Gattaca: A not-so-distant or fictive future?

10th April 2009

Gattaca: A not-so-distant or fictive future?

posted in Class & Poverty, Fat Bias, Health, Nutrition & Fitness |

Fat people, especially fat women, already face discrimination in the workplace — see here and here for more. As if that weren’t enough, Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs at Duke University and chief executive of the Duke University Health System, has an ingenious way to further discriminate against fat people and others who don’t meet arbitrary standards of “health” in the workplace.

In an editorial published on CNN, Dzau begins with the telling of how corporate executives earlier this year engaged in a “thought-provoking discussion” on workplace wellness programs at the World Economic Forum, including ways to promote healthy eating and regular exercise to employees. This is despite the fact that the execs all agreed that they “don’t have any evidence that these programs are having the intended impact on improving health or preventing disease.”

There is no evidence to support the effectiveness of these programs, yet Dzau’s brilliant idea is to nonetheless make them the law of the land — literally. In what he calls an “effective marriage between public health and prevention,” Dzau advocates for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify specific wellness and disease prevention programs and develop national standards to be used as the basis for all workplace wellness programs. To get companies on board, Dzau recommends:

In exchange for adopting these uniform activities, goals and health metrics, companies and organizations would be eligible to receive meaningful tax credits each year based on their individual performance in meeting these objectives. For creative companies and institutions, passing along a financial incentive — based on tax credits received — to employees to achieve their wellness objectives could drive a greater commitment to healthy activities.

And, perhaps an annual ranking of company, or organizational, performance against these national workplace goals and health metrics would foster a healthy competition in the same way that other industry performances are now ranked by national media. Ultimately, the goal is to have all workplaces conform to national standards and achieve measurable health status of employees just as OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, measures and enforces standards for workplace safety.

Tax credits? Financial incentives? Healthy competition? Government-mandated standards of health? Will this result in Americans becoming “healthier” and “thinner” or simply in the non-hiring or firing of any employee not deemed “healthy” according to new government standards?

Carrie at the blog ED-Bites succinctly sums up the problem with company wellness programs:

Promoting health is good, but the understanding that people are going to get sick anyways sort of gets lost in translation. Humans want to avoid bad things; it’s good for the gene pool, if nothing else. But even if you do everything “right,” you still might get sick. …Patients get blamed enough. Many medical professionals unwittingly assume that something you did led to you’re being in their office. Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. But no matter how much money we pour into “prevention” and “wellness” efforts, people are still going to get cancer, they’re still going to get diabetes, and they’re still going to be fat.

Not to mention, chronic stress — the kind that comes with, oh, worrying about losing your job if you don’t meet and sustain standards some 95 percent of dieters are unable to achieve even without their livelihoods hanging in the balance — increases the level of cortisol in the body which, in itself, can lead to the weight gain and other health problems these national standards seek to decrease.

I used to work as a contractor for an international company whose cafeteria always offered healthy food options to employees. My current company makes available a low-cost gym to employees and provides four different health insurance plans to fit a variety of budgets. All of these are great ways companies can help promote employee health without peeking into their medical charts. If the government wants to truly promote the health of Americans, it would be better served by making health care more affordable and available to more citizens, so that families can get preventative health screenings and adequate medical care. Congress would make changes in the flawed national farm bill to eliminate food deserts, reduce the massive subsidization processed foods and chemicals and products destined for fast food menus and instead subsidize locally-grown fruits and vegetables so that they are both more affordable and accessible to people at all socio-economic levels. Schools would adopt weight-neutral standards like those defined by the Academy for Eating Disorders so that future generations would develop healthier relationships with food and body.

Art represents life and life represents art, or so the saying goes. Why, oh, why does “Gattaca” have to be the model?

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Class & Poverty, Fat Bias, Health, Nutrition & Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On April 10th, 2009, demimonde said:

I’ve got an idea for keeping employees happy….
How about NOT giving people a certain amount of ’sick days’ and letting them focus on getting well rather than getting fired?
How about reasonable maternity leave and, oh, I dunno, day care for employees?!?
Ugh. Sometimes I hate capitalism.

posted on April 10th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

2 On April 10th, 2009, Alyssa (The 39 year-old) said:

They could also mandate that employees shouldn’t have to work 80 hour weeks, takes ridiculous pay cuts while board members rake in millions, make sure that the managers they hire are actually competent, and treat employees with (gasp!) respect!!!!

If they go through with this “wellness” plan, they’re gonna be looking at a whole slew of lawsuits. And won’t THAT be good for productivity!

posted on April 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

3 On April 10th, 2009, sarah said:

I’ve appreciated being on the “fatfu” feed and learning about these policies that are based on very little scientific evidence or rational compassion. I agree with the poster that financial incentives based on an employer’s staff’s overall “health” would lead to discriminatory hiring pracices, even if mandated otherwise. People have a way of getting around these things, it just becomes subtler.
@ the previous commenters, though, I would respond with a “huh?” Capitalism gives us a direct method to vote with our pocketbooks and fosters competition between employers for having the kinds of benefits and services that makes good employees want to work for them. It’s been my experience that if company policy dictates a certain number of sick days, those are for those days when you call in feeling unwell, and that if you had a more serious illness and had a doctor’s note or hospital admittance, that it wouldn’t count the same way towards your quota. I know some people have more health problems than others, but not too many businesses could be solvent if everyone was out “sick” all the time. Bloating the situation with (socialism? communism? what are you advocating here?) is not the answer.
As far as maternity leave and day-care, my personal feelings about rampant breeding will shine through here, but I personally wouldn’t like to pay more for my goods and services because your employer is shelling out for you to have cost-free babysitting for your brood. Kids cost money, lots of it, and I don’t want to pay for them — that’s why I don’t have any. Again, not capitalism’s fault. Note that many workplaces have adopted daycare strategies and found that it sufficiently improves productivity to make it worth their dirty capitalist time.
Finally – how do you mandate respect?? Forced civility might make for a better work environment than otherwise, but harassment and abuse are already well discouraged under the law, and aren’t part of most successful business plans. But you can’t force respect – it’s meaningless once you do.

posted on April 10th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

4 On April 10th, 2009, Tcholae said:

I’ve got an idea for keeping employees happy….
How about NOT giving people a certain amount of ’sick days’ and letting them focus on getting well rather than getting fired?
How about reasonable maternity leave and, oh, I dunno, day care for employees?!?
Ugh. Sometimes I hate capitalism.

Only sometimes? , sez the primitivist on the lam.

To the post:

Once again, society has proven that they don’t see fat people as people. When you’re a person, others take for granted that you can find ways to compensate; you can take work home, have a laptop, or (assuming you’re not fit, for all weights/sizes) take up a rehabilitative exercise program in your own home based around helping you get up enough that you can do what you need to do in order to live a fulfilled life.

Continuing on with the underlying (and massively incorrect, yes) assumption that fat = unfit:

Or, hell. You could make a community rather than turn to capitalism and focus on the things that you’re good at; your weight doesn’t have any impact on whether or not you can administer medications, sew, cook, etc. So you use those ways that you can take care of your community, and your community takes care of you in return; not because you’re ‘necessary’ but because you have value beyond your dollar output/input.

But dismissing that stupid trope, this seems to me to be another case of ‘distract everyone from the real problem’. By turning everyone against fat people – even other fat people – they can divert attention from their own poor treatment of other human beings around them, inside their company and out. It’s a time-proven technique; panic people and make them unable to think about who’s really hurting them. That sounds horribly smug, but it’s just sad…

I do disagree with the idea that people will still get diabetes and cancer (and heart disease and strokes and arthritis and and and), but I’m going to leave that be.

posted on April 10th, 2009 at 7:25 pm

5 On April 10th, 2009, Rachel said:

@demimonde – I don’t have a problem with limiting the number of sick days you can take. If someone has an illness that exceeds the number of sick days they can take, they can always file for protection under FMLA and/or take short- or long-term disability.

@Alyssa – Yep. You nailed it.

posted on April 10th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

6 On April 11th, 2009, Sara A. said:

I think this could hurt more people than it helps. Though it will make orthopedic surgeons happy. This kind of program could really hurt me, for example, my knees and ankles are shot from years of full contact sports and retail combine that with the fact that I am an “All or nothing” kind of person and you have a recipe for a Sara in traction. If I were forced to do some sort of mandated program I would hurt myself much worse than I already am, especially if my livelihood were on the line. Plus I’ve never been in the “normal” section of the BMI chart, I’d be doomed to failure and painful joints.

posted on April 11th, 2009 at 1:11 am

7 On April 11th, 2009, Meowser said:

Yeah, and stressing people to the breaking point — making them do the work of two people, constantly hanging the threat of layoff or firing over their heads, not noticing or caring when people are about to drop of exhaustion or being overwhelmed — has nooooo impact on their health either, and companies never, ever pull shit like that on their lower-ranking employees. (And none of them secretly wish they could replace 99% of their human workforce with robots, either. Oh no.)

And make no mistake about it, this IS all about low ranking employees and gaining ever more control over us unruly peons. Are they going to prevent high-ranking executives from going for steak dinner and multiple martinis and cigars? I highly doubt it.

posted on April 11th, 2009 at 1:47 am

8 On April 11th, 2009, littlem said:

http://www.bfdblog.com/2009/04/08/justifying-fat-discrimination-in-the-workplace/

Also, this:

Congress would make changes in the flawed national farm bill to eliminate food deserts, reduce the massive subsidization processed foods and chemicals and products destined for fast food menus and instead subsidize locally-grown fruits and vegetables so that they are both more affordable and accessible to people at all socio-economic levels. Schools would adopt weight-neutral standards like those defined by the Academy for Eating Disorders so that future generations would develop healthier relationships with food and body.

*sigh*

posted on April 11th, 2009 at 12:26 pm

9 On April 11th, 2009, Melissa said:

All this stuff reminds me of how I was forced to do things in gym class as a child and get a certain speed or amount of sit ups so I could get a good grade. It made me feel like crap and didn’t solve any of my emotional problems.
Made them worse actually.

posted on April 11th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

10 On April 11th, 2009, Godless Heathen said:

We could also expand food stamp budgets so that poor families could afford to feed themselves better, which does have a direct impact on both health and weight.

posted on April 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

11 On April 12th, 2009, scamps said:

How about improving accessability and flexability for employees with disabilities, especially those with mental illnesses? I have therapy every other week and occasional medication cliic appointments – who is going to want to hire me?

posted on April 12th, 2009 at 4:36 am

12 On April 12th, 2009, keshmeshi said:

How about NOT giving people a certain amount of ’sick days’ and letting them focus on getting well rather than getting fired?

I would have a big problem with that simply because it would lead employers to demand proof that you’re actually sick. I’m not going to waste my doctor’s time and my own money when I have a head cold or the flu.

Although I do agree that we need better long-term sick leave in this country. It’s unacceptable that small businesses aren’t required to abide by FMLA.

posted on April 12th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

13 On April 13th, 2009, Alyssa (The 39 year-old) said:

I guess a question I have, to continue the discussion, is how does decent childcare and healthcare automatically equal socialism?
People are going to continue to procreate (unless we take a hint from the communist Chinese government and limit the amount of children people can have, which, for the record, I DO NOT espouse, lol!). And unless we go back to the bad old days when women didn’t have many choices and men lived for their jobs, we’re going to have to accommodate for peoples’ lives outside of work.
The fact is, when we feel like our bosses care about us, when they offer us solutions to issues like healthcare and childcare, we’re going to work harder and have loyalty. And that’s good for everyone.
You may not want to pay for my kids. But if you went to public school, your education was paid for. Do you not want public schools? Do you want parents to either have to send their kids to private school or go without? Are those the choices we want to have to start making in this country?

posted on April 13th, 2009 at 11:58 am

14 On April 13th, 2009, HeatherRadish said:

It’s unacceptable that small businesses aren’t required to abide by FMLA.

But apparently it IS acceptable to bankrupt these businesses by forcing them to give money to people who aren’t doing any work for them, over and above having to pay their temporary replacement. And then there’s no job for the employee on leave to go back to…

People are going to continue to procreate

Most European nations have all that paid family leave/disability stuff you think you want and their populations are not procreating. Replacement rate is around 2.1 babies per woman; Russia, Germany, Italy are all under 1.3. When the government treats you as a child, giving you everything you need regardless of your own efforts, no one grows up.

posted on April 13th, 2009 at 6:22 pm

15 On April 15th, 2009, Jackie said:

I just wanted to say, yay for the Gattaca reference!

posted on April 15th, 2009 at 7:13 am

16 On April 16th, 2009, Catgal said:

ANGRY!!! How much will these programs cost to implement? And how much of that money could be used to implement all the other ideas above???

posted on April 16th, 2009 at 12:10 pm

17 On April 16th, 2009, Sarah said:

For the record, I wasn’t saying that no money deserves to be spent on taking care of children and education for society’s benefit. I was partly being devil’s advocate on the issue of the various ‘isms being bandied about. The first commenter’s connection between wanting daycare services and decrying capitalism struck me as just as silly as being opposed to those services and blaming socialism.

I honestly do wish there was a good way to reasonably limit population growth, but that conversation’s a whole can of angry bees I don’t want to open right now. But I like the point made that about Europeans, that its a cultural model that may have something to do with the personal responsibility we’re forced to (or sheltered from having to) bear.

Perhaps, to bring it all full circle, the moral of the story here is that institutional quotas and programs aimed at eliciting someone’s idea of right and/or healthy behavior are always going to rub some people the wrong way, foster people making moral judgments of others, and generally not be anywhere near as effective as people doing things for themselves because they’re responsible citizens.

posted on April 16th, 2009 at 8:17 pm