The-F-Word.org

Has anyone else heard anything about a group of so-called “esteemed experts” on obesity, nutrition, diabetes and health care policy who call themselves the Reality Coalition?

If you haven’t, you’re not alone. The group doesn’t even seem to have a website.

Yeah, apparently this group of fatbusters held a forum today to urge lawmakers, healthcare industry professionals, business leaders and the media to make the “worksite an ideal place to begin the process of tackling the obesity epidemic,” said David Satcher, MD, 16th U.S. Surgeon General and the meeting’s keynote speaker.

Right. Because it isn’t enough that companies like Western & Southern Financial Group and Clarian Health already penalize workers whose weight falls outside some predetermined BMI range constituting “healthy.”

Other options considered at the conference include implementing work-based weight management counseling, on-site exercise facilities and healthier food choices. And hey, if you have time, maybe you can do your job, too.

The article linked to above is chock-full of fat-based assumptions. You know the tired drivel: Employers spend more than 75 billion dollars on obesity-attributable health care; an estimated 39 million work days are lost to obesity-related illness each year; other costs of obesity in the workplace include absenteeism, low productivity and high turnover rates, and so on.

Because these things can’t possibly be the cause of oh, personal and domestic reasons, issues with bad bosses or colleagues, work-related stress and stress-related illnesses, low employee morale, raise in gas prices which affect commutes, fear of outsourcing or any of the other dozens of possible non-obesity-related reasons which may explain absenteeism rates and lowered productivity.

The simple fact is that companies are often reluctant to tackle absenteeism or low productivity because they will then be forced to address uncomfortable factors of their own making that may come to light as they investigate the causes behind these problems. So, they scapegoat obesity instead.

Apparently, you can watch a webcast of the entire symposium after a brief registration here. I’d watch it, but I can’t seem to put down my fork long enough to register.