Posted On: April 10, 2008, 1:40 pm CDT

Posted By: KLS

Excellent comments, all of you. Thoughtful and well said.

Blondie has a good poing about thin people who are sickly. How much do they cost employers? Or has anyone ever bothered to check?

I think obesity is singled out because we can see it, it's obvious... therefore easy. If someone is a smoker, drug addict, or heavy drinker, those things are easier to conceal.

As far as employers seeking "treatments" for their obese employees, hold your horses. There have been studies on how some diets and types of dieting are actually quite hard on one's health. To change one's weight is to change one's lifestyle completely.

I'm definitely in the "more to love" category and having grown up in the Kate Moss era, I was bombarded with messages from the media and society about how I was supposed to hate myself for being bigger than average. My response was to crash diet, take pills, starve, compuslively exercise for weeks then crash from being malnourished. Think that did much for my health?

Enough with the madness! I don't have to hate myself or the way I look. I've grown to love the fact that I have a Rubenesque shape.

These days, I eat smart and take it easy on the refined carbs, sugar, and saturated fats. I walk a couple miles a night 3 to 4 nights a week. I get good sleep, I don't smoke, I drink a lot of water and y'know what? I'm still big. But I feel super. I rarely miss work and I visit my doctor maybe 2 or 3 times in a year.

Tell me how I'm costing my employer so bloody much money... Yet, just because someone can LOOK at me and see I'm big, I'm going to get lumped into the "unhealthy" category? Not fair. Not by any means, especially when there's a size 6 next to me who smokes like a steam engine and calls in sick every other week.

Dear employer, mind your own business. If you think health care costs too much, don't look at me. I didn't set the price...