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Employers in Europe may soon have a duty to create reserved car parking spaces for obese staff, or adjust the office furniture for them as BBC reports that the European Court of Justice is considering a test case of a male nanny who says he was fired for being too fat - a ruling that could oblige employers to treat obesity as a disability. Employment expert Audrey Williams says the judges would have to decide "whether obesity itself should trigger preferential rights, or should only impact where an individual, due to obesity, has other recognized medical issues. Employers would have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to the workplace or working arrangements," says Williams. "This might include a review of where the employee is located and their seating arrangements, or even preferential access to car parking."
The US Equal Opportunity Commission already defines obesity as being a disability, under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act. In a recent case involving morbid obesity, a Texan employee who weighed more than 680 pounds received $55,000 in compensation for being dismissed. In October 2009, the man was told to report to human resources where officials told him the company had reached the conclusion he could no longer "perform his job duties because of his weight and he was therefore terminated," the suit said. Ronald Kratz, who had gotten two promotions and high performance ratings over his 16-year-career, insists his weight did not interfere with his ability to perform his job duties as a parts sorter. Kratz, who lost over three hundred pounds since he was fired, has not been able to find another job despite sending out numerous applications, and his unemployment benefits have run out. "It has been really hard on the family."
(Score: 1) by pendorbound on Monday June 16 2014, @09:26PM
Gonna have to call BS on that one. I lost 200lbs (and kept it off going on three years) drinking 2-3 liters of diet soda a day. I know what a strong insulin response feels like (IE feels like shit) because a key part of my taking the weight off was curbing carbs and getting my insulin levels under control. Diet soda most definitely does NOT trigger the same insulin response that full sugar soda or other source of fast carbs does.
I get that aspartame isn't anyone's idea of health food, but it doesn't magically break your metabolism the way a lot of people try to suggest. To me, diet soda is the most efficient way to get caffeine into my system, and being de-caffeinated is far worse of a metabolic effect on me than whatever aspartame and phosphoric acid might cause. It's not even the caffeine withdrawal thing that's a problem. I generally don't drink much soda over the weekends, and I'm fine. It's that the caffeine acts as a metabolism booster to a noticeable degree. Granted I'm sure there are other variables (reduced activity from less *zoom* probably), but on the few occasions I tried to cut out diet soda during my weight loss (for a week or so at a time), there was a noticeable reduction in my rate of loss for those weeks.
As far as flushing things out... Soda is still mostly water. If the number of times a day I need to pee is any indication, it's flushing me out just fine, thanks. For me, switching to fruit juice would be the worst thing I could do. Might as well drink sugar water.