Does Being Fat Affect a Job Search?

Back to an old theme around here, or at least in my cerebral cortex, you are a business that offers a service to companies. Do not do yourself the disservice of ever saying that you "work for someone" or that you are an "employee" of a company. You are a personal services corporation and you work for you. You trade your experience, knowledge, skills, and education in exchange for compensation. The more you develop and possess these items, the more you get in return. Keep in mind that nobody is required to use your services and you are certainly not entitled to have someone use them. The faster you make this connection and grasp this perspective on employment and jobs, the sooner you can progress, maybe.

So what does this have to do with being fat? Well, don't shoot the messenger, and this probably isn't a surprise to many, but there appears to be other factors in you finding a company to trade your services to other than just skills and experience. Like it or not, studies have shown your appearance certainly plays a role in hiring managers deciding if you are a person they would like to pay money to. You must know that if you walk into a company with tats up to your earlobes, piercings in places they don't belong, and hair down to your knees, you are going to be judged differently. Well, why do people have to judge? I don't know, but they do.

People make judgments based on the perception they have of certain physical characteristics, clothing, height, grooming, and certainly a person's weight. This isn't me saying this. There is endless available data and proof that people treat people differently and make assumptions based on physical features. There have been plenty of studies done to show that tall people actually earn more on average than short people. Of course you can't control your height, but most people believe you can control your weight, barring some rare medical issue. There was even a show I saw once where a model did an experiment with a fat suit to see how she would be treated with and without it. The results were very clear.

From the research I have done, the perception of overweight people in the eyes of people responsible for hiring is that they may question a person's decision making ability, wonder if they lack self-discipline or aren't motivated, question their energy level, wonder what other team members will think, wonder about other bad habits, and do they have or will they have health problems. There appears to be much written on the topic of the additional costs to employers due to people being overweight. So not only is it a question of the perceived other issues with people but it's also now a money issue to some.

So what does any of this mean? Well, people don't have to do anything about it and most will not. But if you were not aware, your perceived value to an employer is being judged on factors such as weight when you step into an interview. This is costing people real money. A 2009 Weight Bias Study from Yale showed that a job applicant or an employee’s weight had a considerable effect on employment decisions such as hiring and coworker evaluations. According to the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination, cswd.org, heavier workers earn less than average-weight peers. For women, even being slightly more overweight can have a 6% pay discrepancy, and being very obese can mean 24% less on average. What do you think? Is this a legitimate form of discrimination?