The Supreme Court of Canada is upholding a regulatory ruling that people who are “functionally disabled by obesity” have the right to occupy two airline seats on a flight for the price of one.

I’ve never been very compassionate on the issue of obesity, so I think I’ll invoke the words of Dr. Jay Parkinson from a couple months ago when Japan made obesity illegal:

It took [more than] 40 years for our country to now thumb our noses at smokers and stigmatize them by throwing them out of bars and restaurants to “go do their thing” out on the sidewalks.

I wonder if we, as a nation, will do the same thing for the obese? Secondhand smoke kills. Secondhand “your-obesity-keeps-making-my-insurance-premiums-and-our-nation’s-healthcare-spending-skyrocket” is just as harmful. [full post]