Fat people and occupational safety - Part 2

- Part 2 - Special potential hazards, work equipment, PPE / continued from issue 12/2024

Employing fat people can require a range of safety-related measures. These include psychological support and investment in special work equipment.

The physical strain on fat people is much greater than that of thin people. This is particularly evident in the performance of physically heavy work, which requires the use of greater strength. A fat person who has to load and unload a pallet truck in an electroplating shop, for example, is carrying two loads - one on their body and one on the workload.

This can lead to overloading of the cardiovascular system and/or joints if the load is heavy. Even structural damage to the musculoskeletal system is possible, resulting in permanent physical strain.

If this is identified during the risk assessment, the employer is called upon to take preventive measures at the workplace, which could include redesigning the workplace with assistance systems or a different workplace organization - for example by changing the workplace.

Offers such as setting up a company sports group can contribute to the health of employees - (Photo: stock.adobe.com/HENADZY)

Don't forget the psyche

In times of the glorification of physical fitness or the cult of the body, fat people are often ostracized, stigmatized or even bullied by their thinner colleagues. This can lead to psychological problems for the victims. However, Section 5 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act stipulates that the psychological concerns of employees must also be taken into account. This has now also found its way into case law, with the ECJ stating in its ruling C-354-13 FOA that employers have a special duty to protect fat people.

In practice, this means that employers have a special duty of care for their fat employees. If necessary, they must inform other employees that obesity can have many causes and that fat people are neither lazy nor undisciplined.

A study by the DAK (German health insurance fund), based on surveys of people of normal weight, shows that 70 percent of people of normal weight find overweight people unattractive and 15 percent of the normal population even avoid having contact with fat people. Almost all of those surveyed assigned characteristics such as "lazy", "sickly" or "undisciplined" to fat people. If this leads to tensions between colleagues in a company, the employer even has the right to dismiss employees if they bully fat colleagues.

Effects on work equipment

Radiation protection

The units of measurement Gray and Sievert indicate how much energy in joules is absorbed by radiation per kilogram of body weight. Gray and Sievert describe one joule per kilogram. If radiation exposure has to be dealt with in a company, the legally permissible value of 20 millisieverts must not be exceeded. It is advisable to work with tables here. This is because a 100-kilogram man absorbs more radiation than an 80-kilogram man.

Load-bearing work equipment

Chairs, ladders, scaffolding: they are all approved for a certain carrying weight. As the average weight of the population in industrialized countries is getting higher and higher (fast food, convenience products...), the minimum requirements for such work equipment are also increasing. In the past, the design was based on a maximum carrying weight of 75 kg, but this is rising steadily in line with the average weight. Anyone who employs obese workers must therefore ensure that their work equipment is appropriate and replace old work equipment that complies with previous standards if necessary.

Work clothing/protective clothing

Obese employees must be provided with sufficiently large company clothing if this is prescribed or provided by the company for corporate identity reasons. The hip-belly-perimeter (HBU) also serves as a rule of thumb for assessing the employee's weight. It is measured as follows: The person in charge takes the abdominal circumference approximately halfway between the lower ribcage and the pelvis; the hip circumference is the largest measurement above the buttocks. Abdominal circumference divided by hip circumference results in a measurement, ideally less than one. Women are considered to be of normal weight if the result of this calculation is less than 0.8. Women with a value of 0.8 to 0.85 and men from 0.9 to 0.99 are considered fat. Any value above this means that this person is obese.

Respiratory protection

Fat people can only be used to a certain extent for work or rescue operations that require respiratory protection equipment. Professional divers, for example, or archaeological divers are no longer fit to write if their body mass index (BMI) exceeds 30. The following calculation method has become established in the fire department: height minus 100 times 1.3.

Example: 180 cm height - 100 = 80 x 1.3 = 104 kg

This means that anyone heavier than 104 kilograms may not be assigned to breathing protection in the fire department. This procedure is also in line with the DGUV principle of respiratory protection examination according to G26.3 - this section provides for exactly this calculation method.

Manholes

Design specifications for manholes, for example in tanks, only exist in a very non-binding form. A "person of normal build should be able to climb through without difficulty". The dimension should not be less than 500 millimeters. Nevertheless, there are manholes that measure only 400 millimetres or oval-shaped ones measuring only 350 x 450 millimetres. As a general rule, the regulations require dimensions that enable "quick and gentle rescue of people". Appendix 7 of DGUV regulation 113-004 also recommends minimum dimensions. These depend, among other things, on the accessibility of the opening, its position on a container or its accessibility. But they also depend on whether a person needs personal protective equipment to be able to work inside a container (e.g. respiratory protection due to hazardous vapors), whether the manhole is also surrounded by a nozzle or sleeve, and finally on the frequency of use. However, as mentioned above, these are only recommendations.

It should be possible to pass through manholes quickly and gently. This is the recommendation of the DUGV guideline - (Photo: stock.adobe.com/AI04)

Conclusion

Whether overweight employees need to be included in a risk assessment certainly depends not least on the workplace. A machine operator who mainly stands or sits or an office worker will rarely be affected. However, obesity does play a role when an employee is deployed in plant safety or for heavy physical work such as the manual loading and unloading of transport systems. Larger companies can, for example, influence the body weight of employees by offering a special range of healthy food in the canteen or by installing company sports programs. After all, the DAK study mentioned earlier in the text shows that 55% of both employers and employees would "very much welcome" or almost 40% would "welcome" health-promoting measures in the workplace.