Here’s a timely example of why refusing to employ obese people in certain jobs is not discrimination but a justified decision
Would an obese person ever pass the army medical for recruitment? No. And if he or she passed the army medical, joined the army, and then became obese, would that be permitted?
I’m not about to ring the cabinet minister to find out, because he clearly believes obesity is just dandy. But I might ring the brigadier in the morning.
You know, the one who was promoted four times in as many weeks to replace Martin Xuereb as commanding officer.
But no, I don’t think I have ever seen an obese soldier or army officer. For a start, they race them up and down and put them through obstacle courses and difficult physical training, so no chance of getting fat there, let alone obese.
Now perhaps that same cabinet minister will explain why, if obese soldiers are not allowed (because they’re raced up, down and around and kept fit and slim), it’s considered perfectly all right to have the police force riddled with corpulent coppers. Some of them put Henry VIII and Joe Grima in the shade.
Fat doesn’t even begin to describe some policemen. They are right and proper porkers.
When a reader commented on this site (in respect of the debate going on beneath the Joe Grima affair) that he would never employ an obese person, he was jumped on by other readers. I disagree with the blanket ban approach to employing the obese, but I most certainly do say that employers should have every right to refuse an obese person on grounds of not being fit for purpose for that particular job. And when an employee, recruited at a normal size, balloons to huge proportions, an employer should be able to tell him: lose weight or lose your job.
Take the policeman shown here, for instance. I have no doubt that when he was recruited into the police force, he was slim and natty. Now he is so vast that he can barely move. What sort of policeman is that? Can he chase a thief? Can he leap over walls? Can he control a crowd? Can he even climb the stairs of a burgled home without needing a lie-down at the top? Does he sit in his policecar driving thru McDonalds?
And lest some fools say that I am ‘picking on a poor obese policeman’, let me say to you at the outset that this particular policeman was in the news today.
According to the six o’clock news on TVM, a helicopter had to be called after a man fell in Selmun and police officers couldn’t get down to reach him.
Maybe he fell in a ‘hard-to-reach’ area, I thought, until I saw the photographs published on the internet. The police officer who features in them, the one who couldn’t get down to help the man, is morbidly obese. If he sat on the prime minister’s special envoy to the World Tourism Organisation, he would extinguish him.
All this chap needs as his beat buddy is one of those 70+ retired officers who have been called back into the corps. What a joke.
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The. Comedy. Just. Writes. Itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2TXJkb-5wc
He can cause some damage if he falls on top of somebody.
What if the police officer was pregnant? Would she go down? If we should not employ obese policemen, should we employ pregnant policewomen?
[Daphne – Pregnancy is temporary and it is not an affliction. As you will know from your own line of work, in jobs involving physical risk or strenuous activity, temporary arrangements are made for employees who are pregnant, and all then reverts to normal. Of course a pregnant officer should not climb down – but that would be because of risk to herself and her unborn child, and not because she is too fat and unwieldy to do so. Hence she is not even expected to climb down when she is still thin and fit and the pregnancy is just at the beginning.]
Many jurisdictions have rules that govern the state of fitness of those in the Police Force.
I weighed 57 kgs just before giving birth… Try calling me fat.
I was anchoring when the man fell over. When I called 112, I was put on hold for 5 minutes! Most probably others were calling too.
When the police arrived at the scene, three men who were on boats at Ras il-Mignuna had already climbed up the hill and were giving first aid to the man who had just fallen down.
The policemen were just staring down doing nothing. I shouted over to tell them that there was a path down the cliff about 70m away. One of them shouted back saying that it was too far away. So my wife replied, “Then let him die”.
Forsi iriduhom ghall-piz.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140601/local/From-couch-potato-to-race-runner-in-a-year.521360
This is the answer to all those who say that obesity is genetic and they they are prone to being fat. Bollocks.
The ones who say that should start a food diary to realize how much they are actually eating. The answer is get off your ass and start moving, and stop scoffing all you see.
It’s not the fault of this policeman but the fault of the Police Commissioner Zammit.
Would you want to fly on a plane with a pilot who has poor eye sight? Obviously not. Hence, the reason why pilots are hired only after passing very strict physical and health tests. Same should apply to policemen.
Some of the air hostesses on Air Malta also need to go on a diet and trim down.
Never, ever choose an aisle seat on an Air Malta flight.
How cruel can you be, Mrs Caruana Galizia.
Was there need to pick on this man and ridicule him?
At least you should have covered his face.
What about his family?
And all this on father”s day.
Would you have liked it if it was close relative of yours?
[Daphne – I have no relatives, close or otherwise, who are police officers, soldiers or in any other public office which requires them to be physically fit and trim for purpose. But if I had, I would not blame the messenger. An obese policeman is a waste of public funds, because an obese police officer cannot perform the function for which he is paid. Another point: these photographs are from Times of Malta, which has a much wider readership than this site does. So ‘cruelty’ has nothing to do with it.]
Why are uniforms in that size even produced?
There should be a maximum size, and any police person over that size immediately relegated to desk duty, cleaning etc until they are fit to do their job again.