Free Republic

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana court has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee's weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work -- raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims. The Indiana Court of Appeals decision, coupled with a recent Oregon court ruling, could make employers think twice before hiring workers with health conditions that might cost their companies thousands of dollars at a shot down the road. "This kind of situation will happen again ... and employers are undoubtedly worried about that," said Lewis Maltby,...

Obesity is more dangerous than smoking and will dramatically shorten the lives of millions, a landmark study has found. While smoking reduces life by an average of ten years, the research says being seriously overweight can cut life expectancy by as much as 13 years. The Foresight report, written by 250 leading scientists, says Britain's obesity crisis is so severe that it would take at least 30 years to reverse. If current trends continue, by 2050 about 60 per cent of men, 50 per cent of women and 25 per cent of children in the UK will be clinically obese...

Five Fat Girls Sought Cops report "flurry of chubby fists" in Toledo milk heist AUGUST 9--Robbery is never funny. Except when it's described by Toledo police officers with a peculiar sense of humor. Early this morning, Scott Gibson, 44, was returning from the grocery store with a gallon of milk when, as he told cops, he was surrounded by "5 fat black girls" in the parking lot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. As described by officers Patrick Sutherland and Kristi Eycke in the below Toledo Police Department incident report, one of the "hefty felons" asked Gibson to surrender his milk....