Obesity and the workplace: a focus on fattism and weight discrimination

As well as a greater susceptibility to illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and depression, severely overweight people face a raft of challenges – one of which is discrimination in the workplace.

This page aims to provide everything you need to know about obesity and the workplace, on personneltoday.com and beyond.

Recent articles published on Personneltoday.com on obesity and the workplace

Employers ignore the social stigma on obesity – 9 March

Fear of fattism: are you discriminating against obese employees? – 9 March 2007

Wellbeing news in brief – 6 March 2007

Ethics: How HR can help staff to take a positive view on their employers’ ethics – 27 February 2007

How can employers cope with obesity in the workplace? – 6 February 2007

Employers turn to lawyers for guidance on obesity – 31 January 2007

Post-Christmas obesity – 16 January 2007

Overweight employees are disadvantaged in the workplace – 2 January 2007

Obesity research: Fitness and fatness are huge workplace issues – 5 December 2006

Recent articles published on the web on obesity and the workplace

Health & Safety Executive – Horizon Scanning Intelligence Group’s short report on obesity as a workplace issue (PDF)

Is weight the new race? (The Observer, 6 July 2006)

Useful web sites

Department of Health – Obesity

Department of Health – Obesity statistics

NHS Information Centre – Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet

World Health Organization – Obesity in Europe

The Obesity Awareness & Solutions Trust

Fathappens.com

Weight Concern

Weight Loss Resources

Wellcome Trust – Stereotyping and fattism

Blog postings on obesity and the workplace

The Primate Journal – Fat guy sues Air France for fattism

JobXpresso – Employers can refuse overweight staff

Cognitive Daily: Obesity and discrimination

Relevant books from Amazon

The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology (Paperback) by Paul F. Campos (Foreword), Jan Wright (Author), Michael Gard (Author).

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Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination by Sondra Solovay (Paperback).

Weight Bias (Hardback) by Kelly D. Brownell (Editor), Leslie Rudd (Editor), Marlene B. Schwartz (Editor), Rebecca M. Puhl (Editor).