Weight matters.
Not only can it cost you your health, it can cost you your job.
Researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit have found that prejudice against overweight people is rampant in the workplace in hiring and promotion decisions. And it can also make overweight people feel upset, causing a loss of self-esteem that could negatively affect productivity, said Cort Rudolph, a psychology professor and lead author of the study.
Weight-based bias is a big issue in the workplace, he said, and worse for people in or aspiring to sales positions.
It's worse for folks in sales because of the biases held by others. The issue: How will overweight salespeople be perceived by potential clients.
Bias isn't as bad for people already holding managerial jobs, Rudolph said.
"The bias is significant," he said. "Being overweight seems to boost the notion that overweight people are lazy or incompetent, even though there's no truth behind such stereotypes."
He said a large body of scientific literature supports the findings of his team, but that they also found that being overweight can diminish the chances of a person achieving his ambitions, even if those doing the hiring and promoting aren't biased.
"It affects your own self-esteem, makes you self-conscious," he said. "Others may see you as lacking in discipline and self-control, but overweight people also may harbor such unconscious biases about themselves."
It's important for businesses to be aware of such prejudices, he said, but "given a properly designed personnel selection system, these biases can be overcome. Because obesity is increasing nationally, this is going to be an issue for the next 30 or 40 years."
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution