An Experiment in Scotch

Whole Foods is imple­ment­ing a plan to give a big­ger employee dis­count to employ­ees that don’t smoke, have lower blood pres­sure and have a BMI under 30. Nat­u­rally, peo­ple are whin­ing about dis­crim­i­na­tion. This includes one quote that I can’t pos­si­bly do jus­tice to other than to repro­duce it in full:

“Why are you reward­ing peo­ple who are nat­u­rally thin? We believe it’s dis­crim­i­na­tion,” said Peggy How­ell, a spokes­woman for the National Asso­ci­a­tion to Advance Fat Accep­tance. “We are encour­ag­ing our mem­ber­ship and any­one else who agrees with us to shop elsewhere.”

Sigh. Look, Peggy How­ell, I’ve got news for you. Most of your mem­ber­ship IS ALREADY shop­ping some­where else like Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s. My tiny lit­tle brain can’t even com­pre­hend the idea of a National Asso­ci­a­tion to Advance Fat Acceptance.

This is a vol­un­tary pro­gram to reward peo­ple for doing some­thing valu­able in the eyes of their employer. On top of that, it rewards peo­ple for doing what it takes to be health­ier. It’s a fuck­ing vol­un­tary incen­tive pro­gram, no dif­fer­ent than giv­ing out bonuses to peo­ple who do more or bet­ter work. In the huge major­ity of instances, fat is a choice. Yes, some body types find it eas­ier to not gain weight but con­trary to Ms. Howell’s asser­tion, almost every­one is nat­u­rally thin. We eat too much and we exer­cise too lit­tle because we choose to.

I think it’s sad that it’s come to the point not only where being fat and out of shape is a badge of honor but where there is an asso­ci­a­tion try­ing to spread the accep­tance of it. This is not the same thing as civil rights or gay free­dom or any­thing else out there. We are fat because we eat too much, exer­cise too lit­tle and live in a coun­try where we have to do almost no phys­i­cal labor at any time. Just today, I saw a com­mer­cial by a bariatric sur­geon that told me if I was fat, I didn’t have a weight con­trol prob­lem, I had a med­ical con­di­tion called obe­sity. We are to the point where being over­weight is a med­ical con­di­tion and not a choice. That’s unbe­liev­able. Is weight loss hard? Only because our diet is so screwed up and our exer­cise out­put is so low. Get 30 min­utes of exer­cise a day, eat noth­ing but meat, veg­eta­bles, nuts, seeds and fruit in 2000 calo­rie daily totals and you will lose weight in all most all cases. It just isn’t that hard from a phys­i­cal stand­point. The rules are sim­ple and easy to define. It’s the dis­ci­pline to do so that goes so ter­ri­bly wanting.

Whole Foods is try­ing to get their employ­ees to be health­ier. Peo­ple who choose not to par­tic­i­pate still get the same damn dis­count they have always got­ten. This is an incen­tive pro­gram, plain and sim­ple. Choose to do what it takes to be healthy and we’ll reward you. There’s noth­ing dis­crim­i­na­tory about it. Bill Maher said it best: “Ask your doc­tor if get­ting off your ass is right for you.”