EDITORIAL - Cut the fat, but not the facts

After removing those City Hall employees whom he said were lazy or inefficient in their job, it seems Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is now going after those who are fat.

During last Monday’s flag-raising ceremony, Mayor Rama said he was noticing that more and more City Hall workers are gaining weight and he was not pleased about it.

“I’m looking at your bellies. Ang inyong tiyan determines your discipline. I’m not joking. (It) reflects your discipline,” he said in a report in this newspaper, adding that it will be the fit employees who will be able to keep up with him and his vision for a Singapore-like Cebu City.

He went as far as to say he is planning to hold a contest as to who can lose the most weight by next year’s Independence Day.

Helping people shed unwanted pounds is a good idea, but Rama should not go overboard or, should we say, off the scales with his assumption about fat people.

While this is not necessarily fat-shaming. Mayor Rama seems to be stereotyping that the bigger the waistline the less discipline someone has. That is not necessarily the truth.

It is actually okay if Mayor Rama wants City Hall workers to lose weight out of health considerations. We would even encourage this. After all, being obese or overweight actually opens a person to a slew of other short-term or even long-term illnesses.

But to say that their being fat makes them less-disciplined, and implying that this will affect how they work is an injustice to all plus-sized people who continue to flourish in their careers even as they struggle with some of the life choices they have made. This also isn’t fair to those with bulging waistlines who work as hard as others who don’t have that excess baggage.

He should also bear in mind that some people just cannot lose weight no matter what they do, while others have the genetic predisposition to be large by nature. What happens to them? Can they not share in his work to make a better Cebu?