Litigation Could Foster Weight-Based Discrimination by Employers

According to a news source, employers may have more reason to avoid hiring overweight employees after a workers’ compensation board in Indiana and the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that employers must pay for weight-loss surgery if their obese employees suffer weight-related injuries on the job. With no laws banning employment discrimination against the obese, beyond limited areas to which the Americans with Disabilities Act applies, human resource consultants are apparently speculating that fears about the costs of providing weight-loss treatment could increase an existing bias against hiring overweight job applicants. At the very least, some employers have begun requiring that their
overweight employees either pay more for health-insurance premiums or enroll in weight-loss programs.

While the obese “might call it a gross invasion of privacy and personal choice to have employers so involved in their weight . . . it’s come down to a case where this personal ‘freedom’ is outweighed by employers’ pocketbook choices,” according to a Kansas City Star employment columnist. “Nowadays, when employers talk about cutting the fat, they may mean it literally,” she concludes. See The Kansas City Star, November 4, 2009.