Weight bias and the workplace

by Rebecca Puhl

Weight bias in the workplace was in the news again recently. Overweight and obese employees are starting to speak out against the unfair treatment they face, like lower rates of hiring, fewer promotions, and lower wages for the same work performed by thinner co-workers. In the past year, the media have also highlighted a number of weight-based discrimination cases involving obese employees who were wrongly terminated because of their weight. (Click here and here for two examples.).

It now seems as though employers are paying more attention to this issue as well. Some recent surveys of business managers in Britain indicate that weight prejudice is perceived to be a problem in the workplace. However, these problems may be stemming in part from stereotypes and attitudes by senior managers themselves, who report beliefs that overweight employees have poor self-control and lack of drive. A similar survey of over 2000 HR professionals showed that 93% of HR professionals would choose to hire a ‘normal weight’ person over an identically-qualified obese applicant, 11% believed that it is fair to terminate an employees because they are obese, 15% reported they would be less likely to promote an obese employee, and 12% reported beliefs that obese employees are not appropriate for face-to-face interactions with clients. Even with such strong evidence of weight-based prejudice, the researchers also found that issues of weight stigma are not being addressed in the workplace.

Weight bias towards obese employees is not new – these types of findings have been reported in research and in the media for over a decade. What is surprising to me, though, is that this situation doesn’t seem to be improving. If anything, it may be getting worse. In contrast to forms of racial or religious bias, it remains socially acceptable to stigmatize overweight individuals, even in their places of employment, despite no evidence to suggest differences in job performance between ‘normal’ weight and overweight employees. What should be done to address this problem? Raising awareness is needed, for sure, but is likely to be insufficient without broader policy changes. Many companies have already introduced measures to try to reduce and prevent obesity in their employees, but it’s hard to imagine that these well-intentioned efforts will be successful if those same employees are facing stigma and discrimination in the workplace.

Comments

[april]

Hi Dr. Puhl,

Many thaks for your excellent entries on this blog! I've read just about all of them, and I've learned a lot!

In fact, I just wrote about weight bias on my own blog last night. Entry is here:
http://www.mprize.org/blogs/archives/2007/01/against_weight.html

Or I think you can just click on my name and today's entry will come up. It's called "Against Weight Bias."

Thanks again for all your work. It's really eye opening and inspiring.

april

[april]

Trying this again... now I think the name will go straight to the blog entry.

april