The Hidden Career Cost of Being Overweight

livemint.com:

Looking back, Michelle Matthews said she often internalized co-workers’ comments about her weight. At one work lunch, a teammate remarked on how much she was eating. A higher-up told her she needed to “show up physically as a leader" after she failed to win a promotion.

It wasn’t until the tech-product design director switched to remote work in 2020 that she grasped how much such slights had colored her office career. “I didn’t realize how much I was thinking about my physicality," said Matthews, 38, who describes herself as a big person. “It took up a lot of my mind." Weight stigma is rarely talked about at work, but it pervades workplaces everywhere, employees and hiring managers say.

Study after study shows heavier people are paid and promoted less than thinner colleagues and are often stereotyped as lazy or undisciplined. In a spring survey of more than 1,000 human-resources executives, 11% said an applicant’s weight had factored into hiring decisions. Half of managers surveyed in a separate poll said they preferred interacting with “healthy-weight" employees, according to SHRM, the human resources professional network that conducted the surveys.

Now, as New York City and some states move to outlaw weight discrimination at work, companies are beginning to focus on the experience of overweight workers. Many managers are unprepared for the wave of complaints the legislation could bring, advocates for the laws say. Weight “is still not looked at from a [diversity and inclusion] perspective," says Jessica Richman, founder of the Visible Collective, a group that advises companies on supporting workers and consumers who are considered obese.