Fat people and occupational safety - Part 1 - Definitions

Fat people in a physically difficult working environment can pose a danger to themselves and others. They are therefore afforded special legal protection.

In the past, things were clear: height over 100 centimeters in kilograms was the normal weight. A 1.70 m tall woman was therefore allowed to weigh 70 kg, a 1.82 m tall man 82 kg. Doctors also allowed a difference of plus-minus ten percent from this value. If you were lighter, you were underweight, if you were heavier, you were overweight.

Today, the situation is much more complicated. First of all, the legislator distinguishes between overweight and obesity. In order to determine the difference between the two conditions, a further parameter called Body Mass Index, or BMI for short, must first be determined.

While the BMI is the measure of all things in fitness circles, occupational physicians in particular criticize the value. The main argument against it is that it does not differentiate between muscle mass and body fat percentage. This is because the equation shown here only covers total body mass. It also does not take into account a person's age, but above all their gender. The BMI therefore assumes that both women and men suffer the same effects from a BMI that is too high or too low.

Obesity is a disability

If you are born with a congenital disability, it is of course not your fault. While mental or physical disabilities are not caused by birth, obesity is usually self-inflicted - due to excessive calorie intake. More than 90 percent of all obese people eat too much and the wrong things, usually combined with too little exercise. However, there are also other reasons, such as obesity caused by taking medication.

Whether self-inflicted or caused by others: The European Court of Justice ruled in a judgment (C-354/13 FOA, from 2014) that obesity in itself constitutes a disability, regardless of its origin. This case law is at odds with German legal opinion. In this country, an obese person was only considered disabled when a resulting illness occurred.

And that is no longer so rare. To begin with, 67 percent of men in Germany alone are overweight. Only 53 percent of women are affected. However, around a quarter of both sexes (23 percent women and 24 percent men) are obese. And this could be a reason for many ailments and illnesses. Experts believe that obesity and its consequences place an enormous burden on the healthcare system.

It is not yet certain whether obesity also promotes cancer; the focus here is primarily on cancers of the digestive tract such as bowel cancer or kidney cancer. What is certain, however, is that the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is 22 times higher and the risk of cardiac arrest is four times higher.

Nevertheless, the ECJ ruling still applies, and this has another effect: although they are responsible for it themselves, very overweight people cannot be prosecuted or disciplined under employment law.

Obesity has practical implications for an employer when it comes to an employee's work performance and safety. Work performance is made up of an employee's ability to perform (including physical characteristics) and willingness to perform (psychological characteristics). It is undisputed that performance is directly related to an employee's physical constitution. In the case of an obese person, performance-inhibiting factors may well be present: rapid fatigue, excessive sweating, lack of fitness - and the associated difficulties in concentrating. In this case, the employer is obliged to provide his employee with special protective measures. This could be, for example, releasing them from particularly heavy work or providing them with suitable assistance systems to carry out this work. An example for an electroplating shop could be that in manually supplied bath lines, the workpieces are not dragged but fed by an electrically assisted pallet truck.

In the checklists used by various employers' liability insurance associations to determine the causes of accidents, the item "physical conditions" of those involved has appeared under the menu item "personal factors" for several years now. The accident analysis therefore directly addresses the issue of physical characteristics. The aim of the analysis is always to avoid subsequent accidents of a similar nature in a similar environment.