Posted on 11/19/2004 1:48:50 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Being obese can affect more than your health, it can affect your livelihood, too.
Misty Watts had worked as a waitress for the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain for two and a half years last August when she says she was fired out of the blue for being overweight. Just three days earlier the widow, part-time college student, and mother of three was named "Employee of the Month" at the restaurant, but on the day she was terminated a visiting district manager told her she didn't fit the company's image.
"I asked him, 'Are you firing me because I'm fat?'" the 240-pound, 5-feet, 5-inch tall Hickory, North Carolina woman tells WebMD. "And he said, 'Let's just say it's because your shirt doesn't fit and it never will.' When my store manager asked if they could keep me and not hire anyone else with this image the response was, 'No, we have an image to uphold and we have to start now.'"
The Pound Penalty
Weight discrimination in the workplace is common, but the economic cost for individual workers of being obese is not well understood. In a newly published study, finance professors from Middle Tennessee State University sought to quantify this cost using analytical methods that controlled for other variables that have been shown to influence income.
The issue is of growing importance, as more and more Americans find themselves heavy enough to be considered obese. About one in three adults in the U.S. meet the standard, meaning they have a body mass index of 30 or more. There are now more obese adults in this country than cigarette smokers or drug users.
The MTSU researchers found that the economic cost of obesity, or the "pound penalty," as they called it, was much greater for women than for men. But both sexes experienced a persistent obesity-related wage penalty over the first two decades of their careers.
After controlling for other variables influencing income, obesity was found to lower a man's annual earnings by as much as 2.3% and a woman's by as much as 6.2%. The average reduction for women was around 4.5%, study researcher Charles L. Baum, PhD, tells WebMD. The findings were reported in the September issue of the journal Health Economics.
"Four and a half percent may not sound like a lot, but over the course of a career it can really add up," Baum says. "If you earn $50,000 on an annual basis, that is $2,250. If you multiply that over a 40-year career, that's almost $100,000."
The researchers attempted to identify other explanations for why overweight workers make less. In their analysis the discrepancy could not be explained by lower productivity or customer discrimination. But there was some evidence that obese employees were less likely to seek training to further their careers.
The findings echo those of an analysis combining 29 studies of employment discrimination compiled by Western Michigan University management professor Mark Roehling, PhD.
Roehling tells WebMD that weight appears to be more consistently associated with economic discrimination than any other factor, including race, gender, and age.
"The evidence suggests that weight has a stronger and more consistently negative impact on earnings than anything else," he says. "And the effect was consistently greater for women than for men."
Moving On
While Misty Watts' case seems particularly egregious, Ruby Tuesday continues to insist in press releases that she was not fired for being fat. But company spokesmen have not specified another reason and the 28-year-old mom says she was offered her job back after she told her story on ABC's Good Morning America in October.
She declined and now works at Shell's Bar-B-Q in Hickory, N.C.
"[Ruby Tuesday] keeps saying that my weight was not the reason, but you don't fire someone for cause three days after they are named "Employee of the Month," she says. "They say they can't say why for employee confidentiality reasons, but I went on national television and told them to tell the world why. They also said they would publicly apologize, but they didn't."
I've worked in businesses that had high turnover.
The costs of training employees are higher, because you have to train so many and then they leave.
The atmosphere is worse, because you're just another replacable cog in the machine.
And usually there is high turnover because the work isn't that desirable. This is never a good thing, especially in an industry like waitressing, where the work CAN be desirable. After all, not all restaurants deal with high turnover. Some are highly sought after by potential employees.
I have never worked in a place that had high turnover where the employee work was NOT at a lower level.
I'm thinking of places like McDonalds, etc. where all employees are about at the same level. The place is designed around high turnover. If you took that model to other areas, such as sales, management, warehouses, etc. Would the level of work decline accordingly?
I've run a business before where I was required to deal with turnover and bad employees regularly. When I managed to hire someone good, that showed up on time, I held onto them like gold. It only helps to simplify managing a business. As a customer, I'll take a fat waitress that provides good service over a thin one more concerned with flirting up the bartenders than serving customers.
I'm missing the "obvious and pragmatic" reasons. Please enlighten me.
Here's two: Male customers like to impress pretty waitresses by playing at being "big spenders." Female customers don't want to be reminded of the "dangers" involved in eating. Half of any successful restaurant involves a form of "theater."
Wow the customers you described are pretty shallow and self absorbed. They suck, I'd rather have good employees and decent customers.
If you run a restaurant, you don't care what the psychological make-up of your customers are, as long as they have cash/plastic in their pockets. What you do care about is an effective means of extracting that money from them. And a waitress/waiter is the most effective means of extracting that money.
Actually I've ran a restaurant before and my primary concern was whether or not the customers were happy with the food and the service not the firmness of the waitresses arse. But I'm silly like that.
Ohhh and good reliable wait staff is more preferable than some super model wannabe primadonna.
The late Jim Croce once made reference to a woman like this in a song. He sang that "she was built like a refrigerator with a head".
: )
I want to know how much of the restaurant's food this girl ate every day. They have to make a profit ya know.
I spent time in the restaurant business as well -- in my youth. Aside from thieving bartenders, cheating suppliers, drunken chefs and the crazed boyfriends of the waitresses, I was most concerned with how much money ended up on the desk in the office at the end of the night.
Look, I've seen good waitresses turn a $50 ticket into a $80.00 ticket with a smile and one last round of drinks. A good wait staff is gold. But you do want attractive people in the front of the store.
PC laws otherwise should be rescinded.
I'm sure I would be fired too, just as soon as I get too old, but that's life. Nobody said it would be fair, and the government trying to "make it fair" will only screw things up.
"'Are you firing me because I'm fat?'"
No. I'm firing you because you are too short for your weight.
I agree with you. Many years ago I managed a small business for a woman who was a shrew. The employees who were there were the ones hired before I took over. Two of the ladies were very obese however their work was excellent. Their sales were high and the patrons loved them.
After about a year one day the owner said for me to fire them because they were fat. She made no bone about that being the reason for wanting them gone. Like this company she said it did not fit with the image she wanted for her store. It is not like these gals were not fat when they were hired. They had been there for over three years before I came. I told the owner I felt this was not fair since they had excellent employee reviews and were in ever regard the best employee in the business. She told me to fire them or resign. I resigned but before I left I took copies of all their work reviews, all the pay raises they had gotten over the years and all the wonderful written reports that had been made by the former manager. I told the women exactly why they were being fired and I helped them get an attorney. I testified on their behalf as well as the former manager and several of the patrons submitted letters attesting to their professionalism etc. They won the case and the woman lost her business having to pay them damages. Do I feel bad for her? Not in the least. She is just as much of a bigot as one who discriminates on the basis of race or sex.
Maybe that is the reason for the efforts to make obesity a "disability". Once that happens, the lawyers will have a hunting license.
I suppose some can argue that the obese, when cut off from source of food/paycheck, soon become not obese, or that likewise, when our ancestors became too obese to chase game, there was an equilibrium established, where they simply did not get food until they were skinny enough.
Another argument could be made that since most people are "On a diet" (including me) the diners would prefer not to be presented with an example of the Sin Of Gluttony when they are being served. The staff of a restaurant is in fact on public display. There is no reason why a waiter showing up for work soaked in 90 weight gear lube after working on his car cannot physically wait on tables..it is simply that people do not want to see it at the table.
I suspect that in other industries where there is no such reason as public display, there is still prejudice against The Fat (Not chunky, according to stats, the avergae wieght has been inching up until "normal" keeps changing).
For example, years ago I heard a person in advertising comment that they would never hire a fat person. The reason given was very similar to that given for smokers: "They are either out sick, in the bathroom, or indulging their vice, show a lack of self-control or self-respect or discipline"- Yet there was no reason anyone of any weight could not do Media Buys on the telephone, or accounting, etc..etc.
Disclaimer: I am not exactly a Playgirl centerfold anymore, so, Chubbies, hold the flames!
240-pound, 5-feet, 5-inch tall
I'm surprised she could stand on her feet that long as a waitress!!
Everyone who is even marginally obese should consider buying a treadmill. It's a question of health, as much as or more than appearance.
Good for you for sticking up for this women! That manager's behavior was just plain cruel and I am gald that you helped the women use the legal means available to stick it to their evil former boss. Well done!
SO LOSE WEIGHT ALREADY!
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