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**People who are overweight and obese face many difficulties their normal weight peers do not.** Frequent doctor visits are a fact of life for overweight and obese people, due to the development of weight-related disorders such as diabetes and osteoarthritis. Along with the daily difficulties associated with these diseases, the overweight or obese person may be personally affected financially as a result of weight-related expenses and reduced income.

**The personal consequences and costs of obesity are serious, and the personal financial cost great.** Multiple studies have shown that obesity significantly negatively affects personal and working relations, wages, and advancement, particularly for females.

**While the health problems as the overweight/obese age may ravage savings, an overweight/obese person may have difficulty accumulating those savings in the first place.** One of the earliest sociological studies of the overweight, in 1966, found that the heaviest students had a harder time getting into top colleges. The obese, particularly white women, are paid less. A study by Cornell University found that a weight increase of 64 pounds above the average for white women was associated with 9 percent lower wages.

**I can personally attest to the ceiling placed on the obese; the jobs that are available to you based on your talents and abilities are often not received; there can be pattern of coming in second in interviews.** This is particularly so when the job involves social context or a large amount of meet and greet.

**Overweight people may or may not spend more than normal-size people on food, but their life insurance premiums are two to four times as large.** They can expect higher medical expenses, and they tend to make less money and accumulate less wealth in their lifetimes. They can have a harder time being hired, and then a harder time earning promotions. People carrying as little as 30 to 40 pounds extra can be seriously affected.

**In 2004, The Obesity Society created a Task Force on weight which found accumulating evidence of clear and consistent bias, stigmatization, and in some cases discrimination, against obese individuals in three areas of living: employment, education, and health care.** They also reported that recent studies have documented automatic negative associations with obese people among health professionals and among obese individuals themselves.

**In addition to the negative financial impact that excess weight carries, there is also impact on quality of life.** People who are severely overweight may have difficulty performing simple daily tasks, such as tying shoes or walking up a flight of stairs. Many obese people have trouble sitting in, or can not trust the weight limit of, standard furniture. It becomes difficult to go to restaurants or theaters, or to utilize public transportation. Many bathroom facilities would be inaccessible to the obese were it not for the availability of the much larger handicap stall.

**Think about all the places you might not go if you had to be worried about fitting in, or not breaking, the chairs; think of all the places that have booths, which have fixed distances from the table.** Consider the size of the average subway turnstile. Go window shopping and mentally buy several stylish items; then go to one of the plus size departments or stores and try to replicate the satisfaction you had mock shopping in your size range. Tie a few gallon water jugs to yourself and see what it is like to sit in your own furniture.

**If you are really looking to get an inkling of the reality, fill the jugs with water and carry in your groceries.** Water weights about eight pounds a gallon, so you can see what it is like at 50 pounds overweight, 100, 150. I doubt many of us could handle carrying around enough jugs to bring our weight up to the 500, 600 or higher that some people live with; the obese put the weight on over time so tend not to realize just how much weight they are asking their backs and knees to support. There is no way to truly feel what it is like physically to be obese: things like raw inner thighs from chaffing and permanent raw indentations from bra straps can not be duplicated.

**These problems may seem trivial to some, but they represent serious, multi-layered difficulties that can have both a cumulative and a rippling effect.** If you are afraid you might not be able to use facilities, long shopping trips become less inviting. If your size affects your lung capacity, you may have trouble sleeping, which can affect your performance at work, which in turn may worsen the experience of day-to-day financial strains. So might the ability to keep up, literally.

**Duke University Medical Center researchers reported in 2004 that obesity significantly impairs the sexual quality of life.** Obese people report sexual problems such as lack of desire, lack of enjoyment, avoiding sex, and performance difficulty at a much higher rate than people of normal weight.

**Overweight and obese people are frequently stereotyped as emotionally impaired, socially handicapped, and as possessing negative personality traits.** Evidence of discrimination is found at virtually every stage of the employment cycle, including selection, placement, compensation, promotion, discipline and discharge, according to research presented by Western Michigan University. In addition, this bias extends to job assessments of overweight individuals in their various work related roles, both as subordinates and co-workers.

**The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal statute that protects qualified individuals with disabilities from discrimination on the basis of disability in the workplace.** Since the enactment of the ADA, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken the position that people who are morbidly obese (body weight more than 100 percent over the norm) are disabled and protected under the ADA. This leaves a huge number of obese, but not morbidly obese, unprotected in forty-nine of fifty states. It also puts those who do qualify under obligation to bring an ADA law suit to rectify a qualifying situation. And you still have to prove it was discrimination due to obesity.

**Compared to normal weight people, morbidly obese and massively obese people are more likely to incur instances of institutional and day-to-day interpersonal discrimination.** Morbidly obese and massively obese persons report lower levels of self-acceptance than normal weight persons, yet this relationship is fully mitigated by the perception that one has been discriminated against due to body weight or physical appearance: a more palatable reason psychologically than character or personality defect, or a job not well done.

**Unflattering portrayals of obese people pervade popular culture, while multiple studies document that children, adults, and even health care professionals who work with obese patients hold negative attitudes toward overweight and obese persons.** Twenty-eight percent of teachers in one study said that becoming obese is the worst thing that can happen to a person; twenty-four percent of nurses said that they are repulsed by obese people.

**Obese people who believe that their health care providers look down upon them may avoid seeking care; this reaction is potentially dangerous given that obese individuals are at an elevated risk for many health conditions.**

**Research conducted over the past 40 years shows that obese people are viewed as physically unattractive and undesirable.** Obese individuals also are viewed as responsible for their weight due to some character flaw such as laziness, gluttony, or a lack of self-control and self respect. Obese persons may form negative self-evaluations as a reaction to the pervasiveness of negative attitudes toward obese persons and real or perceived…
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Ihab Salloum