A Little Weight Goes a Long Way

“Living Large” (Dec. 27) reports a 400-pound woman sued Southwest Airlines after she alleged she was humiliated by being asked to buy a second seat. Southwest says they do everything they can to accommodate people of all sizes.

Perhaps extra-large persons should be required to pay for the extra space needed to accommodate their size. People don’t object to the warning of safe-weight capacity posted in elevators, do they?

For safety’s sake (and just plain old common sense), the FAA should regulate the process and make and enforce rules about weight limit per seat. This is not a case of discrimination, it’s a case of safety and comfort and, yes, fairness for all involved .

LOUISE HAUTER

La Canada

*

While I greatly sympathize with fat people, they must also realize they create problems for us not-so-fat on airplanes.

On a return flight from Australia to LAX, I was seated next to a person who made my flight almost unbearably uncomfortable.

The woman’s arm was so large she took one-third of my seat space. On the entire 13-hour flight, I was pinned in my seat barely able to shift positions.

We all must endure humiliations at times. Why must opportunists always win? Should I sue the airline that placed a fat person next to me?

SUZY KVAMMEN

Newport Beach

*

The article on the National Assn. to Advance Fat Acceptance was timely and well-considered.

It has been noted that heavy people in other cultures, such as Samoa, do not suffer the range of ill health effects associated with obesity in this country.

In Kim Chernin’s book, “The Obsession,” she entertains the idea that the stress placed on the overweight in our society by bigotry and constant pressure to reduce actually may shorten the lives of the overweight more than obesity itself.

This culture, being image-driven and having our aesthetic priorities formed by the camera, has a built-in prejudice against not only the fat, but the well-rounded. People who are not tall and angular, unfortunately, are not found beautiful by the camera, and photographic imagery is what dominates our senses and forms the context of our aesthetic judgments.

In a previous era, when painters, lithographers and the like were the custodians of our aesthetic expressions, this bias did not exist.

JOANNE G. MURPHY

Los Angeles

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Thanks a lot. That’s just what we needed--an article justifying and supporting morbid obesity.

Next to cigarette smoking, obesity represents the most serious health problem that exists. As an anesthesiologist I can’t tell you how many misses and near-misses have occurred in my 40 years of practice as a result of obesity.

I’m not saying everyone has to look like Twiggy--but the other extreme is equally unacceptable.

JOSEPH RIGGIO, M.D.

Toluca Lake