It’s not a joke, but just the result of research: the sizes we wear (yes, the ones of clothes) have an impact on the wage gap. This time at the center of the controversy over women and work there’s not (only) the gender pay gap. Whether you’re male or female, the problem this time seems to be another one: overweight people are underpaid, and this is also an undiscussed form of body shaming. In the light of research findings, plus-size women are underpaid (especially in the US) because it’s believed that the health insurance of an obese person costs more. But this is false, and we explain why! In 2018, LinkedIn carried out a survey in the UK and discovered that people considered to be fat earn on average $2512 less than their skinny counterparts. And just to combine the already existing gender pay gap, overweight or obese women are penalised with a gender wage gap that amounts to $11547 less than obese men. But is it really true that plus-size women’s health insurance costs more? A 2011 study by the University of York showed that obese people leading a healthy lifestyle live as long as their skinny counterparts and are even less prone to cardiovascular disease. Moreover, research findings prove that the mortality rate for plus-size people with a healthy metabolism is definitely not higher than the one of skinny people. So, what are we talking about? We talk about the fact that is absurd that in 2020 we are still judging people by appearance. And yet there are 49 states in the US where is legal to fire someone because of his/her appearance.
It’s time to stop body shaming also in the workplace, and in order to do that an employer should:
Make concrete efforts to promote healthy and diverse representations of the body, in order to show a tangible commitment to societal change.
Promote non-discriminatory internal procedures.
Incorporate awareness campaigns into annual programming in order to develop a corporate culture in which employees are more likely to have a healthy relationship with their bodies, which helps ensure their physical and mental well-being and health.
Include body and size diversity in the company’s workplace trainings, taking special care to include examples of microaggressive behaviors that can spread the bias.
Feminism at the Workplace 