IF You’re White and Female, Being Overweight Can be Really Hazardous to Your Paycheck
Why are overweight white women penalized more than other overweight people when it comes to salary?
The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination (CSWD) on their website, provides the council’s position on weight discrimination in detail: Some of it follows:
Prospective employers refuse to hire large size people, especially in jobs where employees do physical work, or jobs where employees interact with the public.
CSWD position: employers can insist that their public representatives be well groomed, appropriately dressed, personable, and physically capable of doing the job well. But any criterion which excludes an entire group of people–African Americans, people with disabilities, or larger-than-average people–is unacceptable.
Large people are subject to harassment about their weight by their employers, are kept in jobs beneath their abilities, and are often demoted or fired because of stated or unstated weight prejudice.
CSWD position: the only valid criterion for job evaluation, raises, promotions, disciplinary action, demotion, or firing is job performance. If an employer thinks an employee’s size hinders their ability to do the job, it is incumbent on the employer to discuss this with the employee and make a determination, not to make a judgment about the person’s ability based on their size.
Physicians and other health care professionals often advise fat patients to lose weight no matter what their medical condition, whereas a thin person with the same condition would be given medicine or other medical treatment. Hospitals and other health care facilities and equipment (such as cat scans and MRIs) are often inaccessible to large people.
Large people are systematically denied health insurance and life insurance, or they are forced to pay higher premiums than those of average weight.
CSWD position: a person’s size does not determine their health or the healthfulness of their lifestyle.
Applicants are often turned down by educational institutions because of their size. In a famous discrimination case which went to the Supreme Court, a college made a nursing student sign a contract promising to lose weight or be expelled (the Court invalidated the contract).
The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination makes the following suggestions for dealing with instances of weight discrimination:
Start a file. Gather together all of your employment records, especially your
job evaluations. If the employer claims that your weight prevents you from
doing the job, you need to show that you have been performing all the
required duties.
Take notes. If a colleague, supervisor, or employer speaks to you about your
job performance, or about your weight or appearance, write down the date,
time, names of people present, and what was said to the best of your
recollection. The sooner you write it down, the more likely it is to be
accurate and credible.
Address the issue. Make an appointment with the appropriate person to talk
about the problem. Act polite, but be assertive. Do not act defensive. Do not
be confrontative. Describe the events, trends, statements, evaluations, or
actions that are making you feel that there is a problem. Ask the other
person whether your perception is accurate. If they say it is, then ask what
can be done to solve the problem.
If you think your size is the issue, but it has never been mentioned, ask
your employer directly if this is the problem. Again, do not act defensive.
Remember, the problem here is that your employer is prejudiced, not that
there is anything wrong with you.
If nothing can be resolved, inform your employer, politely, that you consider
this to be unfair treatment and that you intend to take steps to address it.
Look into and follow the employee grievance procedures for your company.
Contact your local Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office
(800-669-3362) and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU).
The Council has a small list of attorneys who have dealt with size
discrimination cases, but if there is no one on the list near your area, ask
your local chapter of the American Bar Association (or a local attorney
referral service) to refer you to a lawyer who specializes in employment
discrimination. Go to www.abanet.org/referral/home.html
Read the books and articles listed in the Council’s bibliography on size
discrimination, including the summaries of major court cases. Make this and
all other information available to your attorney. Keep copies of everything
you give your attorney.
Even though there are very few laws and ordinances which prohibit size
discrimination, there have been many successful court cases against employers
who discriminate against their large-size employees. The Council is happy to
act as a consultant to individuals and attorneys involved in weight
discrimination cases, and asks that you keep us informed.
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Post Commenthtdjpf
On February 8, 2010 at 11:05 am
Don’t agree with the statement in article that: “the problem here is that your employer is prejudiced, not that there is anything wrong with you.” That isn’t true. If you are morbidly obese, YOU do have a problem. Your employer is likely already making all sorts of special “accommodations” for you size. The same way they make accommodations for those that are very tall or very small, so it costs them more to keep you as an employee. To make up for that “COST” or “LOSS”, you get paid little less than “Bob” who doesn’t require the $500 specially reinforced chair, or whatever. There are very few over -weight or obese people that really can’t help it. There are medical conditions that “cause” weight problems and medical conditions that are the result of being over-weight/obese. Now before You start flaming me as a “hater”. I don’t like BMI as they use it. The data for the “tables” for the statistics were taken from a bad sample, (Post WW II Europe, in late 1940’s to early 1960’s. Depression era, WW II, and 1950’s US.). Problem was with that those populations for most part were one step away from starving, so go figure on height/weight ratio. I’m 6’2”. According to BMI charts I should be 168 lbs. If I was that, which I have been in high school, I would be “skin and bones, but at 227lbs I’m according to the BMI charts “obese”. But I only have 12% body fat by other test s. Nuff said.