Obese women face greater discrimination

Obese women are more likely to be discriminated against when applying for jobs and receive lower starting salaries than non-overweight colleagues, according to a study.

The research, led by the University of Manchester and Monash University, Melbourne, and published in the International Journal of Obesity, examined whether a recently developed measure of anti-fat prejudice, the universal measure of bias (UMB), predicted obesity job discrimination.

Lead researcher Dr Kerry O’Brien said the nature of the study was initially concealed from the participants to avoid biased results and simply advertised as a study on whether some people are better at personnel selection than others.