While I applaud Johanna for her honesty, and for her eloquent piece on exercise addiction, her words sent me into a whirlwind of doubt and nerves about meeting a recruiter for an interview. David Ramsey says that the average human resources person will know within 30 seconds of meeting you if you are a viable candidate for the job.
On the flip side, overweight people are constantly making up for their first impressions with bubbly personalities, humor, and talking about their road to weight-loss within the first few moments of meeting a new person. I know that I'm guilty of all three. Unfortunately, insincerity and false confidence doesn't read well in any kind of social interaction much less a job interview. So 'faking it, til you make it' isn't an option. Thankfully, I am confident about my abilities, my qualifications, and my love for education and children, and I'm hoping that will shine through my Lane Bryant wardrobe and will help me land the second and third interviews leading towards a teaching position.
In my research I actually came across an article called: Obese People and Appearance: Why Fat isn't Beautiful. The writer discussed, in general terms, what is like to be depressed and overweight, and then, in the last paragraph, the author said this:
"You may be compassionate and empathetic, but if you own a business or lead a sales team, you probably won't want an obese person to represent your firm. No matter how open your own thinking may be, you know your clients may react poorly to an obese customer service representative." (obesityfocused.com)Nice. This author's vague first person's account on being overweight just highlighted some of the difficulties of being a plus sized person and then concluded that because of every stereotype is "true" don't even think of hiring a plus sized person because, well, we aren't that great to look at. Great work anonymous blogger.
The Forbes Magazine Article: Is Your Weight Affecting Your Career? takes it up a notch discussing actual statistics that make me want to run on a treadmill for 24 hours in order to really prepare myself for this potential step in the hiring process:
The bias [towards overweight persons] appears to be most prominent during the hiring process, when an employer knows a potential employee the least and therefore is most likely to be influenced by stereotypes (such as fat people are lazy), says Cort Rudolph, a Wayne State University researcher... A 2004 study by Cornell University Associate Professor John Cawley found that when the average white woman puts on an additional 64 pounds, her wages drop 9%. (Some studies have shown that overweight white women are evaluated more harshly than overweight African American women and that African Americans tend to be more accepting of large body types, according to Roehling.) (Forbes Magazine, May 2008).
Due to pregnancy and other factors, I gained and kept 70 pounds after my first son was born. If I had stayed in the work force, due to these statistics, I would have either seen a reluctance to promote me/increase my salary or have been fired. This is just another reason for me to achieve this goal of optimal health. Though I'm reluctant to agree, Kate Seidametova made an excellent point in her article "Why Do Taller Men Earn More and Overweight Women Earn Less?"
Well, consider this: the stereotypes and our way of thinking in the Western world have been shaped thousands of years ago by the Romans, who even had a saying: “Mens sana in corpore sano” (“A sound mind in a health body”). Even though today we have many anti-discrimination laws, two-thousand-year-old stereotypes are not easy to break. (Resumark Blog, December 2009)Thanks for the food for thought, Kate. Now I'm off to pick out my, hopefully slimming, outfit for tomorrow. Wish me luck!
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