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The relationship between body weight and perceived weight-related employment discrimination: The role of sex and race
Abstract
This study provides unique empirical evidence regarding a growing concern internationally: weight discrimination in the workplace. Using survey data from a national sample of 2838 American adults, it responds to Puhl and Brownell’s [Puhl, R., & Brownell, K. D. (2001). Bias, discrimination, and obesity. Obesity Research, 9, 788–805] call for additional research investigating the prevalence of discriminatory experience among overweight employees, and to their more specific call for research that takes sex and race into account when examining weight discrimination. The results indicate that women are over 16 times more likely than men to perceive employment related discrimination and identify weight as the basis for their discriminatory experience. In addition, overweight respondents were 12 times more likely than normal weight respondents to report weight-related employment discrimination, obese 37 times more likely, and severely obese more than 100 times more likely. The implications of the study’s findings for organizations, policy makers, overweight employees, and career counselors are discussed, and future research directions suggested.
... Studies that examined both male and female targets have yielded mixed findings with respect to such gender differences. While some have argued that women suffer negative consequences due to overweight more than men do (e.g., Puhl et al., 2008;Roehling et al., 2007;Sattler et al., 2018), a meta-analysis has found that women and men with overweight are affected to a similar extent by such bias (Roehling et al., 2013). Recently, a population study of men found that reports of weight stigma were quite common (Himmelstein et al., 2018). ...
... Next, we considered the effect of gender. Gender has been suggested to play a role in the negative judgement of individuals with overweight (Puhl et al., 2008;Roehling et al., 2007;Sattler et al., 2018). Some studies have found that men tend to evaluate individuals with overweight more negatively than women do (e.g., Lieberman et al., 2012). ...
... This study is unique in that it assesses weight bias against men. The majority of research regarding weight bias to date has emphasized its impact on women (e.g., Sattler et al., 2018;Roehling et al., 2007), with studies of men in this context being scarce (Puhl and Heuer, 2009). It has been noted that men are under-represented in studies on obesity-related issues in general (Koritzky et al., 2012;Pagoto et al., 2012). ...
Research on weight-bias against men and/or in the military is scarce. Such a bias might cause some military members, who are otherwise fit to perform their duties, to suffer from discrimination and undue stress. We showed military personnel a picture of a soldier who had either normal weight or overweight. In both conditions, the description of the soldier stated that his physical fitness and job-related skills were good. Nonetheless, the soldier’s suitability for promotion was rated lower in the overweight condition. These findings improve our understanding of the impact of bias on the mental and physical health of men with overweight.
... This may lead to real forms of weight-bullying and weight-based victimization in educational settings [6] and to discrimination and inequality (e.g., in recruitment, salary or treatment of staff) in the work environment [7]. Especially women, in addition to historically suffering from gender inequality, suffer from more weight-based discrimination in the workplace than men [8] and are stigmatized at lower weights than men [9]. Weight stigma is pervasive in Western culture and societies, especially in the media messages that convey unrealistic and perfectionist ideals of beauty [10] and condemn obesity as a consequence of laziness and lack of willpower [4]. ...
... Specifically, there was a stronger association between weight stigma and decreased mental health as BMI increased [20]. The lack of significant moderation by gender may seem somewhat counterintuitive considering that multiple studies have suggested a stronger association between weight stigma and HRQOL indicators in females [8,9,21,22]. This stronger relationship may be attributed to the pervasive influence of the thin ideal in feminine beauty standards [20], underscoring the importance of further examining the role of weight stigma in the female population. ...
Purpose
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) refers to an individual's perception of their physical and mental health status over time. Although emerging evidence has documented a negative association between weight stigma (i.e., negative weight-related attitudes and beliefs towards individuals with overweight or obesity) and mental HRQOL, its influence on physical HRQOL still needs to be fully clarified. This study aims to investigate the impact of internalized weight stigma on mental and physical HRQOL by employing a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach.
Methods
The Short Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36) and the Weight Bias Internalization Scale (WBIS) were administered to a sample of 4450 women aged 18–71 (Mage = 33.91 years, SD = 9.56) who self-identified in a condition of overweight or obesity (MBMI = 28.54 kg/m²; SD = 5.86). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess the dimensionality of the scales before testing the proposed structural model.
Results
After establishing the adequacy of the measurement model, SEM results revealed that internalized weight stigma was significantly and negatively associated with both mental (β = − 0.617; p < 0.001) and physical (β = − 0.355, p < 0.001) HRQOL.
Conclusion
These findings offer additional support to prior research by confirming the association between weight stigma and mental HRQOL. Moreover, this study contributes to the existing literature by strengthening and extending these associations to the physical HRQOL domain. Although this study is cross-sectional in nature, it benefits from a large sample of women and the use of SEM, which offers advantages over traditional multivariate techniques, e.g., by explicitly accounting for measurement error.
Level of evidence: Level V, descriptive cross-sectional study.
... As for the loss of income in relation to obesity, this was reported less often by German participants, but there was a significant difference concerning the average level of discrimination between the two countries. Our findings are in line with previous studies that documented associations between perceived weight-based discrimination and problems experienced by employees [28][29][30]. Roehling et al. reported that employees with a BMI over 30 kg/m 2 are even 37-fold more likely to suffer from employment discrimination than their normal-weight counterparts. Moreover, they concluded that given the particularly high levels of weight bias and discrimination in an employment setting, antibullying legislation is needed to develop a novel stigma-prevention policy and improve the situation of overweight people in the workplace [28]. ...
... Roehling et al. reported that employees with a BMI over 30 kg/m 2 are even 37-fold more likely to suffer from employment discrimination than their normal-weight counterparts. Moreover, they concluded that given the particularly high levels of weight bias and discrimination in an employment setting, antibullying legislation is needed to develop a novel stigma-prevention policy and improve the situation of overweight people in the workplace [28]. ...
Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the level of discrimination among patients with obesity living in Poland and Germany. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional international multicenter survey study including 564 adult participants treated for morbid obesity at selected healthcare facilities in Germany (210 patients) and in Poland (354 patients). Discrimination was evaluated using a custom-made questionnaire based on the related literature. Results: The level of obesity discrimination did not differ between German and Polish patients (p = 0.4282). The presence of obesity was reported to be associated to a large or a very large extent with the feeling of social exclusion and discrimination by 46.63% of German participants and 42.09% of Polish ones (p = 0.2934). The mean level of discrimination related to the lack of employment was higher in patients who underwent bariatric surgery or endoscopic method than in those who underwent conservative treatment (for Germany: 2.85 ± 1.31 (median, 3) vs. 2.08 ± 1.31 (median, 1), p = 0.002; for Poland: 2.43 ± 1.15 (median, 2) vs. 1.93 ± 1.15 (median, 1), p = 0.005). The level of discrimination was associated with sex, age, the degree of obesity, and treatment-related weight loss (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings confirm that obesity significantly affects the social and economic well-being of patients. There is a great need to reduce weight stigma and to take measures to alleviate the socioeconomic and psychological burden of obesity.
... Studies of American adults showed that obesity is associated with several forms of discrimination, including in the workplace (Hunte & Williams, 2009;Lewis et al., 2011). A few studies conducted in European countries (e.g., UK (Morris, 2006), Finland (Böckerman et al., 2019;Sarlio-Lahteenkorva & Lahelma, 1999) and Denmark (Greve, 2008)) found that obese people tend to earn less than their non-obese counterparts and that overweight people were also more likely to report employment discrimination and discriminatory experiences than healthy weight counterparts (Roehling et al., 2007). Physical disabilities also prevent people from securing continuous employment (Waterhouse et al., 2010). ...
... As a result, obese applicants may be less likely to be invited for an interview and employed (Agerström & Rooth, 2011). Another potential explanation could be that obese people were perceived as less "successful" and judged as possessing lower leadership qualities than non-obese peers when reviewing applicants' suitability for employment (Flint et al., 2015;Flint & Snook, 2014;Roehling et al., 2007). The present findings are consistent with previous studies suggesting that disability is associated with increased workplace harassment and discrimination (Jones et al., 2018;Snyder et al., 2010). ...
Background
Health status is a crucial determinant of an individuals’ labour market outcomes. The present study investigates the association between obesity and disability with perceived employment discrimination within Australia.
Methods
A total of 17,174 person-year observations from the 11,079 respondents were analysed using four waves of data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The primary outcome examined was employment discrimination, using obesity and disability as the main exposure variables. The longitudinal random-effects regression technique was applied to investigate the between-person differences in employment discrimination associated with obesity and disability.
Results
The findings suggest that more than one in ten (12.68 %) Australians experienced employment discrimination. The odds of being discriminated against while applying for a job were 1.56 times (aOR: 1.56, 95 % CI: 1.15–2.11) higher for obese than their healthy weight counterparts in youngest women. Adults with a disability had 1.89 times (aOR: 1.89, 95 % CI: 1.65–2.17) higher odds of being discriminated against than peers without disability.
Conclusion
The results provide evidence that obesity and disability contribute to employment discrimination in Australia. The findings can assist government and related agencies to consider the adequacy of existing discrimination legislation and help organisations to develop appropriate policies to address discrimination against obese and disabled people in their workplaces.
... Research has documented widespread oppression of fat 1 people in Western societies. Fat individuals experience discrimination in healthcare , psychotherapy (Kinavey & Cool, 2019), the workplace (Roehling et al., 2007), and educational settings (Phelan, Burgess, Puhl, et al., 2015); sizeism pervades social (Schaefer & Simpkins, 2014), familial (Kraha & Boals, 2011), and romantic (Boyes & Latner, 2009) relationships. Likely because of this antifat environment, fat individuals report high levels of internalized weight bias and distress (Durso & Latner, 2008). ...
... Names were selected from the 20 most popular names for 30-year-old women in the U.S. We featured fat women in our vignettes for two reasons. First, we believed that our vignettes would be more realistic if the targets were women, given evidence that (a) fat women tend to experience more discrimination than fat men of the same weight, including in the contexts described in the vignettes (i.e., dating and employment; Boyes & Latner, 2009;Roehling et al., 2007) and (b) women are more likely than men to be involved in the fat acceptance movement (Afful & Ricciardelli, 2015). Second, participants only viewed one vignette to keep the study to a reasonable length. ...
The fat acceptance movement arose to combat the widespread stigmatization of fatness and fat people through personal liberation and political activism. Support for the movement and its underlying ideology has grown rapidly over the past three decades; however, a self-report measure of fat acceptance with strong psychometric properties has not yet been developed. The current studies aimed to develop the Fat Acceptance Scale (FAS), a measure of fat-accepting beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that was designed to be appropriate for use with people of all sizes. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis (n = 266) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 267) supported a three-factor solution assessing fat activism, health beliefs related to weight, and interpersonal respect for fat individuals. In Study 2 (N = 291), FAS scores predicted reactions to fictitious fat women after controlling for an established measure of antifat attitudes. Data from a subsample of 47 participants indicated moderate-to-high stability of the FAS over 4 weeks. In Study 3 (N = 156), health service psychology doctoral students' FAS scores predicted their reactions to a fictional fat psychotherapy client after controlling for antifat attitudes. Taken together, results provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of FAS scores and suggest that the FAS may be a valuable tool for researchers, clinicians, and advocates interested in fat acceptance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... The effect of perceived weight discrimination, or the perception of being judged based on an individual's weight is what directly influences unhealthy behavior. Perceived discrimination has two criteria: the perception of being treated differently due to one's weight or race, and the belief that the treatment was unfair (Pichler, M. Roehling, & P. Roehling, 2007). Perceived weight discrimination and racial discrimination are also related to facial perception. ...
... Aside from Black women, women as an entire group experience increased rates of weight discrimination in comparison to their male counterparts. Women are 16 times more likely than men to report perceived weight discrimination in employment situations (Pichler, M. Roehling, & P. Roehling, 2007). Women experience increased weight discrimination for employment due to the emphasis society places on women to appear attractive and thin. ...
... Interestingly, participants who were overweight reported higher stress levels relative to those who were not "recorded", suggesting that weight stigma creates stressful events. Furthermore, there are reports of discrimination in employment and education among individuals with high weight, thus exacerbating a stressful context within the reality of the weight status [35,36]. Importantly, this psychologically demanding environment can potentially lead to depression [37]. ...
Recovery from substance use disorders (SUD) is multifactorial. Being overweight could negatively impact physiological and psychological health-related parameters. Using model selection, we examined associations between body mass index (BMI) and negative emotional states (NES; e.g., stress, anxiety, depression) in 54 men with SUD and under treatment in five different therapeutic recovery centers. We found that BMI was positively associated with stress (p < .001), anxiety (p < .001), and depression (p = .002). Therefore, our findings suggest that decreasing the accumulation of body fat might contribute to improving mental health in individuals with SUD during recovery.
... Women represent higher numbers in the counseling profession. Women experience more discrimination than men (McHugh & Kasardo, 2012;Roehling et al., 2007), and it is unknown if people who identify as gender non-binary experience more or less weight bias. By not distinguishing the gender of the counselor, our ability to make inferences across genders is limited. ...
... Robust meta-analytical research on weight at work suggests that fatter employees suffer from poor economic outcomes at work (Nowrouzi, 2015). For instance, organizations are less likely to select fatter employees (Agerström & Rooth, 2011;M. V. Roehling et al., 2007;Rudolph et al., 2009;Vanhove & Gordon, 2014). Once employed, managers and customers rate fatter employees as poorer performers, irrespective of objective outcomes (Rudolph et al., 2009;Ruggs et al., 2015), and-creating a double-bind-train their fatter employees less effectively (Shapiro et al., 2007). Interpersonal mistreatment from cust ...
Popular and influential social commentators have called organizations complicit in perpetuating weight-based bias and mistreatment. Although our field has advanced our understanding of the economic consequences of being fat at work (e.g., salary; job performance; and promotions), we urgently need more research on the interpersonal experiences of this swath of workers so that we can appropriately advise organizations. In this article, we describe how organizational psychology researchers can answer this call to do more research on weight at work (a) even while feeling uncomfortable with a topic that can feel personal, medicalized, and/or overly intertwined with other DEI-based topics; (b) by incorporating insightful research from outside disciplines that centers weight controllability and weight-based mistreatment deservedness; and, critically, (c) while approaching weight at work research with a respectfulness that conveys an understanding of the complexities intertwining weight, health, and personal agency. In culmination, this article offers to our field a flexible, living document entitled Best Practices for Weight-Based Research in Organizational Studies.
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Ozbilgin, Samdanis and Arsezen (2023) explain that appearance diversity intersects with other forms of diversity, leading to locally meaningful outcomes. As part of appearance, body shape, body paintings, and body weight (Roehling, Roehling & Pichler 2007) are considered as salient diversity categories in some contexts. ...
... Lesbian participants described coming out at work and not being believed because others saw them (/ their bodies) as too feminine. Failure to work towards or achieve the ideal organizational body can therefore expose women to workplace hyper-visibility and mistreatment (Levay 2014;Roehling et al. 2007). ...
¬This paper reviews research on cis women’s bodily self-discipline in the workplace. We compare literature exemplifying the ‘bodily turn’ in organization and management studies to scholarship on menopause at work, to identify key themes across these oeuvres and the significance of the blind spots in each. There is little overlap between them: only eleven organization and management studies publications dealt with menopause. In classifying these literatures using Forbes’ (2009) concept of co-modification, we distil four themes: bodily moulding; non-disclosure; failing; and resistance, redefinition and reclamation. Based on this, we argue for more substantive considerations of menopause in organization and management studies, and suggest what the organization and management literature has to offer its sister scholarship. For example, we foreground how menopause exacerbates the visibility paradox facing female workers which organization and management studies identifies; and argue that menopause at work scholarship should pay more attention to specific bodily accommodations, refusals and the ‘unscripted’ aspects of menopause in organizations.
... Moreover, because Italy has always been the country of fashion, larger attention is devoted to physical appearance. Thus, according to international studies, weight-based discrimination would be a relevant topic, strongly affecting every aspect of obese people's everyday life including labour market outcomes (see, e.g., [18] and [65]). However, since obesity denotes a major issue in every developed country, the existing literature has devoted much less attention to the weight bias in the job market compared to race and gender discrimination (see, for instance, [2]). ...
This paper investigates the effects of obesity, socio-economic variables, and individual-specific factors on work productivity across Italian regions. A dynamic panel data with correlated random effects is used to jointly deal with incidental parameters, endogeneity issues, and functional forms of misspecification. Methodologically, a hierarchical semiparametric Bayesian approach is involved in shrinking high dimensional model classes, and then obtaining a subset of potential predictors affecting outcomes. Monte Carlo designs are addressed to construct exact posterior distributions and then perform accurate forecasts. Cross-sectional Heterogeneity is modelled nonparametrically allowing for correlation between heterogeneous parameters and initial conditions as well as individual-specific regressors. Prevention policies and strategies to handle health and labour market prospects are also discussed.
... When examined experimentally, weight-based social identity threat has been associated with reduced exercise self-efficacy and motivation (Li et al., 2014), ordering higher calorie foods (Brochu & Dovidio, 2014), increased blood pressure, reduced executive control, and increased emotional distress (Major et al., 2012). Given the abundance of weight-related stigma and discrimination in social (Himmelstein & Puhl, 2019), romantic (Cote & Begin, 2020), and family situations (Lydecker et al., 2018), as well as physically active (Meadows & Bombak, 2019), healthcare settings (Puhl & Heuer, 2009), environments with high intellectual demands (Nutter et al., 2019), and situations that require hard work (Roehling et al., 2007), we speculate that higher-weight individuals will be most vulnerable to experiencing weight-based social identity and stereotype threat in these settings. While previous studies have measured stigma anticipation and fear of stigma (Lillis et al., 2010), to the best of our knowledge, no validated weight-based social identity threat measures exist. ...
This study assessed the factor structure of a novel self-report measure of weight- and shape-based social identity threat vulnerability, Social Identities and Attitudes Scale-Weight and Body Shape (SIAS-WBS). Weight and race diverse young adults (N = 542; Mage=21.69 +2.32; 69% ciswomen) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and a university participant pool. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, measurement invariance, internal consistency, convergent validity, and test-retest reliability were conducted. The SIAS-WBS had acceptable factor structure with 15 subscales that were invariant across race, ethnicity, gender, weight perception, and CDC-defined weight groups. The measure demonstrated high internal consistency, convergent validity, and good test-retest reliability. Subscales were Weight & Shape Identification (Influence and Centrality), Weight & Shape Stigma Consciousness, six identification and six negative affect factors across the domains of: Social, Familial, Romantic, Intellectual, Physical Activity, and Physical Attractiveness. Participants in higher weight groups who perceived themselves as lower weight status, reported lower Weight & Shape Identification-Influence (p = 0.02) and lower Stigma Consciousness (p = 0.01), relative to those perceiving themselves as higher weight status. Participants perceiving themselves as higher weight status endorsed lower Physical Activity Identification (p < 0.001) and more negative affect across all domains (p’s < 0.02). This suggests that weight misperceivers may be less susceptible to weight-based identity threat.
... Apart from the numerous ethical dilemmas it raises, weight stigma and the internalization of weight bias have been found to be harmful to both mental [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and physical health. 31,33,35,36,40,[42][43][44][45][46] Such stigma can also cause discrimination against overweight or obese individuals in various areas, 47,48 including in employment, [49][50][51][52] and has particularly pernicious effects in the healthcare industry, resulting in poorer standards of care for individuals with fat bodies. [25][26][27][28]31,32,36 Empirical studies and theoretical discourse indicate that participation in the FA movement increases feelings of empowerment, body esteem, and other positive mental health outcomes, especially for overweight or obese women, helping address the deleterious impacts of weight stigma. ...
The fat acceptance (FA) movement aims to counteract weight stigma and discrimination against individuals who are overweight/obese. We developed a supervised neural network model to classify sentiment toward the FA movement in tweets and identify links between FA sentiment and various Twitter user characteristics. We collected any tweet containing either “fat acceptance” or “#fatacceptance” from 2010–2019 and obtained 48,974 unique tweets. We independently labeled 2000 of them and implemented/trained an Average stochastic gradient descent Weight-Dropped Long Short-Term Memory (AWD-LSTM) neural network that incorporates transfer learning from language modeling to automatically identify each tweet’s stance toward the FA movement. Our model achieved nearly 80% average precision and recall in classifying “supporting” and “opposing” tweets. Applying this model to the complete dataset, we observed that the majority of tweets at the beginning of the last decade supported FA, but sentiment trended downward until 2016, when support was at its lowest. Overall, public sentiment is negative across Twitter. Users who tweet more about FA or use FA-related hashtags are more supportive than general users. Our findings reveal both challenges to and strengths of the modern FA movement, with implications for those who wish to reduce societal weight stigma.
... As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195,196]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [197]. ...
... As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195,196]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [197]. ...
Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce-e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends-for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors-are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.
... With regard to concealability, weight stigma is so visible and unconcealable compared to other stigmatizing conditions, such as some mental diseases (Ahmedani, 2011), that prejudices and marginalization towards people with higher-weight bodies seem even more frequent. Weight stigma becomes especially problematic when it reduces the possibilities to labor access, considering that unemployment is one of the main causes of social exclusion (Roehling et al., 2007). In some labor contexts such as shops and cafes, a higher-weight body can clash with the core values of healthism and consumer culture. ...
This PhD thesis includes a set of studies addressing 1) psychosocial effects of surgery and physical activity (PA) in bariatric patients, 2) the role of social discourses such as healthism in the experiences of weight stigmatization, 3) changes on bariatric patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL), PA levels, and exercise motivation derived from a postoperative motivational PA program, and 4) facilitators and barriers perceived by bariatric patients to do PA one year after finishing this program. Overall, this thesis examines the psychosocial processes hidden behind the (non)acquisition of an active lifestyle by this population. Taking these processes into account, the role of a postoperative PA intervention based on a motivational framework to promote long-term active lifestyles in these patients is also explored.
... Of note, weight discrimination in employment is not expressly prohibited in many areas, with the exception of the state of Michigan and some additional municipalities, and has shown to be especially salient among women with obesity. 49 At the organizational level, the Academy can help decrease weight stigma within the dietetics profession by including language denouncing discrimination based on weight in the Code of Ethics for the Nutrition and Dietetics Profession and offering continuing education on how RDNs and nutrition and dietetics technicians, registered, can decrease weight bias in their own dietetics practice. 50 The complex nature of obesity demands a similarly complex and nuanced approach to addressing the needs of people with obesity. ...
... Given sex differences in weight-related behaviors, it is plausible that peer influence is indeed sex-specific in some circumstances. For instance, feeling or experiencing weight discrimination is more prevalent among females than males [80] and female college students are more likely to overestimate their BMI and try to lose weight than males [81]. The amount of weight gained over college may also differ by sex. ...
Background
There is ongoing debate about whether friends’ greater similarity in Body Mass Index (BMI) than non-friends is due to friend selection, shared environments, or peer influence.
Methods
First-year college students (n = 104) from a southwestern U.S. university were randomly assigned roommates during the university’s housing process, effectively removing friend selection effects. Participant BMI was measured up to four times (T1-T4) across 2015–2016. The influence of roommate baseline BMI (T1) on change in participant BMI over time (T2-T4) was analyzed using a linear mixed effects model adjusted for individual socio-demographics, linear time trends, baseline BMI, and physical clustering of students. A sensitivity analysis examining floormates was also conducted.
Results
Consistent with roommate influence, participants randomized to roommates with a higher BMI gained more weight between times T2 and T4 (β = 0.06; 95% CI = 0.02, 0.10). No shared environment effects (shared campus or floor) were found.
Conclusions
Randomly assigned roommates influenced each other's weight trajectories. This clarifies that BMI convergence can occur outside of friend selection or shared environments mechanisms.
... Studies indicate that obese men and women suffer from severe and persistent interpersonal discrimination based on stereotypes and prejudices related to obesity such as laziness, stupidity, lack of willpower, and personal irresponsibility (Pearl et al., 2018;Randall et al., 2017). In addition to being at a disadvantage in various social settings such as the labor market (Roehling et al., 2007), educational institutions (Golaszewski et al., 2018), and the health-care system (Barra and Singh Hernandez, 2018;Kaminsky and Gadaleta, 2002), it has been found that obese people suffer from customer service discrimination (Lewis et al., 2011). The cases of discrimination in commercial settings are more difficult to detect and examine, because, unlike formal governmental/organizational discrimination, customer discrimination is subtle and subjective (King et al., 2006). ...
The hotel experience of obese people is examined in this exploratory study, addressing a segment of the population thus far ignored by hospitality scholars. The findings are based on 32 semi-structured interviews with American obese men and women living in the Virginia area. The results revealed that almost all participants’ hotel experience was affected by constraints arising from the physical environment, but more so, from other guests gazing at them. The thematic analysis of the experiences of obese hotel guests suggest that two relevant spaces in the hotel can be distinguished: the guest room and the public space accessible to all guests. These spaces differ in the difficulties experienced as well as the emotions that evoked among those guests. Overall, the findings indicate that people’s body and its image is crucial for the understanding of the hotel experience, as lookism is a critical barrier obese people face.
... La discriminación laboral es una forma particular de discriminación en el acceso al trabajo y/o vinculada las condiciones laborales, que se da en base a características personales como la raza, el género, la religión, la nacionalidad, la discapacidad física o mental, la edad, la orientación sexual o la identidad de género (Chung, 2001;Roehling, Roehling y Pichler, 2007;Gayman, 2013. Las diferencias de ingresos entre hombres y mujeres dentro de un mismo centro de trabajo y los problemas de acceso al mundo laboral de personas con discapacidad son algunos de los ejemplos más comunes de discriminación laboral, una forma de discriminación que puede haber aumentado en los últimos años a causa de la reciente crisis económica. ...
The present study aims to explore the association between employment discrimination and health in Andalusia (Spain). This study is based on a sample of 1200 individuals. The employment discrimination indicator was designed is through the results of an open-ended question that refers to other types of discri-mination. Although the category ‘employment discrimination’ were not initially included in the questionnaire, 65% of participants perceived themselves as sub-ject to employment discrimination while only 35% reported other usual causes of discrimination. Employment discrimination has been found similarly associated to poor health outcomes. Propensity scores show people reporting employment discrimination present a higher use of primary health services, a result that might be related with the higher prevalence of depressive disorders of socioeconomi-cally disadvantaged groups. Although additional research is needed, the future orientation of EU social and health policies should aim to reduce the social im-pact of unemployment and insecure jobs in order to reduce discrimination and promote health equity.
The link between work and health outcomes for preconception, pregnant, and postpartum (PPP) working women is complex. Further, innovation and enhanced understanding are required to address the work-related determinants of maternal obesity. However, workplace health promotion is not typically systems-based nor attuned to the specific needs and context of individual PPP women. We propose that to improve health outcomes for PPP women, we must understand the pathways between paid work and health for the individual woman by taking a systems-thinking approach. In this paper, we (a) outline the rationale for why the oversimplification or "dilution" of individual context may occur; (b) present a systems-informed pathway model (the "Context-Exposure-Response" Model) and overview of potential work-related impacts on health and wellbeing outcomes for PPP women using maternal obesity to provide context examples; (c) further investigate the role of motivational factors from a systems perspective; and (d) briefly examine the implications for policy, practice, and intervention design. It is anticipated that this research may act as a starting point to assist program developers, researchers, and policymakers to adopt a systems-focused perspective while contributing to the health improvement and obesity prevention of PPP women.
This study examines the mediated relationship between perceived health climate and insomnia via exhaustion, and whether the mediation effect is weaker for individuals with higher body mass index (BMI). Results from multi‐wave field data revealed that perceived health climate negatively predicted insomnia through reduced exhaustion. Moreover, the mediation effect was weaker among people with higher BMI (obese individuals) than people with lower BMI (non‐obese individuals). This study expands our understanding of the workplace health climate and its unintended consequences for obese individuals. Also, it encourages practitioners to develop health climate promotion programmes that intend to reduce employee exhaustion first prior to specific behavioural changes and takes into account individual differences.
Historically, prevention in psychology has never been outright objectionable for mental health professionals. However, despite its acceptance, not enough practitioners engage in prevention and wellness promotion in their daily activities. The Oxford Handbook of Prevention in Counseling Psychology offers the foundational knowledge necessary to engage in successful prevention and wellness promotion with clients across the lifespan. Written from a counseling psychology perspective, this book presents an approach to prevention that emphasizes strengths of individuals and communities, integrates multicultural and social justice perspectives, and includes best practices in the prevention of a variety of psychological problems in particular populations. Assembling articles into four comprehensive sections, this book provides expert coverage on the following: fundamental aspects of prevention research and practice (i.e. the history of prevention, best practice guidelines, ethics, and evaluation); relevant topics such as bullying, substance abuse, suicide, school dropout, disordered eating, and intimate partner violence; the promotion of wellness and adaptation in specific populations and environments, providing findings on increasing college retention rates, fostering healthy identity development, promoting wellness in returning veterans, and eliminating heterosexism and racism; and the future of prevention, training, the intersection of critical psychology and prevention, and the importance of advocacy.
Bu çalışmada, pazarlama iletişim sürecini dijitalde yürüten kişisel
bakım markalarının resmi sosyal medya hesapları üzerinden yönettikleri
sosyal müşteri ilişkileri sürecinde etkinlik ve izleyici sayısı arasındaki
ilişki, markaların sosyal medya performans ölçümünde mevcut durumları
incelenmektedir. Bununla birlikte hangi markanın hangi sosyal medya
platformunu daha aktif kullanıldığının belirlenmesi, araştırmanın incelediği
diğer bir konu olmaktadır. Çalışmada incelenen markalar “kişisel
bakım/kozmetik markası” şeklinde ifade edilmiştir.
This article investigates the effect of unemployment on obesity during the Great Recession. Previous studies using mainly individual data surveys find that the relationship is inconclusive. Motivated by the current economic crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic, we revisit the debate and exploit cross county US data, a relatively unexplored dataset in the study on obesity. We find a pro-cyclical relationship between unemployment and obesity. We further explore whether the positive relationship may relate to lack of recreation and physical exercises during the great economic downturn due to the scarcity of public recreational and fitness facility (RFF). Our findings show that the effect of unemployment on obesity is significant in both counties with scarce and abundant RFF. Hence, the limited access to public RFF during the COVID pandemic may, by itself, not contribute to weight gain among adult Americans.
Bu bölüm kapsamında, çalışma hayatında obez bireylerin yaşantılarını ve obeziteye yönelik damgalayıcı tutum ve algıları tespit etmek amacıyla bir saha araştırması kurgulanmıştır. Saha araştırmasında, amaçlı örnekleme ve kartopu örnekleme yöntemi kullanılarak, hizmet sektörü çalışanlarından (sağlık, eğitim, güvenlik, ulaşım); obez birey ve obezite kavramları-na yönelik akıllarına gelen ilk kelimeleri belirli bir sınırlama olmaksızın yazmaları istenmiş, ayrıca çalışma hayatında obez bireylerin yaşayacakları sorunlara yönelik düşünceleri sorgu-lanmıştır. Araştırmaya 64 hizmet sektörü çalışanı (35 Erkek, 29 Kadın) gönüllü olarak ka-tılmıştır. Araştırma kapsamında, yapılandırılmış soru formu tercih edilmiş, elde edilen veri-ler, içerik analizi ve tematik analize tabi tutulmuştur. Verilerin geçerlilik ve güvenilirliğinin sağlanması amacıyla iki doktor öğretim üyesi ve doktora tezinde nitel araştırma yöntemi kullanmış olan bir öğretim görevlisinin katılımıyla komite gerçekleştirilmiştir. Analiz sonuç-larının görselleştirilmesi amacıyla Maxqda2020 nitel analiz programından yararlanılmıştır. Araştırma sonuçları ve yazarlar tarafından yapılan literatür incelemesi sonucunda "obez bireye yönelik damgalama", "obezlere yönelik işe alım ayrımcılığı" ve "iş yerinde obeziteyi etkileyen faktörler ve obez bireylerin iş yerinde yaşadıkları sorunlar" olmak üzere 3 ana tema belirlenmiş, ilgili temalar araştırma sonuçları ve katılımcı ifadeleri literatür ile desteklenerek detaylı şekilde incelenmiştir. Obez bireylere yönelik damgalayıcı ifadeleri ve algıları tespit etmek amacıyla yapılan pilot araştırmada hizmet sektörü çalışanlarından obez birey ifadesine yönelik akıllarına gelen ilk kelimeleri (kavram ve ifadeleri) yazmaları istenmiş, bu kapsamda katılımcılardan 686 kelime toplanmıştır. Söz konusu kelimeler içerisinde 137 farklı kelimenin tekrar ettiği tespit edilmiştir.
Objective:
Weight stigma induces cardiovascular health consequences for people with obesity. How stigma affects cardiovascular reactivity in individuals with both obesity and hypertension is not known.
Methods:
In a randomized experiment, we assessed the influence of two video exposures, depicting either weight stigmatizing (STIGMA) or non-stigmatizing (NEUTRAL) scenes, on cardiovascular reactivity [resting blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), ambulatory BP (ABP), and ambulatory HR (AHR)], among women with obesity and high BP (HBP; n=24) or normal BP (NBP; n=25). Systolic ABP reactivity was the primary outcome. Laboratory BP and HR were measured before/during/following the videos, and ABP and AHR were measured over 19 hours (10 awake hours, 9 sleep hours) upon leaving the laboratory. A repeated measures ANCOVA tested differences in BP and HR changes from baseline in the laboratory and over ambulatory conditions between the two groups after each video, controlling for body mass index, baseline BP and HR.
Results:
Laboratory SBP/DBP increased 5.5+7.3/2.4+8.8mmHg more in women with HBP than NBP following the STIGMA versus NEUTRAL video (Ps<0.05). For the primary outcome, ABP increased more in HBP than NBP over sleep (SBP/DBP=4.2+20.6/4.7+14.2mmHg; Ps<0.05) following the STIGMA versus NEUTRAL video, as did HR during sleep (7.5+15.7bpm more in HBP than NBP; P<0.05).
Conclusions:
Weight stigma increases cardiovascular reactivity among women with obesity and HBP in the laboratory and under ambulatory conditions.
Clinical trial registration:
Registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04161638).
Grounded in self-determination theory, this cross-sectional study aims to explore the multiple mediating roles of perceived teachers’ support for students with obesity and their engagement in physical education. The study included 322 Chinese high school students with obesity (mean age, 16.84 [±0.147] years; 219 [68%] male, 103 [32%] female). Mplus 8.3 software was used to test the multiple mediating effects. After controlling for grade and gender, teacher support was found to neither directly affect students’ engagement nor directly stimulate their autonomous motivation; however, it could affect their engagement through the two pathways of 1) basic psychological needs and 2) the chain mediation of basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation. Results suggest that not all teacher support, but only teacher support meeting students’ basic psychological needs, can promote engagement in PE by students with obesity. Future research should explore strategies according to the physical and mental characteristics of students with obesity, to enrich and innovate the theoretical system of teacher support in physical education. Furthermore, teacher support interventions to promote engagement among students with obesity should be developed.
Objective:
As workplace wellness programs become increasingly popular, many concerns have been raised that these programs are inaccessible or infringe upon the legal rights of people with disabilities. In response to those concerns, we investigated the experiences of workers with disabilities with barriers to access for workplace wellness programs.
Methods:
We disseminated an electronic survey and conducted descriptive statistical analysis assessing the demographics, behavior, and attitudes of people with disabilities towards workplace wellness programs.
Results:
We found that the largest barriers to workplace participation are lack of access to careers dominated by large employers who offer more employee benefits, and issues regarding barriers to access within those employers.
Conclusions:
These findings indicate that there are significant barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in the workplace.
Researchers of size say weight bias is harming their careers and well-being. Workplace changes can reduce the stigma. Researchers of size say weight bias is harming their careers and well-being. Workplace changes can reduce the stigma. Chelsea in a corn field touching a green leaf Chelsea in a corn field touching a green leaf
Many instruments recommended for measuring attitudes toward fatness and “obesity” were developed in the 1990s, a time when the “obesity epidemic” was gaining momentum and anti‐fat rhetoric was normative. Consequently, these instruments have tended to focus on assessing negative appraisals of fatness and fat people and reinforce weight stigma. As fat discourse has matured and expanded to incorporate fat positive attitudes, a nonstigmatizing way of measuring contemporary fat attitudes and beliefs in quantitative research is required. To address this need, we developed the Fat Attitudes Assessment Toolkit (FAAT). In this article, we describe the development of the FAAT and provide initial evidence for the scale's validity and psychometric properties across three studies. Study 1 included a systematic process for developing the extensive item pool that was reviewed by subject matter experts and a community panel. We explored and identified an initial multidimensional structure for the FAAT. Study 2 expanded and confirmed the factor structure with additional analyses in an independent sample and provided evidence for the overall reliability of the subscale scores and reliability as a function of gender and identification as fat. Construct and criterion validity of the subscale scores were also demonstrated. Study 3 provided evidence for the test‐retest reliability of the FAAT subscales scores over time. The FAAT includes nine robust scales: Empathy, Activism Orientation, Size Acceptance, Attractiveness, Critical Health, General Complexity, Socioeconomic Complexity, Responsibility, and Body Acceptance. Specific subscales can be combined to form two composite measures: Fat Acceptance and Attribution Complexity. The scales that comprise the FAAT measure specific elements of attitudes towards fat people that are frequently targeted in weight stigma reduction research and activism; the FAAT thus offers a powerful and precise method for evaluating weight stigma reduction interventions that allows for an assessment of shifts toward more positive attitudes.
Aim
Weight-based stigmatization is prevalent. They have been reported in schools, work and healthcare settings. However, almost all the literature on such weight-based stereotypes were from Western countries. The study aims to evaluate the prevalence of weight-based stigmatization in an Asian population.
Methods
An anonymized questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted. Respondents were asked about their socioeconomic status, followed by questions on perceived weight-based stigmatization across 4 domains (self, social, healthcare, work and education). A subsequent subgroup analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of different obesity classes on perceived stigmatization across these domains.
Results
A total of 101 respondents replied. Respondents with higher BMI were middle-aged (p = 0.040), Malays (p = 0.018), low-income (p = 0.041) and had lower educational qualifications (p = 0.038). Total prevalence of perceived weight-based stigmatization was 65.6%. Class III obesity respondents were more stigmatized at work (Prevalence Rate Ratio (PRR) 5.73, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.16–28.47), and resort to increased consumption of unhealthy food or partake in lesser exercise due to stigma (PRR 24.94, 95% CI: 3.61-172.41).
Conclusion
Obesity stigmatization is equally prevalent in Asian societies. Individuals with higher BMI were more likely to report perceived stigmatization in the workplace, as well as maladaptive dietary and exercise behaviours in response to stigmatization, regardless of socioeconomic status.
Purpose
Given the prevalence of obesity in society at large and ensuing weight discrimination in the workplace, the purpose of this paper is to bring to light the social stigma attached to obesity, stimulate the discussion around enacting better legislation to alleviate weight-based discrimination in the workplace and highlight the role of human resource (HR) departments in preventing such discriminatory actions.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews current perceptions, trends, laws and consequences related to obesity and weight discrimination and discusses the implications for organizations and HR professionals.
Findings
Weight discrimination is a real problem in society as a whole and workplaces in particular. HR professionals have a key role to play in removing weight discrimination and creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace.
Originality/value
Although weight discrimination has significant professional and personal consequences, there is a lack of explicit laws and policies that provide strong protection to impacted individuals. This paper brings the issue to light and discusses the role of HR in eliminating such bias and discriminatory practices in the workplace.
Evidence indicates under-perception of overweight is associated with lower levels of weight loss. This might be due to ‘visual normalisation’ of overweight through comparisons made in communities where average body mass index (BMI) is high, which in turn, may protect against weight stigma and psychological distress. Evidence in support of this hypothesis was found initially in a precision-weighted multilevel logistic regression analysis of 3729 overweight Australians aged >18 y, after adjusting for age, sex and area-level disadvantage. Participants whose BMI was -1 kg/m² or less than the community mean BMI had lower odds of weight-related dissatisfaction (OR = 0.64, 95%CI = 0.51–0.80) and perceived overweight (OR = 0.56, 95%CI = 0.45–0.70), compared with peers whose BMI was within ± 1 kg/m² of the community mean. Moreover, participants whose BMI was 1 kg/m² or greater than the community mean BMI had higher odds of weight-related dissatisfaction (OR = 1.97, 95%CI = 1.69–2.30) and perceived overweight (OR = 2.81, 95%CI = 2.41–3.28) when compared to the same reference group. These findings were consistent for men and women; however, they were attenuated towards the null and rendered statistically insignificant after adjustment for personal BMI. Overall, these results indicate personal BMI, rather than the relative difference between personal and community BMI, is the stronger determinant of weight-related perception and satisfaction.
We offer a primer for researchers who seek to carry out studies that evaluate the lived experience of larger‐bodied workers. We use objectification theory to describe the process by which intraculturally‐determined body size preferences impact how observers think about and react to larger‐bodied colleagues, and how these larger‐bodied colleagues internalize and cope with these judgements. Arguing that exploration of the objectification of larger‐bodied professionals is incomplete without the use of multidisciplinary lenses, we describe mechanisms that reinforce weight stigma, including the role of healthism‐based value systems, intersectionality, and body image. We conclude the primer by outlining areas for new research that highlights burgeoning applied demand for more nuanced, evidence‐based discussions of weight at work.
Practitioner points
In professional spaces, many workers feel comfortable “objectifying” their colleagues who occupy larger (i.e., “overweight”/”obese”) bodies. This means that workers (a) constantly compare their colleagues’ bodies to a “thin” standard, (b) feel a certain comfort in remarking on their larger‐bodied colleagues’ size, and (c) this judgment feeds into a cycle of self‐consciousness and self‐dislike that many larger‐bodied workers feel about themselves.
This objectification process can be doubly harmful to the well‐being of larger‐bodied workers when they, too, occupy a secondary marginalized identity/ies, such as being female or of a minority ethnicity.
The motivation for objectification comes from broader Western culture, which views the pursuit of health as a value that all people should pursue. Workers often assume their larger‐bodied colleagues are not pursuing health simply because of their size and can feel punitive toward them as a result.
Organizational remedies for this objectification process include educational programming and training to talk about the myriad ways “health” may be realized; more precise information about the complex origin’s of one’s body size; education around how marginalization of larger‐bodied colleagues does not stimulate effective action, but instead harms these colleague’s mental health (and beyond).
Rates of food addiction (FA) vary across weight and demographic groups. Factors influencing discrepant prevalence rates are largely unknown. Rates of clinically significant distress or impairment also vary across demographic groups, yet prior studies have overlooked the diagnostic significance of distress/impairment in heterogenous groups. We tested if weight and demographic groups differed in their likelihood of endorsing distress/impairment from FA. Participants (N = 1832) recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk completed the modified Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (mYFAS). The mYFAS includes 11 dichotomous symptom indicators and one dichotomous distress/impairment indicator. Differences in distress/impairment were tested across weight, sex, race/ethnic, and educational groups using logistic regression. FA severity was controlled for using FA symptom count. There were no differences among racial/ethnic and education groups (p > 0.05). Compared to men, women were more likely to report distress/impairment (aOR = 1.96, 95% CI = 1.28–3.03). People with obesity were more likely to report distress/impairment compared to people with overweight (aOR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.39–3.49) or normal weight (aOR = 1.99, 95% CI = 1.26–3.13). Individual characteristics (i.e., sex, weight) may influence reporting of distress/impairment from FA. Further inquiry may be appropriate for men and people with normal weight or overweight presenting with FA symptoms who otherwise deny distress/impairment.
Background
Shift work is associated with increased cardiometabolic disease risk. This observation may be partly explained by cardiometabolic risk factors having a role in the selection of individuals into or out of shift work. We performed Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses in the UK Biobank (UKB) to test this hypothesis.
Methods
We used genetic risk scores (GRS) to proxy nine cardiometabolic risk factors and diseases (including educational attainment, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol consumption), and tested associations of each GRS with self-reported frequency of current shift work among employed UKB participants of European ancestry (n = 190 573). We used summary-level MR sensitivity analyses to assess robustness of the identified effects, and we tested whether effects were mediated through sleep timing preference.
Results
Genetically instrumented liability to lower educational attainment (odds ratio (OR) per 3.6 fewer years in educational attainment = 2.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.22–2.59, P = 4.84 × 10–20) and higher body mass index (OR per 4.7 kg/m2 higher BMI = 1.30, 95% CI = 1.14–1.47, P = 5.85 × 10–5) increased odds of reporting participation in frequent shift work. Results were unchanged in sensitivity analyses allowing for different assumptions regarding horizontal pleiotropy. No selection effects were evident for the remaining exposures, nor for any exposures on selection out of shift work. Sleep timing preference did not mediate the effects of BMI and educational attainment on selection into shift work.
Conclusions
Liability to lower educational attainment and higher BMI may influence selection into shift work. This phenomenon may bias epidemiological studies of shift work that are performed in the UKB.
Despite the importance of organizational leaders, few studies have examined whether leaders are subject to stigma and biases based on amount of body fat. Specifically, we examine the extent to which external observers exhibit weight‐based biases against organizational leaders based on types of information that commonly appear in the media (e.g., a portrait and description of unit performance). Based on implicit leadership theory, we examine perceptions of leader prototypicality and ratings of leader effectiveness, as predicted by the interacting effects of leader body fat, leader gender, and the performance of the leader's work unit. Our sample consisted of 437 U.S. adults, recruited through Mturk, who evaluated fictitious leaders. Results suggested that leaders were, indeed, subject to statistically significant weight penalties in perceived leader effectiveness, which operated indirectly via decreased perceptions of leader prototypicality. These weight penalties were significantly increased for both man and woman leaders when unit performance was poor. In terms of credit/blame for unit performance, woman leaders with higher body fat received significantly more blame for unit failure, and less credit for unit success, than their counterparts with lower body fat. Overall, results suggest that external observers seem to exhibit weight‐based biases against leaders, particularly when other information can be used to justify negative evaluations.
Overweight and obesity have become a prominent concern for policymakers, the Surgeon General, scholars, and for work organizations. The estimated annual cost of obesity in terms of lost productivity is in the tens of billions of dollars, and the estimated annual medical cost of obesity is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Psychologists have become increasingly interested in issues related to body weight, such as ways to help people reduce body weight. The aims of our study are twofold. First, based on social cognitive theory, we offer the first study of the relationship between general self-efficacy (GSE) and body weight based on a large, representative sample. Second, we also offer an understanding of the role of race and gender as potential boundary conditions of this relationship. Findings indicate that race moderates the relationship between GSE and body weight (both BMI and perceived weight) such that this relationship is positive for Blacks but negative for Whites. Gender did not moderate the relationship between GSE and body weight. These results suggest that body weight is unrelated to general self-efficacy in the population writ large and that body weight is differentially related to self-efficacy based on race but not gender.
Attributing negative outcomes to prejudice and discrimination may protect the mood and self-esteem of some stigmatized groups. Thus, the overweight may be low in self-esteem because they blame their weight, but not the attitudes of others, for negative outcomes based on their weight. In an experiment, 27 overweight and 31 normal weight college women received either positive or negative social feedback from a male evaluator. Relative to other groups, overweight women who received negative feedback attributed the feedback to their weight but did not blame the evaluator for his reaction. This attributional pattern resulted in more negative mood for these overweight women in comparison with other groups. Dimensions of stigma that may account for differences in the tendency to attribute negative outcomes to prejudice, and implications of these findings for weight loss programs and psychotherapy for the overweight, are discussed.
Protection against obesity discrimination is extremely limited under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). No obese plaintiff has won using the actual disability theory, but a few have won under the “perceived disability” theory. Weight-related appearance standards are legal. We estimate weight-based wage penalties for young men and women. We find that mildly obese (20% over standard weight) white women experience greater wage penalties than black men experience for weight that is 100% over standard weight. Men do not experience wage penalties until their weight exceeds standard weight by over 100 lb. A “gender-plus” analysis under Title VII is more appropriate than the ADA for addressing the weight-based wage penalties that women experience.
This study examined whether there is subcultural variation in the stigma of obesity. Black and White women rated photographs of thin, average, and large Black and White women on a number of evaluative dimensions. The photographs depicted professional models dressed in fashionable clothing. Results showed that White women rated large women, especially large White women, lower on attractiveness, intelligence, job success, relationship success, happiness, and popularity than they did average or thin women. By contrast, Black women did not show the same denigration of large women, and this was especially true when they were rating large Black women. A number of possible explanations are offered for these results, such as the difference in Black and White women's social role models, weight salience, subcultural beliefs concerning obesity, and disidentification from mainstream values.
Each of 72 professional personnel consultants rated the suitability of 1 bogus applicant for selected masculine, feminine, and neuter jobs, and for alternatives to employment. Each resumé was identical with the exception of the systematic variation of the applicant's sex and the omission or inclusion of a photo depicting the applicant as physically attractive or unattractive. As predicted, personnel decisions strongly reflected the operation of sex-role stereotypes. These factors similarly affected consultants' recommendations of alternatives to employment and consultants' causal attributions of applicants' projected occupational successes and failures. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined how the perceptions of 366 ethnically diverse operating-level employees (mean age 34 yrs) on discrimination from a variety of sources, including supervisors, coworkers, and the organization itself, affect their work-related attitudes and behaviors. Participants completed a measure of perceived discrimination. The results show that all 3 types of perceived discrimination had an effect on organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior. There was no relationship with grievances. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Clearly there is ample evidence of differential treatment in employment settings for fat people, especially fat women. That such discrimination continues to exist, despite legislation such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the ADA designed to eradicate discrimination in the workplace, is cause for concern. Research on the stigma of weight has only begun to examine the psychosocial origins of weight-related stigma and how this information may serve to inform interventions (Puhl & Brownell, 2003). However, until such interventions are developed, empirically tested, and utilized, the real and present economic hardship faced by fat men and women needs to be addressed. Currently, it appears that creating laws and policies at a more local level may be most effective in combating weight discrimination. In addition, there is some evidence that the introduction of a company policy can have an impact on the disparate treatment of employees based on personal characteristics such as weight (Bellizzi & Hasty, 2001). More research examining the benefits of such small-scale interventions should continue until, on a broader level, federal policies can be developed and passed to protect all workers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study examined whether obese persons report more types of employment discrimination and employment-related victimization than do nonobese persons. This question has never been answered directly using obese and nonobese persons in naturalistic settings. The subjects were recruited through the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). They were assigned to one of three weight level groups: average (no more than 19% above ideal weight as defined by 1983 Metropolitan Life Height and Weight Tables), obese (20 to 49% above ideal weight), or very obese (50% or more above ideal average weight). Very obese subjects reported more types of employment discrimination, school victimization, attempts to conceal weight, and lower self-confidence than did nonobese subjects. Women reported more attempts to conceal their weight and lower self-confidence because of their weight than did men. Since permanent weight loss is not possible for most obese persons, the results of this study suggest that societal attitudes toward obese persons, particularly toward women, need to change in order to eliminate the employment-related discrimination and victimization experienced by the obese.
Research in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology has generally focused on objective measures of employment discrimination and has virtually neglected individuals' subjective perceptions as to whether a selection or promotion process is discriminatory or not. This paper presents two theoretical models as organizing frameworks to explain candidates' likelihood of perceiving that discrimination has occurred in a certain selection or promotion situation. The prototype model stresses the importance of the prototypical victim-perpetrator combination, the perceived intention of the decision-maker, and the perceived harm caused as possible antecedents of perceived employment discrimination. In the organizational justice model, procedural, informational, interpersonal, and distributive fairness play a central role in determining candidates' perceptions of discrimination. The fairness heuristic helps to explain which type of fairness information dominates these perceptions. Applications and research propositions are discussed as well as the similarities and differences between the two models. We conclude by offering several factors that may determine which model is used in deciding whether or not discrimination has occurred.
The question of whether or not life success halo effects occur for weight for Black and White women was examined in an experiment using a 2 (race of woman) 2 (weight of woman) 2 (sex of participant) design and measures of perceived life success, attractiveness, and personality. The thinner White woman was expected to receive higher life success, attractiveness, and personality ratings than the heavy White woman. However, the heavy Black woman was expected to receive higher ratings than the thinner Black woman. The results were consistent with expectations. These results are discussed in terms of prior research on beauty, weight, and stereotyping.
Two studies addressed the relationship between Protestant ethic (PE) ideology and psychological well-being for self-perceived overweight and normal weight women. In Study 1, PE beliefs interacted with self-perceived weight status: For very overweight women, higher PE beliefs were related to lower psychological well-being, whereas the opposite pattern emerged for normal weight women. The relationship of PE to well-being was not mediated by beliefs about controllability of weight or dislike of the overweight. In Study 2, either a PE ideology or an inclusive ideology was primed within the context of the stigma of overweight. For overweight participants, printing PE ideology led to decreased psychological well-being, whereas priming an inclusive ideology led to increased psychological well-being. Normal weight participants were unaffected. PE ideology as a vulnerability factor for the psychological well-being of the overweight is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)
This paper offers a theory of how a person’s perception that they face discrimination during job search influences their labor supply, and provides evidence on the relation between this form of perceived discrimination and subsequent labor supply. The theory is developed by extending the neoclassical theory of labor supply to incorporate the insights of Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. A unique feature of our theory is that a person seeks simultaneously both an economic objective – utility maximization – and psychological balance.The theory we advance predicts that a person who faces job search discrimination is thrust into an unbalanced psychological state. This person will make cognitive adjustments to renew psychological balance. They are likely to change their beliefs about the quality of the job that they can expect to attain, which provides an incentive to reduce their labor supply. Alternatively, they may decide that a resume with more work experience is a superior way to restore cognitive consistency. This resume-based strategy generates an impulse to enhance labor supply. Therefore, efforts to restore psychological balance after exposure to job search discrimination may, on net, affect labor supply. Using data drawn from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI) this paper offers estimates of the impact on subsequent labor supply of perceived discrimination due to race, ethnicity, or gender while seeking a job and while on-the-job.
Prejudice against fat people was compared with symbolic racism. An anti-fat attitudes questionnaire was developed and used in several studies testing the notion that antipathy toward fat people is part of an "ideology of blame." Three commonalities between antifat attitudes and racism were explored: (a) the association between values, beliefs, and the rejection of a stigmatized group, (b) the old-fashioned antipathy toward deviance of many sorts, and (c) the lack of self-interest in out-group antipathy. Parallels were found on all 3 dimensions. No in-group bias was shown by fat people. Fatism appears to behave much like symbolic racism, but with less of the negative social desirability of racism.
Although an inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and body mass index (BMI) is well documented, broad population studies focusing on the association between BMI and various forms of disadvantage such as unemployment, low income or social isolation are rare.
A nationwide, representative sample of 25-64-year-old Finnish subjects (n = 6016) was classified according to their BMI into four groups: 'thin' (BMI < 20), 'normal' (BMI 20-24.9), 'overweight' (BMI 25-29.9) and 'obese' (BMI > or = 30). Multivariable analyses using logistic regression were conducted with this BMI-grouping as an independent variable to predict social and economic disadvantage, controlling simultaneously for age, educational attainment, region of residence, and limiting long-standing illness.
In women, overweight was associated with current unemployment and obesity with long-term unemployment as well as absence of close friends outside the family circle. Both overweight and obesity were associated with low individual earnings. Obese women were also most likely to have low household disposable and individual incomes; a similar pattern was seen among thin women. A small subgroup of thin men were socially and economically disadvantaged with all our indicators whereas excess body weight was not problematic for men.
Deviant body weight is associated with social and economic disadvantage in a gender-specific and partly curvilinear way. In particular, obese women face multiple social and economic disadvantage.
The survey data presented here are on the national prevalences of major life-time perceived discrimination and day-to-day perceived discrimination; the associations between perceived discrimination and mental health; and the extent to which differential exposure and differential emotional reactivity to perceived discrimination account for the well-known associations between disadvantaged social status and mental health. Although more prevalent among people with disadvantaged social status, results show that perceived discrimination is common in the total population, with 33.5 percent of respondents in the total sample reporting exposure to major lifetime discrimination and 60.9 percent reporting exposure to day-to-day discrimination. The associations of perceived discrimination with mental health are comparable in magnitude to those of other more commonly studied stressors, and these associations do not vary consistently across subsamples defined on the basis of social status. Even though perceived discrimination explains only a small part of the observed associations between disadvantaged social status and mental health, given its high prevalence, wide distribution, and strong associations with mental health, perceived discrimination needs to be treated much more seriously than in the past in future studies of stress and mental health.
Recent studies suggest that lesbians and gay men are at higher risk for stress-sensitive psychiatric disorders than are heterosexual persons. We examined the possible role of perceived discrimination in generating that risk.
The National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, a nationally representative sample of adults aged 25 to 74 years, surveyed individuals self-identifying as homosexual or bisexual (n = 73) or heterosexual (n = 2844) about their lifetime and day-to-day experiences with discrimination. Also assessed were 1-year prevalence of depressive, anxiety, and substance dependence disorders; current psychologic distress; and self-rated mental health.
Homosexual and bisexual individuals more frequently than heterosexual persons reported both lifetime and day-to-day experiences with discrimination. Approximately 42% attributed this to their sexual orientation, in whole or part. Perceived discrimination was positively associated with both harmful effects on quality of life and indicators of psychiatric morbidity in the total sample. Controlling for differences in discrimination experiences attenuated observed associations between psychiatric morbidity and sexual orientation.
Higher levels of discrimination may underlie recent observations of greater psychiatric morbidity risk among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.
This study uses longitudinal data to examine the causal relationships between perceived work discrimination and women's physical and emotional health. Using data on 1,778 employed women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women, we investigate the structural and individual characteristics that predict later perceptions of discrimination and the effects of those perceptions on subsequent health. We find that perceptions of discrimination are influenced by job attitudes, prior experiences of discrimination, and work contexts, but prior health is not related to later perceptions. However, perceptions of discrimination do impact subsequent health, and these effects remain significant after controlling for prior emotional health, physical health limitations, discrimination, and job characteristics. Overall, the results provide even stronger support for the health impact of workplace discrimination and suggest a need for further longitudinal analyses of causes and consequences of perceived discrimination.
This study examined the role that dimensions of racial identity play regarding the antecedents and consequences of perceived racial discrimination among African Americans. A total of 267 African American college students completed measures of racial identity, perceived racial discrimination, and psychological distress at 2 time points. After controlling for previous perceptions of discrimination, racial centrality was positively associated with subsequent perceived racial discrimination. Additionally, perceived discrimination was positively associated with subsequent event-specific and global psychological distress after accounting for previous perceptions of discrimination and distress. Finally, racial ideology and public regard beliefs moderated the positive relationship between perceived discrimination and subsequent distress. The results illustrate the complex role racial identity plays in the lives of African Americans.
Each of 72 professional personnel consultants rated the suitability of one bogus applicant for selected masculine, feminine, and neuter jobs, and for alternatives to employment. Each resume was identical with the exception of the systematic variation of the applicant's sex and the omission or inclusion of a photo depicting the applicant as physically attractive or unattractive. As predicted, personnel decisions strongly reflected the operation of sex-role stereotypes as well as sex-relevant and sex-irrelevant attractiveness stereotypes. These factors similarly affected consultants' recommendations of alternatives to employment and consultants' causal attributions of applicants' projected occupational successes and failures. Sex-role typing provides a significant example of the powerful effects of stereotypes in the expansion and restriction of alternatives of expression and action available to men and to women in our society (Bern, 197S; Block, von der Lippe, & Block, 1973; Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972). The influence of sex-role stereotypes on both access and employee treatment is centrally important to sex discrimination in employment, a practice prohibited by Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, The social sciences have begun to systematically examine sex discrimination in a number of settings, both naturalistic and experimental. The greatest amount of research has assessed discrimination against females in traditionally masculine, that is, male-dominated, occupations. Men have been evaluated more favorably than women for writing journal articles (Goldberg, 1968), for painting pictures (Pheterson, Kiesler, & Goldberg, 1971), and for
Significant discrimination against overweight people has been shown to occur in a variety of settings, including employee selection. Negative personality characteristics attributed to overweight job applicants because of their body size are thought to result in inaccurate perceptions of a mismatch between a job and a candidate, resulting in unfair discrimination. This study, the first of its kind in a New Zealand setting, investigated the presence of discrimination against overweight female job applicants. A balanced design was used in which 56 human resource/recruitment consultants in Auckland, New Zealand, ranked fictitious CVs on suitability for a specified position. Two weight conditions, normal and overweight, were created by the rotation, on the CVs, of photographs of the same four women before and after weight loss. Each consultant ranked a set of six CVs, including two normal weight male distracter CVs. Analyses of the rankings confirmed a general bias against overweight applicants. Further analysis revealed that this outcome was mainly attributable to the rankings given to the poorest quality CV. Contrary to expectations; consultants' years of experience did not significantly influence the effect of weight on rankings.
It has been said that obese persons are the last acceptable targets of discrimination.1-4 Anecdotes abound about overweight individuals being ridiculed by teachers, physicians, and complete strangers in public settings, such as supermarkets, restaurants, and shopping areas. Fat jokes and derogatory portrayals of obese people in popular media are common. Overweight people tell stories of receiving poor grades in school, being denied jobs and promotions, losing the opportunity to adopt children, and more. Some who have written on the topic insist that there is a strong and consistent pattern of discrimination, 5 but no systematic review of the scientific evidence has been done.
This study assessed the relationship of race, weight, and desired weight change to body dissatisfaction and the relationship of desired weight change and body dissatisfaction to Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26) scores. Subjects were 373 white and 80 black college females. Results indicated that for both black and white women, current weight and desire to change weight were related to body dissatisfaction. White women, however, had significantly higher body dissatisfaction scores than did black women. For both black and white women, desired weight change and body dissatisfaction were related to EAT-26 scores. However, white women had significantly higher EAT-26 scores than did black women.
Using practicing sales managers as subjects, the results indicate that personal characteristics of gender and weight may be used in making disciplinary judgments following episodes of a particular type of unacceptable work behavior, an unethical selling act. As hypothesized, saleswomen were disciplined less severely while overweight salespeople were disciplined more severely. However, being overweight produced harsher discipline for saleswomen but had no effect on salesmen. A stated organizational policy about the particular type of unacceptable behavior used did bring about more equal treatment for those described as overweight but did not even out the discipline administered to men and women.
Research indicates that overweight job applicants and employees are stereo-typically viewed as being less conscientiousness, less agreeable, less emotionally stable, and less extraverted than their “normal-weight” counterparts. Together, the two reported studies investigate the validity of those stereotypes by examining the relationship between body weight and four relevant personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, extraversion) using three measures of body weight (body mass index [BMI] based on self-reported height and weight, BMI based on clinically assessed height and weight, percentage body fat assessed by bio-impedance technology) in a diverse group of 3,496 adults from the United States. There is substantial convergence between the two studies, with findings tending to refute commonly held stereotypes about the personality traits of overweight employees.
Objective. This study contributes to the study of the relationship between obesity, occupational attainment, and earnings. Methods. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we utilize a multinomial logit specification to investigate the occupational selection of obese individuals. We then estimate earnings functions that account for the occupational attainment of the overweight. Results. We find that women pay a penalty for being obese, but overweight males, via occupational mobility, sort themselves into jobs to offset this penalty. Conclusions. Weight-related occupational sorting of males may be the outcome of the low barriers they face when moving across occupations. The occupational segregation found for obese women, however, may be mostly rooted in labor market discrimination.
RESEARCH Objectives. Recent studies suggest that lesbians and gay men are at higher risk for stress-sensitive psychiatric disorders than are heterosexual persons. We examined the possible role of perceived dis-crimination in generating that risk. Methods. The National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, a nationally representa-tive sample of adults aged 25 to 74 years, surveyed individuals self-identifying as homosexual or bi-sexual (n = 73) or heterosexual (n = 2844) about their lifetime and day-to-day experiences with dis-crimination. Also assessed were 1-year prevalence of depressive, anxiety, and substance dependence disorders; current psychologic distress; and self-rated mental health. Results. Homosexual and bisexual individuals more frequently than heterosexual persons reported both lifetime and day-to-day experiences with discrimination.Approximately 42% attributed this to their sexual orientation, in whole or part. Perceived discrimination was positively associated with both harm-ful effects on quality of life and indicators of psychiatric morbidity in the total sample. Controlling for differences in discrimination experiences attenuated observed associations between psychiatric mor-bidity and sexual orientation. Conclusions. Higher levels of discrimination may underlie recent observations of greater psychiatric morbidity risk among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. (Am J Public Health. others because of the stigmatization of homo-sexuality in American culture. 23–31 Further-more, evidence indicates that these experi-ences, when they do occur, are associated with affective distress. 32–36 But, to date, most of this work has relied on convenience-based samples, often without heterosexual control groups, resulting in some ambiguity about whether lesbians and gay men do experience discrimination more frequently than do het-erosexual women and men. In addition, it is unclear whether the greater risk for discrimi-natory experiences, if it does exist, can ac-count for the observed excess of psychiatric morbidity seen among lesbians and gay men. In this study, we examined the prevalence of discriminatory experiences and their asso-ciation with indicators of psychiatric morbid-ity among individuals of differing sexual ori-entations in the MacArthur Foundation National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), 37 a population-based survey of Americans conducted in 1995. In doing so, we minimized problems with sampling bias and absent heterosexual control groups that tend to permeate conve-nience-based surveys of lesbians and gay men, in which the respondents are commonly recruited either through their participation in lesbian-or gay-identified activities or through social networks accessible to researchers. 38
This study compared two methods for assessing the specific factors underlying people’s reemployment self-efficacy (RSE). The first method used control belief measures, which assessed the specific factors perceived to make reemployment easy or difficult. The second method used motivational reason measures, which assessed the specific (nonhypothetical) factors people use to explain their overall RSE. Measures from both methods were applied to the same attribute categories, such as job availability, work qualifications, and job-listing information. An ethnically diverse sample of 815 unemployed individuals (mean age 37.2 years) registering for unemployment benefits in New York City participated. As hypothesized, results indicated that both control belief and motivational reason variables were related to RSE. In line with expectations, motivational reason variables explained substantial variance in RSE and scheduled interviews beyond that explained by the control belief variables. Moreover, the motivational reason method identified several variables influencing RSE that the control belief method was unable to identify as significant (e.g., having needed qualifications and job-listing knowledge). When results from both methods were presented to executive management at the New York City Department of Labor, motivational reason results had the strongest impact on subsequent policy decisions.
The major purposes of this study were to investigate whether devaluation of obese persons, a phenomenon demonstrated exclusively in laboratory settings using reactive measures, generalizes to a nonreactive field setting. Seventy public health administrators were asked, via the mail, to help a college junior assess her chances of getting into graduate school and finding employment in this field. Subjects received a cover letter, a standard résumé∼, and a questionnaire. A picture of the student was affixed to some of the résumés. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three picture conditions: obese, normal, or no picture. Forty-six percent of the questionnaires were returned. Significantly fewer forms were returned in the obese condition than in the normal and no picture conditions. On both the graduate school and employment questionnaire items, forecasts were considerably more pessimistic than in the other two picture conditions. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Assessed the relationship of race, weight, and desired weight change to body dissatisfaction and the relationship of desired weight change and body dissatisfaction to Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26) scores. Ss were 373 White and 80 Black college females. Results indicate that for both Black and White Ss, current weight and desire to change weight were related to body dissatisfaction. White Ss, however, had significantly higher body dissatisfaction scores than did Black Ss. For both Black and White Ss, desired weight change and body dissatisfaction were related to EAT-26 scores. However, White Ss had significantly higher EAT-26 scores than did Black Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The current research examines how members of stigmatized groups remediate hiring biases by adopting the strategy of directly acknowledging their stigmatizing condition within the interview context. In the first study, 123 participants responded to a videotaped interview involving an obese or physically disabled job applicant who either did or did not acknowledge a stigma. In the second study, 87 participants responded to scenarios that manipulated type of stigma, controllability of its onset, and acknowledgment. Results across both experiments reveal that applicants who did not acknowledge their obesity or physical disability in an employment context were not viewed differently from each other. However, if applicants did acknowledge, the perceived controllability of the stigmas strongly influenced how they would be perceived.
This study uses a sample of over 1000 MBA graduates from a Middle Atlantic University to test for sex differences in perceived discrimination and for the actual effects of various physical characteristics and background factors on the starting salaries and later (1983) salaries of these men and women managers. Women more often reported experiencing discrimination, and they typically identified this as general discrimination against women. Fewer men perceived any discrimination. Those men who did claimed to be the victims of affirmative action programs favoring women and blacks over them. Salary data indicated that women did earn less than men, even when controlling for work experience. Evidence for other forms of discrimination was also found. Controlling for prior work experience and year of first professional employment, age and height had a positive effect on men's starting salaries and being overweight, a negative effect. For women, starting salaries were significantly and positively affected by social class. For 1983 income, taller, non-overweight, and older men earned more, as did those who grew up in a higher social class. For women, a positive salary correlate was again being from a higher social class. Areas for future research are discussed.
This article takes an interdisciplinary approach to the issue of weight-based discrimination in employment, drawing on diverse literatures (psychology, law, sociology, economics), and integrating a review of empirical research and a traditional legal analysis. First, empirical research that focuses on the extent of bias against overweight individuals in employment contexts is reviewed and evaluated. Second, current legal requirements relevant to weight-based discrimination in employment are identified and discussed, and those requirements are applied to the research findings to assess the extent to which the weight-based bias identified in the reviewed studies involves illegal discrimination. Third, based on the results of the review of the research and legal literatures, future research directions are offered and practical implications for employers and policy makers are identified.
Although findings indicate a connection between frequent media use and greater body dissatisfaction, little attention has focused on the role of race. Accordingly, this study investigates the relation between television viewing and body image among 87 Black and 584 White women. Participants reported monthly viewing amounts of mainstream and Black-oriented television programs as well as body attitudes as measured by the Eating Disorders Inventory, the Body Esteem Scale, and the Body Shape Questionnaire. Results suggest different patterns predicting body image for White and Black women. Among White women, viewing mainstream television predicted poorer body image, while viewing Black-oriented media was unrelated to body image. Among Black women, viewing Black-oriented television predicted healthier body image, while viewing mainstream television was unrelated to body image. Ethnic identity also predicted healthier body image among Black women, and appeared to moderate, to some extent, the contributions of viewing Black-oriented programming.
Research on multiple roles has supported the enhancement hypothesis, but it is unclear if benefits of multiple role involvement
exist across all segments of the population. This study was designed to examine whether the role enhancement hypothesis suits
both men and women with varied education levels. A further goal was to determine if perceived control moderates associations
between multiple role involvement and well-being. This sample included 2,634 individuals from the Midlife in the United States
(MIDUS) survey who occupied up to eight roles each. Psychological well-being was measured in six dimensions (autonomy, environmental
mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance); positive and negative affect
were also measured. Results of hierarchical regression analyses supported the role enhancement hypothesis, as greater role
involvement was associated with greater well-being; however, the findings suggest that it was only well educated women with
multiple roles who showed higher levels of autonomy. Perceived control was also found to moderate some of the obtained linkages.
Using a more rigorous research design than previous studies, results generally supported the discriminant validity of professional withdrawal cognitions (PWC) versus organizational withdrawal cognitions (OWC). The sample consisted of 226 medical technologists tracked over a five year period, and the research design used pre- and post-measures of PWC and OWC. Attitudinal professional commitment had a stronger negative relationship to subsequent PWC versus OWC, while gender discrimination and organizational support had stronger relationships to subsequent OWC versus PWC.
Cultural diversity in body image has been studied elsewhere. In this study, we extend previous research by inclusion of (1) multiple ethnic groups for comparison and (2) measures for the assessment of multiple dimensions of body image.
Participants were college students who self-identified as African, Asian, Caucasian, or Hispanic-American. Quantitative measures of weight-related body image and general appearance body image were included. General body image was also assessed qualitatively.
Caucasian and Hispanic-Americans showed more weight-related body image disturbance than African-Americans and Asian-Americans. African-Americans had the most positive general appearance body image. Ethnic groups were generally similar in their ideal body image traits but some differences occurred for the valuing of skin color and breast size.
This study highlights the importance of studying multiple ethnic groups with multiple measures, rather than simply comparing non-Caucasians to Caucasians on weight-related body image.
This study concerned obesity from the perspective of 47 women and 8 men who considered themselves overweight. They responded to a questionnaire about various aspects of motivation to lose weight, knowledge about obesity, and personal and societal attitudes toward the obese. Although they reduced calorie intake and increased exercise when trying to lose weight, they reported various reasons why their exercise levels were less than optimal. Verbal motivation to lose was only partially reflected in willingness to change lifestyle, even though respondents had spent substantial sums of money on weight-loss attempts. Knowledge about obesity was imperfect, with women and thinner subjects somewhat more knowledgeable. Subjects were aware of and shared some of the negative social stereotypes of the obese, blaming themselves for their overweight. However, most would not trade their obesity for other handicaps found less stigmatizing in other research. As expected, women expressed a greater desire for thinness than men. Implications for health care professionals are discussed.
Morbidly obese patients' perceptions of obesity-related prejudice and discrimination were assessed before and 14 months after operation for obesity. Preoperatively, the 57 consecutive patients perceived overwhelming prejudice and discrimination at work, within the family, and in public places. After a weight loss of more than 45.5 kg (100 lb), these patients perceived little or no prejudice or discrimination. We examine factors contributing to the change in patients' perceptions and comment upon patients' perceptions of the negative attitudes held by health professionals toward obese patients.
This study examined job bias associated with business students' role-playing as sales managers who assigned trainees to sales territories. Personal characteristics of being extremely overweight and being a heavy smoker were studied. Research participants were given a personnel record (training record) of a sales trainee and asked to make a sales territory assignment decision; three vacant territories were also described. The participants were told to assign the trainee to one of the territories or to indicate a preference to not have the recruit assigned to any territory within the role-playing manager's region. Analysis indicates that a sales recruit described as extremely overweight was less likely to be assigned to an important or desirable sales territory and more likely to be assigned to an undesirable territory or not selected at all for an assignment within a sales region. Those described as heavy smokers were similarly treated but to a lesser degree. Overweight saleswomen were discriminated against more than overweight salesmen.
Psychosocial and dietary habits have been compared in patients considering (Pre n = 33) or who had (Post n = 32) surgery for morbid obesity. Failure of conventional diets was attributed to lack of self-discipline (Pre 92% [22/24] vs. Post 87% [20/23], NS). Consumption of fast foods fell (Pre 70% [23/33] vs. Post 16% [5/32], p < 0.0001). Preoperative patients had unrealistic social expectations. They exaggerated the prospect of improved friendship (Pre 67% [22/32] vs. Post 34% [11/21], p < 0.05), erroneously anticipated better sex (Pre 78% [25/32] vs. Post 50% [15/30], p < or = 0.05), predicted better acceptance at work (Pre 85% [23/27] vs. Post 50% [15/30], p < or = 0.05), and misanticipated improved relationship with their partner (Pre 77% [20/26] vs. Post [47% 8/17], p < or = 0.05). Two factors predicted becoming employed following surgery: age (became employed [n = 5] 28 +/- 2 years vs. remained unemployed [n = 12] 44 +/- 4 years, p < 0.05) and percentage of excess weight lost (became employed 76 +/- 11 vs. remained unemployed 51 +/- 7, p < 0.05). The free support group was "useful" (17/17), yet only 5% attended regularly. Patients considering obesity surgery had specific unrealistic psychosocial expectations. They infrequently availed themselves of postoperative professional help. We identify the features associated with gaining employment.
Attributing negative outcomes to prejudice and discrimination may protect the mood and self-esteem of some stigmatized groups. Thus, the overweight may be low in self-esteem because they blame their weight, but not the attitudes of others, for negative outcomes based on their weight. In an experiment, 27 overweight and 31 normal weight college women received either positive or negative social feedback from a male evaluator. Relative to other groups, overweight women who received negative feedback attributed the feedback to their weight but did not blame the evaluator for his reaction. This attributional pattern resulted in more negative mood for these overweight women in comparison with other groups. Dimensions of stigma that may account for differences in the tendency to attribute negative outcomes to prejudice, and implications of these findings for weight loss programs and psychotherapy for the overweight, are discussed.
Previous research has documented prejudicial attitudes and discrimination against overweight people. Yet the extent to which overweight people themselves perceive that they have been mistreated because of their weight has not been carefully studied. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of perceived mistreatment due to weight and sources of perceived mistreatment.
A non-clinical sample of healthy adults (187 men and 800 women) enrolled in a weight gain prevention program comprised the study population. A self-administered questionnaire was used to measure perceived mistreatment due to weight.
Overall, 22% of women and 17% of men reported weight-related mistreatment. The most commonly reported sources of mistreatment among women were strangers (12.5%) and a spouse or loved one (11.9%). Men were most likely to report mistreatment by a spouse or loved one (10.2%) and friends (7.5%). Somewhat surprisingly, sex differences in perceived weight-related mistreatment were significant only for stranger as the source. Perceived weight-related mistreatment was positively associated with body mass index (BMI) (r = 0.39, p<0.0001). Reported mistreatment was nearly ten times as pervalent among individuals in the highest quartile of the BMI distribution (42.5%) than among those in the lowest BMI quartile (5.7%), but was significantly greater than zero in all but the very lean.
Perceived mistreatment due to weight is a common experience and is not restricted to the morbidly obese. Results are discussed in light of the sociocultural value for thinness.
Research attests to the exponential sweep of clinical obesity in America. Obesity has become one of the most profound public health concerns, closely linked to increased morbidity, mortality, and social, occupational, and psychological discrimination. It is incumbent for specialists to design treatment and outcome analysis based accurately upon systematic research. Regulators, payors, and most notably, patients, need reliable and effective treatment to determine practical standards, manage cost of care, and protocols.
A comprehensive evidence-based medicine (EBM) review was done of relevant research on quality-of-life (QoL) outcomes after obesity surgery. The Cochrane Collaboration was the EBM searching resource utilized for this project, accessed via the Internet. A systematic EBM search design was implemented.
In the search, QoL reported 3,234 hits, "obesity surgery" reported 33 hits, QoL and obesity surgery" reported 6 hits, and QoL and hypertension reported 288 hits.
We found that a thorough EBM search can be achieved using the Cochrane Collaboration, which provides an efficient, effective and ethical means to enhance evidence-based clinical decision-making in treating severely obese surgery patients.
This article reviews information on discriminatory attitudes and behaviors against obese individuals, integrates this to show whether systematic discrimination occurs and why, and discusses needed work in the field. Clear and consistent stigmatization, and in some cases discrimination, can be documented in three important areas of living: employment, education, and health care. Among the findings are that 28% of teachers in one study said that becoming obese is the worst thing that can happen to a person; 24% of nurses said that they are "repulsed" by obese persons; and, controlling for income and grades, parents provide less college support for their overweight than for their thin children. There are also suggestions but not yet documentation of discrimination occurring in adoption proceedings, jury selection, housing, and other areas. Given the vast numbers of people potentially affected, it is important to consider the research-related, educational, and social policy implications of these findings.
The purpose of this research was to investigate, in a nonclinical sample of adults, thoughts on and experiences with weight stigmatization.
Focus groups were used to collect information. Participants were recruited through a newspaper advertisement and flyers posted in public places in Minneapolis and St. Paul. During the focus groups, participants were led in a discussion about their thoughts on weight stigmatization and personal experiences of being treated differently or poorly because of their weight.
Six gender-specific focus groups consisted of 31 adult volunteers (17 women and 14 men).
Perceptions of weight-based stereotypes and weight stigmatization and personal reports of having been treated differently or poorly owing to weight were measured.
Participants reported a variety of experiences of being treated differently or poorly because of their weight. These included teasing, harassment, slurs and insults, negative judgments and assumptions, and perceived discrimination. Participants reported that such experiences occurred at home, among friends and strangers, at work, and in health care settings. Women reported a greater number and a greater variety of negative experiences than men.
The results indicated that participants experienced weight-based stigmatization in many aspects of their lives. Awareness of these experiences may assist in the development of treatments for overweight individuals.