Reason number 3,767 to not shop at Whole Foods
There has been much talk about this article, concering Whole Foods' new policy of granting a steeper discount to employees with lower BMIs and other "health"-related factors. It's exactly what we have been railing against for years: employers using weight to unfairly undercompensate their fat workers. Even laypeople who don't think about this stuff all day have been saying how ridiculous the policy is. I mean, think about it. You own a store that purports to sell healthy food. Why would you want to make it more difficult for your so-called "unhealthy" employees to access the food you sell? Perhaps the opposite should be true, that your employees who have health issues have even greater discounts than the healthy ones. Or perhaps you should really get out of your employees' personal business. Just saying.
Anyone have any info on boycotts or the like? Feel free to post it in the comments.
See also this from Paul Campos
Fat Athletes! part deux | Grassroots Activism
Posted by CarrieP on January 27, 2010
Carrie, I can't get the Campos link to work. Thanks.
Pretty sure this is the second link:
http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/whole-foods-junk-science-healthism-and.html
Given that the owner has been at the forefront of arguing against any healthcare reform because we will simply glut ourselves on healthcare, if given the chance (yeah, that's what I want an extra MRI for kicks), I can't help but see this as directly linked to that agenda. It is no accident that in recent months there has been increased talk about "obesity" as the supposed cause for the rise in healthcare costs. We can't, of course, criticize the obese profits of the healthcare corporations or of their CEOs.
This is ridiculous on so many levels I'm really at a loss as to where to start criticising this.
What makes it even sadder though, is that incidents like these are on the rise everywhere, under the flag of promoting 'increased personal responsibility', and by so-doing, attempting to justify our ever-decreasing personal freedom through (oftentimes horridly implicated) 'moral' and 'scientific' argumentation.
Fat people are not only harming themselves, they're harming others through their irresponsible behaviour, ergo, anti-fat measures are always justified! (They say) At the same time of course, extremely dangerous sports are promoted in mainstream society, and conveyed as cool and hip to the kids. What, skateboarding crazy half-pipes at breakneck speed where one slip could mean anything from concussion to quadriplegia is 'cool' and encouraged, while fat is discouraged on counts of costing us tax money through 'eventual ill health'? I'll say right here that the amount of money people cost who hurt themselves while exercising one of society's best-promoted activities - sports - is likely infinitely more than overweight ever will. So there it is, folks. Let's start an anti-sports campaign, and rub the resulting costs of sports accidents to the taxpayer in their faces. Let's raise the insurance fees for people who engage in sports regularly, to make up for their manifold increased risk of needing medical attention at various times throughout their lives. Even something as innocent as jogging can lead to lifelong joint problems! What? But I'm just carrying on their fail logic here...
There are some health conditions, and some medical treatments, that can cause weight gain, and some health conditions that are more common in elderly people than young people. If Whole Foods gives a smaller discount to an employee who is elderly or sick and has a high BMI or "bad" test results because of age or illness, that might be grounds for a lawsuit for age or disability discrimination. There are people who have genes that cause high blood pressure, high cholesterol, et c., and will be punished for "bad" test results caused by something they can't fix, and treatment may not result in permanent "right" test results. And, of course, people can get sick from extreme stress and accidents that have nothing to do with their jobs. This policy ignores reality in a lot of ways, and ignoring reality is a pretty reliable recipe for disaster. I have called my local Whole Foods and said I will no longer shop there because of this.
Alex K's comments raised some excellent points about the abuse of the idea of "responsiblity" and how there are things that can do more harm than being fat that are not seen as a problem, and perhaps should be.
Isn't "personal responsiblity" a great way to ignore the real causes of our health care costs? I had a local "wellness" coordinator tell me that smoking, drinking, and obesity were the causes of our skyrocketing costs. Then I listened to a public health professor from Boston University list the causes as profit/administration (about a third of costs) and waste (another third of costs). I sort of tend to believe him rather than someone who makes her living lecturing people on their evil habits. I also am deeply offended by the denial of the many environmental factors that make people sick, and, in my own case, the obliviousness of health care professionals to my extremely obvious hypothyroidism.