When you go into an interview, the key to winning is two things: how you sell yourself, and how others buy into your pitch. Apparently, according to my mother, if you are too fat, you can’t possibly get employed. I can imagine how horrible a future that would look if we based employment on that.
Now before an employer actually hires an individual, they would now be required to look at how much you exercised and how much your exercise will keep you alive to work in the future. Not only that, right next to that report would be a report on the daily foods you eat before and after you go to work. You eat too much in one week and someone comes from HR saying, “Johnson, we have to talk.”
I know employers want a certain kind of individual, and I realize that this is an age of survival of the fittest, but what does that have to do with me getting a job? I have a Bachelor’s Degree and have worked on computers for most of my natural life. I’ve worked in computer labs in colleges helping fellow students do the simple tasks that would otherwise annoy people who have equal knowledge as me. Why can’t that count for something?
The overweight have to pay the same bills as the muscle-bound steroidians we drool over on television and film. That would be an interesting demographic of homeless people to come should this trend catch on as it seemingly has been. If corporations really want their employers to be better fit, then maybe they should help pay those high memberships to Bally’s.
It seems like a small and petty issue, but I wonder if this problem is really bothering people enough that folks need to deny them employment.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - RedTard
Interesting point. People can be fired from a job for smoking at home. With that precedent I don't see any reason why businesses could not implement legal policies for other health risk factors such as obesity in a similiar manner. Even if it's not official company policy being fat, or even ugly, can definitely hurt you job prospects. Life never was fair.
2 - ryan
Just like going to an interview dressed poorly makes a bad impression, going to an interview fat implies a certain laziness and lack of hygiene. Is that fair? No, but it is reality.
3 - Matthew Milam
So basically all fat people should be unemployed?
4 - Ruthie
With so much political correctness out there these days I'm surprised by the attitude towards weight. For some weight isn't a matter of diet but genetics. I would hope if this kind of discrimination can be proven in the office its taken to court. A person shouldn't be judged by anything other than if they are clean, neat and qualified. I heard that some really large people have to buy two plane tickets when they fly. I would think this is discrimination too. I wonder what the stats are on hiring people with the opposite eating disorder? Anorexics and bullemics are at risk for hospitalization and death too. I think when this hiring or not hiring based on weight can be proven...it needs to be taken to court.
5 - Matthew Milam
My personal issue with the obsession over weight, is that it has nothing to do with health. It has to do with the craze of everyone looking exactly like the next girl.
I had that issue with Thandie Newton in Crash, who looked incredibly thick in Mission Impossible 2, but looked horrible and old in Crash by the lack of weight.
6 - Jackie
I think it's a mix of both. Unfortunately, there has always been an emphasis on Hollywood looks. However, there are some health issues involved in this one, too. I know that severe obesity killed my mother when I was but a child myself. I've never been a lightweight myself, but I saw both my mother and her brother die at around 40 years old. While I myself am not the Hollywood Prototype, I vowed to myself I'd never let myself get that large - it's too hard to lose and takes too much of a toll on your health. In a way, I understand the two seats on airlines for severely obese, too. If they take up two seats, that's ... well ... two seats, not one. Perhaps it isn't fair, but a lot of life isn't. I'm already a decade older than my Mom ever lived to be. That wasn't fair, either.
I think too thin is bad, too. I also think too much focus is based on appearance for acceptance.
But I can't change the world. All I can do is to not judge folks on looks alone. There are a lot of true gems out there who don't have the Hollywood looks.
7 - Victor Lana
This is an important topic, Matthew, and you've handled it gracefully. The issue is simple: those in power still base decisions about employees (or potential employees) based on ludicrous things like appearance. Can you imagine not giving someone a promotion because he or she is overweight? All the qualifications in the world wouldn't matter because the boss wants a certain kind of appearance?
Unfortunately, this is a fact of life, but it is an inequity that must be fought. Hiring and promotions should be based strictly on performance. If it is based on anything else it is discrimination.
8 - ryan
You can try to excuse all obesity with genetic, but the reality is the majority of it can be attributed to bad habits, laziness and unhealthiness.
As such, I can't blame an employer for not promoting an employee with those attributes.
9 - Matthew Milam
The other reality of the situation is that you are going to have people who are overweight. Everyone needs money, do you deny them the right to make it because they aren't Fabio?
10 - Andy Marsh
Ruthie - have you ever had to sit next to one of those folks that should have to buy two seats but don't? Talk about discrimination! Imagine you're in the middle seat in between two people that should have had to buy two seats!
What about a job like I have, where you have to be able to fit through a 2 ft opening on board a ship? Don't think some over weight people would meet that requirement...that same person might be a better instructor than I am, but if you can't get into the work space you can't perform the job.
I think before people make blanket statements about overweight folks and company hiring practices it might be a good idea to look at some practical factors as well.
How about two people equally qualified...are you going to hire the one that looks like a medical condition waiting to happen or the person that appears physically fit?
11 - NR Davis
Which takes us back to a question posed earlier: Do fat people deserve to be unemployed, and subsequently homeless, ill, and dead?
Here's another: Do fat people deserve to have society abandon them to become dwindling future corpses wasting away on the streets ('cause lord knows conventional society doesn't want to foot the bill for lardasses on the dole; there aren't enough food stamps to keep the roly-poly fed)?
This is an issue that is going to grow in the near future. Look at Wal-Mart's activities, how its management indeed is trying to weed out heavier workers in favor of Twiggy types. It isn't fair, but society calls the shots: How DARE overweight people be larger than the mainstream accepts!
I imagine the sad day is closer than most think. All too soon, I expect mainstreamers will go after fat people the way they are going after smokers. The overweight and obese will have a choice: Unless they are independently wealthy or self-employed, get fit or die. Oh, it won't be worded that way - that would be too inhumane on its face - but that will be the message. In many circles, it already is.
12 - Matthew Milam
It's all the more remarkable that even actors who are overweight get employed. Ricky Gervais of the Office managed to achieve success by writing a show about people who don't look like Hollywood.
As a matter of fact, i don't ever see alot of people in britain productions who look at the same in physical appearance.
13 - Purple Tigress
If the majority of people in the US are overweight, chances are they will feel more comfortable with other people who are overweight like themselves.
That way, they can share their weight stories and problems and do not have to face reality or be slapped on the face when someone who is thin either doesn't join in or tells them how delusional they are.
14 - Matthew Milam
Dellusional about?
15 - ryan
I'm not going to deny them the right to make it, I'd just prefer to higher someone else.
16 - Matthew Milam
And what if that person you pick over him turns out to be a molestor? Which of the two would be worse?
17 - Tan The Man
You might also look at the rising health costs associated with obesity. No employer wants to pay those high premiums associated with insurance and an overweight person, I guess, is more likely to have serious health risks than a non-overweight person.
18 - Matthew Milam
The fact a person isn't overweight doesn't mean they don't have a bigger health risk. It's just the supposed risk is much more obvious.
19 - ryan
You really are delusion. Because I don't want to hire a lazy fat person, I'm more likely to get stuck with a child molester?
Look, just because you have no self-control, doesn't mean people have to adopt your way of thinking. I could easily gain 50 pounds by sitting on my ass and not giving a crap. Is that genetics?
They are more likely to be a health risk, ever heard of heart disease?
20 - Matthew Milam
The fact of the matter is, it's okay to have thin folks and people that don't smoke. But they have other problems that could do far worse to your company than whether you are the size of a buick.
If a person is fat, that doesn't mean they are lazy nor does it mean that they are nasty. If a person is fat, it's because they are fat.
It doesn't matter whether that person is considering to get married and have a family, that's another story. The issue i'm trying to drive him here is that folks need to work, and making fat people lose employment over weight means they will gain even more. That means it takes money out of your check to pay for their welfare or disability, and I'm sure you don't want that taken out of your check.
21 - Matt Largo
Unemployment = Lower Caloric Intake = Diet.
22 - Matthew Milam
= eviction = homelessness = crime = death...
23 - Margaret Romao Toigo
What specific weight prejudice is being described here?
The word "fat" is a broad and highly subjective term that can describe any condition from a self-conscious size 5's inability to squeeze into a size 3 all the way to morbid obesity.
24 - Matt Largo
"If corporations really want their employers to be better fit, then maybe they should help pay those high memberships to Bally's."
Many companies do this or have exercise facilities on-site. My current employer (a large software company) has on-site facilities. My previous employer comped paid memberships to 24hr Fitness. I usually try to include some kind of health club membership in the negotiation if one is not offered.
My point is... Losing weight doesn't cost money unless you need some kind of surgery for a medical condition. Maintaining an overweight frame costs money (calories cost money) unless you have some medical condition that causes obesity. Food isn't fattening, people are. I used to be overweight, but long ago I made the decision to get healthy and eliminate the possibility of being discriminated against for my weight. Now I just have to deal with race discrimination. Maybe a few years down the road...age discrimination. Welcome to reality.
25 - -E
I guess how offensive this conversation might be to some depends on how fat is fat? If you take into consideration the average size of the American woman is between a size 12 and a size 14, is that fat, or would it be larger than average that makes one fat? The stereotype of someone being fat being lazy is also one to ponder. If someone goes into an interview with an impressive resume, they obviously aren't lazy. So simply hiring (not highering for those apparently not in the hiring position) a larger person doesn't mean you are hiring a lazy person.