Report: Bias Against High-Weight People Rising

Implicit bias in the workplace concerning high-weight people has increased over the years, while unconscious bias against race and sexual orientation has decreased, but only Michigan has passed legislation that makes weight discrimination explicitly illegal. 

CNBC, quoting a recent Harvard study that examined data gathered over nine years, reported that when measuring unconscious bias, attitudes against racism dropped by 37%, anti-gay attitudes by nearly half, and high-weight people by 15%. 

However, when the study measured implicit bias, during which people may not be aware of or be willing to express their biases, the report showed unconscious racism biases dropped by 17%; and anti-gay biases by one-third; but biases against high-weight people went up by 5%.

"We live in a society where negative stereotypes towards people who have high body weight are very common, Rebecca Puhl, professor university of Connecticut, commented. "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."

Elizabeth Kristen, the director of the Gender Equity and LGBT Rights Program for an organization called Legal Aid at Work in California, said she believes there has been a "real medicalization at times of the issue of weight. And so people, I think generally are comfortable with this language of obesity and body mass index."

A handful of cities have passed anti-discrimination ordinances addressing weight discrimination, and Michigan is the only state making weight discrimination explicitly illegal, but there are no anti-discrimination laws on the federal level, reports CNBC. 

Workplace discrimination is a particular issue, as people who are obese are often seen as being less hireable or having less supervisory potential. Further, there are reports of people of size being placed in non-contact positions, such in mailrooms, and of their being paid less than their thinner counterparts. The issue is also reported more by women than by men. 

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