The closest is a misguided attempt to introduce physical labor to positions that wouldn’t ordinarily require physical labor like cashiers. Presumably based on the false assumption that fat people are sedentary and who will flee from physical activity.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, a memo like this will foster an environment of hostility towards fat employees as well as longer-term employees. It is likely that managers will feel pressured to avoid hiring fat applicants even if there is no overt expression of intent to discriminate. Not that an overt expression isn’t likely itself. Wal-Mart may just do a better job preventing leaks on that account. Even still, there is some thought that mandating physical labor unrelated to one’s job for the purpose of discouraging certain workers could be illegal. David Sclar<\/a> makes note of an article in American Health Line that advances this argument, and it certainly seems like a valid legal concern.<\/p>\n

An issue also worth noting is where would such health discrimination stop. If fat people are fair game, what about ethnic groups who have shown higher rates of some diseases? Or women given their possibility of pregnancy. It may seem absurd to think of it, but this is the next logical step from health-justified fat discrimination. If health care dollars spent on fat people are a waste, who gets to decide when it is worth it? Ultimately, this is either an economic concern which targets everyone or a moral concern which targets those considered morally undesirable. Neither outcome is one we should be comfortable with. Most especially when its individual companies making those decisions.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, we are seeing big businesses understand that health care costs are making them less productive compared to nations where there is universal health care. The good outcome <\/a>from this would be some visible support from the business community for a universal health care plan. The bad outcome would be what Wal-Mart is doing and creating a hostile environment for employees who look like they are unhealthy. Lets hope most companies fall towards the good outcome.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it is a very good reason why fat activists shouldn’t give up fighting the “common sense” that being fat is unhealthy. It is not enough to just try to combat fat discrimination. What we see with stories like this is that the “fat is unhealthy” message fuels discrimination. This is what justifies it fat hatred for so many people. Even when the bigotry is obviously cosmetically based, such as Dan Savage’s<\/a> tirades against<\/a> Girl Love Handles<\/a>, the prejudice is always defended by pointing how unhealthy fat is. Prejudice against fat people and the prevailing assumption that fat is unhealthy go hand in hand, and Wal-Mart shows us just what is at stake.<\/pracut>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giving us all yet another reason to fight for universal health care in the United States, a recent memo from Wal-Mart indicates that the business strategy to deal with rising health care costs is moving rapidly towards discriminating against sick … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}