My name is Jill. I’m the co-founder of the Body Confidence Canada Awards. As a kid growing up in Toronto, relatives often told me to hold in my stomach. When I was 12 years old, I secretly guzzled a dangerous amount of my mom's weight loss shake. The next day I ended up in the hospital. Within days, I received life-saving surgery. At 14, I was told by another teen that I was 'as big as a Mack Truck' and someone would only date me if 'they put a paper bag over my head.' I told my teacher and she told me to 'be strong...it would pass with time.' At 20, I was denied a job and told, I was 'so very talented with an infectious personality . . . but just too big for the screen.’ 

Sadly, my story isn't unique. That’s why I’ve started this petition and am asking for your signature. We need to do more to fight appearance-based discrimination - a PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE!

Appearance-based protection would mean human rights protection against size, weight, height discrimination and other physical appearances such as visible scars, alopecias, hair texture and facial differences for instance that may be used to discriminate against a person in any setting (i.e. workplace, school or restaurant).

It is every person’s right to live proudly and safely in the skin that they're in, and to live free from fear and discrimination because of their appearance. The Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC) recognizes this in regards to race, gender, sexual orientation and other necessary protected grounds but body size and physical appearance remains absent. You can help us change that by adding your name to this petition to make SIZE and physical appearance a protected ground in the OHRC. Every person in Ontario should have protection from verbal, physical, economic or emotional abuse related to the size, shape, weight, height and appearance of their body.  

All too many of us live under a cloud of stereotypes and judgments made about us because of how we look, whether we're big or small. These judgments often come with real social, mental, physical and economic consequences. Some of us don't pursue the careers and the lives we want because we are simply too scared of being treated without humanity because of our size. Some of us are even too afraid to go to the doctors when we are sick in fear of further body-shaming. Some of us take our own lives.

Did you know that according to the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University:

• over 50% of doctors felt fat patients were awkward, ugly, weak-willed and unlikely to comply with treatment;
• over 24% of nurses said they were repulsed by “obese” patients; 
• over 30% of teachers said being obese is the “worst thing that can happen to someone”; and 
• over 70% of people said they had been ridiculed by significant others in their lives?

Please add your name and share this petition. Thank you for your support!

Want to learn more? Check out these stories from MetroNews, CBC and TVO.