Obesity as a covered disability under employment discrimination Law: An analysis of Canadian approaches

Since the passage of the first anti-discrimination laws in North America, the number of groups of classes protected has slowly expanded to include the disabled. British Columbia is the only jurisdiction in Canada in which obesity per se has been found to be a covered disability. All other Canadian jurisdictions that have explicitly addressed the issue require claimants to prove that their obesity is a disabling condition and has an underlying involuntary medical cause. Despite the reticence of various human rights agencies, there is ample legal basis for including obesity as a covered disability under human rights law.