Ok time for my rant and rave! While it's almost a joke now days to bring up the topic of "fatism", or weight based discrimination, undoubtedly it's very real in today's society.

I mean how many studies do we need done to prove it exists? For example one study I read showed elementary aged student outlines of children with various body sizes and asked them to write words inside about what they thought it meant. The top three words for the fat child outline was lazy, ugly, and dumb. How about those late night specials in which a thin woman goes out into society and is treated nicely, gets people running to help her when she needs it, and is accepted and then when she dons the fat suit suddenly help can't be found and people constantly shoot her disgusted looks. Didn't Tyra Banks do it for her show and literally broke down crying at the reaction she got? I think it was a shock for her to discover the level of societal rejection that some people have to put up with EVERY SINGLE DAY!

To put a personal spin on it today my fiancé who is overweight came home and began weeping on my chest after an incident with her ex-military nursing teacher. They were doing a project called team leading in which the nursing students completely take over a section of the hospital. They must do everything on their own unless it's something that they can't or aren't allowed to handle as LVNs. That means unless it's big no help from the workers for anything. While my fiancé was bathing a patient who could not be left alone, he had 5 tubes in his chest and was very sick, a RN on the staff discharged an unruly patient of my fiancés improperly. While he had orders to be released my fiancé should have done it, but he was such a jerk the RN did it without waiting for her.

When my fiancé went to turn in her papers for the day the teacher asked her why she hadn't taken any vitals, which is something the students must do, for that discharged patient. She replied that the RN had done it without asking her. At this point the teacher cuts off her story about the patient who needed a bath and could not be left alone to discharge another telling her, "What were you too busy sitting on your butt in the computer room? I don't care about your excuses!" She then punished my fiancé for her "failure to pay attention" by removing assignments from her homework notebook which means that assignments that she turned in will have to be completed again!

That ignorant bigoted piece of despicable human filth! I have no doubt that she assumed that because my fiancé is overweight that surely she was being lazy when a patient didn't get discharged right away. It's disgusting that people like her can get away with blatant discrimination. I recommended a letter to the Dean in protest but my fiancé insists that the principal refuses to deal with any issues inside the LVN program and defers to the head of the program who just happens to be our wonderful bigot.

Some people just make my blood boil with the way they treat others based on their appearance! Has anyone else had to deal with this kind of stuff? I sure there are a few of you out there.

I agree Devana... if that happened in reality and an adult acted like that I am sure the kid would be scarred for life. I wonder how the child actor differentiates it in his mind. After all, even though the child is an actor, he is still a child. I don't think I would feel right letting my overweight child subject himself to a humiliating role if I was the child's mother. But maybe I am just sensitive...

Discrimination against the obese--or at least a preference for the non-obese--exists, and we're pre-programmed to engage in it. Some of it is part of our genetic makeup (I know, you're going to make me find the references) but most of it is cultural.

HOWEVER, all the whining and moaning about "they made me buy two airline seat and that's discrimination" just gets on my last nerve. I have a sister who has a jinormous ass. Last time we checked, she could not close a hospital gown which measured 74" around. She has to choose her restaurants based on which ones have chairs without arms. We all "get" most of that and have had our own troubles fitting in places like that.

But she and her husband went on a cruise a while back and they "got away with" buying only two seats on the plane. That ain't right for whoever is stuck in seat three.

If, for whatever reason, your ass got too big for you to sit in an airline seat without using up your neighbors' "airspace," you need to buy another ticket or rent a car and drive yourself wherever you're going. When I was concerned that I was too big, we bit the bullet and went in business class. There were times I even went part of the way by train, to avoid the whole airline thing for short hauls on small planes...the train has really big seats.

There's a lot of discrimination out there...most of it about stuff over which we have NO control. White people have many better chances at success than people of color do; tall people generally win debates; men have advantages in business that women wouldn't get. Weight is a little bit different. We DO have a chance to change. I wouldn't choose to lose weight so that someone else--about whom I don't give a rat's ass--thinks more positively about me. But the reality is that the assumptions strangers make about me are probably more positive than the assumptions they made when I weighed 113 pounds more than I do now. (Although--and this needs its own thread--there are many obese people who think the world will be perfect as soon as they lose x-pounds...because, they think, the ONE reason they have problems with others is their weight. And then they lose weight and find out that they were harboring a faulty assumption...and some people don't like them for entirely DIFFERENT reasons. LOL)

But back to "fat discrimination." This is a "solvable" problem...while some of the OTHER reasons people suffer discrimination are not. IT ISN'T FAIR. IT ISN'T RIGHT. But most of us have the ability to make it go away.

GeezerSue - gotdamn, I believe you and I see eye to eye on this one. *laugh*

I agree wholeheartedly with you. I never whine about being fat, I suck it up and keep on pushing. I don't expect for people to give me anything because I'm fat - not sympathy, not empathy, not pity. I've also never had to pay extra for an airline seat (amen, and thank ya Jeebus). If I did, my ass would be chapped, but it's not anyone's fault but mines. And Duncan Hines. (ha!)

HOWEVER. When people are out and out hateful toward a person of size, it's wrong. There are no ways to make it right. A stewardess can quietly say "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to pay for a second seat" and help a large person maintain his/her dignity. To say loudly "Your extra wide load has slopped onto the seat beside you, waddle your chunk to the cashier and pay for a second seat to accommodate your extra nasty fatness" in order to embarrass you in front of other passengers is a whole different issue. I think the "whole different issue" is the subject of this thread.

It's solveable over time - lose weight. However, in the face of it, what are they to do about it when it happens? (LOL @ "they"...)

GeezerSue - gotdamn, I believe you and I see eye to eye on this one. *laugh*

I agree wholeheartedly with you. I never whine about being fat, I suck it up and keep on pushing. I don't expect for people to give me anything because I'm fat - not sympathy, not empathy, not pity. I've also never had to pay extra for an airline seat (amen, and thank ya Jeebus). If I did, my ass would be chapped, but it's not anyone's fault but mines. And Duncan Hines. (ha!)

HOWEVER. When people are out and out hateful toward a person of size, it's wrong. There are no ways to make it right. A stewardess can quietly say "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to pay for a second seat" and help a large person maintain his/her dignity. To say loudly "Your extra wide load has slopped onto the seat beside you, waddle your chunk to the cashier and pay for a second seat to accommodate your extra nasty fatness" in order to embarrass you in front of other passengers is a whole different issue. I think the "whole different issue" is the subject of this thread.

It's solveable over time - lose weight. However, in the face of it, what are they to do about it when it happens? (LOL @ "they"...)

Indeed. I just wanted to bitch about the airline seat thing. LOL

This issue of weight discrimination is a real issue of course. People are much, much nicer to young, slim, good-looking, tall, white people. And being fat is has something in common with those other categories; there ain't much that you can do for yourself without surgery. Fat people do metabolize food differently from thin people. Our systems are more efficient; we get more miles to the gallon. This worked for us in prehistoric times. It's a bummer now.

I think that obesity should be recognised as a medical condition and that airlines should provide the obese with an extra seat free of charge. Let's face it: Those seats that the airlines now provide are, due to their greedy desire to pack us in like sardines, tiny and there is no leg room, either. Note that they have chosen these seat configurations although the average customer is growing bigger. Even for a normo a long distance flight is a nightmare. This is the how the airlines seem to like it, not the customers. Outsized customers should be accomodated at no extra charge to themselves.

I disagree with Green. My sister and her husband are both well over 6 feet tall. Neither one of them fit in regular airline seats. How should the airline accomodate them?

I don't want to sit next to someone who is encroaching on my space by a whole lot. I use up every bit of my space and don't want to share. I would resent sitting next to someone who was taking up my space because I don't have any to spare. I have flown a lot but can honestly say I don't think I have ever sat next to someone that was sooooooo fat that I thought they needed two seats.

The world isn't one size fits all and being fat sucks a lot of the time because of it.

To me there is a difference between treating someone badly because they are fat and for businesses requesting accountability from fat people.

I feel for your sister and her husband. I think that we are all victims of the greediness of the airlines when it comes to their unrealistic seat configurations.

Whenever I have flown in third world countries on old, second-hand aircraft I am always amazed at the amount of seat and leg room that these planes have. It is wonderful!

I also remember flying back to Toronto from Amsterdam with an airline that is rumoured to have made every fouth row especially short vis-a-vis leg room. By the end of that flight I was pretty near psychotic!:xena_banana: I think that the damn airline folks oughta hand out tranquilizers as they shoe horn us into our seats.

Thanks for letting me vent. As you can see, I feel kinda strongly on the subject.:heh:

I have ask for and recived large first class seats at no more cost. Ask the airlines for reasonable seating.

I want to address another aspect of the original posting. I've been a nurse since 1977. Nursing school is like boot camp. I first attended a hospital program. Generally speaking: The instructors were tough. The hospital staff was not always nice or helpful. The doctors were impatient and sarcastic. We were used like slave labor, endured humiliating treatment (ever get scornfully & loudly corrected in Grand Rounds? Try it. You'll spend a good amount of time crying in the bathroom). I saw student's carefully written and researched careplans torn up in front of the group at post-op conference. I had a paper rejected twice by an instructor who just could not be satisfied.

Granted, this was nearly 30 years ago and things have changed. Instructors can't just publically verbally vomit on the students anymore. But nursing school remains challenging.

It's not high school--they don't care about your self-esteem; they're not concerned with making you feel good about the experience. They want to produce a nurse who can think quickly and accurately on his/her feet under time contraints and in stressful situations.

Could the instructor be fat biased? Yes. Is she also tougher on the younger students? Is she tough on the whole class?

I suggest your wife make an appointment to speak with the instructor in her office. Explain that she is concerned about this incident, ask how she can improve her time management skills. What can she do better next time? No whining, no blaming, no threats of harrassment lawsuits.

Your wife is in nursing school to accomplish one goal--to learn to be a good nurse. If the instructor is a decent human being, her goal is to get your wife to graduation and into a nursing position.

I'm sorry your wife had her feelings hurt. It may not be the last time. Ask her to step back and wonder if she could have planned the day better to avoid this situation. She's in school to learn, and she'll develop good judgment by learning from her mistakes.

I am an elementary teacher. One day I visited a new classroom of kindergarteners and we were talking about writng our whole name. "Some people have short names, and some people have long names!" I told them that I used to have a short name but when I got married I got a new name and it was LONG! :success1:

A little girl raised her hand and said, "You couldn't have gotten married!" I asked Why? "She said you are too fat to fit in a wedding dress!":confused:

There is now way a 5 year old could come up with a discriminatory remark like that on her own. SOMEONE is teaching this child how to discriminate. She is also being taught that it's OK to SAY the rude discriminating things out loud! :welldone2:

I did tell the little girl (in private) that I did get married, that I did wear a wedding dress, and not only was I beautiful bride, I am also a beautiful teacher!)

WOW Mariguita you handle that very well.

Thank you Teresita. You may think I handled it well, but emotionally I did not. I still think of that remark and how horrible it made me feel. Sometimes I want to shake some sense into people that say hateful demeaning comments.

Today I heard that China will begin Jan 1st implementing new restrictions on adoptions. No longer will single people, "old" people, or overweight people (BMI greater than 40) be allowed to adopt Chinese children. Wouldn't you think that if the criteria needed fine tuning they would try to eliminate people with more "undesirable" traits than their weight? I guess fat is the new Leprosy.

As much as I enjoy being treated like a 'normal' person now, there is a definate bitterness and resentment for it which I know I will carry for the rest of my life. One of the things which means the most to me in my heart is that my husband married me before I had my surgery. It truly is the last prejudice accepted in today's society.

I could have written this. People are so very different now that I'm not much overweight. Men, but especially women, are much nicer. It's like I'm one of them now. Huh? I definitely feel angry about this, too.

I hope I don't do this to people. I tend to try to befriend those who need it most.

My husband married me at my biggest weight and his treatment of me hasn't really changed either. If it had, we would have some serious issues to deal with.

I have ask for and recived large first class seats at no more cost. Ask the airlines for reasonable seating.

If this works at all, it's usually after the plane has boarded. There are almost always people who ask for upgrades, especially on long flights. The airlines are happy to accomodate them - for a fee, or in exchange for some of their frequent flier miles.

Last summer we were flying from DFW to Cancun. I was at the counter for some reason or other, right behind a perky little brunette who wanted to know if there were any "upgrades to First Class available". The gate agent said there were. "Great," said PLB, "I'm on my way to get married and I need to reduce my stress level."

"How would you like to pay for this?" asked the agent.

"Huh?"

"Credit card, or cash?"

"How much is it?"

"Four hundred, seventy three dollars."

"But I thought....if there were empty seats in First Class..."

"No, ma'am; it doesn't work that way."

"But if no one else is going to use them...."

"Ma'am, we don't just give away First Class seats."

"I don't understand....if they're empty, why not?"

"Ma'am, we just don't."

"But someone told me that if I asked, and there were empty seats in First Class, I could get a free upgrade."

"Ma'am, I don't know who told you that, but they were incorrect."

"Well....they do it on cruise ships all the time."

"Ma'am, our ships don't cruise - they fly."

True story. It was about 6 AM and I was half asleep and really wanted to suggest that PLB climb back on her broom and fly to Mexico all by her lonesome. But I didn't.