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Too Big to Work? Obesity Screening Called Unfair
News Feature
By Raj Jayadev, Pacific News Service
A hulking but healthy furniture mover and train aficionado says
there's no good reason he can't work for a railroad company. Some
physicians and activists would agree. In a country obsessed with dieting
and an "epidemic" of obesity, will "weight discrimination" soon rock the
work place?
SAN JOSE, Calif. - December 3, 2004 - At 6-foot-2 and 340 pounds,
Josh Schmidt knows he's a big dude. But he never thought he'd be too big
to get a job.
In a matter of weeks, Schmidt applied for his dream job, got it, then
had it taken away because of his size. At a time when the number of
Americans categorized as overweight or obese is skyrocketing, "weight
discrimination" may be the next scandal to hit the American workplace.
This past October, Schmidt applied for an assistant signalman position
in Richmond, Calif., at Northern Burlington Santa Fe (NBSF), a national
railroad company. "This was a dream job, the one I wanted to retire on,"
Schmidt says. What made the position so appealing was not the pay or
benefits, but the work itself. Trains are what Schmidt is about. He's
got railroad tracks tattooed across his arms, takes his son to watch the
yards on weekends and has collected so much archival material that he is
a virtual walking museum of American railroading.
After applying for the job, interviewing, and passing a battery of
physical and mechanical tests, Schmidt got an e-mail from NBSF offering
him the job, contingent on a few more tests. Schmidt passed the
background check, the drug screening, filled out a medical questionnaire
and took a physical.
Shortly thereafter, Schmidt received another e-mail from NBSF saying
their job offer was being rescinded. Schmidt had failed his medical
examination. Although he does not have high cholesterol, high blood
pressure, diabetes or any other diseases commonly associated with
obesity, Schmidt's Body Mass Index (BMI) was above 40, disqualifying him
due to "obesity."
The BMI is an equation that calculates your height and weight to
determine your weight status -- a score below 25 is considered "normal,"
25 to 30 is "overweight," and over 30 is "obese."
Schmidt is convinced that the decision was prejudicial, and had nothing
to do with his ability to do the job. He is appealing the decision
through company policies. He also wrote a letter to the medical
department pleading his case, saying he is big but in good health.
Schmidt says that, in fact, he's excelled in every one of his past jobs
because of his physical status, not despite it. He is currently doing
temporary work as a furniture mover in San Jose.
NBSF would not to comment on Schmidt's case, or why the BMI is a
standard for their employment decisions, especially after the job
aptitude is already determined. It is possible that, because the company
subcontracts the final stages of its hiring process to ADP Screening
Services, it didn't even know the BMI was part of its employment
process. ADP is an employee screening company that sells its services to
employers by claiming they can reduce costs associated with hiring the
wrong people.
NBSF Human Resource Representative Jacqueline Gomez, who interviewed
Schmidt, didn't know why he was medically disqualified, and referred him
to ADP. In a letter, ADP cited Schmidt's high BMI as the reason for the
medical disqualification.
"With rising health insurance costs, employers choose not to hire big
people, because they associate big people with poor health, even though
the correlation is actually very weak," says Paul Campos, Professor of
Law at the University of Colorado and author of "The Obesity Myth."
Size, Campos says, is "just a lazy, sloppy, and unscientific way to
judge someone's health."
Campos says the BMI is arbitrary. "They pick those numbers that
determine 'overweight' and 'obese' just because they're easy round
numbers that the $50 billion a year diet industry can work around."
Schmidt, who has played sports most of his life and still looks the part
of the ex-jock, notes that he did especially well on the BNSF strength
tests. Campos is not surprised.
"If you go by BMI standards, 97 percent of the NFL are overweight, and
over half are obese," he says. By BMI standards, California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Brad Pitt are categorized as overweight, along with
65 percent of the country.
Campos adds, "It is really the last legal form of discrimination because
people think weight is a choice, unlike race or gender. This is false.
That's why 90 percent of diets fail." He says that if a company really
wants to save on medical costs it should have people take a stress test,
a much more telling indicator of potential health problems.
Michigan, Santa Cruz, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco all have size
related anti-discrimination laws. Lynn McAfee, director of advocacy at
the Council of Size and Weight Discrimination based in Philadelphia,
says that San Francisco's legislation is the strongest. The law was born
out of a 1999 controversy at a 24-Hour Fitness Gym, which displayed a
poster with an alien creature and the words, "They'll eat the fat people
first." In 2000, after organized protests and pressure on government
officials, San Francisco County added "weight" onto their
anti-discrimination ordinance.
"Big people have been vilified to the point where we're not even
supposed to be angry when we get discriminated against," McAfee says.
She says weight discrimination is uniquely demeaning. "People
discriminate and pretend that it's for our own good. It's very
paternalistic." She says the point should not be about being thin, but
rather, "to have good nutrition, exercise, and be healthy at whatever
size."
Schmidt is still applying for other jobs with Northern Burlington Santa
Fe while his appeal is processed. He's not looking to start a local fat
acceptance movement.
"I just want to have a chance to do the job," he says. Balancing his
12-hour shifts at the moving company with taking care of his two boys,
he just doesn't have a lot of time to go to the gym.
PNS contributor Raj Jayadev (svdebug@pacificnews.org)
is the editor of www.siliconvalleydebug.com, the voice of young workers,
writers and artists in Silicon Valley.
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