If falling over repeatedly in balancing poses is disruptive, then I have ruined a LOT of yoga classes! Balancing positions are hard for me. It takes a lot of muscle development for many people to do them, regardless of size — your body just needs time to develop muscle strength appropriate for your shape and size, which it will eventually do — and my body grows muscle really slowly. I am also extremely thin. So I don’t think you should feel self-conscious and like it’s all because of your fat — people really aren’t looking at you during the class! (And if they are, they need to learn to focus.) Also, when I’m balancing, and someone falls over next to me, it only rarely makes me fall, and even then it does not bother me because I 1) should be learning to meditate well enough to do my yoga peacefully in a bus terminal, and 2) I fall over so much myself that, well, fair enough. I just tell myself that if I stop pushing myself and stop falling over, I’m not doing it right – you’re supposed to push a little.

I’m not embarrassed about sharing my yoga space with “normal” weight women. I refuse to let others try to humiliate me for something they don’t understand, and I refuse to feel humiliated about something over which I have only partial control but am still trying to address the best way I know how.

All that being said, I don’t go to the yoga studio much because I find it frustrating. Even with modifications there are a lot of things that are extremely difficult to do. Sometimes even just moving from one pose to another is a challenge.

Plus, it’s not just bulk that makes the individual poses difficult to achieve. The weight also impairs my balance. All of this makes me more awkward in performing yoga. I often feel that my awkwardness, clumsiness, is rather disruptive to the meditative environment in a studio.

I would LOVE a yoga class tailored to the balance and bulk issues of the seriously overweight, so that the teacher could focus on modifications just for weight issues, and everybody would be experiencing very similar challenges. It would feel much less disruptive, and we could explore more in depth pose modifications and methods of moving from one pose to another.

Fixed it for ya.

What do you think happens now if you’re in the individual market? My husband has a BMI of 28, which makes his insurance premium jump 25%. He is quite healthy, and so his insurance is still affordable. But it’s hardly the case that the market doesn’t discriminate based on weight as it is.

Countries with single payer do not have fitness requirements. There’s absolutely no reason to think that we would, nor is there any reason to think that our current system is to be preferred on these grounds.

Amy – The univeral health care here in Canada does not make it legal for health care to be denied to anyone. In fact, that is the point of the health care system here – everyone has the RIGHT to access the health care system. Now that doesn’t mean we haven’t had our fair share of crazy ass MD’s trying to make up their own rules, but they’ve seen harsh consequences(media feeding frenzy, demonstrations) based on those attempts forcing those very same MD’s to do major damage control for their clinics, and personal lives.

I would say the general science is taught the same, as is the general fat phobia, the major difference being, that here, care cannot be refused.

BTW, and I don’t think anyone noticed because I’m not a regular commenter AND I commented in the midst of the great kid debate, but I put my foot in it with the thin privilege above by referring to fat-shaming comments made in a workout class as “background noise.” Um, it’s background noise because I’m thin(ish). Given the time I’ve spent on this site, I should know that those comments are NOT background noise to a lot of you guys, they’re in-your-face-with-a-giant-80s-boombox noise. So if anyone noticed and thought, “I wish it was just in the background,” I apologize. If not, excuse my neurosis and have a great weekend!