People on disability pensions because of their weight should get a job. HWT Image Library
FAT should not be a disability. People who are on the Disability Support Pension because they eat too much should be forced to look for work.
Taxpayers are sick of supporting the lifestyles of those whose so-called disabilities are primarily self-inflicted.
Let's face it, there are enough people out there with real disabilities who deserve all the help we can give them. So why are we propping up those who might be able to help themselves?
Last weekend Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced stricter impairment guidelines for the Disability Support Pension.
The benefit, worth up to $729.30 a fortnight for singles, would be assessed on the basis of a person's ability to work, and not simply granted because they are obese, or have chronic pain, or drink too much.
Officials estimate 40 per cent of recipients would fail to qualify for the disability pension under the new rules, which will come into effect on January 1 next year. Such people will be given help to find work.
It's terrific to see the Government taking this move. For too long now the disability pension has been a dumping ground for a lot of people unwilling, rather than unable, to work.
The test should not be how much you weigh. It should be whether you can work or not, and these days if you can answer a phone or use a computer, you can work.
The fact that 40 per cent of existing recipients wouldn't qualify under the new rules shows you just how much rorting of the scheme is going on.
At the moment about 800,000 people are on the disability pension, and most stay an average of 12 years, with very few people ever working again.
Those with genuine disabilities will have nothing to fear from the changes, and it might mean the Government can better support them.
Sadly, the changes only affect new recipients from January 1 next year. Why? If the Government has found a problem with the system, why not fix it for current recipients?
Why should the rest of us prop up the lifestyles of others who have the ability to change their lives in the way many other disabled people cannot?
I'm not being "fattist" here. I'm not suggesting that everyone has to look like a trainer from The Biggest Loser - I know I sure don't.
There aren't many people who deliberately set out to be morbidly obese, but there are some who stay that way when they could be more pro-active in losing weight.
I am not saying the transition to work would be easy and I do admit there is a lot of discrimination in employment right now.
If you are 150kg rather than 70kg, it might be hard to find a job in a trendy dress shop, for instance. But there is work out there for those who are willing to look.
Sure, there are legitimate medical reasons that make people fat.
However, according to the Australian and New Zealand Society for the Study of Obesity, being extremely overweight is largely attributable to a sedentary lifestyle and eating too much high-calorie food.
As the society points out: "Obesity is a disease that is largely preventable through lifestyle changes."
Yes, there are other factors like age, gender, genetics and ethnicity that play a role, and make some people more predisposed to gaining weight. But this is an explanation and not an excuse for giving up altogether.
For instance, there should be absolutely no reason why children are fat - few start life that way.
Even the UK's "half ton teen" Billy Robbins was a normal-sized kinder kid. And even he has managed to drop half his body weight: an astonishing 180kg through diet and surgery.
It is true that the fatter you are, the more likely you are to develop diabetes or cancer, or have a heart attack. But there are plenty of sick people out there who work when, and in whatever way they can. For them, it's a badge of honour. Sickness is not automatically a disability and nor, for that matter, is having a disability. So why should fatness be considered a disability?
American fat activist Margitte Leah argues that obese people are disabled because they have "devalued, non-normative bodies". The issue, as she sees it, is that fat people are disabled, not because "our bodies can't do things, but because we live in a world that stops our bodies from doing things". Sounds a bit like an excuse to me.
It reminds me of Melissa Bacon, featured on A Current Affair last year. Weighing 150kg and a size 26, she'd spent four months looking for a job as a hairdressing apprentice.
Let's face it, perhaps she was looking in the wrong industry; hairdressing is very image conscious. It's also physically demanding, and maybe some employers thought Melissa wouldn't be up to standing on her feet for nine hours a day.
If you are very overweight, it can be difficult, I agree. But it's not impossible. It can also be hard to find work if you are an African migrant, or in a wheelchair, or over 60.
What's the answer? Give up and spend your life on benefits? No way. It would be the same thing if I tried to get work as a photographic model - at 40 years old and 155cm, it would be just about impossible.
Fat activists argue that obese people who receive disability payments are no different from smokers who develop emphysema, or someone with liver failure because they drank too much. But unlike emphysema or liver failure, obesity is largely curable.
I'll bet there are many people out there with irreversible disabilities who would give anything for another chance to hold down a normal job. It might not be easy to trim down, but it is possible, and thousands of people every year lose huge amounts of weight.
Sure, it doesn't help that new research in the Medical Journal of Australia suggests obese people are programmed to regain any weight they lose. And that's why we do need better support services to help people manage their weight.
Perhaps some of the money saved from the Disability Support Pension could go towards better community health services.
In the past few days there have been plenty of nervous talkback callers and online bloggers, wondering if the changes will affect them. Some of them will have good reason to be nervous if the Government decides to go further and make the new rules retrospective - which it really should do.
Yes, some people are right to be nervous, because they know they're not really disabled at all and could work if they wanted to.
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