Prologue
I’ve wanted to write a piece on discrimination centred around differences between lifestyle choice and things we’re born as, since sometime last year. Here’s where I’d previously got to in draft form:
There are a number of health and wellbeing factors that can affect our ability to work. As someone doing the hiring, alcohol, drugs, smoking and obesity are all things that might cause me to stop and think, ‘hmmm, do I want that person on my team?’ A problem with the first three is that their effects are often well hidden from view. So when considering someone as a new hire or a promotion, although their health may being adversely affected by alcohol, drugs, smoking and/or combinations of the three, there’s often no obvious way of spotting this. Clearly it’s pretty simple to spot someone who is overweight.
That’s as far as it went – until today.
Credo
I believe discrimination based on sex, race, gender i.e. stuff we’re born as, is wrong. And everything we can do separately and together to increase tolerance and diversity, and remove this discrimination from our lives is to be encouraged.
Testing Times
I was recently asked to take part in some tests to see what if any unconscious bias they revealed in me. 122 people took part as an experiment for People Management Magazine and they’ve published a piece on the results here. The headline figures the magazine piece picks out are:
51% biased against overweight women
37% biased against men
I was surprised both were so high, though less so about the figure relating to weight than gender. Apparently the data for the overweight men test was inconclusive which I guess means they didn’t get enough data?
The specific tests I took as part of this experiment were: gender bias, gender career bias, and overweight bias (I chose the male and female versions of this test). Your results put you in one of four brackets: Low, Mid-Range, Elevated or High, explained in more detail below:
Low scores indicate a neutral or weak preference for one group over another. Mid-range scores indicate a moderate preference for one group over another which may be affecting behaviour without the person even being aware. Elevated and High scores indicate a strong or very strong preference, with an increasing probability that the person is behaving with preference for one group over the other. Again the person may be unaware that these stronger preferences are affecting their behaviour in subtle ways, making them unconsciously uncivil or giving off unintentional negative signals.
I scored low in all these tests – particularly low in the gender and gender career bias, however in both weight bias tests I was at the very upper end of the low bracket.
Lifestyle Choice?
We were encouraged to choose tests that interested us, and I chose the weight bias ones specifically because for a lot of people, weight is part of a lifestyle choice. We can none of us choose to be black, white, male, female, gay or straight – but we can overwhelmingly choose what we eat, how much we eat, and make other choices that affect our weight. I’m not advocating what people choose to do or not to do for one second, I simply wanted to test my responses to something we choose rather than something we are born as. And based on these few results I am more biased when the question being asked has a basis in personal choice.
Employment Issue?
Health issues are on my mind a lot – my own health, and that of my family, friends and the wider community in general. Health and wellbeing matters And I often wonder to what extent employers and HR people, should be taking account of them too. Particularly when they are choice based issues, so I might put smoking and drinking, along with being overweight in the mix too. At what point, if any, should an employer be getting involved in these things? Or choosing whether or not to hire someone because of them?
Is it acceptable say, to refuse to employ someone who drinks too much? Or someone who is too fat? And who decides how much drink is too much, or how fat is too fat? I think that employers should have some say in these matters, at least in so far as they affect a person’s ability to do their job. And there are a number of implications if and when someone becomes unwell through lifestyle choices. Of course it can be far easier to hide or manage a drink related challenge, it’s kind of tough to disguise the fact that you’re five feet nine and 17 stone, so there’s an obvious difficulty there.
And what about smoking? There can’t be anyone alive who doesn’t know how harmful smoking is – yet it remains legal – and people choose to do it. Can I as an employer also exercise choice and choose not to employ you as a smoker?
Societal Issue?
And of course this goes way beyond employment. Societally we need to face up to this huge and growing problem we have. I don’t think it’s helpful for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination and others to try and defend or fudge the issue via completely unhelpful FAQ pages. We need to take a long hard look at what we’re eating, how little we’re exercising, and a whole range of other wellbeing issues too, admit that we have problems, and then start helping each other to fix them. Almost a quarter of adults in the UK are obese, more than a third in the USA. These may well be difficult conversations to start, but not having them will prove even tougher in time.
As someone who smoked from the age of 14 until I was 48, have flirted with alcoholism earlier in my life, and managed to be 14 stone at 5’10” five years ago, I could now be said to be prejudiced against several of the people that I used to be!
Nowadays I can’t believe that I ever smoked, drink a couple of bottles of wine a week, eat healthily most of the time and drink plenty of water, and take a lot of exercise. I feel better at 56 than I did at 36. But I made that choice because I quite like being alive and I want to stay that way for a long time to come!
I was at an awards ceremony at an NHS Trust a few weeks ago. There was a buffet lunch, and the last two people left in the room were two overweight office people who worked there, who had come down to ‘finish off’ the buffet. I wondered if they had any sort of help there regarding wellness.
I used to have a client, who owned a factory manufacturing polystyrene packaging. Under the guise of it being a fire hazard, he refused to even interview any smokers, because he just didn’t like them. I don’t mind smokers quite so much, but did feel he was entitled to exclude them from his workforce.
I’m like you and I (and I hope a vast majority of people do too) think discrimination based on sex/race/disability/etc – issues associated with the way a person came into the world or through no fault of their own were subjected to an issue – war, crime, etc – is wrong.
The uneasiness you feel regarding those things you think are “behavioral” based – weight, smoking – is simply the process all of us go through as society establishes new social norms.
50 years ago smoking was common – way common. In fact, it was almost expected. People offered each other a cigarette as often as we ask today if someone wants bottled water or a coffee. It was a societal norm. There was a time in our recent past where you wouldn’t trust a man who didn’t drink – and drink heavily at lunch and dinner and after dinner.
The fact is we are in the process of establishing new social norms that lean more toward exercise, fitness, health – and to a degree, sustainability in general if you count recycling and carbon footprints, etc. Celebrities who could afford $200,000 Hummers are now driving $40,000 electric cars. The world is changing – and we feel for those that aren’t changing with it.
All societal norms change and in order for those norms to change – by definition we have to discriminate against those that hold fast to the “old” way.
I do think, however, that we need to more completely understand the true causes of certain behavioral issues – ie: obesity can sometimes be a symptom of depression – as they aren’t always “obviously” a behavioral problem.
I think it is important that we pay attention to the issues associated with changing a norm – and do what we can to help folks move toward the new norm – but at the end of the day there will always be those that don’t want to play and as long as we can feel comfortable that we’ve done what we can to help – at some point we need to move on.
A company can do many things to increase the adoption of a new norm – eliminate smoking on all company grounds include in autos, eliminate foods that are obvious problems or at least make foods that are better more accessible and cheaper. A company can make the new norm more – normal within the confines of the environment. In addition, the promotion of healthy lifestyle through company sponsored activities and highlighting health behaviors goes a long way toward cementing the new norm in the minds of the employees. Even those who continue to choose the poorer choices will be influenced by the new norms and begin moving toward them – or away via turnover.
Don’t feel bad – it’s just the natural way we as a society establish new guidelines of what it means to be a part of a group.
Yes – compare Mad Men to today! Smoking, drinking, cheating… compulsory.
No matter what OTHER people think of overweight women, I knew that when I was fat, I lacked the self confidence inside to move on with my career. All the other journalists I knew at the time were slim and glamorous, or at least I thought they were, and the confidence they had helped them in their work. Knowing now that I am committed to a healthy lifestyle – while enjoying my life – has given me the confidence and freedom to concentrate on being successful. There are obviously many other benefits too but actually, career progression was a strong incentive for me to lose the pounds. And it worked: a few months after I reached my goal weight I became an editor. I don’t know if it has left me biased but I felt it would hold me back but I’m not sure if I thought I would be held back by other people – more that I think I was holding myself back.
This is a very brave article Doug. And I admit I think the same way as you – discrimination based on factors no-one has control over is not acceptable.
But hiring is all about discriminating between candidates – on factors they can control which tells us about their behaviours, and being overweight raises questions about will power, confidence and commitment. In the same way that if they look unkempt or dress in a way that does not suit our culture, we are unlikely to hire. Most organisations want to take on new people to improve their current gene pool, and it would be interesting to study the percentage of overweight employees by organisation type and ranking (top 100 employers for example) to see how far the bias goes.
One question though – what happens when a previously slim employee becomes substantially overweight?
Interesting Julia that you would equate overweight with a lack of “power, confidence and commitment” because that indicates that the bias isn’t against the observable problem (weight) but an assumption about the personality traits that created the weight. I can tell you that in my experience with many top executives in the past showed they too had will power issues – just related to alcohol and sexual infidelity and not food. Funny how those will-power issues equate to power and confidence but will power about food doesn’t. Although I’m sure a psychiatrist will probably say any of these peccadilloes have some basis in low self esteem and a lack of confidence and poor self image.
Today however, being a drunk is frowned on but we still haven’t gotten there with sex and infidelity.
It is not easy to erase societal stereotypes.
Exactly right about the personality traits – that is what I am second guessing on with EVERYTHING in the selection process. If I smelt alcohol on their breath, I would make judgements then.
And if I had evidence on infidelity (especially involving co-workers or even worse, sub-ordinates) I would make assumptions about trustworthiness (and a concern or contempt for the employing business in the case of office affairs).
The issue Doug is raising is for us to be aware of our prejudices and to really make sure that any discrimination (and that is what hiring and promoting is all about) is reasonable and has a bearing on potential performance.
Doug
The weight and health issue is something that I’m on the point of writing a white paper about – from the corporate social responsibility standpoint. Why – because the supermarkets are where we buy our food and between them and the major food manufacturers they have the opportunity to help their customers understand more about nutrition and I think it’s part of their CSR. The growing incidence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes says that something is going badly wrong with helping people understand what they need to fuel their bodies. It’s even more important if overweight people are being discriminated against.
Nutritional information on the front of packets is often unhelpful and not in context. For example to give calorific and nutritional content of 45g breakfast cereal is meaningless if you don’t give people the tools with which to measure 45g. Only obsessives are going to get out the scales every morning to measure a 45g portion. Similarly most people don’t think after eating breakfast they’ve had 15% of their daily calorific intake. It’s all very well talking about ‘daily calorific intake’ but very few people count calories and very few know what is a reasonable calorific intake for each meal and snack to keep within daily limits. I think supermarkets, food manufacturers and fast food retailers should be more responsible about making the informational meaningful and contextual. If you or I are delivering any training and it’s neither meaningful or contextual our client’s are unhappy.
Don’t get me started on manufacturers of breakfast cereals who think chocolate is a healthy way to start the day! Start the day as you mean to continue. If that’s with yo-yoing insulin levels you haven’t a chance!
Sorry Sarah – it’s not the manufacturers fault. It’s not the packaging fault. It’s not education’s fault. It’s my fault. And their fault.
Everyone knows that BigMacs and fries everyday for lunch aren’t good for you. Everyone knows that a “pint” of ice cream really isn’t a “single serving.” Everyone knows that getting up to get the remote isn’t exercise – no matter how many times you do it in a day.
We know what’s good and bad for our bodies. More regulation and more costs aren’t the answer. Food, in the case of the obese is a more an issue of addiction than education. The person needs to have an intervention – either through themselves by waking up with a problem – or through their social network. Either way – this is not a labeling issue. But maybe if they put warning labels on the boxes like they do with cigarettes we’d be able to curb the problem – wait … that didn’t really work did it?
Ooh, much wider and still very interesting issues around the part that the capitalist imperative has to play in the increase in obesity. And smoking. And drinking.
Could I just point out to protect my personal reputation though, that I do try hard not to discriminate inappropriately – and try and gather evidence that is relevant to the role I am hiring for – the behaviours I am looking for. So I am aware that I might make an initial judgement based on appearance and then work hard to counter that prejudice. Just saying.
Wow! I’m sorry for not getting back to you all sooner, scratching my head as to how I missed all this good conversation. Sincere thanks to Graham, Stephen, Paul, Charlie, Julia and Sarah for adding so much extra to this piece. A load of extra insight and not a single extra calorie. I appreciate it.