Nearly half said obesity lowered an employee's output and 30% regarded obesity as a valid reason for not employing someone. Four in 10 suggested overweight people lacked self-discipline and one in 10 thought weight a ground for dismissal.
What we are dealing with is prejudice for the most part. Now I am in favour of helping obese people to become less so, mainly because being overweight is bad for them and bad for society. However, for the motivator to lose weight to be hateful prejudice is bad for overweight people and bad for society, too.
There are a number of ways in which this prejudice stereotypes and lies. Some obesity is genetically linked. There are people like me who do not look fat but are at least on the edge of being overweight because we had the 'advantage' of being born really thin [and suffered the opposite prejudice in childhood]. We avoid the prejudice but the jibes about self control etc may fit us- but we don't get the opprobrium because we look alrightish. Does obestity lower output? Surely that depends on the job. And in any case, the person with an overdeveloped libido seems not to suffer prejudice, but I could offer a case for them being low output based on their mind being constantly distracted by 'totty' or equivalent. Lacking self discipline probably applies to most people, it's just that most people's areas of weakness are not so evident.
Grrrr.
Guardian Unlimited Money | Work | Overweight people miss out on jobs, says report: On Del.icio.us: obesity, employment, survey, attitudes, prejudice
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