HEALTHY MEN: Overweight men face discrimination | Lifestyles

The observers and the “customers” reached the same conclusions: Overweight customers did, in fact, “experience greater amounts of interpersonal discrimination or subtle negative behavior toward them,” says Ruggs. “Employees they interacted with would try to end the interaction early; there was less affirmative behavior like less nodding or smiling; there were more avoidance types of behavior like frowning and trying to get out of the interaction.”

There was a third component to these studies, as well, and this time, it turned out that real customers may discriminate against overweight employees. The researchers filmed a series of fake marketing videos for several rather generic products, such as coffee mugs and suitcases. The actors in these videos were sometimes overweight, sometimes not. Actual customers watched those videos, which they were told would be used in online ad campaigns.

After watching the counterfeit ads, the customers filled out a questionnaire. The results were depressing but not terribly surprising: People who watched the “overweight” employees saw them as less professional, less neat, less clean and more careless. According to Ruggs, those perceptions spilled over into the viewer’s overall impression of the products and the manufacturers, as well.

The same type of subtle discrimination rears its ugly head in elections, too. Husband-and-wife researchers Patricia and Mark Roehling analyzed data from a number of 2008 and 2012 U.S. Senate elections. Their research assistants obtained color photos of candidates in 126 primary and general elections and categorized them as either normal weight, obese or overweight.