Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) has declared obesity to be a disease. This has implications for employers, since obesity may now also be considered a disability in certain circumstances.
table style=”padding: 15px;” align=”right”>
When is Obesity a Disability?
To see when it might be possible that obesity may be declared a disability, let's take a look at the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act from 2008. ADAAA regulations note that the definition of disability should be construed in favor of broad coverage.
<
"Following the passage of the ADA in 1990—most court decisions adopted a fairly strict definition of disability—courts generally held that being overweight or being obese was not going to be a covered disability under the ADA. That has now changed with the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008." Jonathan Mook explained in a recent BLR webinar. "Under the ADA Amendments Act, Congress specifically rejected the more narrow and stringent court decisions defining who is and who is not disabled under the ADA, to set forth the general principle that disability should be construed in favor of broad coverage."
It also expanded the concept of major life activities to include major bodily functions. This is significant when it comes to assessing whether obesity will be a disability. Obesity may be directly linked to other conditions which do qualify as disabilities, or it may cause conditions which disrupt major bodily functions or major life activities.
"Given the broader definition of disability under the ADA Amendments Act, many persons who have been diagnosed under the AMA standards for obesity as a disease may well fall within the definition of being currently or actually disabled. Because under that prong, the question will be: does that person's obesity substantially limit one or more major life functions?" Mook told us.
Given that endocrine system function is one example that could be affected for someone who is obese, likely the answer will be yes based on this alone.
What Does it Mean for Employers if Obesity is a Disability?
One of the biggest implications is that the ADA will now prohibit discrimination against an applicant or employee because of his obesity. It will also mean that employers will be required to make reasonable accommodations to allow employees who are obese to perform essential job functions. And it will prohibit retaliation against obese individuals for exercising their ADA rights, including requesting reasonable accommodation for obesity.
"Even though weight bias may not be necessarily unlawful on a federal level in the United States . . . the fact that there is bias against individuals because someone is heavy or has a higher weight than normal certainly may have various types of legal protections under various theories." Mook told us. "The Americans with Disabilities Act is probably the law that really impacts issues involving weight bias in the workplace." This is because of what we outlined above—if weight bias becomes discrimination against someone with a disability, that will be illegal under the ADA because it becomes disability discrimination.
For more information on when obesity is a disability, order the webinar recording of "Obesity and the ADA: How to Insulate Your Organization from Potential Liability Following Recent AMA Classification." To register for a future webinar, visit http://store.blr.com/events/webinars.
Jonathan R. Mook is a founding partner in the firm of DiMuroGinsberg and is a nationally recognized authority on the Americans with Disabilities Act. He has authored two published treatises: "Americans with Disabilities Act: Employee Rights and Employer Obligations" and "Americans with Disabilities Act: Public Accommodations and Commercial Facilities."