Obesity Disables: EU Court Rules People Can Be Too Fat to Work

Obesity News. The highest court of Europe has stipulated rules on Friday for obesity to be considered a disability in certain circumstances particularly in the failure to have 'full and effective participation' at work, BBC reported.

The resolution has been made when the European Court of Justice has given assistance to the case of Danish childminder, Karsten Kaltoft, who was fired four years ago from his job for being overweight.

The complainant, who is said to have weigh at least 160kg (25 stone) that time, is reported to have filed a discrimination case against his employer who had employed him for 15 years. Kaltoft first seek assistance from the Billund authorities about his problem.

Meanwhile, separate reports from ABC News Australia said that the decision to consider 'obesity as a disability' can only be made by the national court, not the European Court of Justice. This rule is similar to the US Supreme Court's that prefers cases to be tried in lower courts before it reaches higher courts.

"The plaintiff must prove that his or her obesity is disabling or perceived to be disabling by others," Rebecca Puhl, deputy director at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University said.

Further, the European Union (EU) has also said that obesity can only be considered as disability "where ... it hinders the full and effective participation of the person concerned in professional life on an equal basis with other workers."

Reports from Washington Post cited that the obesity rate in a worldwide scale has never lowered since 1980 and has constituted 30% of the world's population based on a survey conducted by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics.

Also, it is said that more people are growing obese in the US each year and has accounted for at least 6.6% in its population. Britain, on the other hand, has at least 2.7% of its population to be under the morbidly obese category.