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But, “I don’t ever want to be perceived as disabled. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. That’s the most important thing,” he said.

“I want to be treated the same. Yes, I’m obese. Yes, I’m fat. Whatever you want to call me, I am that. But it doesn’t define who I am.”

In Canada, severe obesity has increased by more than 400 per cent over the past three decades, the conference heard. Today, an estimated 1.2 million Canadians have a body mass index, or BMI, of 35 or more.

As norms change, the law has a role in reflecting the shifting of those societal norms, Bogart told the obesity conference.

“Think of same-sex marriage, its dated attitudes in 1965, and think of where we are as we sit here, in 2015,” he said.

“As attitudes and behaviours change, the law also moved more or less in the same direction.”

In Europe, obesity has already been deemed a disability. In December, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of a Danish childcare worker who said he was fired because of his weight. According to British news reports, the man, who weighed 350 pounds, said he was let go after he could not bend down to tie his shoes.

The court held that people who are obese can be considered “disabled” and thus protected from discrimination, Bogart said. But the court stopped short of saying at what weight a person could claim disability.

In Canada, obesity is not a specifically protected ground in human rights codes, unlike sex, sexual orientation, religion and race.