In 2015, the European Union’s highest court ruled that obesity could be classified as a disability if it hinders someone’s performance at work. This subject comes up fairly often at water coolers and barbeques, especially when a professional accessibility consultant is present. Attitudes towards inclusive and universal design principles for the built environment flow abundantly when obesity is the catalyst of conversation. Understandably, people are confused and generally uninformed when they argue strongly one way or the other and, being addicted to logic, I confess that the consideration is not conclusive.
Following the EU’s determination, The Herald Sun described the result as ‘A Big Fat Joke’ and went on to flounder in its own definition of disability. The essential basis for their opinion is that obesity is a reversible self-inflicted condition. The article states:
‘Cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, thalidomide and spina bifida are clear examples where sufferers are limited in their physical functioning by forces beyond their control. However, alcohol, gambling, drug addiction and obesity are regrettable, but they’re not genuine disabilities’.
The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA), however, does not make these distinctions. Looking at the logic of this statement, there is much to be challenged.
Using a dedicated accessible parking space requires a permit, and because the symbol is a wheelchair, many assume that the space is intended only for wheelchair users. This is not so. This thinking permeates to the assumption that one requires a permit to use an accessible sanitary facility. This, too, is not so.
Does this journalist for The Herald Sun presume that a restaurant owner stops the blind person with an assistance animal at the door to check their permit? What if they were to discover that the blindness was caused by a welding accident while not wearing the goggles? How about the deaf man who lost his hearing working as a rock-band sound engineer or the woman with smoking-related emphysema and an oxygen tank who is in a wheelchair? What about an amputee who lost a limb due to obesity-related diabetes?
Seven million people in Australia are currently considered obese, but it is valuable to understand that there are three categories of obesity: moderately obese, seriously obese and morbidly obese. There are conditions of obesity that definitely create impairment and require assistance of varying degrees.
However, this notion that obesity is a condition that can be ‘cured’ prevents many from accepting that an obese person could or should be considered to have a disability and receive government support. It will be extremely difficult to distinguish any finer definitions of disability than those already existing in the DDA and the NDIS Act 2013.
As accessibility consultants, we do not judge how, where or why someone has a disability. We use commonwealth, state, and local government laws, codes, and standards to facilitate compliant built environments towards better and inclusive design. Time will tell whether those controls evolve to specifically allow for people who are bigger than average.