Data shows how weight-based discrimination adversely affects women’s career opportunities
When speaking with advocates from The Visible Collective and the Council of Size and Weight Discrimination, they all point to Fairygodboss.com
As the name infers, Fairygodboss’ mission as one of the largest online career communities is to provide free resources for professional women looking to improve their careers in a male-dominated world. In 2017, Fairygodboss surveyed 500 hiring professionals by showing them photos of different job candidates — women of various ages, races, body shapes, hairstyles and demeanors.
Fairygodboss asked participants to react to the following stock image, which depicts the heaviest-looking woman featured in their survey.
21%
Percentage of hiring professionals surveyed that described her as “unprofessional.”
20%
Percentage of hiring professionals surveyed that described her as “lazy.”
18%
Percentage of hiring professionals surveyed that described her as having “leadership potential.”
The data resulted with around 20% of professionals surveyed labeling the heaviest looking woman as lazy and unprofessional. More astounding, however, is that only 18% described her as having leadership potential based on her picture alone.
Similar to other forms of discrimination, weight-related bias in the workplace is a serious issue with lasting, negative effects. Most of the U.S. doesn’t easily accommodate recourse for those who feel discriminated by their weight. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, over 42% of Americans are considered obese, and only one state, Michigan, has laws in place that protect people from weight discrimination. Women are even more affected by weight-based prejudice, according to several academic studies, in terms of both salary and career advancement opportunities.
Dr. Rebecca M. Puhl led a 2008 study for the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in which the perceptions of weight and height discrimination were examined between genders. The study included 2,290 U.S. adults between the ages of 25 and 74; men made up 48% of the sample size and women 52%. Puhl measured obesity based on the National Institutes of Health’s clinical guidelines for the classification of overweight and obesity in adults.
The results of their study show that the number of women who were considered overweight or obese based on their body mass index (BMI) almost doubled the number of men who experienced discrimination due to their size.
The study also reported that close to 60% of participants who reported weight and/or height discrimination experienced employment-based discrimination, such as losing a job opportunity, on an average of four times during their lifetimes. The study breaks down its results by occupation type to show the number of men and women in those roles who experienced weight/height discrimination.
Women in managerial and professional roles are doubly affected by weight discrimination when compared to men. This data recalls Fairygodboss’ survey on how women who are perceived as overweight or obese can be viewed as “unprofessional.”
This perception of overweight and obese women not only impacts their hireability but also their salary.
When examining pay and gender data over the course of a five-year period, two researchers discovered that women on average earned less over time if they gained weight. Timothy A. Judge and Daniel M. Cable published their findings in the Journal of Applied Psychology for the American Psychological Association. They conducted two studies to examine the relationship between weight and income and the role gender plays in it.
Judge and Cable estimated “the predicted effects of weight on earnings for men and women across five weight ranges.” They predicted weight values for men and women and set those values as standard deviations (SD). Using these standard deviations, the researchers charted how salary could change over five years as men and women lose and gain weight.
As women lose weight, their predicted change in salary increases, according to the study. Men, on the other hand, are affected inversely; the results show that men are penalized for losing weight. Overall, however, the data from this study indicates how men are more socially acceptable for being larger in size than women.
All else equal, a woman who is average weight earns $389,300 less across a 25-year career than a woman who is 25 lbs below average weight.
— Timothy A. Judge and Daniel M. Cable, Journal of Applied Psychology
For context, the average woman in Judge and Cable’s study was 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 146 lbs., which calculates to a BMI of 24.3 and falls in the NIH’s normal weight range.
When looking at the C-suite, the disparity between men and women is quick to notice. Equal Opportunities International published a study in 2009 analyzing weight bias among men and women CEOs.
In order to obtain a larger sample size of women CEOs, researchers had to look at Fortune 1000 companies, whereas they were able to pull a sample size of men from the Fortune 100 list. The study asked health care professionals to rate the size of the CEOs and categorize them as normal, overweight or obese.
The majority of female CEOs are normal weight; only 3% and 22% were rated obese and overweight respectively. More than half of the male CEOs on the Fortune 100 list were considered overweight or obese, which once again shows a greater acceptance of men who are larger than average in leadership roles.
As the data illustrates, the glass ceiling is thicker for women of size. Until more policy makers start to advocate for laws that protect people against weight-based discrimination, women will continue to feel the adverse effects of weight bias on their careers.
Data from this story was collected from studies published by the International Journal of Obesity, Journal of Applied Psychology, Equal Opportunities International and Fairygodboss.
Thank you to Ragen Chastain, spokesperson for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, and Jessica Richman, founder of The Visible Collective, for their assistance with finding data and studies on weight bias, as well as providing additional context on this issue.
This story was produced by Gabrielle Bondi for JOUR 400–3: Foundations of Interactive Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
