The-F-Word.org

About eight years ago, when I weighed 300 pounds, I was desperate to find a new job. I’d get called for interviews in which I thought I did relatively well, only to never get any calls back.

Fast forward just a couple years later. My professional qualifications are still relatively the same, but I weigh less than half my original body weight. I am hired at one of the premier global computer corporations in its corporate human resources department.

Coincidence? Maybe. But in my experiences, there is a vast difference in the way one is treated professionally when fat and when thin.

Now, MSNBC reports on a subject overweight people know all too well: discrimination against fat people in the workplace, especially women.

According to the report, in a recent Yale University survey of about 2,000 overweight women, 53 percent of those polled said co-workers stigmatized them, and 43 percent said their employers stigmatized them.

A study by Tennessee State University economists revealed obese men and women can expect to earn on average anywhere from 1 to 6 percent less than normal weight employees, with heavy women being the biggest losers when it comes to their paychecks.

Let’s face it, being fat isn’t a piece of cake regardless if you’re a man or a woman. But it seems as if fat women have a heavier load to bear.

One study cited in Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination found that 16% of employers admitted they wouldn’t hire an obese woman under any conditions. Another 44% reported they would only hire them under certain circumstances.

This is not to say that fat men do not suffer size discrimination – they do, but at much higher weights than women do. On a talented female worker, fat is a dead weight. On a male worker, it can (sometimes) add “substance.”

In our weight-obsessed society, fat women are considered to have simply “let themselves go” while less loathing is doled out for an overweight man. It’s the same reason extremely attractive women pulled out of Maxim photo spreads are paired with hairy, fat TV husbands who are ugly both on the inside and outside (i.e. According to Jim, The King of Queens).

Not that I believe the fight against fat bias ought to be split along gender lines. It’s a collective fight. But it seems as if women have more of an uphill climb than do men.

Not all fat people are employable. Not all thin people are stellar employees. Corporations ought to realize that with the rising rates of obesity, there are going to be more overweight people with much to offer the workplace.