The Sacramento Union - September 1988

BALTIMORE (AP) -- An organization for fat people rallied for an end to job discrimination against the obese, saying dieting is not the answer to the problems they face in the workplace.

Members of the National Association to Aid Fat Americans say most workers who are overweight have been or will be refused jobs, promotions or health insurance benefits because of their size.

"Should we follow the National Institutes of Health's obesity panel which says slim down? No. That's not the answer," said member Rosezella Canty-Letsome. "Should we lobby to (make) weighty people a constitutionally protected category? Yes."

The group held a convention in Baltimore through today, and sponsored the Friday rally attended by about 100 people. The organization, founded in 1969 and based in Herald, Calif., says it is a human-rights organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for fat people.

"You're not at a fat people's rally. You're at a civil rights rally," said Russell Williams, co chairman of the group's activism committee.

Harry Gossett, author of "Fat Chance," a book on discrimination against overweight people, borrowed from the "I have a dream" speech delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington 25 years ago.

"We have a similar dream, for people to be judged by their ability and not by their attraction to gravity," he said.

Comparing prejudice against overweight Americans to discrimination against blacks, Gossett said, "Today, fat people are assumed to be inherently ugly, unsanitary, stupid, lazy and enslaved by creature comforts." The group's president, Nancy Summer, said surveys show that 85 percent of women weighing about 200 pounds or more reported employment discrimination because of their size.

Obese workers frequently are hidden in back offices and given work that keeps them away from the public, and many are told they cannot be hired because fat people take too much sick leave and drive up insurance rates, Canty-Letsome said.