Weight Discrimination Research Paper

Weight discrimination is basically when a person is being treated differently in accordance to their size. There is very little protecting employees from it today. The way it stands today, an employer could fire or purposely fail to hire, promote or reward an overweight employee for any reason. Weight discrimination occurs in just about every type of work field; for example, hospitality, medical, entertainment, legal, and business, etc. People are judged on their appearance in day to day life and not just in a work situation. The beautiful are considered before the not so attractive. The person of “normal” weight is considered before the overweight person. There is no proof that an overweight person is unhealthy, lazy or otherwise incapable

Since there are no Federal or Georgia laws that prohibit weight discrimination, other legislation could probably be called upon such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 – Title I and V. The Family Medical Leave Act could also be used in support of a case of weight discrimination. Should you have to be out of work for an extended period, Family Medical Leave could be used in protection of your job. For Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964, weight would have to be proven as the basis for the race or sex discrimination. As for the Americans with Disabilities Act, weight or weight related illness would have to be discriminated against. Is Obesity a disability? As with the Family Medical Leave Act, it would have to be proven the discrimination was done because of an illness related to the

They are erroneously judged to be lazy with no goals or ambitions. Some employers have a low regard for overweight employees in that they see them as unhealthy costing the company more for insurance premiums. Some employers are afraid the job will not get done in time or not get done at all depending on the physique of the employee. They are also afraid a negative image of the company will be projected by overweight employees.

Overweight employees are not located in just stationary jobs alone. Obese employees are also found in standing jobs or physical jobs. Overweight employees are found in all types of jobs but because of stress or overwork, employees tend to just want to rest when they get home or they tend to overeat during the day and at home. In addition to a person’s lack of physical activity during or outside working hours, work conditions themselves could be leading to a person’s overweight condition. Sitting for hours at a time and not moving around enough during the eight hour work day will add weight on to an already overweight employee or one that is not overweight at