For our HR friends in the UK, we commend you to a great blog and a new set of articles put out in the Didlaw Ltd. newsletter.   The first article briefly defines/describes disability under the Equality Act of 2010.

Our US readers, who have recently commented heavily in our continuing discussion about obesity, will be interested to know that this UK post declares that “[t]he most pressing issue around definition of disability right now is whether obesity is a disability.”

“With 64% of the UK workforce said to be obese a finding by the European Court that obesity is a disability could have wide-reaching implications. The EAT recently held in Walker v Sita that obesity is not a disability in itself but might be capable of being one if there is a significant degree of functional impairment.”

That is, the matter has been taken up by the European Court of Justice in the case of Kaltoft v Billund Kommune.

See also a great article on the subject on the Bristows’ website.

BTW:  Great op-ed piece in the NYT yesterday by Mark Bittman, “What Causes Weight Gain.”  His take:  hyperprocessed food.