Do employers have reason to be concerned about obesity?
By Jessica Bray Case study included at the end of this article Employers may want to pay attention because 66 percent of the US population is classified as overweight or obese, and it’s costing companies an estimated $12.7 billion per year. Most overweight and obese workers are not considered protected classes under federal anti-discrimination law, unlike more well known elements of diversity, such as religious creed and race. Unfortunately, obese people are often subject to discrimination in hiring, promoting and recruiting within organizations due to preconceived biases. On this basis, obesity could be considered a lesser-recognized dimension of diversity. “Like other dimensions such as race and gender, obesity winds up being a factor that excludes people from the workplace. While it doesn’t have the same historical significance as aspects like race and gender, it is still a major factor,” says Myrtle Bell, associate professor of management at the University of Texas at Arlington and
