It's not discrimination if there are real, practical, justifiable reasons for treating someone differently.

To take an example from a completely different field: there have been heated debates on medical blogs about this. Moving injured or unconscious obese patients is a frequent cause of injury to medical personnel. To what extent are medical personnel expected/required to put their own health at risk to treat obese people?

If you say "that's their job" then consider: if the nurses and doctors injure themselves treating one patient, they may be unable to treat the next ten patients.

People always toss in the qualification "but they may have a medical problem". This is silly, and almost entirely wrong. There are very few people whose obesity is caused by a genuine medical issue. It is usually the other way around: obesity causes health problems: diabetes, heart attacks, and lots more.

Obesity is a medical issue, and we don't charge people with other medical issues for the potential danger they may pose to health care workers. If you're an EMT or nurse, your job is to treat people with medical problems, whatever they may be.

The salon thing is a bit overboard. I dare salon workers to tell fat people when they walk in, "We're charging you a $5 fat charge in case your fat ass breaks my chair, fatty." Pretty sneaky tossing it in at the end like that. It sounds like a way to make a few extra bucks. And what if the chair breaks because it was poorly constructed or assembled, or because it was old, or because someone's kid was jumping on it for 20 minutes?

Also, they need to get better chairs. The average desk chair can hold more than 200 pounds.

I don't have a problem with airlines charging extra for another seat, though. The person is using an extra service, they should pay for it.

Why do they have to charge every fat person and not the fat person that actually broke their chair?

I feel like I'm not getting the whole story here. Nobody has mentioned how overweight Michelle Fonville is. If she weighed well over 300 pounds and the chairs and/or floor were old and due for replacing, I could kind of understand why salon manager Kim Tran might have been worried about damage to her chairs and/or salon. However, (1) if Ms. Fonville wasn't too overweight to actually fit in the chair for her manicure, there shouldn't have been a problem, and (2) Ms. Tran's attitude could have been kinder, instead of going out of her way to not only charge Ms. Fonville a spur-of-the-moment surcharge, but treat her hurtfully in the bargain.

I have a hard time believing that the chairs only hold 200 pounds... and if that's the case, do they charge extra for men who are over 6 feet tall and weigh over 200 pounds? (Yeah, I know some men that started getting pedis during the metrosexual craze and liked it so much they never quit.)
Anyway, I'd hold the individual responsible. Maybe have a sign or something stating that if you break the equipment, you pay for it. That covers the obese and the jumping brats.

Many of us know people who say they have a medical issue that keeps them from losing weight, yet they are miraculously able to lose weight when they stop eating more calories than they expend. Amazing, that. PC-correct be damned, fat is more often than not a lifestyle choice, not a medical (thus protected class) issue. In fact, if you read the disability list of protected classes, overweight is no where to be seen. So why shouldn't they be held accountable? That shop owner would have a very hard time directly recouping the cost of a broken chair because there will always be a case to be made that the chair was already broken, weakened by age, etc. I think the surcharge makes sense, even if it is a bit crass. Maybe if those with more pounds than they need feel the pain in their pocketbooks they'll be motivated to change. Sort of like taxing cigarettes. I have to believe that the huge surcharges on cigs have caused more than a few people to quit.

As for a surcharge for long hair, I'm perplexed by this as much as Amy seems to be. Trimming the ends of long hair is less work than creating many of the precise shorter styles. Seems to me if they want to charge more for anything, it would be for the styles that take more time.

there will always be a case to be made that the chair was already broken, weakened by age, etc.

When you work in a customer service industry like salon work, you just need to accept that periodic repair and replacement of your equipment is part of the cost of doing business. What if the fat person who sits in the chair was just the final straw for that chair? And do we get to start doing this with other businesses? Maybe a fat tax for people who use the bus and subway, to replace the chairs if they break. A tax on restaurant meals for damage done to chairs there. A small fee when you enter amusement parks in case you break the benches changing your sneakers.

And as for the "medical issue," lots of medical issues are self-induced. The question is, how much is fair to charge people for, and how much is just part of your job to deal with?

She should have a sign saying that people over whatever weight pay $5 extra and let the customers decide if they want to pay. She has no right charging her without telling her upfront.

What kishke said. As long as the customer knows upfront, they can decide to patronize the shop or not.

I have wondered why airlines charge a ridiculous fee if my bags are a bit overweight. If weight is so damn critical, why doesn't the 300 lb person with the 40 lb bag pay more than the 150 lb person with the 50 lb bag?

Replacing equipment is part of being in business. But if she wants to charge a certain group extra for any reason, she needs to state it up front.

BIG sign in the window saying that she charges fat people extra. She also needs to have a scale next to the register just in case her "eyeballing" of the potential customer's weight is incorrect. Then the problem self corrects.

Of course there's a lot of annoying and destructive behavior that's not singled out for special fees by anyone. How about the airlines charge and extra fee for parents that bring aboard crying babies on an 11 hour flight from LA to Frankfurt? Not destructive, you say? My mom has tinnitus, and when people make high pitched squeals like the little darlings do, her ears hurt and ring for hours afterward, enough to bring tears to her eyes.

I completely agree that large people should pay for two seats. I am tired of sharing my seat with a fat person. It is wrong that I don't get to use the seat I paid for because someone else's fat is spilling over onto my seat. When you rent a small plane you pay according to your weight, it should be the same for regular flights. Why should I pay the same ticket price as the 600 pound person when I only weigh 125 (or what about my 45 lb child) and I only get to use half my seat? When flying, weight is the factor used to determine how much fuel is required.

As for medical reasons for being fat, how about overeating, eating junk food and not excercising? My friend's father easily weighs way over six hundred pounds, why? Because he eats four times the amount of food as my 190 lb husband.

Obesity is rarely a bona fide medical issue - you didn't see any fat people coming out of Belsen did you? But I don't think that's really the issue here at all.

Adding charges after the service has been rendered is sneaky. I hate when places do that. The excuse that the chairs have a 200lb limit is pretty hard to believe - those are some weak chairs in that case.

They could be upfront about it or just work it into the general charge so they don't have to say "you pay extra because your fat ass might break my chair," or they could just set up a "repairs and maintenance fund" that they keep topped up without having to humiliate people (and drive away customers by so doing) with a fat charge. Problem solved. Part of running a business is taking costs into consideration.

I'm with Steamer on the airlines...it should be total weight, you and bags if the justification is the cost. Me and two bags weight about as much as 1/2 the people getting on planes with me lately. And really obese people are a danger on the plane even when they're not in the exit row...I always get an aisle seat so I'm not trapped in by one.

P.S. I'm assuming here we're talking garden variety fat, not 500lbs fat. And about the airlines question, I would be pissed off if I had to share my seat with someone else's fat spilling over the arm rest. Sod that for a game of soldiers!

My husband buys two seats when he flies. It's more comfortable for him and I'm sure for his neighbors, although he does fit into a single seat by airline standards (upper body overflowing in to the next seat, but hey, he can put the armrests down!) Coach seats nowadays are so narrow as to be a tight squeeze for all but the most petite persons. If DH and I fly together, we buy a row of three seats and it's almost luxurious in comparison, and still cheaper than two first class seats.

As far as the salon, if they know their chairs only accommodate 200 lbs and they allow a 300 lb lady to use it and it breaks under her, and she is injured, the salon could be held liable. So IMO they should just have a policy and a sign stating that the spa chairs are rated for 200 lbs or less. They can still give pedicures without the spa chairs. I've gotten them myself when all the chairs were full.

Sod that for a game of soldiers!

I have no idea what that means, but it's awesome.

MonicaP, basically it means "Nuts to doing this!" ;)

It is beyond outrageous to add a charge to an advertised price after the service has been performed and the customer cannot choose to decline the service.

How about if they charged her an extra fee at the end and said "customers with really dirty nails must pay extra"?

Also a $2,500 chair with a 200 pound capacity? I call bullshit. What is it a dollar store lawn chair with $2,499 taped to the bottom?

You can charge whatever you like, but this is deceptive and false business practice and I hope nobody pays for it.

Amy you did not have to pay a higher price than on the sign if they didn't tell you ahead of time.

"Sod that for a game of soldiers!"

I just had to google that. Found the site below with all kinds of great UK slang.

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/s.htm

This has got to be my favourite:

soapy tit wank

The problem is that everyone is looking for the absolute line in the sand... and it doesn't help much.

Weight is a whole other issue than just about any other condition. Didja ever look at the side of a ladder before using it to make sure it's rated correctly? Most basic consumer units, esp the litle 3 step ones are rated at 200# MAXIMUM. Do most people including me ignore that? Sure, but if the ladder collapses under me because I weigh 250#, it isn't the manufacturer's fault, it's mine.

Weight causes material issues with many things... a chica that weighs 130# will prolly never wear her couch out... I wear them out sooner becasue of the way my mass acts on everything.

So, we come back to our salon owner. She has done stupid stuff... but wrong? Stupid/smart is driving a customer away that you don't want anyway because they are too much trouble. It's the businesses perogative to do so, even if it is stupid. Adding a surcharge in that way isn't smart, and there could be a tussle over it, but who you gonna sue for 5bucks? The chairs may well be rated at 200#, because of old very few people weighed that. Even today, most office chairs will structurally take a fair weight, but their suspension cylinders may not.

Importantly, if you weigh 165#, YOU MAY NEVER THINK ABOUT SUCH THINGS.

Wouldn't it be gender discriminatory to weigh in for an airline flight when women are genrally lighter and smaller than men? Interesting question, no?

There is just no real line in the sand for stuff like this, people need to be more flexible.

The market takes care of stuff like this. You want to cater to this woman? You get a bigger chair for her, and advertize the fact that you specialize in pedicure comfort for everyone. The other salon owner loses business and you gain some. Airlines are a different problem because size and weight ARE a concern for them. Jets have a weight limit, and are finite in size. They have always gotten by on having a size range. Will it have to change? Perhaps.

In any case I generally don't fly because it's too inconvenient, but I always try to get an aisle seat in an exit row, so I have some space for my shoulders that doesn't belong to another pasenger. 2ft. across the shoulders doesn't fit in a seat so well, and it has nothing to do with my weight, but my bones.

SO I'm assuming there is a "metabolic problem" other than eating more than one burns off? I wasn't aware of any disease known to man that would cause someone to add as fat calories needed for existence. I mean, if that were true, wouldn't there be at least a few fat people even in starving populations?

Yes, foods that make your blood sugar spike will make you feel hungry later, but all you have to do is ignore that sugar-crash hunger. Yes, some meds slow your metabolism or up your appetite, but again all you have to do is not give in to it. This idea that we have to eat every time we feel a little hungry is absurd.

Bears get fat on fat and protein (salmon). Cows get fat on whole grain. Eat too much of anything, you will get fat, period.

A business *should* be able to charge what they want, and the amrket decide if it's objectionable or not. I realize that's not how things work, but they should.

I always figured the long-hair surcharge was because of the shampoo and blow-dry taking longer?

Its not right to slap a hidden charge on at the end of a service no matter how justified the salon owner feels it is. Be upfront and post your prices with the fact that people over a certain weight will pay a surcharge. I know quite a few men who go for mani/pedis now who aren't metrosexual, and they are not obese, but do go over the 200 lb mark, although I have to add that they don't pay the usual price I pay. Men get charged more. Is that fair?

"Obesity is a medical issue, and we don't charge people with other medical issues for the potential danger they may pose to health care workers. If you're an EMT or nurse, your job is to treat people with medical problems, whatever they may be."

Nope. It's a eating-too-much issue. And no way in hell I'm ruining my back to lift a fat person. You eat the food, you lift yourself.

Ye gods. I do learn a lot here. Today I've learned that if I start a business of this sort, I need to try to get a fix on my customer base and purchase suitable furniture and equipment.

Or maybe I could put up a sign with my restrictions on it, and both weigh and measure each customer (because damage can be caused not just by weight, but by girth).

Then I need to make sure my "going out of business" signs are ready and handy, because I'll need them.

Muffins that used to be the size of a small person's fist are now four times that size, yet I don't often see anyone cutting them into fourths and sharing them out. The typical breakfast at a "family-style" restaurant that used to be two eggs, two pieces of sausage or bacon and an english muffin is now three eggs, three good-sized pancakes, bacon AND sausage, a huge heap of hash browns and an english muffin. Restaurant portions have gotten huge but in recent years folks act as though they are legally obligated to finish the entire meal within the confines of the restaurant. Back in the day, "doggie bags" were the norm, even though portions were smaller. Yet somehow, even with all of these obvious indicators, most, if not all obese people nowadays have "medical issues".

And doesn't it seem that the biggest PC subjects - the ones that require the softest of kid gloves - are the ones that involve a lack of discipline? If someone suggests that an obese person pay for two seats in an airplane, that person is attacked as the most vicious, inconsiderate person ever for even suggesting the idea. And heaven help the person who suggests that a person's obesity is tied more to their consumption of a six pack of soda a day and super-sized fast food meals than a medical issue. Bottom line is if you want to eat enough calories to feed a typical family of four, then you need to pony up the extra money for a plane ticket for the effect that calorie consumption will have on your size. Finito. End of story.

I don't really care whether they want to charge people more for being fat, but it probably makes more business sense to just charge everyone $25.

That way unless more than 20% of your business is people over 200 lbs, you'll make the same amount or more and won't piss people off your customers, which just happens to be the two most important things in running a business.

Fat people know that they are fat. It is hurtful enough for friends and family to admonish them for their weight. I can't imagine the sting of hearing it from a virtual stranger.

Adding a charge on the back end, and embarrassing this woman, is just plain wrong, as well as horrible business practice. If the chair truly does cost $2500 to fix, what kind of dent is $5 going to make?

If breaking the chair is a concern, the salon should invest in one or two sturdy chairs for their heavier clients, and add it into the cost of doing business. Everyone who is heavy is not overweight. What if a particularly muscular and tall man or woman comes in for a pedicure? Taking into account that muscle weighs more than fat, but is also more compact, they may not look "overweight", but would probably put a similar amount of stress on the chair.

Should fat people lose their fat and improve the quality, and probably the length, of their lives? Absolutely. But, this is still a free country. Let each person choose as they will. If we were to take a close scrutiny of each others habits and activities, I'm sure we could find they impact society both positively and negatively, so please don't tell me about the cost that fat people, or smokers, or drinkers, or whatever, add to the rest of us. This is part and parcel of living with other people.

I call BS. I go to these types of Asian nail salons frequently and they will often try to upcharge you for services you didn't want, usually by asking you in rapidfire broken English then acting like they can't understand you (and likely they really can't) when you see and protest the charges. This just sounds like another one of those BS upcharges. When it's happened to me, I'll grudgingly pay, since it's easier than arguing with the language barrier, but I'll tip less, if at all, (normally I'm a very good tipper) and I'm sure as hell not going back there. This would be doubly true if the extra charge was an accompanied by an attack on my weight.

And even if you buy the line that a $2500 chair only holds 200 pounds (which I don't), how exactly is the salon determining who is at risk for breaking the chairs? An 5'0 woman might look obese but still weigh less than 200 pounds, whereas a 5'11 woman (or a man) could weigh 200 without appearing overweight. The only ethical way to do this would be to weigh all the customers, and you can imagine how well THAT would go over.

Ultimately this is a really stupid business practice. The $5 she makes per overweight person isn't going to offset the reduction in tips and loss of business. I'm sure the salon owner is going to lose money from this, and she probably deserves to.

I looked up pedicure chairs, and yeah, those puppies are pricey.

I also came upon the video. We probably all look like behemoths to the woman running things.

Anyway, it just reinforced what I said earlier about learning your customer base. A poster at the video site asked a question like "Why would they have chairs with a 200 pound weight limit? Do they know this area?" or words to that effect. (Which cracked me up, because I had been thinking that in California I would be considered too heavy. In Georgia, probably not.)

I'm agreeing that a 200lb weight limit for a chair sounds fishy, yeah 200 lbs is on the high end but there are quite a lot of people, especially tall ones, who weight 200.

This reminds me of the debate over tiered data plans for smart phones and ISP's.

For anyone who thinks that flimsy pedicure chairs can't possibly be expensive, I invite you to peruse any office furniture catalog. My company bought several hundred nice looking "folding" chairs on wheels for our office. Most have broken after 2 years of use. They were $600 each.

Any business should be able to charge any amount they want for any reason ... as long as it is clearly documented (no surprises.) Let the consumers vote with their feet.

Jill, I forget what study but it has been shown that people tend to eat what is put in front of them. Even snooty French people who scoff at Americans eating too much, eat too much if it is set in front of them.

It's also been shown that you can reduce a portion size by 20% and most people won't even notice.

I wish I could remember where I saw it, though.

I agree with Marina. What good is adding $5 really going to do? She'd have to service a lot of people over 200 pds to pay for a new chair (I suck at math so somebody else can figure out the exact number). She probably won't have to worry about that now, as fat people are going to boycott her.

Besides, she let the lady sit down in the chair knowing she's beyond its capacity. She should have a sign that says "weight limit" on the chair itself, then perhaps discreetly suggest another place to sit or get a damage deposit (and a waiver lol).

It's a touchy issue that all businesses increasingly have to deal with. My obese guests were breaking beach chairs pretty regularly, so I invested in much heavier adirondeck style ones. They cost $250 a piece. I still have some of the weaker ones out, so I'm hoping the guests will figure out for themselves where best to sit.

DO YOUR OWN DAMN NAILS!

Sorry - I hate the whole nail-salon phenomenon.

Cut, file, buff, polish - how difficult is this?

Most of these places are crowded and noisy, so what kind of "pampering" are you really getting?

It's been said my many people here, but I'll say it too - a 200 lb. weight limit for a $2500 chair is fucking ridiculous. But if that's really the case, have a sign on the wall stating the weight limit and the extra charge for exceeding it. They would also need to have a scale available. Charging extra for being "overweight" is stupid and insulting. I'm overweight but I still weigh less than 200 lbs. Would I still be charged extra just because I look fat?

Cut, file, buff, polish - how difficult is this?

I'm clumsy with my left hand. So my left hand looks great, and my right hand looks like someone fingerpainted all over it.

Besides, I can cook for myself, too, but sometimes I like for someone else to do it.

"Wouldn't it be gender discriminatory to weigh in for an airline flight when women are genrally lighter and smaller than men?"
-It would be a dead heat if you included luggage.

"annexing half my seat like you're Germany and I'm Poland,"

In my case, those are typically large women. They generally smile very nicely at me. I generally shrink. I maybe a chunky guy, but I draw the line at women who outweigh me.

Unless they're 6'5" or something, in which I'll cut 'em some slack. But those women can't really fly coach...

From WebMD:

"In people older than 20, both men and women were a little more than 24 pounds heavier than in the early 1960s. By 2002, average weight for men was almost 191 pounds; for women, average weight was 163 pounds."

Average? Average!? Holy crap. I did not know that.

Yeah, I've read all the headlines about how fat Americans are getting, but I haven't read the articles. (On account of it's all about ME, and I am painfully aware of my own physical stuff.)

Anyway, now those statistics are eight years old, so get those stronger chairs pronto! 'Cuz with stuff like chocolate-covered bacon out there, we will probably just get worse before we get better.

Has anyone actually eaten that, by the way? I find myself strangely intrigued...

I'm surprised that on a site that frequently extolls Gary Taubes' writing to read such simplistic attitudes toward weight. Did any of you actually read his book? He makes a good case that many people have the causal arrow backwards when they think about weight gain: that you do not get fat by eating too much, you eat too much because your body is putting on fat and so you are hungry. (Just like a growing kid eats more because he is growing--he doesn't grow because he eats more.) The metabolism is pretty complicated and long-term sustained weight loss is an elusive goal for most to date.

Taubes' theory about the unique role carbs play in hunger and weight gain is intriguing if not yet proven but I think the evidence that many modern dietary patterns are the cause of weight gain is worthy of attention. Certainly, it's simplistic and tacky to default to the "fat people are lazy gluttons argument" if it's the very advice about proper eating habits that the medical establishment has been giving for a generation that has caused the obesity explosion.

As for the nail salon, they can do what they want, so long as expenses are acknowledged up front.

A buisness owner should be able to legally refuse service to anyone for any reason. And be able to charge the prices they want, with whatever reasonable or silly reason for it.

For whatever anecdote is worth, I have always been low-body-fat athletic, and was essentially a walking anatomy chart as a twenty-somthing--you could see pretty much every line of every muscle or vein under the skin.

I also had such a high caloric burn rate from my workouts, that I could eat anything I wanted, and it would be burned in the next workout. (I still ate very healthily, because of nutritional requirements.)

Later in life, I was merely trim in an ordinary way, until I cut out carbs on a lark. (My weight-lifting buddies all swear by such stuff, so I figured I would try it.)

Surprise! Right back to anatomy-chart definition, without changing anything in my life except sugar intake.

Whoa. I dropped about ten pounds of something I didn't know I had on me, and felt lighter in my movement than I did in years.

It was kind of freaky. As I said, only anecdote, but there you go.

"Muffins that used to be the size of a small person's fist are now four times that size, yet I don't often see anyone cutting them into fourths and sharing them out. The typical breakfast at a "family-style" restaurant that used to be two eggs, two pieces of sausage or bacon and an english muffin is now three eggs, three good-sized pancakes, bacon AND sausage, a huge heap of hash browns and an english muffin."

Yes! Portion sizes are creeping up, but people eat them anyway. Went to Outback with family when in the US last, drinks, appetizers (enough for a meal), main courses and pieces of cake about 4x what cake slices used to be makes a meal like that come in at 4,000 calories per person at leas, eaten at 8pm....how can you expect not to gain weight, eating like that? "It's just today" but unfortunately you can't tell your body to ignore 3 days' worth of calories and double your fat intake because it's somebody's birthday.

I have wondered why airlines charge a ridiculous fee if my bags are a bit overweight.
Posted by: Steamer

To offset the cost of worker comp claims by baggage hanndlers with wrenched backs

What do they need with a $2500 chair? What's special about it?

I think this is a great topic.

I went to lunch some time ago after a business meeting. A woman spent 5 minutes telling me all the damaging effects my smoking would have on my health. When I asked the 250# woman if she ever considered the health effects of carrying around an extra 125# the whole group bitched at me for being insensitive.

I refuse to sit next to a fat person on a plane who cannot stay off my seat. I've had airline people tell me I'm making a scene when I ask for one of us to be moved, but when I tell them I will continue to bitch until I get the seat I paid for they move one of us.