“Large” Restaurant Customers need special accommodation?

jennifer_417 wrote: »

It's interesting to me that this type of experience used to be seen as a source of personal shame, and now it's a reason for offense at others, because they have not accommodated the size of the person.

That's not what the article or -- especially -- any posters here have said. No one here is saying fat people should be offended by restaurant seats.

CSARdiver wrote: »

Phirrgus wrote: »

HeliumIsNoble wrote: »

If most people found shame an effective motivator to make positive changes, the majority of people would already be slim. Barring a small minority, people generally didn't aspire to be overweight or obese, and they're definitely not proud of their bodies the way they are. This includes most of the fat-positive bloggers, in my opinion.

And yet, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that, for 2015-2016 in the U.S., 71.6% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight or obese and according to a WHO study in 2014, 62% of adults in England were classified as overweight or obese.

Clearly making people feel ashamed hasn't worked yet, and it's not going to suddenly start working. I think it might be time to try a new strategy.

Stats taken from wikipedia

Regarding the bold - without (hopefully) taking the discussion into prohibited territory per forum rules....what if, say...a country had an absolutely awesome, incredible first lady who developed and implemented a program to teach school children about the importance of proper nutrition in an effort to combat obesity, and everyone loved it except the next admin to take power...who cancelled it? No one here ought to miss that reference

The tenuous point I'm trying to make is that we're strategy limited apparently, at the governmental level, and motivationally limited at the personal level...what's next for a strategy?

I do agree with you by the way, strongly. I just see slippery slopes in one direction and steep cliffs in the other. Real change motivators usually need to come from within, or from a source that carries strong enough promise to gain traction.

Politics lies downstream of culture. Attempts to move culture requires persuasion. Government historically uses force to persuade. The Right would do well to acknowledge, love, and respect the imagination of the Left. The Left would do well to acknowledge, love, and respect the pragmatism of the Right.

There's a fundamental flaw in governance that assumes that man is good and has good intentions. Good policy presumes human error as fundamental and implements processes of positive reinforcement, ownership, and personal responsibility - all leading to collective responsibility and collective good.

I would say today that politics is attempting to shape and drive culture. I do agree with your assertions and would love to see that in practice as well as ideal, but....

RE: the bold - it seemed to me her plan met that requirement for good policy. Most importantly, people were listening, quite a milestone in achievement these days.

manderson27 wrote: »

@ceiswyn I am really sorry that your experience made you hate yourself and want to take your own life. That is awful, but we are not talking here about people insulting obese people or shaming them that is a whole different debate.

Restaurants are not shaming people by using average seating they are just being practical. What we are debating is how far should business go to cater for obese people? If we provide larger and larger seating in public places it is normalising obesity. It is sending the message that it's ok you don't need to change we will cater for you. We will work around you and make the world easier for you to access so there is no need to worry about your weight anymore, after all there are so many more obese people now it is the new norm.

It is not because the chairs are too small that you can't sit in them comfortably it is because you are carrying too much fat.

I am sorry if that upsets people but that was the hard truth I had to learn. The world was not to blame for the fact that I had trouble finding clothes, tying my shoes, walking up stairs, sitting in chairs, flying in planes, getting through turnstiles. It was not the worlds job to design things to fit my oversized body.

I came to the conclusion that it would be much easier to change my body to fit the world than to try and change the world to fit my body.

A restaurant's role is literally to cater to customers. I'm not saying they are obligated to make obese people feel comfortable. But if they choose to do so, I don't see how that is substantially different than the other things they do to appeal to customers.

kimny72 wrote: »

I'd be interested to know the answer to this as well, because I think some posters are lumping overweight, obese, and morbidly obese people all into the same demographic for this discussion. And I'm not sure the problem being discussed is a problem for all three categories of people. If you consider all three categories, then we may very well be talking about a majority of consumers. If we are just considering morbidly obese people, I'm not sure that's a substantial enough demographic to be worth restaurants re-imagining their public space for. This is just me guessing though!

I think it's not just about the morbidly obese, at least in my own experience where I live. Yes, I'm not worried that chairs would break under me now, but even as borderline overweight obese there are places I simply can't feel comfortable at because of the way my body is shaped (larger hips and behind). When a chair has arms and is narrow, it hurts.

An extreme anecdote: There was this restaurant/bar I went to once that chose stools, for stylistic reasons, that would not accommodate most people with hips, like most women, although simple stools of the same size but without decorative railing around the sides would have been good for most. As a female with hips, I would have to go for a table, which is not the best design because the tables were for a service of 6-8. Imagine 2 people hogging the table just because they can't sit at the bar and the discomfort it would cause for both customers and servers.

Now my experience may not be as other people's, but some establishment owners are kind of ignorant and would choose style over comfort (regardless of the weight of the person). I never had issues with booths because I don't carry a lot of my weight in the middle, but they're not comfortable for many people, obese and thin, even if I personally feel comfortable in them. Designing for the majority is a good business decision, and the majority is at least overweight.

CSARdiver wrote: »

Phirrgus wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

Phirrgus wrote: »

HeliumIsNoble wrote: »

If most people found shame an effective motivator to make positive changes, the majority of people would already be slim. Barring a small minority, people generally didn't aspire to be overweight or obese, and they're definitely not proud of their bodies the way they are. This includes most of the fat-positive bloggers, in my opinion.

And yet, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that, for 2015-2016 in the U.S., 71.6% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight or obese and according to a WHO study in 2014, 62% of adults in England were classified as overweight or obese.

Clearly making people feel ashamed hasn't worked yet, and it's not going to suddenly start working. I think it might be time to try a new strategy.

Stats taken from wikipedia

Regarding the bold - without (hopefully) taking the discussion into prohibited territory per forum rules....what if, say...a country had an absolutely awesome, incredible first lady who developed and implemented a program to teach school children about the importance of proper nutrition in an effort to combat obesity, and everyone loved it except the next admin to take power...who cancelled it? No one here ought to miss that reference

The tenuous point I'm trying to make is that we're strategy limited apparently, at the governmental level, and motivationally limited at the personal level...what's next for a strategy?

I do agree with you by the way, strongly. I just see slippery slopes in one direction and steep cliffs in the other. Real change motivators usually need to come from within, or from a source that carries strong enough promise to gain traction.

Politics lies downstream of culture. Attempts to move culture requires persuasion. Government historically uses force to persuade. The Right would do well to acknowledge, love, and respect the imagination of the Left. The Left would do well to acknowledge, love, and respect the pragmatism of the Right.

There's a fundamental flaw in governance that assumes that man is good and has good intentions. Good policy presumes human error as fundamental and implements processes of positive reinforcement, ownership, and personal responsibility - all leading to collective responsibility and collective good.

I would say today that politics is attempting to shape and drive culture. I do agree with your assertions and would love to see that in practice as well as ideal, but....

RE: the bold - it seemed to me her plan met that requirement for good policy. Most importantly, people were listening, quite a milestone in achievement these days.

Politics has always attempted to shape and drive culture. Historically this had led to violence, starvation, and death. Good intentions hold little value other than paving the path to hell.

You stated earlier that politics lies downstream of culture. My contention is that it used to. In the US anyway. I believe political maneuvering through the media is stoking an unhealthy sense of nationalism today. I believe a large portion of the population has, or is taking on the identity of the political players in many arenas.

We live in a time of such unprecedented peace and prosperity it is difficult to put things into perspective - unless you continually reinforce every element of news & propaganda with a healthy dose of historical perspective.

I would say the difficulty in attaining a healthy perspective today is largely based on the news and propaganda we see. History itself is being rewritten in some areas and attempts are being made in others(I'm sure you've seen the news on that) , so that's going to be more difficult to use as a platform for stability in many arguments.

It must start small and bubble up. So how can one enact effective policy? Rewarding positive behavior and paragons. Offering an ideal to live by and reinforcing legislature around this ideal, both rewarding and punitive. ...but leaders must live by their truth.

Here is where the above ties into this discussion for me. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 meets all of the requirements you stated, and was actually effective to a degree in that it had bi-partizan support, started small and progressed as more school districts threw their weight (no pun intended) behind it, and most importantly, was educating the young in the hopes they would not make the same mistakes as their parents regarding obesity. The basic simplicity of the program (educate and support efforts) came under fire for literally no logical reason, and is now cancelled with no options for a "better" replacement.

Facta non verba - Deeds not words.

Agreed. Today we have words denying deeds - where does that leave us regarding the hopes of putting together a better, more effective policy?

The greatest governance operates by a simplistic model which plays to respective strengths - the Left establishes the ideal and the Right executes this.

This is a nice ideal and I do not disagree. Yet it's nowhere to be seen today.

HeliumIsNoble wrote: »

Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run. None of these parks are open during early morning hours, so if we had regular office hours, we would not be able to run before work. In addition, during the summer, early morning is about the only time temperatures are safe for running. Last year we ran throughout the summer, but it was an experience running in 100 degree heat with 80% humidity. We didn’t see a lot of other people out there.

Making safe places to run that were actually open and patrolled when people want to use them would definitely increase the number of people willing to run here. But that’s not likely to happen because there are so few runners here to demand it. It’s a closed circle.

By the way, we regularly make the list of most obese cities in America, not a coincidence.

Running is also a lot more fun to music or a podcast. Common issue reported by women who do feel able to run alone? They don't feel safe to run with earbuds in. I'm not going to say it's universal, but it's an issue.

This isn't acceptable- how the hell can we have a society where it is only safe for some women to go jogging in the streets around their house?

jennifer_417 wrote: »

It's interesting to me that this type of experience used to be seen as a source of personal shame, and now it's a reason for offense at others, because they have not accommodated the size of the person.

It's interesting to me, too. I feel that our current culture is a culture of victimization. Nobody takes personal responsibility, and everybody want to be a victim. Why? Because taking responsibility takes effort. It can be hard. Being a victim is easy. People feel sorry for you. You get status points. In the identity politics hierarchy, you are more important.

The TL/DR version: People need to step up and take more personal responsibility...for their health, for their finances, for their life choices in general. Don't claim to be a victim. Don't expect others to take on the burden of accommodating you if are unwilling to make the effort to make good choices.

The long version:

Sorry, I'm replying to many different posts in this one, so most of the below is not specifically related to the quoted post above.

It's not just weight I'm talking about. The Jussie Smollet thing is a recent example. He faked a hate crime because he thought the attention would get him more popularity and money. Victimhood pays. There are countless recent examples of people publicizing the fact that they were a crime victim (alleged...not proven...and often later shown to be hoaxes) and then making MILLIONS in gofundme donations. College students demand safe spaces and block speakers they disagree with because opinions that differ from their own make them feel "threatened". Colleges accommodate this suppression of free speech. People in our country illegally break our laws and are thrown in jail, then claim they are victimized if someone tries to deport them. People claim to be victimized by a red hat and feel entitled to assault the wearer or vandalize their property. Then they feel self-righteous about it. If arrested they feel they have been victimized twice! First by the existence of the hat, then by the arrest! There is no end to the craziness.

Victimhood has in effect become a protected class. I view this push by some to get obesity designated as a disability as more of the same. Why stop at obesity? Why shouldn't procrastinators be a protected class? You put off paying your bills until you get a late fee? That's unfair...shaming you by charging you more isn't an incentive to change, it just makes you feel bad and lowers your bank balance. Why shouldn't lazy people be protected? Didn't study for that test? Why should you get a worse grade and worse job prospects than someone who studies? After all, changing habits is very hard...you shouldn't suffer because you are struggling with it. Have trouble living within your middle class means? Why should you have to forego the latest designer fashions because you don't make as much as someone else. Credit card companies should be sympathetic and not make you pay that bill!

Nobody thinks restaurant owners should TRY to shame morbidly obese people. Please stop saying that. Not having extra large seats is not an attempt to shame anyone. People don't pick restaurant seating in order to make morbidly obese people uncomfortable. They pick based on space constraints, aesthetic considerations, and cost. However, the idea that owners should proactively try to accommodate a very small portion of the population is ridiculous. If you have a small restaurant, and can seat 60 patrons with a standard size seat, but only 50 or 55 with larger or differently designed seats, to choose the larger seats will mean reduced profits. Most business owners design for maximum profit. If a business owner notices that a large percentage of customers are having difficulty fitting in their seats, they will design for that. If, however, they are at maximum capacity most of the time and people need reservations or long waits to get in, why should they forego profit? They shouldn't.

Also...I have seen several comments in this thread which express the opinion that the government needs to fix the obesity problem. NO! NO! A thousand times NO! The government is not here to take care of every need you have and decision you make from the cradle to the grave. If you make bad decisions, it is your right to do so. Don't blame it on the government though. Parents...don't expect the government through schools to teach your children basic life skills. That is your job. Don't try to tell kids who eat properly most of the time that they can't have a cookie in school because some kids are obese. It is just insane and leads to a worsening of the problem.

As to the idea someone expressed that the left should establish the ideal and the right should execute it...what fantasy world are you living in? So you would enslave the right and make them carry out ideas they don't support? I am not sure what country you are in, but the US has a constitution. There is nothing in there about letting just one subset of the population with a specific ideology made all the decisions and then forcing the others to work to make it happen. Right and left have different agendas. Both should fight for what they believe in. Compete in the marketplace of ideas. To expect others to just let YOU pick the agenda is just immature and unrealistic. The idea that if people disagree with you, they are bad people or just don't understand something is the height of arrogance.

MoiAussi93 wrote: »

...It's not just weight I'm talking about. The Jussie Smollet thing is a recent example. He faked a hate crime because he thought the attention would get him more popularity and money. Victimhood pays. There are countless recent examples of people publicizing the fact that they were a crime victim (alleged...not proven...and often later shown to be hoaxes) and then making MILLIONS in gofundme donations. College students demand safe spaces and block speakers they disagree with because opinions that differ from their own make them feel "threatened". Colleges accommodate this suppression of free speech. People in our country illegally break our laws and are thrown in jail, then claim they are victimized if someone tries to deport them. People claim to be victimized by a red hat and feel entitled to assault the wearer or vandalize their property. Then they feel self-righteous about it. If arrested they feel they have been victimized twice! First by the existence of the hat, then by the arrest! There is no end to the craziness.

Victimhood has in effect become a protected class. I view this push by some to get obesity designated as a disability as more of the same. Why stop at obesity? Why shouldn't procrastinators be a protected class? You put off paying your bills until you get a late fee? That's unfair...shaming you by charging you more isn't an incentive to change, it just makes you feel bad and lowers your bank balance. Why shouldn't lazy people be protected? Didn't study for that test? Why should you get a worse grade and worse job prospects than someone who studies? After all, changing habits is very hard...you shouldn't suffer because you are struggling with it. Have trouble living within your middle class means? Why should you have to forego the latest designer fashions because you don't make as much as someone else. Credit card companies should be sympathetic and not make you pay that bill!

...

Also...I have seen several comments in this thread which express the opinion that the government needs to fix the obesity problem. NO! NO! A thousand times NO! The government is not here to take care of every need you have and decision you make from the cradle to the grave. If you make bad decisions, it is your right to do so. Don't blame it on the government though. Parents...don't expect the government through schools to teach your children basic life skills. That is your job. Don't try to tell kids who eat properly most of the time that they can't have a cookie in school because some kids are obese. It is just insane and leads to a worsening of the problem.

As to the idea someone expressed that the left should establish the ideal and the right should execute it...what fantasy world are you living in? So you would enslave the right and make them carry out ideas they don't support? I am not sure what country you are in, but the US has a constitution. There is nothing in there about letting just one subset of the population with a specific ideology made all the decisions and then forcing the others to work to make it happen. Right and left have different agendas. Both should fight for what they believe in. Compete in the marketplace of ideas. To expect others to just let YOU pick the agenda is just immature and unrealistic. The idea that if people disagree with you, they are bad people or just don't understand something is the height of arrogance.

How in the world is any of this related to losing or gaining weight or the article? Seriously, four paragraphs complaining about politics, the potential for people to be victims and what victimhood means, issues related to discrimination (but not about weight), various ideological stances, socioeconomic class, and immigration. Within that there's a single sentence about weight.

RivenV wrote: »

aokoye wrote: »

MoiAussi93 wrote: »

...It's not just weight I'm talking about. The Jussie Smollet thing is a recent example. He faked a hate crime because he thought the attention would get him more popularity and money. Victimhood pays. There are countless recent examples of people publicizing the fact that they were a crime victim (alleged...not proven...and often later shown to be hoaxes) and then making MILLIONS in gofundme donations. College students demand safe spaces and block speakers they disagree with because opinions that differ from their own make them feel "threatened". Colleges accommodate this suppression of free speech. People in our country illegally break our laws and are thrown in jail, then claim they are victimized if someone tries to deport them. People claim to be victimized by a red hat and feel entitled to assault the wearer or vandalize their property. Then they feel self-righteous about it. If arrested they feel they have been victimized twice! First by the existence of the hat, then by the arrest! There is no end to the craziness.

Victimhood has in effect become a protected class. I view this push by some to get obesity designated as a disability as more of the same. Why stop at obesity? Why shouldn't procrastinators be a protected class? You put off paying your bills until you get a late fee? That's unfair...shaming you by charging you more isn't an incentive to change, it just makes you feel bad and lowers your bank balance. Why shouldn't lazy people be protected? Didn't study for that test? Why should you get a worse grade and worse job prospects than someone who studies? After all, changing habits is very hard...you shouldn't suffer because you are struggling with it. Have trouble living within your middle class means? Why should you have to forego the latest designer fashions because you don't make as much as someone else. Credit card companies should be sympathetic and not make you pay that bill!

...

Also...I have seen several comments in this thread which express the opinion that the government needs to fix the obesity problem. NO! NO! A thousand times NO! The government is not here to take care of every need you have and decision you make from the cradle to the grave. If you make bad decisions, it is your right to do so. Don't blame it on the government though. Parents...don't expect the government through schools to teach your children basic life skills. That is your job. Don't try to tell kids who eat properly most of the time that they can't have a cookie in school because some kids are obese. It is just insane and leads to a worsening of the problem.

As to the idea someone expressed that the left should establish the ideal and the right should execute it...what fantasy world are you living in? So you would enslave the right and make them carry out ideas they don't support? I am not sure what country you are in, but the US has a constitution. There is nothing in there about letting just one subset of the population with a specific ideology made all the decisions and then forcing the others to work to make it happen. Right and left have different agendas. Both should fight for what they believe in. Compete in the marketplace of ideas. To expect others to just let YOU pick the agenda is just immature and unrealistic. The idea that if people disagree with you, they are bad people or just don't understand something is the height of arrogance.

How in the world is any of this related to losing or gaining weight or the article? Seriously, four paragraphs complaining about politics, the potential for people to be victims and what victimhood means, issues related to discrimination (but not about weight), various ideological stances, socioeconomic class, and immigration. Within that there's a single sentence about weight.

Didn't you read the TLDR at the top of the post?

The TL/DR version: People need to step up and take more personal responsibility...for their health, for their finances, for their life choices in general. Don't claim to be a victim. Don't expect others to take on the burden of accommodating you if are unwilling to make the effort to make good choices.

I did and TL;DR, again, has next to nothing to do with the article or one's weight. There was quite the ideological stance made though. I would actually argue that the fact that someone has made an app telling people where to find restaurants that accommodate larger customers takes quite a large burden off of restaurants who aren't already accommodating this demographic.