Lose it or lose it

A veteran Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper has been told to lose the excess weight he's been carrying around for years or lose his job.
That may sound harsh, but it is not unreasonable. The trooper has been given plenty of time to comply with an order to slim down, but hasn't done so, providing a variety of excuses.
Now, since his story got statewide exposure in the press, offers of help have been made, including one from a Tae Bo instructor willing to provide free workout lessons.
Trooper Neil Hedrick, 45, has been with the patrol since 1977 and is assigned to the Massillon post, where his job is to inspect commercial trucks to make sure they follow safety regulations.
Hedrick said the limit was unfair because his weight, which has bounced between 220 pounds and 300 pounds, doesn't affect how he does his job.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But the patrol has reasonable weight requirements for its troopers, scaled to height, age and gender and every trooper is required to meet them. Every trooper should also be fit enough for transfer to any OSHP duty, not tied to a sedentary assignment.
Hedrick is 68 pounds over the maximum of 212 pounds for man six feet tall and over 40 years old. He has been under orders to slim down for two years.
He says he tried diet pills, but they prevented him from sleeping. He signed up for a Jenny Craig weight loss program, but dropped out because it got too expensive. More expensive than losing his job?
What's ahead
Beginning next week, he will be suspended for up to a year, during which time he will have to lose the excess weight or face termination. Because he is about 15 months short of full retirement, he also would lose a quarter of his pension, he said.
That, it would seem, should give him the incentive he needs to lose weight. It's unfortunate that he allowed the issue to reach this point.
"The people that I work with out here all feel I've been very competent," said Hedrick, who was the district's trooper of the year in 1995. "They've all told me how unfair they think this is."
We can believe that he is a likable fellow and that none of his friends or associates would want to see him fired or lose part of his pension.
But we're equally sure that in his line of work Hedrick has bumped into lots of nice guys who were, unfortunately, exceeding the speed limit or whose trucks exceeded the weight limit. Some of those nice guys might have even faced losing their jobs if they got another ticket and lost their licenses.
But rules are rules. Hedrick was bound as a state trooper to enforce the laws of the road, and he is bound to live by the regulations of his department.
Miriam Berg, president of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, in Mount Marion, N.Y., has suggested that Hedrick file a lawsuit to overturn the weight requirements. Apparently she believes that being a trooper is an individual right. It's not. It's a privilege that must be earned from the first day of service to the last.