Study: Fat People Aren’t Lazy Workers
| July 18th, 2008In comments, Daran (whose site is likely to infuriate most “Alas” readers, so don’t click through if you don’t want that) pointed out this study:
EAST LANSING, Mich. — New research led by a Michigan State University scholar refutes commonly held stereotypes that overweight workers are lazier, more emotionally unstable and harder to get along with than their “normal weight” colleagues.
With the findings, employers are urged to guard against the use of weight-based stereotypes when it comes to hiring, promoting or firing.
Mark Roehling, associate professor of human resource management, and two colleagues studied the relationship between body weight and personality traits for nearly 3,500 adults. Contrary to widely held stereotypes, overweight and obese adults were not found to be significantly less conscientious, less agreeable, less extraverted or less emotionally stable.
It’s sad that this sort of research is necessary at all, and I’m sure on this blog the reaction will be “well, duh!” But probably the research is necessary, because the fact is that employers discriminate on exactly this basis:
“Previous research has demonstrated that many employers hold negative stereotypes about obese workers, and those beliefs contribute to discrimination against overweight workers at virtually every stage of the employment process, from hiring to promotion to firing,” Roehling said.
Of course, research alone can’t change many minds, because the prejudice against fat people is not based in reason. But it’s another piece of ammo that can be used to push people in the right direction, I think.
Although this article doesn’t note it, other research has shown that the wage penalty for being fat is larger for fat women. This is seemingly because men have to be very fat to be discriminated against as much as women who are only a bit fat.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I’m not sure it’s fat, people use body mass index in these studies. BMI = w/hh. So you can equally argue they were discriminated against because they’re short.
This comment was written by james.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Stereotype? Need I remind you that Hurley is the only member of the Oceanic 6 who is in a mental institution?
Dispute THAT, smart boy.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I am not surprised to see the result of this study, I am further not surprised to see that women face more discrimination in this area. The female body is extremely disciplined by the agents of socialization. Fatness is something that is still socially acceptable to ridicule. We have turned into an individual issue without dealing with the social causes of obesity and fat hate. We never discuss the link between poverty and obesity. There are many intersections that are as invisible and marginalized as fat people themselves. I am glad that there has been a study done though. The more awareness that is raised the better chance there is that a change or at least a softening of attitudes will occur.
This comment was written by Renee.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Yaargh! The might of your mighty logic might has defeated me!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
If the study had indicated that fat people were lazy workers, would that make it OK to discriminate against them?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Actual exchange a friend of mine heard in the job interview ballroom at the MLA conference a couple of years ago:
“What’d you think of her?”
“She was pretty overweight. I don’t think she’s motivated enough.”
Lovely.
This comment was written by The Girl Detective.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
GD, that sucks. I’ve heard a lot of anecdotes like that, unfortunately.
Robert, I’d say that it’s still unacceptable, unless a study proved that 100% of fat workers were lazier than 100% of non-fat workers.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Whatever you do, don’t press the red button. Seriously, don’t press it. You’ll regret it if you do…
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Ampersand:
It’s not obvious a priori that there’s no correlation between body types and personality types. Intuition is an unreliable tool of cognition, and things that seem obvious often turn out to be wrong. That’s why empirical testing is valuable, even for things you think you already know. Knowledge is better than prejudice.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
“It’s not obvious a priori that there’s no correlation between body types and personality types.”
Unless you’ve met, for instance, real people.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
By the way, here are some more articles from the same site (well worth an rss subscription, imo) of interest to this blog:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/asfh-sml071708.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uoia-npo071708.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/yu-ble071708.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/fsu-dws071608.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/ncsu-npa071608.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uons-maw071408.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/quot-rdf071608.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/cp-gvf071008.php
(That last one suggests a genetic, rather than behavioural or social, explanation for why Africa has been hit so hard by HIV.)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/bcom-teo070808.php
This comment was written by Daran.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/cfta-bsd070808.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/teia-uvr071108.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/bc-gtp071108.php
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July 18th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I can’t believe I’m typing this sentence, but I agree with Brandon, not Mandolin. (Which means I’m agreeing with Brandon that I was in error, too.)
Putting this particular issue aside, it’s true, as a general principle, that even observations we think are obviously true can be mistaken, so empirical testing of even obvious truths is still worthwhile.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Mandolin, few people (if any) meet a sufficient number of a variety of phenotypes, and have an analytical mode of thought, and keep records, and are able to overcome their own biases and preconceptions, to be able to make any kind of definitive statement about possible correlations or the lack thereof. It’s entirely possible to make statements in any direction (”Italians are lazy”, “most of the skinny people I’ve met have been graspingly avaricious”, “it seems like everyone with a big nose is gay”), but upon analysis 99.999% of those statements always end up simply being prejudiced from personal inclinations.
“There are no differences and no correlations” is equally prejudicial, and equally derived from personal inclinations or fixed ideation/ideology. On the basis of personal knowledge and surface appearances, as Brandon said, no a priori statement/conclusion reaches any type of rigor. Maybe big nose people DO tend to be gay. I don’t know, and neither do you. There’s too much data AND too much noise, our sampling is always limited and pathetically inadequate, and the variances to be measured quite often fall below our ability to eyeball them. To use IQ as an example, 10 points of IQ difference is measurable and a real difference, but most of us can’t reliably tell the difference between someone with a 125 and a 135 without giving a battery of tests. I’d be shocked and surprised, because there’s no apparent causal mechanism, to find any correlation between seemingly irrelevant phenotypes and significant personality characteristics, but if either of us thinks we know every causal mechanism there is to know, we’re fooling ourselves.
Studies are important because it’s easy to fool ourselves. In my life I’ve met about five people with the last name “Madrid” or “de la Madrid”, and every one of them has been a complete dick. Is the Madrid family a haven of “be a complete dick” genes? Or is it pure chance? Beats hell out of me. That one isn’t worth studying. Others might be, however.
Because those shifty-eyed big-nose gay people are out there.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I pressed it and now I am so pissed off that I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever speak to Barry again for linking to a site that might challenge my point of view. How dare you, sir! I want affirmation! Affirm meeeee!
But seriously, I like your blog, Daran.
This comment was written by Kevin Moore.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 7:19 am
So, given that, why aren’t we seeing a flood of studies to prove that, for instance, blue eyes aren’t correlated to dishonesty? There’s no reason to assume they’re *not* correlated to dishonesty. Am I just to look at blue-eyed people and assume they’re as honest as everyoen else? We should do a study to prove or disprove this rather than just making the assumption that blue eyes and honesty have no correlation. So why is no one doing that study? Ah - yes - cuz no one’s making the claim.
So this isn’t about a priori assumptions and wanting to have as much information as possible about the world around us. It’s a study that exists - shock — in a particular context, reacting to particular stereotypes and social realities.
Since the disproving of phrenology, and given the preponderance of empirical evidence already on the side of things like “no, body size is not correlated to intelligence” (how could you prove this, particularly given that body size changes? what biological sense does it make?) — a claim such as “fat people are just lazy” is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence. I need no more give it credence than give credence to the idea that I have a guardian angel — the burden of disproving it does not rest on my shoulders, or the shoulders of the scientific community, or anyone else. Not in any kind of rational, empirical sense.
However, it does lie on my shoulders, and teh shoulders of the scientific community, to disprove it for MORAL reasons — because sometimes it’s useful to show numbers to bigots.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Well, as a society we seems to operate on the group mentality assumption: if something is untested but is believed by a large number of people, we assume it to be “more true” than something which is untested and believed by a small number of people.*
Which leads to an interesting followup study, though I have no idea how it would be conducted: Is groupthink accurate at all in either a positive or negative way? If a large number of people have managed to acquire views about a population, is that useful info in either direction? Can we ever deduce as a general though by no means universal rule that said view is likely to be more (or less) accurate when put to the test?
*see, e.g., religion. Sigh.
This comment was written by sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 10:43 am
@Robert If the study had indicated that fat people were lazy workers, would that make it OK to discriminate against them?
This comment was written by Renee.That is an excellent point. Yes dispelling myths about obesity is important but we should realize that regardless of social perception, oppression is wrong. Even if there was a grain of truth in the myths that we have created about weight that would still be no reason to treat anyone as less than. Weight is one of the few areas where people still feel free to publicly ridicule and other. Constantly value judgments are made based on appearance that are harmful to the soul. We need to come to the understanding that regardless of the stigmatization we need to validate people on a human level.
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July 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Knowledge is better than prejudice.
But suppose the means of acquiring knowledge are prejudiced?
This comment was written by Tanglethis.I know, I know, then it’s not really knowledge. But it’s often pretty hard to make the distinction when the study affirms what we believe in the first place.
I’m not ragging on this study in particular (perhaps because it does reaffirm what I already believed), but urging a healthy skepticism of studies in general. I like facts as much as the next logical person, but I’ve also read a number of scientific reports that just fall apart if you poke them too hard with the logic stick. (Most of these, though, pertain to evolutionary psychology.)
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July 19th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’m glad that the study found the results it did, but I wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if it had found that fat workers were often lazier workers. Not because I think there’s any intrinsic relationship between fat and lazy, but because it’s possible that a sort of “stereotype threat” effect from living in a fatophobic society could have led to less productivity among fat workers.
Similarly, it won’t surprise me if some future study finds a link between being fat and being depressed or unhappy — because I think that being in a a marginalized group could easily make someone more likely to exhibit depression and unhappiness.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Interesting point Amp. Every study that goes against a stereotype is evidence against stereotype threat.
This comment was written by Rob.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
In my experience — not a scientific measure, of course — fat people on the whole tend to be *more* active and productive, because of the need to ‘work twice as hard to be thought half as good’.
This research already exists. However, fat-phobic researchers and journalists have tended to report these findings as suggesting that (a) being depressed causes people to ‘eat too much’ and therefore gain weight or (b) depressed fat people should be ‘helped to lose weight’ so they won’t be so depressed. (I guess those researchers missed the study that shows exceptionally high levels of depression occuring *after* weight loss.)
This comment was written by Vidya.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
“Every study that goes against a stereotype is evidence against stereotype threat.”
No. Stereotype threat works in very specific ways. There’s no suggestion they were invoked here.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Thanks, Kevin.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2008 at 8:27 am
“It’s not obvious a priori that there’s no correlation between body types and personality types. Intuition is an unreliable tool of cognition, and things that seem obvious often turn out to be wrong. That’s why empirical testing is valuable, even for things you think you already know. Knowledge is better than prejudice.”
Consider this gem from J Michael Bailey’s 2003 book TMWWBQ: “Gay people were all feminine in childhood and deny it due to femiphobia*.”
*Femiphobia: A term he invented I believe. It’s supposed to mean “being scared of feminity in themselves”.
The argument is fallacious because it invokes an ‘all x are/were y’ argument (and as such a single exception could invalidate it). But suppose he said ‘most’. He didn’t do much of a study for his book, and didn’t reference any other. While it may be an evident stereotype, paraded by the Kenneth J Zuckers, Richard Green, George A Rekers of the world and others like them, probably NARTH too - it’s not even verified.
Some tendencial claims have been made about handedness and queerness (in real studies). Left-handed or ambidextrous children are more likely to be gay or bisexual or transsexual than right-handed people. They are disproportionately left-handed. I have no idea what purpose it serves to know that. Seems to me to be like digit ratios and brain sex, meaning serving no purpose.
Refuting bad stereotypes that are stamped upon the oppressed is a good thing though, since those same classes can usually not defend themselves adequately, or are offered no platform to do so, or are simply not heard, like the old saying “Its your sickness speaking.”
So we have those stereotypes:
-Gay men have all been feminine at least in childhood
-Transsexuals are especially suited for prostitution, dislike long-term relationships, will often shoplift, and hang in strip bars (as workers), are unable to hold a decent job (never mind the hiring discrimination, its their fault), are all perverts.
-’Perversions’ are necessarily bad (even if they’re consensual, don’t involve innocent bystanders, hurt and coerce no one, and involve adult humans only).
-Lesbian women all hate men, are all radical feminists, are all separatists basically paint them a portrait of Heart minus the 11 children and 3 husbands.
-Feminism is the sole reason men have problems in courts or with the government.
-Rape victims ask for it (wether male or female).
-Males cannot be raped. Especially by a woman. If they do it’s not rape, its free sex.
-Black people are more prone to crime.
-Black people are louder and more obnoxious.
-Asian people are all super-intelligent workaholics who open drug stores and convenience stores only.
-Americans are all Christians.
-Canadians are all Catholics or Protestants, but Catholics are not Christian (go figure that one).
-Studious people are all nerds.
-All nerds wear glasses (the thicker the better), have zero social skills, and are almost entirely male (female nerds are made invisible or tokenized). They represent the loser (unmasculine, shy, who can’t get a date) kind of man.
-All football players are jerk jocks.
-All cheerleaders are dumb blondes who date jerk jocks.
-Any girl or woman who’s involved at a competitive level in a sport (less than olympic here, just any organized team that competes against other teams) HAS to be masculine or butch. Similarly any guy who does also has to be masculine.
-All men think with their dicks and will never refuse sex. If they do they are gay.
-All women want children.
-All women want to marry and a huge ceremony for the wedding.
…that should be enough.
Those I heard or seen a lot being trotted as truth, or at least being uncontested.
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Well, first you’d have to establish causation rather than mere correlation - people with braces tend to be less competent than people without, mainly because those few who still wear them are in their early 20’s and are probably interns. But it would be absurd and ridiculous to use that as a base to conclude that a 35 year old man, who is wearing them for specific medical reasons, is only as competent as an intern.
And then you’d have to make sure that causation runs in a specific direction - namely, that being lazy makes one fat, rather than the experience of being fat taking an emotional toll which makes one less productive.
That last point might not matter too much to some, but it ties into the third and last hurdle to be cleared, which is the moral question.
So basically I’m saying no. I wouldn’t bet on anti-fat prejudice to clear a single one of these hurdles, let alone all three. But on that, I think we’re all in agreement.
Excellent point. One has to pay just as much attention to the meta-narrative as to the explicit narrative.
You see this all the time with political scandals. The issue gets put live on CNN or NBC, a talking haircut from an institute goes “it’s true that blah blah blah”… and a different haircut from a different institute goes “no it’s not true that blah blah blah”. The hucksters don’t need their side to *win* these kangaroo court debates, because they’ve already won in implanting or reinforcing the meme into public mythology. “Fat people are lazy blah blah blah.” “No, fat people are not lazy blah blah blah.”
Are we going to see a study on whether the Germans are inherently a warlike people? Given their history, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable question for, say, an alien whose only knowledge of Germans is from a history textbook. But those of us who have known people of German ancestry, and have been taught an understanding of history beyond rote memorization of names and dates, would not take this question seriously. So no, we probably won’t see that study. But I bet we’ll see a lot more studies trying to verify or debunk the idea that Black people are less intelligent.
I’m not saying this study is bad, or that its team of researchers is bad, or that Amp and Daran are bad for spreading the news about it. No the study is good, because sometimes you need ammunition. But I also understand Mandolin’s point. Brandon’s point, while pedantically true, opens itself to simplistic interpretation and abuse.
Hmm. I agree that studies aren’t Scripture and that we shouldn’tbow before official seals and inks, but parts of your comment (”perhaps because it does reaffirm what I already believed”…, poking too hard papers only on a specific subject) could be interpreted justify rejecting papers whose conclusions we don’t like, without of course explicitly advocating it.
I only say this because it bugs me a bit how “skepticism” is a value word in our culture, and that if you say you’re a “skeptic”, the rightness of your intention is beyond reproach. If the positive side provides a reasonable collection of evidence, at some point it becomes incumbent to (a) provide contrary evidence, not merely contrary “logic”, because one man’s logic is another’s rationalization, something that persistently plagues this evolutionary psychology you mention, and (b) state a positive position of your own. (b) is not a must in the strictest sense, but I find that when you get down to it all people have motivations and no one debates for the hell of it. So it’s a test of honesty, mainly.
Sorry, I used your comment, Tanglethis, mainly to springboard on a personal tangent (is comment #25 too soon?), and I didn’t mean it as an attack on you.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Wrt stereotypes, correlations, and the validity of studies in general, I offer this.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
‘It’s not obvious a priori that there’s no correlation between body types and personality types.’
It isn’t? Let’s rethink phrenology then. I mean really you haven’t noticed that fat people vary in character and temperament, this is unbelieveable. Why not ask why or even if people really believe fat employees are lazy etc?
This pretence that fat people are somehow passengers being carried by their fellow slim co-workers has been carefully orchestrated by those who believe stigmatizing fat people will encourage them to slim down.
Also, the public have decided to go along with it, it’s no secret many’s the vox pop where people say ‘yes, I think we need to discrimate more against fat people’ and suchlike.
Those of us who’ve been around have seen people train themselves to go grrrrrrr, whenever the talk goes to any aspect of ‘obesity’. It’s wilful collusion on all our parts whatever the reasons. To suggest otherwise is strains credulity.
This comment was written by B. Adu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:29 am
B. Adu:
This does not in any way rule out a correlation between body types and personality traits. It rules out a correlation of 1 or -1, but no one suggested anything of the sort. Correlations are real-valued.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
Body type which is derived from genetics or environmental factors could, theoretically, be linked to personality. Though it seems unlikely, it is nonetheless possible because we have yet to figure out the many genetic issues which may underlie personality differences. Genes are complex. But it would require some pretty complex mechanisms to figure it out.
Body type which is derived fully or partially from free choice(s) is more similar to personal appearance. It is probable that personality type is linked to haircut, for example, since a haircut is a means of expression of personality. It is also quite probable that personality type is linked to certain voluntary behaviors: are you a weight lifter? An amateur mycologist? A What you have chosen to do is surely affected by what genetics gave you as a starting point, but is nonetheless a is a means of expression of personality.
The question then becomes which category body weight is in: Some folks seem to think it is genetic, i.e. without voluntary input. Other folks seem to think it is entirely a means of expression of personality. In terms of fatness, depending on whether you define “fat” as morbidly obese, obese, or just plain ‘plump,’ there is not a consensus on this.
Similarly, because people accurately believe that they can make choices about what they eat, at least on a meal-to-meal basis, there is (was?) good reason to suggest that fatness, skinniness, and everything in between has some voluntary component. That would make it more likely to have a link to a personality trait (though not necessarily laziness, mind you. Maybe fat people are more likely to enjoy Bach and skinny people prefer Handel.)
So it doesn’t seem insane to think of studying body size and personality links, though obviously the choice of laziness is based in societal bias.
This comment was written by sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Sailorman,
That’s reductive. It assumes that weight will have one cause in all individuals, which is highly, highly unlikely.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
reductive? I’m not assuming that weight DOES in fact have a personality link.
I’m merely pointing out that it is more plausible to assume that an attribute which is both theoretically controllable (and is in fact controlled by some people) may have more of a correlation to one’s personality than one which is not. And that it may be appropriate to study it as such.
obviously humans are incredibly complex, so any generalised finding is going to be subject to issues of confounding factors, reductionism, etc. But that doesn’t make such findings worthless; it just makes them limited in what they mean. It is valueable to study people even if you can’t find all the answers to each question.
This comment was written by sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Sure. But to assume that this is relevant to studies, it assumes that the binary is A) dichotomous, and B) will evidence the same proportions of genetic/controllable from subject to subject.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 7:27 am
First off, sorry for repeating the phrenology thing, I confess I didn’t read all the comments, but how funny that sprang to more than one mind!
Brandon Berg,
Let’s stick to specifics;
‘overweight workers are lazier, more emotionally unstable and harder to get along with than their “normal weight” colleagues’
In the same way that someone with an IQ of 95 would find it hard to become a CEO, the specific assumed traits are hard to hide - incidentally, I don’t think of laziness, emotionally instability nor being hard to get along with as character traits.
If fat people turned up excessively in solitary jobs, were likely to be the to be the grumpy ones at work and turned up more regularly in mental institutions due to their ‘emotional’ instability then it would be worth deeper investigation.
Taking this seriously enough to study it is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it legitimises outrageous libels without really dispelling them because they are chosen they are not just there. We know this, so investigations should centre on why we so badly need to believe these things and others about fat people, this could potentially be usefully applied to other stereotypes and what roles they fulfil in our imagination.
Who was it that said ‘don’t worry about the stupidity of stupid people, it’s the stupidity of intelligent people you should worry about’
This comment was written by B. Adu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
The traits studied were four of the Big Five personality traits (Openness was apparently not evaluated). As I understand it, these traits are believed to be the basic dimensions of personality, and tests of these traits have shown predictive validity for a wide range of behaviors, including job performance. Whether—and how—they correlate with body type is an interesting question.
I do have a quibble with the media coverage: Lack of conscientiousness is not really the same thing as laziness (take a look at the sample questions in the Wikipedia article I linked to), so the study really didn’t examine the question of whether fat people are lazier than non-fat people. Which is not to say that they are—just that that’s not what was tested.
Mandolin:
Out of curiosity, could you point me to this evidence? I know of a few studies that have found a negative correlation between BMI and IQ scores, so I’d be interested in seeing the other side of the story. Also, height is positively correlated with IQ scores.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 3:57 am
“I know of a few studies that have found a negative correlation between BMI and IQ scores, so I’d be interested in seeing the other side of the story. Also, height is positively correlated with IQ scores.”
How are those studies? Especially the height one seems to point to a ‘men are more intelligent than women’ thing (as women are on average shorter) while what I heard was that men were outliers in both the low and high IQ disporportionately but had no significant average difference with women.
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
July 25th, 2008 at 6:47 am
I’m not disputing whether or not there is some connection between body types and character traits, fatness is simply not a body type.
Amp’s post refers to a specific example of research investigating what purports to be stereotypes of fat workers.
The research treats these traits as if they have enough legitimacy to be proven or disproven, they do not. They come from the current beliefs about fatness and are not specific to the work context at all, fat =not exercising= lazy; = emotional eating = excess eating=fatness and so on, crap in crap out as they say.
This comment was written by B. Adu.Fat people have these traits because that is how fatness is explained, if not the explanations for fatness will have to change, that will happen when the people that are winding up the public decided to stop, probably when their wet dream of a magic bullet is fulfilled. The debunking will be ignored or other equally degrading will take their place.
As I’ve already said, laziness and emotional stability are not character/personality traits anyhow.
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August 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/jaaj-soi080708.php
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:02 am
I deal with this all the time over here in Sweden. I was actually told by an interviewer that I would never get a job because of my weight. I am looked at as lazy, someone would will call in all the time, unlikeable, mean, spiteful. Then she added, but we think you would be great for the job even though we are going to go with someone else. The sad thing is, I can do nothing about this. That is the way it is here. What is funny is that more “skinny” people are on sick leave from work here than I have ever seen in the states. It boggles the mind that I and so many other women are treated this way. Men, it is fine for them to be overweight. I just don’t get it.
This comment was written by N.Report this comment to the moderators