Name: 為什麼美國職場的體重歧視依然存在？ (Why Weight Discrimination Persists In The U.S. Workplace)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:39:08.000Z
Duration: 13 min 43 s
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There is this study out of Harvard last year that looked at how our

Researchers examined data collected over a nine year period that

measured implicit and explicit bias against certain marginalized

groups. When people were asked to evaluate their own explicit biases,

data showed that over the course of those nine years, racism dropped

Anti-gay attitudes declined by nearly half.

And bias against high weight people declined by 15 percent.

But when they measured implicit bias, which are our assumptions and

attitudes that we may not be aware of or willing to express, it

The research found that people were drastically underestimating their

Unconscious racism had only declined by 17 percent.

And bias against high -weight people actually increased by 5 percent.

One of the things we know about intergroup relations is what's

supposed to happen is when you have more contact with, say, a person

who doesn't look like you, it should reduce your prejudice for that

person the more you interact with them and the better quality

And what's interesting about weight is that doesn't seem to be

happening. And we don't really know exactly why.

But we do know that stigma, particularly for weight, is really,

Studies show that these negative attitudes have had an impact on high

We live in a society where negative stereotypes towards people who

And those are stereotypes that people are lazy or lacking willpower

or discipline or are even less intelligent than others because of

their body weight. And those kinds of stereotypes and negative

attitudes become translated into overt forms of unfair treatment and

discrimination. Michigan is the only state that has passed

legislation that makes weight discrimination explicitly illegal.

And there are a handful of cities that have passed

anti-discrimination ordinances that address weight.

But there is currently no federal law protecting high weight people

So how much weight discrimination is there in the workplace and what

can we do about it? There is a lot of disagreement about what

language to use when referring to high weight people.

Elizabeth Kristen is the director of the Gender Equity and LGBT

Rights Program for a non-profit organization called Legal Aid at Work

in California. In 2002, she wrote an article for UC Berkeley Law

Review titled "Addressing the Problem of Wage Discrimination in

Employment," which explored how this issue can be handled using

I think there's been a real medicalization at times of the issue of

weight. And so people, I think generally are comfortable with this

But it's actually a really alienating experience for people who have

what these days were calling high -weight individuals

It's very much not implying a whole bunch of medical judgments about

the way. But it is recognizing the reality that people, at least in

our current society, who have different body weights, may face

A lot of the academic community still uses medical terms such as

But many activists and other high-weight individuals feel these terms

For the purposes of this video, we've chosen to use the terms "high

-weight" and "people of size," except when referring specifically to

High-weight individuals report discrimination in all aspects of life,

Mary Himmelstein is an assistant professor at Kent State University

People with obesity are seen as less hirable, are seen as having less

supervisory potential, are hired less often — when they are, are

If it's in a job that's existing, people are willing to penalize them

What's really interesting about this literature is even when you have

a resumé of an unqualified applicant who's thin, they're still seen

as better for the job than a higher body weight applicant who is

qualified for it. There are also reports of people of size being

relegated to what researchers call non-contact positions.

If you imagine a receptionist, for example, someone who can be the

face of the business, someone who every client comes in and interacts

with, it's very unlikely that the receptionist would be the high

weight individual. If they do hire a high-weight individual, they'd

be more likely to put them in a job behind the scenes in the

mailroom, for example, or somewhere where they're not going to be the

face of the company interacting with the public.

And the discrimination worsens when other factors are taken into

It does tend to be something that more women report than men,

particularly at lower levels of overweight compared to men.

So for women, for example, weight discrimination may kick in even if

their BMI is only a little bit higher than what we would consider to

Whereas for men that weight discrimination doesn't kick in until

High-weight people are also consistently paid less than their thinner

colleagues. A 2004 study found that obese men made 3.4

percent less than their thinner counterparts and obese women made 6.1

percent less. Where you start on the ladder is really important for

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為什麼美國職場的體重歧視依然存在？ (Why Weight Discrimination Persists In The U.S. Workplace)

essentially

individual

physical

obesity