New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation Friday that will ban discrimination based on body size by adding weight and height to the list of protected categories such as race, sex and religion.
“We all deserve the same access to employment, housing and public accommodation, regardless of our appearance, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you are or how much you weigh,” said the mayor, who joined other elected officials as well as fat-acceptance advocates at a City Hall bill-signing ceremony.
Adams, a Democrat who published a book about reversing his diabetes through a plant-based diet, said the ordinance “will help level the playing field for all New Yorkers, create more inclusive workplaces and living environments, and protect against discrimination.”
Exemptions under the ordinance, which the city council passed this month, include cases in which an individual’s height or weight could prevent them from performing essential functions of a job.
Some business leaders expressed opposition to the legislation when it was before the council, arguing that compliance could become an onerous burden.
“The extent of the impact and cost of this legislation has not been fully considered,” Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, said in a statement.
Several other U.S. cities have banned discrimination based on weight and physical appearance, including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin. And legislation to ban weight and height discrimination has been introduced in states including New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Tigress Osborn, the chair of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, said New York City’s weight discrimination ban should serve as a model for the nation and the world.
Osborn said the city’s adoption of the new ordinance “will ripple across the globe” and show that “discrimination against people based on their body size is wrong and is something that we can change.”
The ordinance will take effect in 180 days, on Nov. 22.
(AP)
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12 Responses
Any NY Marathon will not be able to discriminate based on speed! Because speed depends on weight.
Yippee. Finally the small kids can ride the go-karts!
Best employee I ever had was hugely fat.
But this ordinance is going to result in a lot of baseless, expensive lawsuits.
Im signing up for the nba
The so-called Body-Positive Movement has wrought all this insanity.
Let us define “body-positive” in a materialist manner: It is the endorsement and celebration of obesity and ill health.
If you are body-positive, your cellulite-ridden body is struggling to function, and buckling under its own massive weight.
Your body-positive arteries are clogged.
Your body-positive articular cartilage is worn down to the perichondrium.
Your body-positive lungs are gasping for air.
Your body-positive feet, breath, armpits and nether regions reek from your excessive consumption of saturated fats, oils, and greasy processed foods.
Your body-positive hair is thinning on account of your intake of fried foods, red meat, sugar-based foods and mercury-rich fish.
Your body-positive blood is starting to clot owing to your enormous intake of processed sugar.
Your body-positive vision is beginning to get blurry on account of your vitamin A, C, E and zinc deficiency.
Your body-positive circulatory system is breaking down because of a combination of very poor diet and little to no exercise.
Your body-positive feet and legs frequently swell when you awaken in the morning. This excess fluid accumulation in the body tissues, or edema, is caused by your high intake of salt.
Your body-positive skin is riddled with pimples, blackheads, whiteheads, pustules, pits and acne rosacea owing to the abominable amount of dairy you consume.
Your body-positive mental health is flagging as you become more and more miserable about your unattractive appearance.
Your body-positive social life is almost nonexistent as your family, friends and colleagues avoid the negative energy you exude.
If you could instantly transform into a normal, healthy human being, you would do it in a nanosecond. However, G-d does not operate this way. He gave you the muscles. It is up to YOU to lift the barbells.
It’s 90% diet and 10% exercise. Start now. Time and tide wait for no man.
@Ari_Knobler: Thanks for whole cutesy little poem, but did you ever even do a simple Google search about the percentage of people that gain back all the weight they lose while dieting? Pretty similar number to your “diet” percentage, except it’s more like 95% than 90%…
So, regardless of whether your little composition contains any truth, “it” is certainly NOT about diet. Is it about “body positive” in some form? Maybe. But it is NOT about diet.
So since you don’t have a good solution (as I just explained), maybe shut up with the shaming and try to brainstorm to save the generation from the disease of morbid obesity.
Thanks, bud.
@Ari_Knobler: I apologize for being disrespectful. I was in a bad mood. I just reviewed a conversation we had in August where you make it clear that you are double — if not triple — my age (you said your father saw the Chofetz Chaim in his youth), so I really apologize for being disrespectful.
I shouldn’t have been rude anyways, but I especially felt bad because of the above.
I would love if you would deign to answer my points, though, but not expecting you to do so necessarily.
Thanks!
(I reviewed the conversation via googling yeshiva world ari knobler yashar. I did it because I remembered that we had argued and ended amicably… indeed, in August, we had. Ayein sham.)
Yashar: There’s no need to be hostile. “Diet” as in a healthy eating regimen that is sustainable throughout your life, not a crash diet.
v
lolllllllllllllll WHOA!!! Mr. Mod Person Sir…. Could you not have sent my comment through just one minute earlier so @Ari_Knobler would see my apology?
Aaargh!
lol
Yashar: Thank you for your kind words. It was not my intention to shame anyone. You have a good heart. Zeit gebentcht.
Be gezunt.