weight and the workplace

This morning we are entering the first patient into our community program, The Adam Katz Serotonin-Plus Work Ready Program. This program will provide our 12-week weight loss program at no cost, to a person who cannot afford our program and would benefit from significant weight loss in their quest to become healthier, more self-confident and more employable.

This is a very senstive subject, but I bring this up and look for your comments and opinions: How does being overweight affect one's prospects of gaining employment, or if employed, achieving promotions/raises etc? Does a potential employer look beyond the resume at an overweight person and think : "if this person cannot control his/her weight, how can the person keep the job responsibilities under control?" Is there an inherent bias against overweight people meaning that if 2 employees have equal credentials, time at the position, equal skillsets, will the gym-going, athletic person get the promotion instead of the overweight one? Certainly, the military is blatant about this...if you do not achieve their weight standards, the active duty person will not get promoted and may even face forced retirement.

Clearly, if anything, losing weight cannot decrease a person's chances of gaining employment and/or achieving promotions. It seems completely unfair that a person's appearance has any bearing whatsoever on this, but reality is often unfair. Let me know your thoughts.

Weight, appearance and employment

Yesterday I saw a patient who has been coming to our clinic off and on over several years. When he focuses and places high priority on hiw weight loss efforts, his achieves aggresive weight loss. However, when he becomes distracted with work and home issues, he starts returning to old behavior patterns and the weight goes back on.

He was telling me that his company is unfortunately undergoing layoffs and he is very concerned that his weight may play a role in whether he is retained or not. The patient is in the sales division and he lamented to me yesterday that he feels his weight problem places him in a competitive disadvantage compared to his colleagues that maintain a healthier weight. The reasons are several: 1-perhaps the management will fret that an overweight employee may lose more time at work secondary to medcial conditions 2- if the overweight employee has several health issues already such as hypertension, diabetes, etc. health insurance premiums will go up for the company as a whole and 3- perhaps clients are more apt to "buy" from aesthetically "more in shape" salespeople as opposed to overweight ones.

The above rationale, as hurtful as it seems, is not too far off base. In this very challenging economic period, it can only help your job status to maintain as healthy an appearance as possible. Yet another great reason to keep in the zone and reach your weight loss goals.

weight loss and appearance

This is a very sensitive subject: how we are perceived by others in the professional workplace when we are overweight. Are we less likely to be promoted because we are overweight? When given the competition to be hired for a certain position, do more "inshape" people have a greater chance to be selected? Are we taken less seriously by our colleagues when we are overweight?

Obviously the answers to these questions are variable depending on the people/situations involved, but I do think it is fairly certain that being overweight cannot help our professional progression. Some of my patients have expressed this perception about their workplace experiences: "If my boss thinks that I cannot take care of myself, why would he think I can take care of the greater responsibilities required in a promotion position?" Aesthetically, is it the case that "better looking" people get the promotions more readily?

These are difficult issues to discuss because clearly, job promotions and employment should be based 100% on skillsets with zero regard to a waistline size or an aesthetic look. However, reality may be somewhat different. With the economy tanking and layoffs becoming more common, it certainly cannot hurt for all of us to "shape up" as best as possible.