IF You’re White and Female, Being Overweight Can be Really Hazardous to Your Paycheck

Watch out if you happen to be overweight!  Overall, studies have shown that obese workers were paid on average from 1.4% to 4.5% less than slimmer co-workers.   This pay-cut is generally considered an eye for an eye.  An April 10, 2008 Management Issues report estimates that due to increased illness and insurance costs, obese employees cost United States industry 45 billion dollars each year.  No one disputes that figure.  Nearly all studies utilize the standard means of defining obesity, using body mass index (BMI), a formula that factors in an individual’s height and weight in determining obesity. The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) provides the following BMI guidelines: 

• If you are 5’9” tall and weigh 128 lbs or less and have a BMI under 18.5, you are underweight. 
• If you are 5’9” tall and weigh 125-168 lbs and have a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9, you are at a healthy weight. 
• If you are 5’9” tall and weigh 169-202 lbs and have a BMI of 25-29.9, you are considered overweight. 
• If you are 5’9” tall and weigh 203 lbs or more and have a BMI above 30, you qualify for being officially obese.    

But if you happen to be a woman, Caucasian and overweight, you will need to watch out even more!  Overweight men can be penalized up to 2.6% of the typical salary that slimmer men make, but for overweight white women  that penalty can go all the way to 6.2%  . Its fine and dandy to rationalize that obesity causes higher healthcare costs and thus higher insurance payments made by employers, but do we really know that the increased cost of healthcare for obesity is caused more by white, overweight women than any other people with a weight problem?

 A 2007 Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed an increasing trend toward penalizing white, overweight women more than any other group. David Lempert, the author of the study, states that previous studies have shown white women to be the only race-gender group whose weight significantly impacts their salaries, and this most recent study only showed this bias increasing.  Heavier workers have been shown to receive an average of $1.25 less than slimmer co-workers doing the same job.  This amounts to an estimated $100,000 less in gross salary over a 40 year career!  Even slightly heavy women make 6% less in wages than other, thinner women.  Very heavy women make 24% less!  Such a penalty only affects men at the very highest weight levels.