I have a deep empathy for individuals with disabilities, largely due to my close interactions with them. My mother battled severe rheumatoid arthritis for fifteen years, a condition that gradually deteriorated her spine, rendering her unable to stand or walk. Additionally, my in-laws, who are kind individuals, both face disabilities; my father-in-law copes with blindness and neuropathy in his legs, while my mother-in-law struggles with digestive issues that not only debilitate her but also lead to other physical ailments. Lastly, my wife wrestles with a chronic cardiac ailment that limits her ability to walk long distances and a neurological disorder that presents with pain and balance issues.
So, I understand the problems the disabled go through in travel, especially when traveling by air. But I have a hard time mustering up a lot of sympathy for a traveler whose primary issue is that she is morbidly obese, and less sympathy still when she insists that non-obese passengers pony up for a free extra seat to accommodate her girth. But that’s what Washington’s “influencer” Jae’lynn Chaney wants – and she insists that being fat isn’t a handicap.
Jae’lynn Chaney, 27, posted a video in response to a comment that was made under one of her videos that said: ‘Obesity is not a disability.’Â
‘Let’s be clear: being fat does not automatically mean you’re disabled,’ the influencer, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, wrote in an Instagram video that she posted on Tuesday.
‘Repeat after me: fat and disabled are not the same thing. Good job class.
No, I’m not going to get into the “polyamorous” angle. Nope. Not going there.
Of course, fat and disabled are the same thing when the person in question is, as Chaney appears to be, approaching bariatric proportions. There comes a point with bariatric patients, usually at around the 450-pound mark, where the person’s musculoskeletal system will no longer support them. That is not cause for the airlines to raise prices so you can have a free extra seat; this is cause for a serious medical intervention.
But wait! There’s more!
She recounted her experience with a wheelchair assistant on a jet bridge after a recent landing at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.
In a video posted to social media, she claimed that when she tried to deplane the aircraft, the employee assigned to help assist her started to walk away when she realized she was supposed to help the plus-size woman and not one of the smaller passengers.
Our own airport – Anchorage – is a small airport, as these things go. My wife, due to her cardiac condition, uses the wheelchair service. And she, I feel I should point out, is a little, 4’11”, 125-pound lady. As our return flights most of the year arrive in the evening, and as the small-ish Anchorage airport has a small staff to work the wheelchair service, my wife frequently has the same young lady as her wheelchair driver; this girl can’t weigh 110 pounds soaking wet.Â
There’s no way she could push a 450-pound bariatric patient up the jetway – or the slight ramp to the terminal. And there’s no reason that the airports should have to keep an Olympic weightlifter on retainer to push around someone of this size.
Jae’lynn Chaney’s problems are almost certainly her own doing. Judging from the photos, she’s not just “fat,” she is morbidly obese, to the point where it may well be life-threatening.Â
If it is an actual, permanent solution to her travel woes she seeks, she might be well-advised to take a good hard look in the mirror for the source of her troubles – and then maybe do some exercises, like pushing herself away from the dinner table.
