4 ms·

New York City passes law barring weight discrimination

15 points by tlogan 3y ago

version_five 3y ago
> supporters cited difficulty navigating seating at restaurants and theatres, getting turned away by landlords, and butting up against weight limits on the city's bike sharing programme Sort of implies that they want special treatment for fat people as opposed to equality. Does this mean that seats all have to be designed for the biggest person possible? In this fantasy world, as someone well above average height, I'm also discriminated against. With more basis in an immutable characteristic. Shouldn't I also get special tall person seating and whatever with extra space? Can I get a suv for the price of a compact car because I don't fit in one?
- mathgeek 3y ago
  As a fellow tall person, I would love to see a Broadway show without injuring my knees/tailbone and blocking the view of those behind me.
- h4zel 3y ago
  TBF, there are a LOT more tall people than overweight people. As a fellow tall person, I think accessibility is always great. It's just targeting as many people as possible. The law is about more than just accessibility, though. Fat people are absolutely discriminated against in society.
  - grzm 3y ago
    I agree that accessibility is a good thing! > [T]here are a LOT more tall people than overweight people. Just to put some numbers to the facts: https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.pa... > More than half of adult New Yorkers have overweight (34%) or obesity (22%). Even if you're using a definition of "tall" meaning "taller than average" (50%), a larger percentage of the people are overweight in NYC.
    - qgin 3y ago
      Wow, NYC has only half the rates for overweight status and obesity compared to the United States as a whole.
  - mjbeswick 3y ago
    It depends on how you define tall. Logically there should be as many short people as tall people! Fat people are discriminated against, but the question is how much should obesity be catered for, and what range in body size? Alcoholics and drug addicts and are also discriminated against by society, so shouldn't these lifestyle choices also be protected by the law?
    - version_five 3y ago
      Nit pick because this is HN: what logic tells you there should be as many short and tall people? You're assuming the distribution is not skewed.
  - ChrisRR 3y ago
    It depends how tall and how overweight you're talking. I suspect most places cater for one standard deviation of height and weight. Two, maybe? Three probably not. There's no single threshold to say you're fat and you're thin. I'm sure cinemas could put big seats in for the overweight but at some point that 99.99% person is going to visit and be too big even for that.
    - iggldiggl 3y ago
      For heights I've commonly seen the 5th-percentile female and the 95th-percentile man being used to define a height range covering most of the population.
- lisasays 3y ago
  Shouldn't I also get special tall person seating and whatever with extra space? I don't see why not. Can I get a suv for the price of a compact car because I don't fit in one? Can we think of more orthogonal issues to inflate here?
- bko 3y ago
  Didn't make it to the end did you? > The bill adds weight and height to that list, while including exceptions for jobs in which weight and height are a "bona fide occupational qualification" or where there is a public health and safety concern. Edit: On a serious note, reading the below > The measure is expected to be signed into law by New York's mayor later this month. The effort received widespread support, passing 44-5, despite scepticism in some quarters. I wonder who are these people? There are all these insane policies that I imagine 90% of random people would obviously think are ridiculous. Tabloids regularly like to run the rage bait article of some overweight person complaining they can't fit into a seat. Even this article doesn't bother bringing up the obvious. The sole objection to this idea is: > New York City council's minority leader, Joseph Borelli, who is a Republican, told the New York Times he was worried the law would empower New Yorkers "to sue anyone and everything". > "I'm overweight but I'm not a victim. No-one should feel bad for me except my struggling shirt buttons," he said. The only argument that they add is an obvious strawman. And they bring up that he's Republican, while none of the other politician's political parties are named. There could be numerous issues about enforcement, how it would relate to the ADA that has standards (e.g. wheelchair width). Are we going to have standardized obesity, like chairs have to support X pounds or doors have to be wide enough to fit a waist line of Y? There are all these weird social equity issues that most major media stations just make up that there's some kind of consensus. This became clear to me in a CNN article that just had this line: > It's not possible to know a person's gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth. And the article was just a straight news about legislation relating to women's sports. They obviously got ridiculed and changed it the next day, but it just begs the question, what else are we being gaslit on? Who is writing these laws and why is there so much coordination and social engineering between these people and major news outlets? [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210330233707/http://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/30/politics/south-dakota-transgender-sports-kristi-noem/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210330233707/http://edition.cn...
- v3x3366 3y ago
  The body of the article mentions this bill introduces height and weight to the list of protected characteristics.
rektide 3y ago
Some discussion from 3 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35908179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35908179
0zemp2c 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - 0zemp2c 3y ago
    Its not trolling, in many Doctor's offices it is already accepted practice for patients to deny having their weight measured at all during a physical We are within two years of a prominent lawsuit based on a patient being recommended weight management, if it hasn't happened already Would you mind not elevating your personal beliefs to a community standard? Particularly when you may be factually wrong? BTW there are already many complaints about "flagging" being used to remove content that is valid but merely surprising to people...its probably time to take away people's black markers
    - dang 3y ago
      I don't have any beliefs about the litigation of obesity diagnoses and was not reacting to yours. Rather, I was replying to your pattern of breaking the site guidelines in many places. You've done it again, unfortunately, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35964586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35964586. If you keep that up, we're going to have to ban you again. I'd rather not, so could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this?

15 points by tlogan 3y ago

> supporters cited difficulty navigating seating at restaurants and theatres, getting turned away by landlords, and butting up against weight limits on the city's bike sharing programme Sort of implies that they want special treatment for fat people as opposed to equality. Does this mean that seats all have to be designed for the biggest person possible? In this fantasy world, as someone well above average height, I'm also discriminated against. With more basis in an immutable characteristic. Shouldn't I also get special tall person seating and whatever with extra space? Can I get a suv for the price of a compact car because I don't fit in one?

mathgeek 3y ago
As a fellow tall person, I would love to see a Broadway show without injuring my knees/tailbone and blocking the view of those behind me.
h4zel 3y ago
TBF, there are a LOT more tall people than overweight people. As a fellow tall person, I think accessibility is always great. It's just targeting as many people as possible. The law is about more than just accessibility, though. Fat people are absolutely discriminated against in society.
- grzm 3y ago
  I agree that accessibility is a good thing! > [T]here are a LOT more tall people than overweight people. Just to put some numbers to the facts: https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.pa... > More than half of adult New Yorkers have overweight (34%) or obesity (22%). Even if you're using a definition of "tall" meaning "taller than average" (50%), a larger percentage of the people are overweight in NYC.
  - qgin 3y ago
    Wow, NYC has only half the rates for overweight status and obesity compared to the United States as a whole.
- mjbeswick 3y ago
  It depends on how you define tall. Logically there should be as many short people as tall people! Fat people are discriminated against, but the question is how much should obesity be catered for, and what range in body size? Alcoholics and drug addicts and are also discriminated against by society, so shouldn't these lifestyle choices also be protected by the law?
  - version_five 3y ago
    Nit pick because this is HN: what logic tells you there should be as many short and tall people? You're assuming the distribution is not skewed.
- ChrisRR 3y ago
  It depends how tall and how overweight you're talking. I suspect most places cater for one standard deviation of height and weight. Two, maybe? Three probably not. There's no single threshold to say you're fat and you're thin. I'm sure cinemas could put big seats in for the overweight but at some point that 99.99% person is going to visit and be too big even for that.
  - iggldiggl 3y ago
    For heights I've commonly seen the 5th-percentile female and the 95th-percentile man being used to define a height range covering most of the population.
lisasays 3y ago
Shouldn't I also get special tall person seating and whatever with extra space? I don't see why not. Can I get a suv for the price of a compact car because I don't fit in one? Can we think of more orthogonal issues to inflate here?
bko 3y ago
Didn't make it to the end did you? > The bill adds weight and height to that list, while including exceptions for jobs in which weight and height are a "bona fide occupational qualification" or where there is a public health and safety concern. Edit: On a serious note, reading the below > The measure is expected to be signed into law by New York's mayor later this month. The effort received widespread support, passing 44-5, despite scepticism in some quarters. I wonder who are these people? There are all these insane policies that I imagine 90% of random people would obviously think are ridiculous. Tabloids regularly like to run the rage bait article of some overweight person complaining they can't fit into a seat. Even this article doesn't bother bringing up the obvious. The sole objection to this idea is: > New York City council's minority leader, Joseph Borelli, who is a Republican, told the New York Times he was worried the law would empower New Yorkers "to sue anyone and everything". > "I'm overweight but I'm not a victim. No-one should feel bad for me except my struggling shirt buttons," he said. The only argument that they add is an obvious strawman. And they bring up that he's Republican, while none of the other politician's political parties are named. There could be numerous issues about enforcement, how it would relate to the ADA that has standards (e.g. wheelchair width). Are we going to have standardized obesity, like chairs have to support X pounds or doors have to be wide enough to fit a waist line of Y? There are all these weird social equity issues that most major media stations just make up that there's some kind of consensus. This became clear to me in a CNN article that just had this line: > It's not possible to know a person's gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth. And the article was just a straight news about legislation relating to women's sports. They obviously got ridiculed and changed it the next day, but it just begs the question, what else are we being gaslit on? Who is writing these laws and why is there so much coordination and social engineering between these people and major news outlets? [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210330233707/http://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/30/politics/south-dakota-transgender-sports-kristi-noem/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210330233707/http://edition.cn...
v3x3366 3y ago
The body of the article mentions this bill introduces height and weight to the list of protected characteristics.

rektide 3y ago

Some discussion from 3 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35908179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35908179

0zemp2c 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- 0zemp2c 3y ago
  Its not trolling, in many Doctor's offices it is already accepted practice for patients to deny having their weight measured at all during a physical We are within two years of a prominent lawsuit based on a patient being recommended weight management, if it hasn't happened already Would you mind not elevating your personal beliefs to a community standard? Particularly when you may be factually wrong? BTW there are already many complaints about "flagging" being used to remove content that is valid but merely surprising to people...its probably time to take away people's black markers
  - dang 3y ago
    I don't have any beliefs about the litigation of obesity diagnoses and was not reacting to yours. Rather, I was replying to your pattern of breaking the site guidelines in many places. You've done it again, unfortunately, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35964586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35964586. If you keep that up, we're going to have to ban you again. I'd rather not, so could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this?